Michael Gove has told allies he supports ending the ban on onshore wind farms, leaving Rishi Sunak’s Cabinet split on the issue and fuelling a growing Tory rebellion.
The Levelling Up Secretary is understood to have been joined by Grant Shapps, the Business Secretary; and Graham Stuart, the climate change minister, in privately supporting the removal of a Cameron-era prohibition on new turbines.
On Saturday, a band of Tory rebels reached 30 signatories on an amendment to Mr Gove’s planning bill that would allow new developments, threatening to inflict a defeat on Mr Sunak in the House of Commons on the issue.
The PM is yet to decide whether to overturn the ban, a decision which some argue would boost the UK’s energy security.
The growing prospect of a U-turn would likely dismay other members of the Cabinet, including Chris Heaton-Harris, the Northern Ireland Secretary; and Steve Barclay, the Health Secretary, who have previously opposed onshore wind.
Jeremy Hunt, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, has expressed support for new wind farms in the past, but is not understood to have pushed for them during the latest rebellion.
It comes as Britain’s biggest generator of renewable electricity warned that Mr Hunt’s tax raid on the sector will squeeze energy supplies this winter.
Alistair Phillips-Davies, chief executive of the £19 billion wind-farm and hydroelectric dam owner SSE, told The Telegraph that the £14.2 billion windfall tax on electricity generators imposed in the Autumn Statement meant it might be unaffordable to run some of its dams at full capacity.
