This week I’ve tabled a new parliamentary motion to stop the Government’s senseless attacks on solar power.

Solar panels are the most popular way of generating electricity. Hundreds of households in Brighton have solar panels on their roofs. Local schools with solar power are saving thousands of pounds on their energy bills.  Community groups and energy cooperatives have been successfully installing solar panels on businesses and community buildings for years.

Yet the Government wants to cut support for rooftop solar by up to 87%. That risks making it impossible for most people to afford to put solar panels for their homes, schools or community centres.

Solar power can become subsidy-free in the next few years, here in the UK. But not if Government cuts to subsidies are wildly disproportionate to the impressive cost reductions that the industry has managed to achieve.

The plans to cut solar power aren’t just unpopular with the public who want to power their own homes from clean energy. There are 35,000 jobs at risk in our solar industry which is facing a very uncertain future.

The fightback has already started  - and there are easy ways you can make a difference.

Firstly, there’s petition that you can sign on the Government’s e-petition website, calling on the Department for Energy and Climate to urgently reconsider these drastic and unjustifiable cuts to the solar feed in tariff. I’ll work with other MPs to help ensure this is debated, when it reaches the required 100,000 signatures.

Secondly, I’ve tabled a motion to stop another deeply harmful change for solar power - a proposal to end a process called “pre accreditation”, which is particularly important for community solar projects.

As Business Green explains, the pre-accreditation process allows solar PV (and some other renewable power schemes) to confirm the level of subsidy they can secure once they have planning permission and a grid connection. The rules were designed to ease the risk of a project getting the go-ahead and then not reaching completion before automatic cuts to the steadily reducing feed-in tariffs impacted the financial case for the investment.

MPs can object to this type of legislation by doing something “praying against” - a bit like tabling a regular Early Day Motion. Now, we need as many MPs to add their names as possible - so please urgently contact your MP and ask them to lend their support to Early Day Motion number 443.

The Government’s changes, which are due to come into force on 1st October, are the result of a rushed four week summer holiday consultation launched on the first day of the Parliamentary recess and very unusually issued without an Impact Assessment.

In rushing through this legislation outside the terms of the planned three-yearly full review of the FIT scheme, this legislation will have immediate consequences, including an immediate negative impact on both the community energy and private sectors, including loss of solar projects in the pipeline. 

Even the Government’s July consultation conceded that "DECC has not attempted to estimate the likely impact of this change on deployment and therefore on potential savings."

Neither the consultation nor the Government's response issued on 9th September, address the issue of the immediate impact on current solar energy projects for which both communities and commercial developers have already invested considerable time and money - and no justification is provided for that immediately retrospective impact.

The consultation received 2,372 responses and only 16 respondents expressed support for the measure.  The changes are the result of a rushed, flawed consultation and should be withdrawn - at least until the outcome of the full review into support for renewable energy currently being consulted upon until 23rd October.

And thirdly, you could join in with Friends of the Earth’s solar schools campaign so that every school has the chance to install solar power and Run on Sun.

Things could change fast and now is the time to stand up for solar power. I’ll be working hard in parliament on this, from tabling parliamentary questions to speaking out in debates and writing to Ministers.

Together we can save solar power and send a strong message to the Government that their environmentally and economically reckless attacks on renewable energy cannot continue.