Tony Vaughan MP KC’s Rooftop Solar “Win-Win”: The £125m Claim, the Missing Small Print, and Why It Doesn’t Add Up
By the time you reach the bottom of Folkestone & Hythe MP Tony Vaughan KC’s rooftop-solar manifesto, you’re meant to bask in the warm glow of certainty: at last, a politician who has clocked that bills are high, fields are finite, and roofs—miraculously—exist. You’re also meant to take comfort from the word “plan”, delivered with the unblinking confidence of a man who has read at least the headline, if not the small print, of his own proposal.
And yet, one awkward question remains — rather like a pigeon refusing to leave the committee room: Where is the clause?
Because Mr Vaughan – pictured – is not merely an MP. He is a King’s Counsel — a professional of the “read every word, especially the bit everyone skips” persuasion. Which makes his article all the more remarkable: it offers the public a four-way win (tenant, council, bank, solar company), while leaving residents to supply the minor details — like physics, contracts, planning law, grid constraints, fire safety, and how exactly a council “earns” £100–£125 million without paying a penny.
The pitch, translated into English
The plan goes like this:
A bank lends money to a solar company. The company installs panels and a battery on homes. The battery buys electricity at night (cheap) and sells it back in the day (expensive). Profit is shared so residents get 25% off bills, the bank is repaid, the company makes money, and the council gets a new revenue stream.
After five years, the bank has its money back and then the revenues are split between tenant, company and council. No upfront costs. Immediate savings. Everyone wins.
It reads less like a plan and more like a storyboard for an investor deck — with the awkward boxes labelled risk, permissions, liability, maintenance, metering, tariffs, and who pays when something breaks left blank for the reader to fill in at home.
Exhibit A: the magic trick with “selling electricity back”
There’s a crucial sleight of hand here: the suggestion that you can buy electricity at night and reliably sell it back during the day like a miniature City trader with a hard hat.
In real life, domestic export is usually done through supplier arrangements such as the Smart Export Guarantee. Export rates vary, products change, and “headline” tariffs can come with strings attached. The profit engine Mr Vaughan describes is not a law of nature — it depends on the spread between import and export prices, battery losses, battery degradation, and whether the household can export at the assumed level.
In plain English: it works only if the commercial terms remain generous, the equipment performs as modelled, and the resident isn’t quietly carrying the risk in the small print.
Exhibit B: planning law — yes, roofs exist; no, that doesn’t mean “just do it”
Rooftop solar can be permitted development on many homes, but not always, and not on any terms you fancy. There are limits around visual impact, how far kit projects from the roof, and extra restrictions in conservation areas. Listed buildings can require listed building consent. Flats and complex ownership structures bring an obstacle course of approvals.
So when an MP says “the answer lies not in our fields, but on our roofs”, the lawyerly follow-up is: Which roofs? Under which rights? With whose consent?
Exhibit C: building safety — batteries are not pot plants
“Panels and a battery storage unit” sounds wholesome until you remember that batteries store and release large amounts of energy, and are often sited in garages, lofts or utility spaces. Scaling that across thousands of homes isn’t a slogan; it’s a programme that lives or dies on competent design, installation standards, inspections, insurance, warranties, and maintenance.
Again: where is the clause?
Exhibit D: the grid — your roof is not a power station unless the network agrees
The manifesto assumes that if you generate electricity, you can export it freely whenever the profit model demands. In reality, export is constrained by local distribution network capability and connection agreements. Even if every roof is perfect, the network must be able to cope with simultaneous export peaks — and the value of export can fall when everyone exports at once.
A KC knows what that’s called: assumptions.
Exhibit E: the £100–£125 million claim — and now we meet the unicorn
The most exotic sentence is this: the council could earn £100–£125 million over a decade for every 10,000 homes fitted.
We are told the council pays nothing, residents get immediate bill cuts, the bank is repaid with interest, the company profits — and the council also pockets nine figures.
This is not “win-win-win-win”. It’s win-win-win-win-win-and-also-a-pony.
If the money were that easy, the national energy market would already be a wasteland of abandoned spreadsheets. At minimum, residents deserve the model: assumed system sizes, assumed generation, tariff assumptions, maintenance and replacement costs, insurance, performance risk, and what happens when prices change.
Instead we get: trust me, I’m a KC — without the KC bit where you disclose the material terms.
Closing argument (for the prosecution, the defence, and the roof)
Yes, let’s look up to our rooftops. But let’s also look down — at contracts, consents, grid limits, maintenance responsibilities, tariff risk, safety compliance, and the basic fact that a slogan is not a procurement strategy.
If Mr Vaughan wants residents to believe in a four-way win, he can start by doing what lawyers do best: show the workings, disclose the assumptions, and put the terms on the page.
Until then, his “plan” is less combatting high energy bills and more cross-examining reality without calling it as a witness.
The Shepway Vox Team
Journalism For The People NOT The Powerful
It seems to me Tony Vaughan is the best MP we’ve had in decades and your scrutiny is excellent.
To you both – please keep up the good work.
He’s a human rights lawyer.
Not just a human rights lawyer – Mr Vaugan “is a fearless advocate practising in public law, human rights, and equality law with particular expertise in cases with an immigration and extradition crossover. His cases frequently involve complex issues of law and fact, and he is accustomed to formulating legal strategies across multiple proceedings, including judicial review, civil claims, statutory tribunals, crime, extradition, international bodies and foreign courts.”
You can be as fearless an advocate of human rights as you choose but if you don’t know how to generate a prosperous economy than your efforts are in vain.
The very existence of human rights depend on the existence of a prosperous democratic economy. Look at history, Look today at Gaza, Ukraine, Russia, the poverty of Africa, and even the USA streets today. A growing number of places where human rights are a luxury.
As politicians are apt to say, “Its the economy, stupid!”