Tory ministers have rejected a demand of MPs for shared onshore wind targets with the Scottish Government to help progress south of the Border catch up.
But concerns have been raised over the UK Government’s lack of enthusiasm for clean energy putting progress in Scotland at risk.
The Scottish Government has set a target for 20GW of onshore wind to be deployed by 2030 which could generate enough electricity to power the equivalent of 19.5 million homes per year.
But planning restrictions placed by David Cameron on onshore wind during his time as prime minister when he called to “cut the green crap”, has left England lagging behind Scotland and Wales in catching up.
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Only 17 small-scale onshore wind developments have been approved in England since 2015.
Prime Minister Rishi Sunak promised to open up the development of onshore windfarms in England earlier this year but the UK Government has yet to ease planning restrictions.
Renewables insiders have said they are happy with the level of support from the Scottish Government to develop onshore wind, with the country seen as the best place in the UK to develop projects.
Currently, Scotland’s onshore Wind sector has more than 10,000 jobs and generates £2.5bn for the Scottish economy.
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Last year, the Scottish Government published its final onshore wind policy statement which highlighted that Scotland’s electricity demand will at least double within the next two decades and that developing more onshore wind could create 17,000 jobs and £27.8bn for the country’s economy.
The Commons Business and Trade Committee had called on the UK Government to work with ministers at Holyrood and in Cardiff “to agree a UK-wide target for the deployment of onshore wind by 2035”, insisting that the move “should inform a specific target to increase the deployment of onshore wind in England”.
But the bid has been rejected by the UK Government, which has warned it would stunt “flexibility across the UK”.
In its response, the UK Government said: “While reaching net zero means that electricity demand is likely to double by 2050 as other sectors are electrified, there is no single optimal technology mix to meet this demand.
“The Government considers that onshore wind has an important role to play in achieving net zero targets and will promote and incentivise deployment across the UK.
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“Owing to the nature of its impacts, the Government considers the need to allow for flexibility across the UK in a way that allows countries and communities to absorb deployment of onshore wind as supported by them.
“Setting a UK-wide target would potentially undermine the flexibility needed.”
The committee’s report, originally published in April, warned the UK Government that its plans to decarbonise energy were incoherent and the UK was likely to miss its targets.
The publication highlighted energy efficiency measures in homes, queues for a grid connection for renewable generators, planning for onshore wind, and the funding the rollout of new nuclear as some of the areas of concern.
The report also noted that the decarbonisation of other key sectors of the UK’s economy depended not only on decarbonising electricity but on rapidly expanding the amount of clean power generated.
Committee chairman, Darren Jones, said: “The UK must radically speed up the delivery of new energy infrastructure if we’re going to meet our net zero targets.
“Our report highlighted many ways in which the Government could help do this, yet ministers have rejected most of them. Consultations are not good enough in themselves.
“The Prime Minister created a new Department for Energy Security and net zero to get this right, but nothing seems to have changed.
“Parliament, via many committee reports, has repeatedly asked the Government to take action on our highest priority decarbonisation challenges: buildings, transport and industry.
“Yet once again we see ministers failing to fix the energy efficiency schemes, failing to speed up the delivery of onshore wind and failing to get a grip of industrial decarbonisation.”
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