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Green Energy (Definition and Promotion) Bill

As my constituency is the proud possessor of King's Cross, Euston and St. Pancras stations, I have a bit of an interest in major railway stations and the approaches to them. I have already made a suggestion about St. Pancras, King's Cross is being redeveloped and a proposition for the redevelopment of Euston station is rather further back—I am meeting the proponents of that next week and I intend raising this matter then. One other thing that I should say, if this is not too far off the topic, is that huge swathes of land in my constituency and in other parts of inner London are alienated by having a railway running over them. These railways are sometimes 10 or 20 tracks wide, and I recall that when I was leader of Camden council I got the engineers to look into the possibility of building over the railways as they come into the main line stations. We cannot create any more land, so we must make better use of what we have. Perhaps some sources of new energy could be built into those areas, if what I suggested were to happen. I come back to my main point about domestic buildings, because I think we need to be very careful about using the general permission approach in respect of non-domestic buildings. We need to ensure that all these things are subject to the consideration of their impact on neighbours, be they commercial and business neighbours or, as is most likely, residential neighbours. That would help to promote microgeneration while also being sensitive to neighbours. It should not be too intensive or intrusive in particular landscapes, whether urban or rural. Instances of microgeneration being unpopular, or being exploited by newspapers and complained about week in week out on the "Today" programme on the BBC, would not help to achieve any of the benefits that we are all hoping for. On the whole, I very much welcome the Bill. I congratulate the hon. Member for East Surrey on introducing it. I hope that it succeeds and that we can get on to the other measures that are before the House today.