Friends of the Earth executive director Andy Atkins comments after the government's high court defeat on solar feed-in tariffs:

"These botched and illegal plans have cast a huge shadow over the solar industry, jeopardising thousands of jobs.

"We hope this ruling will prevent ministers rushing through damaging changes to clean energy subsidies – giving solar firms a much-needed confidence boost.

"Ministers must now come up with a sensible plan that protects the UK's solar industry and allows cash-strapped homes and businesses to free themselves from expensive fossil fuels by plugging into clean energy.

"Solar payments should fall in line with falling installation costs but the speed of the government's proposals threatened to devastate the entire industry."