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Green Energy (Definition and Promotion) Bill

I will try not to detain the House, having heard the call to keep our comments brief, but I would like to touch on one or two issues. I add my thanks and congratulations to my hon. Friend the Member for East Surrey (Mr. Ainsworth) not just for this Bill but for all his work on green issues. It is a long while since I last came to the House on a Friday to participate in debates on private Members' Bills, which I hope demonstrates my commitment to this cause and my appreciation of my hon. Friend's work. My hon. Friend the Member for Hemel Hempstead (Mike Penning) referred to his being wrongly informed about a ministerial visit, which turned out not to be in his constituency. We often wonder where the Government are going, and I can inform my hon. Friend that I regularly receive letters from Ministers telling me that they are visiting my constituency, only to find that they are visiting another one. I sometimes fail to receive letters, on the other hand, when Ministers are visiting my constituency. That is by the by. My hon. Friend the Member for Hemel Hempstead also referred to RES—based close to his constituency—which is appealing against a refusal for a wind farm in my constituency, so perhaps I should not say any more about that. My hon. Friend will understand that the company is not always appreciated in the way he appreciates it. I strongly endorse the argument that we need to make the planning rules easier, and I should like to pick up on the Minister's intervention on the hon. Member for North Southwark and Bermondsey (Simon Hughes) in which he mentioned permitted development orders on agricultural land. I do not want to introduce an element of dissent into today's proceedings, but anyone hearing the Minister's intervention would probably assume that he was saying that farmers had complete freedom to build where they want, but that is not the case.