A Reform local election candidate campaigning on an anti-Net Zero ticket opened a Coca-Cola solar farm and praised the firm for ’embracing sustainable energy’ when she was a Conservative MP.
Dame Andrea Jenkyns posted pictures online in a since-deleted tweet when she was the guest of honour at the launch of the 20-acre site near Wakefield in West Yorkshire.
The former Tory skills minister is standing to be mayor of Greater Lincolnshire for Nigel Farage‘s party, having defected after losing her seat at the general election.
Dame Andrea has also been a director of the Net Zero Watch group of climate sceptics since 2023 and a major plank of her campaign is battling the ‘desecration’ of viable farmland with solar panels.
But in 2017, when she was Tory MP for Morley and Outwood, she opened the Haigh Hall solar farm, which is used by Coca-Cola European Partners to power the largest soft drinks factory in Europe.
In a press statement released by Coca-Cola at the time she praised ‘an important and valuable project that is located so close to home’ and voiced the hope that it would ‘inspire more businesses to taking such leadership in key issues for our society.’
Four years later, in April 2021, while still a backbencher, she praised an expansion of the same solar farm, with the Yorkshire Times reporting her saying: ‘In today’s climate, firms have a huge responsibility in enabling a green recovery.’
When asked about her support for the solar farm in 2017, Dame Andrea told MailOnline she told Coca-Cola at the time she didn’t agree with it, but was publicly supporting a major local employer in her role as the MP.
Dame Andrea Jenkyns posed for pictures that she posted online in a since-deleted tweet to mark the event at the 20-acre site near Wakefield in West Yorkshire.
In 2017, when she was a Tory backbencher, she opened the Haigh Hall solar farm, which is used by Coca-Cola European Partners (CCEP) to power Europe’s largest soft drinks factory.
The former Tory skills minister is standing to be mayor of Greater Lincolnshire for Nigel Farage ‘s party, having defected after losing her Morley and Outwood seat at the general election .
She said: ‘At the end of the day when you are an MP you get asked to open stuff, don’t you?
‘Do you suddenly say, when you have been working with Coca-Cola and they have been to my job fairs and they have been in my business club, do you say ”no I’m not” – do you suddenly do that, when they are a major local employer and they ask you to do something to open them and support them as a business?’
She added that she had been unable to ‘speak out’ on the issue when she was a government whip between September 2021 and July 2022, but she later joined Net Zero Watch.
Plans are in motion that could see solar farms totalling more than 30,000 acres erected in Lincolnshire.
Weeks after entering Government, Net Zero Secretary Ed Miliband’s department approved projects including the 2,000-acre Mallard Pass site near Stamford, and Gate Burton, near Gainsborough.
He also relaunched the Solar Taskforce to bring together industry experts and Government with the aim of tripling solar power by 2030.
‘I have no problem with businesses trying to get cheaper energy when we have one of the highest energy costs in the world anyway, but when Miliband is trying to have 30,000 acres of solar farms on agricultural land in Lincolnshire it is just nuts,’ Dame Andrea added.
Dame Andrea’s Tory rival, North Lincolnshire Council leader Rob Waltham, has vowed to ‘fight tooth and nail to protect Lincolnshire’s green spaces and agricultural land from solar farms’.
Earlier this month he said: ‘These sprawling solar installations do not belong on our beautiful countryside nor farmland.’
But while he has a history of fighting solar farm developments in his local role, he also has shown off his wider green credentials.
In 2023, as leader of the council, he said that its aim to be Net Zero by 2030 was ’embedded into the heart of everything we do’.
Explaining he had personally starting turning down his heating at home and stopped buying plastics, he added: ‘Our net zero plans are genuine, ambitious, achievable and aligned to business growth, job creation and improving living standards.
‘But for us to be able to make the difference we need to, so that future generations have a better environment, we all must do our bit – we are directly asking people in North Lincolnshire to get involved and make pledges to change.
‘There are lots of little things people can do to get involved; while we can have a massive impact as a council, the impact will be super-charged if everyone gets involved.’
Earlier this month Tory leader Kemi Badenoch said it was time to ‘get real’ about reaching the UK’s net zero target by 2050 during a speech to launch the party’s policy renewal process in London.
Mrs Badenoch drew criticism from influential quarters within her own party, including former prime minister Theresa May, for suggesting the target was ‘impossible’ to meet.
She has tasked shadow energy secretary Claire Coutinho, with help from shadow Scotland secretary and energy minister Andrew Bowie, to look at solutions for delivering cheap and clean energy.
