 House of Commons |
Session 2007 - 08 Publications on the internet General Committee Debates Planning |
Planning Bill |
The Committee consisted of the following Members:Chris Shaw,
Committee Clerk
† attended
the
Committee
WitnessesJohn
Cridland, Deputy Director-General,
CBI
Karen Dee,
Head of Infrastructure,
CBI
David Green,
Chief Executive, UK Business Council for Sustainable
Energy
Nick Winser,
Executive Director, National
Grid
Richard Everitt,
Chairman, United Kingdom Major Ports Group
,
and
Chief Executive, Port of London
Authority
Andrew
Harston, Port Development Director, Hutchison
Ports
Ken Bell,
Business Development Manager, Associated British
Ports
Public Bill CommitteeTuesday 8 January 2008(Morning)[Sir John Butterfill in the Chair]Planning Bill10.30
am
The
Chairman:
Before we begin, I will make some preliminary
announcements. First, hon. and right hon. Members may remove their
jackets during Committee sittings if they wish. Please ensure that all
mobile phones, pagers and any other things that are likely to make a
noise are switched to silent mode or switched off. There is a money
resolution and a Ways and Means resolution and copies are available in
the room. I assume that they are in the centre and at the
side.
I remind hon.
Members that, as a general rule, adequate notice must be given of
amendments. My fellow Chairman and I do not intend to call starred
amendments, including any that might be reached in an afternoon
sitting. I also remind hon. Members that this is one of three Bills in
this Session that has been selected for a further experiment with
explanatory statements on amendments. All members of the Committee have
been sent a leaflet giving further details of the experiment. Copies of
the leaflet are available in the Committee Room and in the Public Bill
Office. Hon. Members might also wish to seek advice from the Clerk of
the Committee.
We are
still in the early stages of taking oral evidence in Public Bill
Committees. This is my first experience of it, so we are all on a
learning curve. It might help if I explain briefly what is proposed, so
that we are all clear. First, the Committee will be asked to consider
the programme motion on the amendment paper, for which debate is
limited to half an hour. We will then proceed to a motion to report
written evidence and a motion to permit the Committee to deliberate in
private in advance of the oral evidence sessions, which I hope that we
can move formally. Assuming that that motion is agreed to, the
Committee will move to a private sitting. Once the Committee has
deliberated, the witnesses and members of the public will be invited
back into the room and our oral evidence session will commence. If the
Committee agrees to the programme motion, the Committee will hear oral
evidence today and on Thursday before reverting next week to the more
familiar proceedings of clause-by-clause
scrutiny.
Alun
Michael (Cardiff, South and Penarth) (Lab/Co-op): On a
point of order, Sir John. As I indicated before the sitting started, I
am very concerned about some processes and the way in which papers are
reaching members of the Committee. I understand the ambitions
underlying the process that we are following. This is the second
Committee that I have sat on that has followed the new process and it
is the second that seems to me to be overwhelmed by large numbers of
contributions and pieces of paper arriving at very
short
notice. It seems to me that the whole process will be hauled into
disrepute before the experiment is properly under way if we do not get
a grip on the process
now.
This issue goes
beyond the pressure that is being placed on members
of the Committee to the wider issue of how the House handles the
experiment and tries to make it a positive one. Last night, a couple of
megabytes of contributions relevant to today’s proceedings were
sent to us by e-mail, with a note saying that it was on the board. That
is a fat lot of use if we do not see the information until after the 10
o’clock process. Most of us do not sit in our offices waiting
for e-mails to pop up and indicate that this one element of our
responsibilities in the House requires our undivided attention and that
everything else should be abandoned. Normally, we ought to have papers
by at least the Thursday before a sitting in order to have the
opportunity to read them, as many of us do, over the weekend, rather
than during the pressures of the working
week.
Something
therefore needs to be done now to ensure that the deadline for
submissions is well in advance of Committee sittings, so that papers
can come to hon. Members in a timely manner, and that the Committee is
not pushed from pillar to post, which is certainly what happened with
the Criminal Justice and Immigration Bill Committee, for instance, for
which additional evidence-hearing sessions had to be added at the last
minute. It is also unfair to the staff of the House, who I appreciate
are trying to get information to us, and to serve the public as they
try to put evidence to us in a proper and timely manner. They cannot do
that in the seemingly rather chaotic current
situation.
The
Chairman:
The right hon. Gentleman makes a relevant and
serious point. We are in the process of developing such procedures, so
I apologise on behalf of the authorities that the papers have arrived
somewhat later than we would ideally have liked. Two things arise from
that. First, when sittings such as this take place immediately after a
recess, we ought to consider the possibility of papers being sent to
hon. Members’ homes during the recess. It would be helpful to
everyone if right hon. and hon. Members could advise the Clerks where
they are likely to be during recesses, because it will be no use
sending papers to hon. Members’ homes if they are going to be
somewhere else. If they will be somewhere where the papers could be
sent, we should look at that seriously for the
future.
We will have
to consider further the question of a timetable. The whole idea is to
invite public participation in our processes, so I would not want to
set a time restriction which meant that some people were not able to
make important contributions for our consideration. However, we will
look at the possibility of a timetable for the
future.
That—
(1)
the Committee shall (in addition to its first meeting at 10.30 a.m. on
Tuesday 8th January)
meet—
(a) at
4.00 p.m. on Tuesday 8th
January;
(b) at 9.00
a.m. and 1.00 p.m. on Thursday 10th
January;
(c) at 10.30
a.m. and 4.00 p.m. on Tuesday 15th
January;
(d) at 9.00
a.m. and 1.00 p.m. on Thursday 17th
January;
(e) at 10.30
a.m. and 4.00 p.m. on Tuesday 22nd
January;
(f) at 9.00
a.m. and 1.00 p.m. on Thursday 24th
January;
(g) at 10.30
a.m. and 4.00 p.m. on Tuesday 29th January;
(h) at 9.00 a.m. and 1.00 p.m.
on Thursday 31st
January;
(i) at 10.30
a.m. and 4.00 p.m. on Tuesday 5th
February;
(2) the
Committee shall hear oral evidence in accordance with the following
Table:
TABLE
(3)
proceedings on consideration of the Bill in Committee shall be taken in
the following order: Clause 1; Schedule 1; Clauses 2 to 31; Schedule 2;
Clauses 32 to 157; Schedule 3; Clauses 158 and 159; Schedule 4; Clause
160; Schedule 5; Clauses 161 to 185; Schedule 6; Clauses 186 to 189;
new Clauses; new Schedules; remaining proceedings on the
Bill;
(4) the
proceedings shall (so far as not previously concluded) be brought to a
conclusion at 7.00 p.m. on Tuesday 5th
February.
Sadly,
Sir John, I was sitting at my computer watching e-mails pop up after 10
o’clock last night, and I saw the response of my right hon.
Friend the Member for Cardiff, South and Penarth to the Committee
Clerk’s paper when it came back. Partly to reflect your
encouragement, Sir John, and partly in response to my right hon.
Friend, I will do my best as the Minister responsible for the Bill to
ensure that Government papers, Government amendments and anything else
that will assist the Committee are tabled and available in the best
possible time.
I
return to the welcome that I was offering you, Sir John, and your
co-Chair, Mr. Illsley. Having had the privilege of serving
under you both in Finance Bill
Committees before, I look forward to the experience and guidance that
you offer. As it is for you, Sir John, this is the first Committee that
I have been involved with which takes evidence before the scrutiny
sessions, and I look forward to
that.
I welcome all
members of the Committee. It is a Committee with a vast range of
experience and a high level of interest on all sides. I welcome the
hon. Member for Beckenham, who will lead for the official Opposition;
and the hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington, who will lead for
the Liberal Democrats. I also welcome the hon. Member for Meirionnydd
Nant Conwy, who will lead from both the Front and Back Benches for
Plaid Cymru. We look forward to seeing him on the Committee when he is
able to join
us.
The
Programming Sub-Committee met on 13 December. It accepted without
dissent the proposed programme set before us. It contains two main
characteristics: it proposes that we consider the Bill in the order of
the clauses in it, and that we consider, in our scrutiny sessions, the
schedules alongside the clauses to which they are linked. In total, the
programme motion proposes four separate evidence sessions and 14
scrutiny sittings. I am grateful to the usual channels for helping to
get us to this position. It will give the Committee the scope to do its
proper job of giving the Bill serious and important scrutiny over the
18 sittings. I hope that the Committee will support the programme
motion and I look forward to the deliberations to
come.
Mrs.
Jacqui Lait (Beckenham) (Con): I add my welcome, Sir John,
to that of the Minister. I have never had the privilege of sitting
under your chairmanship, but am looking forward to it and to a robust
debate on the Bill, which has, as the Minister said, generated a great
deal of interest. With regard to this particular procedure, I am the
third novice. I am looking forward to it very much and hope that it
will be enlightening. I hope that, towards the end of our consideration
in Committee, Sir John, you will invite us to reflect on our experience
of this new procedure so that we can develop it in a way that helps the
House, as taking evidence from interested bodies is a useful innovation
and one that we wish to encourage to work well.
The official Opposition have
no objection to the proposals before us. We are looking forward to some
robust debates and exchanges of views and hope that the Government will
take on board all of our
points.
Tom
Brake (Carshalton and Wallington) (LD): I, too, echo the
welcome made to you, Sir John, by the Minister and the hon. Member for
Beckenham. I am sure that you will provide us with appropriate
leadership during our deliberations. We are fully signed up to the
programme motion and believe that it is adequate for addressing the
concerns that we have about the Bill, providing of course that the
Minister responds generously to the many requests for improvements to
the Bill that will be made from all parts of the Committee during our
deliberations.
Question
put and agreed
to.
Ordered,
That,
subject to the discretion of the Chairman, any written evidence
received by the Committee shall be reported to the House for
publication.—[John Healey.]
The
Chairman:
Copies of any memorandums that the Committee
receives will be made available in the Committee Room.
Ordered,
That,
at this and any subsequent meeting at which oral evidence is to be
heard, the Committee shall sit in private until the witnesses are
admitted.—[John
Healey.]
10.43
am
The
Committee deliberated in
private.
11
am
On
resuming—
Written evidence to be reported to the HousePB
01 Campaign to Protect Rural
England
PB 02 Northamptonshire
county council
PB 03 Woodland
Trust
PB 04 Jayanta
Baksi
PB 05 Wyre borough
council
PB 06 Kennet district
council
PB 07 Better Planning
Reform
PB 08 Arnold Whites
Ltd.
PB 09
RSPB
PB 10 Friends of the
Earth
PB 11 Environment
Agency
PB 12 Guide Dogs for the
Blind Association
PB 13 UK
Business Council for Sustainable
Energy
PB 15 Renewable Energy
Association
PB 16 Tim
Driver
PB 18 Energy Networks
Association
PB 19 Network
Rail
PB 21 Local Government
Association
PB 22 British
Property Federation and Home Builders
Federation
PB 23
CBI
PB 24 United Kingdom Major
Ports
Group
The
Chairman:
We will now proceed to hear oral evidence from a
representative of the CBI. I am pleased to welcome Mr. John
Cridland. Mr. Cridland, would you like to introduce your
colleague?
John
Cridland:
Yes. I am joined by Karen Dee, who is the
CBI’s head of
infrastructure.
The
Chairman:
Thank you. Would you like to make a brief
introductory statement or would you prefer to proceed directly to
questions?
John
Cridland:
I am happy to proceed directly to
questions.
Q
1
Robert
Neill (Bromley and Chislehurst) (Con): As all barristers
are, I am happy to dip my toe in the water, Sir John. Mr.
Cridland, I was interested to hear that you are concerned about some
failures in the present system in respect of the length of time that
inquiries can take. Is that influenced by things such as the terminal 5
inquiry at Heathrow, and so on?
John
Cridland:
Yes, terminal 5 has become something of a
bête noire, but there are very many examples from a wide range
of sectors. We are very concerned about developments in relation to the
ports industry. Felixstowe would be another example of very long
delays. There are particular causes c�(c)lèbres, but this is
a generic issue; a wide-ranging part of the business community has now
reached a high level of concern about, first, the delays in the system,
but also the end-loading of the system. We seem to have a situation in
which planning inquiries are where we debate Government policy at the
very end of the process. That is simply unacceptable to
business.
Q
2
Robert
Neill:
So the key thrust of what you seem to want to
achieve from this proposal is the separation of the debate about
Government, or national, policy on one hand and what you might term the
more location-specific issue, in which, having decided that we will
have this type of infrastructure, we ask does it go here or
there?
John
Cridland:
Indeed. We all lose from the current
system. For example, I was very taken by recent developments in
relation to Kingsnorth power station where the relevant local authority
approves planning permission for an important national development and
then those who disagree with it—they are perfectly entitled to
do so—call for a planning inquiry to debate whether clean-coal
technology is a relevant environmental solution. These are very
pertinent issues, but issues, I would suggest, for this place rather
than for a planning
inquiry.
Q
3
Robert
Neill:
Is that why you say in your written submission that
you think the proposals have the potential to simplify? Are you
particularly wedded to this scheme? Do you think it is going in broadly
the right direction? Are you content provided that there is the
separation of national policy from the locational decision—for
want of a better
expression?
John
Cridland:
Business has waited a very long time for
this style of reform. Indeed, the Planning and Compulsory Purchase Act
2004 did not give us the major changes in relation to national planning
that we were looking for. We believe that the principle of national
policy statements and the principle of an independent commission
dealing with that small number of very major infrastructure
developments is the right way
forward.
The
Chairman:
As a lot of Members want to ask questions, may I
suggest a limit of one supplementary
question?
Q
4
Tom
Brake:
I am looking at your submission; speed-reading the
sections on the national policy statements and infrastructure planning
commission, it appears that you have not made any references to
sustainability. Do you consider that the Government’s proposals,
in terms of the sustainability remit that the national policy statement
and the infrastructure planning commission should consider, are ones
that the business community can live with or do you think they are too
tough or too weak? Where do you
stand?
John
Cridland:
We believe they are appropriate. It is
clearly absolutely vital that Ministers, in determining policy, and the
commission in implementing decisions,
should give full attention to sustainability, and we believe that what
the Government have proposed will achieve
that.
Q
5
Tom
Brake:
The Government have indicated that, on national
policy statements, they will intervene only if there is a national
security consideration or if the national policy statement is out of
date. Various organisations are advocating that the Minister should
perhaps also be able to intervene when there are significant issues
around sustainability. Is that something that the business community
would
oppose?
John
Cridland:
We would oppose that, because we believe
that if the duty on sustainability is properly applied, as we would
expect it to be, then that situation is unlikely to arise. We have
looked carefully at the provisions for ministerial intervention. We can
support them as they stand. We think that the case has been
made—for the two reasons that you outlined—but we in the
business community would be very concerned if that scope was widened,
because that would defeat the purpose of the Bill. The job of
Ministers, if I might suggest it, is to set policy. Ministers should
not then follow through into individual decisions, except on a de
minimis basis, as the Bill now
proposes.
Q
6
Alun
Michael:
Business can find itself on either side of major
infrastructure projects, wanting to give evidence either for the
importance of something being done quickly or for something not being
done at all. So, I wonder if we can look at the practicalities of the
Bill’s proposals. What effect do you expect the Bill to have on
the time taken to decide on applications for major infrastructure
projects? What do you expect to be the impact on the cost associated
with such applications? On the other side of the equation, do you think
that the Bill’s provisions for consultation with interested and
affected parties and for taking responses into account are adequate?
How do you think it will
work?
John
Cridland:
May I answer those in reverse order? In
many ways the most challenging of the timetables is the timetable on
consultation of other interested parties. Particularly for the
applicant, the developer, there is a big onus on statutory authorities
being able to get back within the 28-day pre-application deadline.
There is a level of concern from business there—not that we
think that the time should be lengthened, but that it will be very
important for the statutory authorities to keep to
that.
Our
experience—one of our frustrations—with the current
system is that progress in an application is often held up by the
variety of statutory authorities that have an interest. It is often not
the individual planning authority, but some other national statutory
body that holds up the process. One of the great advantages for us,
which we believe will lead to a much more streamlined and less costly
and time consuming process is the notion of the single consent. The
fact that the infrastructure planning commission, having consulted all
the relevant authorities, is then able to give the single consent is
the great prize for the business community. There was deep frustration,
as we saw with terminal 5, at having to put in 37 separate planning
applications, if memory serves me right. The prize here is the single
consent.
The six-month and nine-month
timelines are appropriate—business can support those. It is very
difficult—I would not make claims—for us to give you cost
savings in advance of this process, but looking at the provisions in
the Bill, the business community strongly believes that there will be
significant savings, both of cost and of
time.
Q
7
Alun
Michael:
Thinking back to major projects, I remember the
frustrations of the eight years it took us to get the legislation
through for the building of the Cardiff Bay barrage. It is difficult to
think of or find any opponents now, but they were around at the time.
Major issues do come up, which require investigation and research. So,
are you satisfied that the process will allow for difficult issues to
be dealt with, as well as—if you like—the ones that have
already been explored long before the planning application comes to
fruition?
John
Cridland:
There is clearly merit in a little bit of
flexibility for the extreme cases. No one would want deadlines to
result in a situation where poor judgments were made simply because of
the lack of opportunity to explore. But I would stress that those are
very exceptional situations. The problem that we face at the moment is
that there are not effective deadlines within the system, at all
levels. We must not allow a focus on the 1 per cent. of situations to
spoil the process for the 99 per cent. of situations where the six and
nine months are eminently
achievable.
Q
8
Mrs.
Lait:
May I go on from there to ask why you think that,
when there are already statutory deadlines, another set of statutory
deadlines will be any more
effective?
John
Cridland:
The key development is the proper cascade
of decision making. At the moment we do not have a cascade. If we end
up at local planning inquiries spending months if not years debating
national need, we will not have accepted the principle that Parliament,
with very full and wide-scale consultation and debate, builds a sense
of ownership round principles that allow other bodies within their
respective authorities on behalf of Parliament to act on specific
questions. That is why the deadlines are not met.
The principle of the operation
of the infrastructure planning commission in the context of the
national policy statements will make the fundamental difference and
will make the new deadlines far more
achievable.
Q
9
Mrs.
Lait:
So, in effect, if you have national policy
statements, you do not necessarily need an IPC because you would have a
series of deadlines that could be met under the current situation and
the Secretary of State could make the decision within the timeline.
Under a single planning consent regime you would take out a lot of the
delays that are currently created because there are no deadlines. Why
create another
bureaucracy?
John
Cridland:
I respect that line of argument. The
business community is convinced that the IPC is just as vital as a
national policy statement in order to bring together suitably
qualified, experienced and respected individuals who can do an expert
job on behalf of all of us who want to see the development properly
debated. The fact that the IPC will bring that expertise
to bear with a different style of operation is hugely important to
business. It will have the flexibility to decide what form of approach
is appropriate to a particular development and in principle it will
operate on an inquisitorial basis rather than allowing an adversarial
approach to develop. These are key new elements of the system which
would not have been in place without an
IPC.
Q
10
Mr.
David Curry (Skipton and Ripon) (Con): Mr.
Cridland, are you not living in a sort of winter wonderland with that
last bit of poetry? Why does the CBI wish to see the creation of a huge
new quango with almost twice as many members on the main board as are
in the Cabinet and no doubt a supporting cast of thousands? If you have
a national policy statement—as effectively we are going to have
later this week on nuclear power—there are about 1,000 places
where nuclear power stations will be built. We all know where they will
be built. Why on earth, therefore, do we need a new quango to do
it?
If you want speed
and if there is something of national interest why do we not invite the
Government to take responsibility and take the decision? Is that not
the most sensible and efficient way of doing
it?
John
Cridland:
The business community recognises and
cannot avoid recognising the need to build consensus and the need for a
wide variety of stakeholders to feel that the process has embraced and
listened to their concerns. That is relevant at the policy statement
level, at the national level. You then come down to a location-specific
application. We have a number of precedents where, under a mandate set
by Parliament, expert commissions or expert bodies have taken forward
responsibilities for adjudicating on very complex and technical issues
but carry conviction. Look at the success of the Low Pay Commission, of
which I am a former member. Look at the success of the Monetary Policy
Committee. These are all areas that at one time perhaps the whole of
this House would have felt were matters for Parliament but where
Parliament has set a policy framework and an infrastructure that is
competent, credible and respected and left it to get on with the
technical
job.
Q
11
Mr.
Curry:
But, Mr. Cridland, those analogies
simply do not hold water. The Low Pay Commission does not take a
decision that puts a nuclear power station at the bottom of your
garden. These are planning issues which people often feel very strongly
about. Any MP will tell you that the issues which come into their
surgeries more than any other are planning issues. Why on earth do you
think that this commission, no doubt selected with all sorts of care,
is going to deliver the sort of cheerful consensus you imagine in an
area where we have not seen it in the past? If it is in the national
interest, why not make the decision and then concentrate on helping
people to live with
it?
11.15
am
John
Cridland:
I do not think that the wider public would
accept that Parliament and Ministers made all of the detailed
decisions, including location-specific decisions, in relation to all
major infrastructure applications. The reality is that we are faced
with either
establishing a new IPC or leaving those responsibilities with the
existing parts of the planning infrastructure, local authorities,
planning inquiries and planning inspectors, and seeking to make
improvements to the way that they operate. With respect, we have tried
that latter approach in the past and, with good will from all parties,
it has not delivered the speed of response and the quality of decision
making that we need from this small number of very major national
developments. It is not realistic to expect Ministers to take all the
detailed decisions in relation to those
applications.
Q
12
Mrs.
Louise Ellman (Liverpool, Riverside) (Lab/Co-op): The Bill
includes a provision that would enable the Government to designate
existing policy statements as national policy statements. Do you think
that that is
reasonable?
John
Cridland:
If a major area of public policy has
recently been deliberated and the criteria of that deliberation meet
the criteria set out in this Bill for consultation, there may well be
examples where it is timely and appropriate for that to happen. But the
business community is serious in saying that NPSs will be successful
only if all stakeholders feel, even if they have not won their
argument, that they have been heard and heard properly. The business
community would not want previous policies to be designated as NPSs if
there was any concern that the debate had moved on or that the previous
consultation had not been suitable. So yes, it is a relevant criterion,
but it needs to be used with great
care.
Q
13
Mrs.
Ellman:
Aviation is one of the areas that it has been
suggested should be treated in this way. Would the CBI be supportive of
that?
John
Cridland:
This would require close examination to see
whether the aviation White Paper of some years ago was still
appropriate. There have clearly been new developments, not least in the
climate change debate, since that White Paper was published. But it is
also true that a great deal of thought went into that White Paper. It
was, in the view of the business community, a very well prepared and
effective White Paper, so it meets some of the criteria, but it would
have to meet all of
them.
Q
14
Mrs.
Ellman:
Your written submission pays a lot of attention to
the content of the IPC. Do you think that the procedures set out in the
Bill for identifying the experts, who would in fact be the
commissioners, are
adequate?
Karen
Dee:
We are relatively relaxed. We have not taken
firm views on who they should be. Our overall perspective of the IPC is
that it needs sufficient experts in sufficient areas of expertise or
subjects so that it commands the respect needed to take those sorts of
very important decisions. We are comfortable with what the Government
are proposing. We have not taken a firm view of all the areas that
should be covered, but they need to be senior, well respected, well
qualified people to make up the
commission.
Q
16
Jim
Sheridan (Paisley and Renfrewshire, North) (Lab):
Mr. Cridland or Ms Dee, could you give us your opinion or
experience of the ever increasing cost of energy, not just for
consumers but for businesses, and the importance of security of supply?
You will also be aware that energy provision, particularly nuclear
energy provision, is a matter for the devolved Administrations, who may
take a different view about it from the UK Government. What concerns do
you have and what provision do you think could be in the Bill to
overcome the difficulty of administration costs for businesses which
may have to deal with different Governments on different energy policy
statements?
John
Cridland:
If I had been appearing before you three or
four years ago on a matter of this kind, I suspect that many of the
examples of frustration in the business community over cost and delay
that I would have brought to you would have related to transport
infrastructure. Indeed, they still do. But the new factor here is
security of energy supply. Although the entire business
community—energy users, as well as energy providers—is
conscious that more than a third of energy generating capacity has to
be rebuilt by 2025, a task of that scale will not be achieved without
major reforms to the planning system. Achievement of the very demanding
targets on renewable energy are currently being held up by the
considerable difficulty in getting, for example, onshore or offshore
wind farms agreed. The Thames Array is a good example, where a major
national project was held up for a while by decision of a local borough
council in relation to a substation on land. These are particular
concerns. We will not be able to achieve our climate change obligations
or our energy security of supply obligations and necessities without
the Bill.
There is,
however, concern in the business community about the point you have
raised—although it is outside our locus, in a sense—that
we look at the different responsibilities of the different nations of
the UK. We do see some challenges here, with planning responsibility
being devolved but energy responsibility being a United Kingdom matter.
These are not issues that the business community can solve, but it
would certainly be a high priority for the business community that the
various Governments of the United Kingdom work together successfully to
ensure that it is possible for UK national policy to be implemented
across the whole of the
island.
Q
17
Jim
Sheridan:
Would the business community, therefore, be
happy with a single planning authority on energy throughout the
UK?
John
Cridland:
I do not think that we have taken a view on
that.
Q
18
Mr.
Jamie Reed (Copeland) (Lab): First, happy new year. I
notice from your written evidence that the CBI is, I think it is right
to say, extremely supportive of these proposals. Is it your view, and
is it based on evidence, that the current system actually deters
investment from companies in the UK and from companies outside of the
UK into the UK, and therefore hampers the economic growth of the
country?
John
Cridland:
It is always difficult to provide rigorous
evidence to prove that, because clearly investment and disinvestment
decisions are taken as a result of a basket of issues. They may be
broader economic issues, they may be global decisions taken by a global
board somewhere else in the world, it may be a labour market factor
that is the predominant one; it is usually a cocktail of issues. What I
can be very sure of is that after 25 years at the CBI, I cannot
remember a time when the planning of national infrastructure was such a
high level of concern for such a wide range of CBI members. The fact
that, of all the Bills before Parliament in this Session, it is this
Bill that CBI members in all sectors are saying we must proactively
support, to help improve the situation for the benefit of all, speaks
for
itself.
Q
19
Mr.
Reed:
To ask a similar, if not the same, question from a
different point of view, is it the view of the CBI that, should the
Bill receive parliamentary consent—as I certainly hope that it
will—it will significantly assist in the growth of the UK
economy?
John
Cridland:
Yes, we mention in our evidence the
increased demand for various forms of infrastructure, and the points I
made on energy security and supply. As far as business is concerned,
there is a clock ticking, and, particularly in relation to the
overriding responsibility that we all have to reduce CO2
emissions by at least 60 per cent. by 2050, we do not have a planning
system that can achieve our climate change, energy or infrastructure
policy responsibilities in a timely fashion. This will make a major
difference in our judgment, but it can only be a
judgment.
Q
20
Paul
Clark (Gillingham) (Lab): You will be well aware of the
work that the Government and others have done in terms of looking for a
way through with the community infrastructure levy, and I note in your
written submission that you are pleased to see the community
infrastructure levy rather than the planning gain supplement. This is
certainly an issue of concern. Earlier you said that local concerns
should be heard and this is certainly a local concern—residents
invariably say that infrastructure is not being provided as well as
businesses and the whole range. Just talking, then, about the way that
that should be calculated, do you want to expand further on what you
have said briefly in your documentation about how you think the
Government should be putting that basis of charge in place?
John
Cridland:
That is a much more difficult area for us
than the previous areas, in the sense that the Bill is largely
permissive. There is very little detail yet from the Government, and we
are keen to see the draft regulations that would underpin the powers
you are being asked to approve. In principle, however, we feel that the
long and very healthy and productive debate between business, the
property industry and the Government over the proposed planning gain
supplement showed the very great difficulties—which we feel are
insurmountable difficulties—of coming up with a practicable
approach which is based on land value. So we look at the Bill and we
ask ourselves: does the Bill clearly say that this is going to be a
levy in relation to infrastructure costs? At present, that is not
entirely clear to us. To directly answer your question,
our principal advice to you would be that we believe
the community infrastructure levy is a much more sensible approach than
the planning gain supplement. It is one which will command the broad
support of business and the property industry, but it should identify a
levy cost that relates to infrastructure need, and not one which is
drawn from additional value from
development.
Q
21
Paul
Clark:
Fine. Let me just take that further, then, in terms
of the demands that come from a regional or sub-regional level. Do you
broadly support contribution on a wider scale at regional and
sub-regional level? How far should that go, and what should be the
guidelines on that? Are there any particular safeguards that should be
in the legislation in terms of the charging
principles?
John
Cridland:
Let me give a broad comment on that and ask
my colleague to go into a little more detail. It is clear that there
will be a variety of situations to which the community infrastructure
levy will apply. Some of those will be regional or even cross-regional,
and there will be a necessity for real collaboration between public
authorities to facilitate that. We recognise that. So far, however,
business is not persuaded that there is a case for the levy to be
charged at that regional or higher level. We believe that the
appropriate level for the levy to be charged is at local authority
level, and then for the collaboration to be behind that.
Karen
Dee:
The only thing I would add to that is that we
expect and imagine there would be a role for regional bodies as
planning authorities in having a view on the sorts of regional
infrastructure that may or may not be needed, and to work with
those—probably more than one—local authorities that would
be implementing it, and, in effect, to act as a broker to bring the
authorities together. We do not take that necessarily to mean that the
regional body is the body that sets the charge. We would see it more in
terms of the relevant local authorities pooling the moneys they get
from the CIL, to be able to use them for the
region.
Q
22
James
Duddridge (Rochford and Southend, East) (Con): Are your
members happy with the compulsory purchase arrangements for businesses?
The land associated with those businesses would certainly increase with
this type of Bill, if it does indeed speed up infrastructure
projects.
Karen
Dee:
I will have to give you an answer on that. It is
not something that businesses have raised specifically with us. I know
there is a concern about how the charges might relate where land has
been compulsorily purchased—because it changes the economics of
a project and there might be concerns then about its
viability—but I have not looked specifically at the compulsory
purchase
powers.
Q
23
James
Duddridge:
Has the CBI considered paying businesses,
individuals, or indeed communities, as a way of sharing the global
benefit to the greater good, but bringing it down to that individual
business that might be affected by reduced traffic because of a larger
motorway, or that house that might reduce in value because there is a
nuclear power station next door, or a community that might have
concerns about a substation coming off a wind
farm?
Karen
Dee:
We have not taken a view on changing the
compulsory purchase arrangements. Certainly, we remain committed to
section 106 agreements being there to mitigate and make a contribution
towards the direct impacts from a project, but we have not taken a view
on changing compulsory purchase or having the ability to pay one way or
another as a result of the
project.
Q
24
Chris
Mole (Ipswich) (Lab): Sorry to jump subjects, but I have
just one question. Do you have a view on whether the definitions in
part 3 on what constitutes the nationally significant, such as the 50
MW limit for onshore power, are appropriate across all of the areas
that have been
suggested?
11.30
am
John
Cridland:
We are broadly supportive of the
definitions in the Bill. We believe that very few port developments
would come forward with the current thresholds and that there is a case
for lowering them to facilitate more port developments within the
national criteria. Beyond that, our general view is that the provisions
are appropriate. We have made a specific comment about air freight. We
believe that air freight is an important part of our national
infrastructure and that a definition which uses only air passenger
numbers would not properly facilitate air freight, but these are quite
technical comments. In principle, we believe that the definitions are
appropriate.
Q
25
Mr.
Clive Betts (Sheffield, Attercliffe) (Lab): May I take you
back to the question asked by my colleague, Paul Clark, about the
community infrastructure levy? My understanding is that along with most
of the business organisations, you are concerned about the proposals on
the planning gain supplement because of the complications and
difficulties of doing the calculations on uplift of value. You have
referred to concerns about reference in clause 166 to the fact that the
charge could be varied according to increases in value arising. What is
your position if that aspect of the Bill remains? Do you think that it
could undermine the basis on which the proposed charge, which you
supported, would go
ahead?
John
Cridland:
We will seek clarification from Government
as to what the intent of that clause is. In building the consensus that
we have now reached—that the community infrastructure levy is a
sensible way forward—we felt that we had dealt with the
impracticality of a value-based approach to charging the levy. If the
clause reopens that issue, in a sense it will weaken the consensus that
has
existed.
Karen
Dee:
There is not much more to say other than that
John is quite right that we do not support the CIL being based on
value. We need clarification on whether there is a technical reason why
that needs to be there. We believe that there could be a case, in
certain circumstances, to consider viability and that the CIL might
need to be waived if there are viability issues. Whether you need the
clause to facilitate that, we are not sure and need some clarification.
Otherwise, land value uplift should not be the basis for the
calculation.
Q
26
Mr.
Betts:
But you are arguing that there should be an ability
at local level to have some variability in the charge, according to
particular circumstances. I think that you talk about the problem of
inner-city redevelopment sites, where you might want to lower the
charge. Is that not covered in the Bill by reference to variability
according to descriptions or purposes of development, or would you like
to see something added that refers to locality? Locality was referred
to in the charter proposal that you put forward to the Government in
the first
place.
John
Cridland:
For us, there is a debate that is probably
beyond our locus as to what should be in the Bill and what should be in
the draft regulations. We are still at an early stage of discussing the
details of the proposals with relevant Departments. At the end of the
day, we need the clarity that you are identifying. We have not
suggested that the Bill should be changed significantly to add more
proposals, but we believe it to be critical that this valuation issue
is understood and that the draft regulations are published as quickly
as possible to address these further
questions.
Q
27
Dan
Rogerson (North Cornwall) (LD): Coming back to the list of
national interest infrastructure projects and the categories in the
Bill, there is provision in the Bill for further categories to be
added, as long as they fall within the fields of energy, transport,
water, waste water or waste. Do you feel that provisions should be
added so that those categories can be expanded in the
future?
Karen
Dee:
At this stage, we feel that the categories and
the sectors are adequate and that the thresholds are broadly speaking
correct. Therefore, there is nothing that we are seeking to add at this
stage. We believe that this process should be reserved for those
projects that are genuinely of national significance and feel that the
project thresholds are about right at the
moment.
Q
28
Mrs.
Lait:
You are referring to the number of commissioners,
Sir John. Karen Dee, you referred in your early remarks to expecting
few projects to come forward for consideration. The White Paper
referred to there being five to 10 a year, although I think the current
estimate is 45. Given the time scales set out in the Bill,
which you also support, how many commissioners do you think will be
needed to get through all of those inquiries at the speed at which you
wish to see them done and what variety of expertise do you expect those
commissioners to have? For instance, if they are talking about nuclear
power, should there be a nuclear power engineer among those
commissioners, should that person be in employment or retired, and, if
so, for how
long?
Karen
Dee:
We have not taken a detailed view and, as we
have said before, the White Paper revised the estimates up to about 40.
How many we will actually see depends on the time that elapses before
the Bill and the procedures are enacted. We have not taken a view on
the numbers but have said that, if we are to achieve the sort of
certainty that the business community is
looking for, the IPC will have to be well resourced to enable it to meet
those deadlines. We have not taken a view on the exact skills that
would be necessary for the commissioners, other than that in appointing
them there should be a broad range so that the commission commands the
sort of respect from all sectors of the community involved, not just
the business community, so that the decisions get the sort of buy-in
that we are looking
for.
Q
29
Mrs.
Lait:
Where will we find these creatures that have the
skills to analyse evidence in areas that do not necessarily relate to
their own expertise? You want it to be an inquisitorial system with
cross-examination-type questions, whereby the commissioner will ask the
questions rather than representatives of the various groups, which
would have allowed everyone to feel that they had the proper right to
be heard, as was established under mediaeval law in this country. They
will have expertise in a range of subjects, but I am not sure where you
think those paragons will come from and whether we will get them in
sufficient numbers so that, if we agree on the 40 issues and the time
scales, we will get considerably more than are set out in the Bill. Is
the taxpayer going to be thrilled at having to pay for those
people?
John
Cridland:
The cost of the IPC will
be very modest in comparison with the considerable benefits that will
be achieved if it is successful. Clearly, this is a new development and
one can imagine that a mix of individuals from professional bodies,
legal backgrounds and academe would have the relevant skills.
I shall dare to use an analogy.
The Central Arbitration Committee, which was established some years ago
to implement the Employment Relations Act 1999, had to bring together a
panel or, as is referred to in the Bill, a council of commissioners
from a range of different backgrounds and with a range of different
skills—some with more practical workplace experience, some
recently retired directors and some with a legal background—in
order to form panels to deal with complex and sometimes controversial
applications between different parties that would otherwise have been
dealt with in an adversarial context. They have had time to expand the
number of committee members and deputy chairs in order to get the right
balance of experience to form the panels and deal with differing
amounts of demand. Although in some ways they are dealing with less
demand than anticipated, they have managed to do it.
Exactly the same questions were
asked. If a body, on behalf of Ministers, is making determinations
which affect trade union recognition or other employee relations issues
that are binding on a company or work force, who will those people be
and will they have credibility? In fact, a number of recently retired
people with highly relevant experience but no conflicts of
interest—academics, lawyers, people with professional body
experience—have shown that they were able to do it. I am not
saying that that is a direct analogy, but I think that it is relevant,
and I would hope that we would be able to do that. It is clear that the
members of the IPC should not be representative. It is not a situation
in which you want a CBI IPC member. We are talking about people who
carry credibility because of their career experience and professional
success.
The
Chairman:
I am afraid that that brings us to the end of
the time allocated for this witness. I thank you, Mr.
Cridland, and your colleague, Karen Dee, for answering the questions so
clearly and helpfully. I ask the next witness to take his
place.
Good morning. I
introduce David Green, the chief executive for the UK
Business Council for Sustainable Energy. Welcome, Mr. Green,
would you please introduce your
colleague?
David
Green:
Yes, I am delighted to be
able to introduce my colleague, Nick Winser. Mr. Winser is
the executive director for transmission for the UK and the US in the
National Grid and is a member of the National Grid board. Nick has
kindly been leading much of our work on planning and engagement with
the Government on behalf of the energy
industry.
The
Chairman:
Thank you. A number of people have indicated
that they would like to ask questions on your particular area. I will
start with Clive
Betts.
Q
30
Mr.
Betts:
On the exemption that you are proposing for energy
projects from the community infrastructure levy, why do you feel that
the energy industry is so specific and different from other industries?
Similar proposals will be put forward by the minerals extraction
industry and the transport industry, both of whom feel that when they
develop they add value rather than detract from it, and, therefore,
should not have to pay a levy towards any other development
issues.
David
Green:
I should say first, to echo
John Cridland’s remarks, that we welcome the direction of travel
that the Government have gone in by introducing the community
infrastructure levy. But, bearing in mind that a lot of the energy
infrastructure is what we say it is and designed to support the
operation of other parts of the market or other industrial players, and
it is, by its very nature, infrastructure—it is largely pipes
and wires in the ground—it seemed a little perverse for the levy
to be applied to those providers who are seeking to do what they have
done for many years in providing the underpinning infrastructure that
enables development to take place beyond inner-city sites or greenfield
sites. There seems to be a slight perversity in the process. That is
why we are suggesting that it would be appropriate to consider
exempting various forms of energy infrastructure from the proposed levy
arrangements.
Q
31
Mr.
Betts:
Would it be reasonable to assume, though, that if a
major energy site of whatever kind is developed, there probably will be
infrastructure costs in accessing that site, for example, which the
local authorities may have to pay for? If it was to be a site which
employed quite a large number of people in an area where such
occupation did not already exist, there could be additional
requirements for schools, for example, for the children of people who
work on the site. Again, those would be costs to the local authority.
You are saying that projects of this kind, which bring those costs with
them, should not make any contribution towards the development costs in
the
area?
David
Green:
In our submission, we have pointed out that
there are existing arrangements for the energy industry to make a
contribution to infrastructure costs,
particularly where they have an impact on the local community,
especially if that means new road access to sites. It is an issue for
which existing arrangements are in place which we believe to be more
than adequate to enable contributions to be made to infrastructure. It
seems better to use those existing arrangements, rather than
introducing some new form of arrangements, which might add to the costs
and burdens of organisations seeking to strengthen the nation’s
infrastructure and thereby improve the security of supply in the
UK.
11.45
am
As we pointed
out in our evidence, there is an awful lot of infrastructure investment
going to be needed in the UK. Clearly, you might get particular
examples where, as you rightly say, there is a need for new social
investment in the area, to provide for large employment. We would argue
that there are existing arrangements that can already cater for that.
The specifics that we pointed to are where you need to improve site
access and coming to other arrangements. We believe that the existing
arrangements are more adequate in catering for
that.
The
Chairman:
A number of colleagues have
indicated that they particularly want to ask questions on the energy
issue, but if others wish to do so, perhaps they might seek to catch my
eye in the next few
minutes.
Q
32
Mrs.
Lait:
Thank you, Sir John, and thank you for coming in. We
are probably going to take most of it as read that you agree with most
of what the CBI has already said. I will just ask you about the
particular issue of the interaction between the proposed announcement
that we are expecting this week on nuclear power stations and what
would be a potential national policy statement on nuclear power, and
the timescales required for the building of nuclear power stations, in
order to move towards meeting renewal energy commitments. Are you
expecting that, from an announcement this week on nuclear power
stations, there would be a challenge to those power stations that would
play into the implementation of any legislation that comes out of this
Bill? Hence there might be appeals for the nuclear power stations build
to be delayed until there is a national policy
statement.
David
Green:
To unpick that a little, first of all we do
not know what the Government are going to say, although there has been
extensive trailing of what they are likely to say on Thursday. The
general point that we would want to make—I am sure that Nick
might wish to come in on that—is that the changes proposed for
the Planning Bill are not necessarily technology-specific, because
there is a lot of other infrastructure in the energy market that is
influenced by planning, not just whether or not there are new nuclear
or indeed other stations in the system. As we are in the Business
Council for Sustainable Energy, we place particular emphasis on the
planning barriers faced by onshore and offshore renewables, for
example. They are very real challenges that are being faced. Whether or
not there would be a challenge to the Government’s announcement
on Thursday, I have no idea. Everyone is assuming that there may well
be, but that would depend on what the announcement says, how it is cast
and whether or not those who successfully challenged the Government last
time choose to do it again this time and are
successful.
We think
that the planning reforms are important in their own right, because of
the need to renew the nation’s energy infrastructure. It is not
specifically about particular technologies or particular power
stations—there is a general need to renew the infrastructure
and, also, to make it fit for purpose for a more carbon-constrained
economy. Nick is much more centrally involved in this—do you
want to comment on any views you might have on any impending
announcements from the
Government?
Nick
Winser:
Yes, any announcement on nuclear will raise
the same raft of issues that we experience today on
other technologies and that we have experienced in the past. We have
experience of trying to build transmission lines to connect up
gas-fired power stations, which took 13 years. There were major
difficulties getting through planning with the building of new gas
pipelines, so clearly this is not about nuclear. We currently have
about 70 per cent. of the applications for wind power stations held up
in planning in one form or another, so we have a present issue with the
planning system in getting to the low-carbon economy that we all
seek.
If, as part of
the overall solution, nuclear power came forward in the context of new
build, then the provisions proposed in the Bill would have a
significant impact. It is clearly not just about consent for a nuclear
power station or a wind turbine, but about connecting that up to
centres of demand. Both nuclear and wind energy are generally remote
from the main centres of demand. So that single consenting process that
John talked about previously will be pertinent to nuclear, as it is
today to the issues that we face on connecting up wind
power.
Q
33
Mrs.
Lait:
Do you, then, expect one national
policy statement for the whole of the energy infrastructure, whatever
the source of the energy and whatever its delivery, or would you expect
a separate policy statement on each aspect—in other words on
nuclear, on wind, on coal-fired and on your transmission
routes?
David
Green:
Our expectation is that there will be a number
of policy statements. There are one or two already. There is the new
guidance note from the Department for Communities and Local Government
on climate change generally and there is an earlier one on renewables.
One of the issues that we want to tease out is what the exact status of
those will be in the new regime. Our expectation is that you will not
get one for every single bit of technology, but for broad areas of
policy there will probably be a specific one. We have every expectation
that there will be a specific one, for example, on renewables, which
will then cover a whole range of different technologies. There may well
be a specific one on nuclear energy because of the particular focus
there is on that. We imagine that there will be others dealing with
other aspects of energy policy, so you will end up with a family of
them, hopefully with some
interrelationship.
Q
34
Mrs.
Lait:
Have you worked out how long it will take under the
consultation process—you emphasise that you want a full
consultation process—to get the
whole of your national policy statements infrastructure in place if
there are half a dozen of them? How many years will it take before you
know what you will be
doing?
David
Green:
We have not given a specific feel for the
timetable that is likely to result. Our main expectation and hope from
the proposed changes is that they will not take as long as some of the
major infrastructures have taken already. Nick has already referred to
the 13 years it took to get the system sorted out in the north-east of
England with the grid reinforcement there. National Grid and these
other companies have particular experience of the length of time that
it is currently taking to reinforce gas infrastructure in the UK and
the perversities that can occur with that.
Our expectation is that these
reforms will bring about a specific speeding up. An important aspect of
this is the integration that can be achieved so that everything on a
large infrastructure project is dealt with in one place. For example,
if you are going for new pipeline approvals, which are quite important
for improving the security supply for gas in the UK, they can be dealt
with on an integrated basis and not split up in different parcels as
they are at present. That is where the savings will
come.
Q
35
Mrs.
Lait:
I am sorry, but we may be talking
past one another. I am talking about the sheer practicality of putting
in place six or seven separate national policy statements that are
fully consulted and acceptable to all organisations through full
parliamentary scrutiny, just on energy. How long do you think that will
take?
David
Green:
I am not in a position to judge how long the
parliamentary timetable would take. Clearly it would
take some time, but it is particularly important as a
way of building up national consensus on the direction we are taking on
energy policy and also to get sufficient national buy-in from a wide
range of stakeholders on key areas that could well be subject to public
controversy. It is particularly important to have national consensus on
the direction we are taking with the national policy statements,
bearing in mind the changes that will be needed in society to
accommodate 60 per cent. or larger carbon reductions over the next 10
or 15 years as we move towards a much more carbon-constrained society.
So, yes, it will not be a quick process, but we believe it is important
to get national consensus and national buy-in to these statements,
because they will be influential and they will have an impact. Indeed,
we want them to have an
impact.
Q
36
Tom
Brake:
Following on your comment about carbon
constraint—you also mentioned climate change—there seems
to be an area of slight difference between you and the CBI. The CBI
said that it was happy with what the Bill said in relation to
sustainability. You, however, are seeking clarification from the
Government on the relationship between the Climate Change Bill and the
Planning Bill. What would you, as energy industry representatives, like
that relationship to
be?
David
Green:
The energy industry is going through a huge
transition at the moment as we move towards a much more
carbon-constrained energy supply in the UK, and that requires
significant new investment.
What everyone is seeking in the energy industry is
some degree of clarity about the direction of travel. That is why we
supported the Climate Change Bill and the statutory provision it makes
for longer-term carbon reduction, as a way of providing the market with
greater certainty. We have always felt—and we have sought to
tease this out with the Government—that there is a relationship
between the two Bills. There must be a relationship between the Climate
Change Bill and what then happens in the planning regime, so that where
it is quite clear that national infrastructure is playing an absolutely
crucial role in reducing the UK’s carbon emissions, that is
taken into account in the planning process. That is why we welcomed the
proposed changes to the local planning regime that enable local
authorities to take account of climate change in their planning
deliberations, because we think that is equally important. Getting that
continuity right the way through is vital, so that if you set a
national framework in the Climate Change Bill, it follows through into
planning just as it should follow through into other areas of public
policy.
Q
37
Tom
Brake:
Does that mean you would expect, for instance, the
infrastructure planning commission and the national policy statements
to have regard for the reduction targets in the Climate Change Bill, so
that they would actually take that into account and try to judge
whether the national policy statements met those, and whether the IPC
was only authorising projects that delivered on the Climate Change
Bill?
David
Green:
I would find it very difficult to conceive of
a situation in which the national policy statements did not take
account of the statutory objectives that the Climate Change Bill
sets—assuming the Bill gets a fair wind in
Parliament—because they are going to be statutory, and their
whole purpose is to reframe the public policy process to make it much
more focused on climate change. Our expectation is that the planning
guidance notes that come out will be written in light of the Climate
Change Bill, and that the functions created for the IPC will also
reflect the imperative that the Government set, hopefully on a
cross-party basis, with the Climate Change
Bill.
Q
38
Jim
Sheridan:
This question is to either or both of our
guests. You will be aware that the Scottish Administration in Holyrood
have challenged, and would deny, any new build nuclear power stations
in Scotland. Could you advise the Committee what impact that would have
on the rest of the UK in terms of energy policy, and whether this Bill
contains, or should contain, any provisions that could perhaps overcome
that
situation?
David
Green:
Do you want to take
that?
Nick
Winser:
I am happy to. It really depends on whether
there is new nuclear build proposed by companies, and whether
alternative sites are identified—sites that are not in Scotland,
clearly. I do not mean that in a facetious way. It would not
necessarily affect the volume of nuclear that comes forward if other
sites can be found in England and Wales that seem to be, economically,
a good solution for the companies seeking to develop. The bigger
interaction I see is that trying to hit very substantial
renewables targets with different planning regimes
in
England, Wales and Scotland seems to me a significant issue which needs
to be addressed. In particular, the national planning framework under
the Scottish Administration does very different things, in my view,
from the proposals that are in this Bill. It gives an assessment of
overall need in a single place, but does not bring forward a single
consenting process. So you might have a single consenting process here
in England and Wales, and not have that regime in Scotland. Given that
so much of the proposed renewable build is in Scotland, that must raise
significant concerns about how we can hit the renewables targets if the
planning regime in Scotland turns out to be less streamlined and
certain than that proposed
here.
Q
39
Jim
Sheridan:
If there is no new nuclear build in Scotland and
in the future we have to buy our energy from England, could the
scenario be that people in Scotland will have to pay higher fuel
bills?
Nick
Winser:
That is
possible.
David
Green:
It would largely depend, obviously, on what
the prevailing market situation is in England, Wales and
Scotland—in the GB market. That is difficult to predict at the
moment. There has already been talk in the media, this morning and
yesterday, about increasing regional spreads of pricing for a variety
of reasons. As you move more towards a disaggregated market, that
possibility always exists.
Nick
Winser:
And currently Scottish customers pay cheaper
bills, albeit by a small amount, by virtue of the fact that Scotland is
an exporting zone. If it is not an exporting energy zone, the
locational tariffs will reflect that and Scottish customers will pay
more.
12
pm
Q
40
Robert
Neill:
Your written submission—I am looking at
paragraphs 6.7 and 6.8—talks in particular about the importance
of there being public acceptance and credibility. That is why you refer
to the need for a specific requirement for the NPSs to be dealt with by
affirmative resolution procedure. Is that something you would like to
see specifically in the
Bill?
David
Green:
Yes. It is a debate we have had with officials
in Government. We think it is important that there is good cross-party
political weight behind these statements, given their significance. To
have provision in the Bill that they can be subject to affirmative
resolutions is something we would positively
support.
Q
41
Robert
Neill:
Following your other point in those paragraphs
about the importance of a clear hierarchy in relation to the rest of
the planning regimes, and no doubt also other NPSs, would you expect
there to be a minimum core of information, of topics covered, in each
national policy statement? What would you expect to see in a national
policy statement? Would you expect to see at least a core of it common
to each field for which there has to be a national policy statement, to
permit integration and clarity in the
hierarchy?
David
Green:
I hope that as the national policy commission
comes into being one of its jobs will be to make sure that there is
consistency across all the statements. As they are framed by Government
for the national policy commission to use, I would hope that
those framing them in Government will want to do so in a consistent way.
It is relatively easy to see how they can be consistent in the energy
policy context, because, broadly speaking, it will be one Government
Department in the lead. I am sure that across industry there will be
hope that there is a similar core element affecting a number of
infrastructures. I do not have to tell people here that Government
Departments do not always draft things in a similar way; our
expectation is that in the energy context there will be a similar core
element in order to give the market some consistency, on the basis of
which decisions will be taken.
David
Green:
We do not know. We are having discussions with
officials at the moment and we, and they, are keen to see that they are
on a consistent basis. It will be a matter of ensuring that the
proposals are drafted and brought forward on a consistent basis. I am
confident that we will achieve that in the energy field; it is
difficult to say in respect of a field in which we do not have much
involvement.
Q
43
Jeff
Ennis (Barnsley, East and Mexborough) (Lab): In your
memorandum in paragraphs 5 and 6, you seem to be very strongly
supportive of the establishment of the IPC. In the previous witnesses
session—I think it was in response to a question from the right
hon. Member for Skipton and Ripon about the Government setting up
another quango—John Cridland seemed to be very supportive of the
establishment of the IPC. He said that the IPC costs will be minuscule
if the new system works properly. Is that your view, too? Obviously, we
need to shake up the current machine to make it more streamlined and
the IPC is an integral part in streamlining the current
machine.
David
Green:
The expectation, as John said in his
evidence—I was listening very carefully when he said
it—is that we will achieve a more beneficial system through the
IPC. I think John was talking about the costs; what he, and indeed we,
are looking at is that if you compare the costs of the IPC to the huge
investment that Nick’s company and others will be making in
infrastructure, the net cost of the IPC is a very small part of that in
terms of the total national expenditure on
infrastructure.
In the
way the IPC is formed I imagine that there will be some shifting of
staff. For example, some who are currently dealing with consents in the
Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform may move
across to the new commission. I would imagine that the net additional
costs will be relatively small, as John said, because some people will
move from one bit of Government to another. No doubt some people will
move from the Department for Communities and Local Government or the
Department for Transport into the commission because they have the
expertise and the experience of dealing with infrastructure
issues.
Nick
Winser:
I think it is worth putting it into context:
we are anticipating a spend on energy infrastructure probably north of
£50 billion over the next few decades. If you get delayed in
planning, as we
often do, £100 million disappears pretty quickly in that sort of
context, so this is a very big Bill. With speed and certainty of
getting through planning, you can easily save hundreds of millions of
pounds.
Q
44
Dan
Rogerson:
Just to clarify who you represent: do you
represent those looking at more devolved energy networks as well, or
specifically the big infrastructure projects and larger
investment?
David
Green:
I would have said at the outset a bit about
who the Business Council represents. As you can see from the footnote
in our submission, our members are the major energy companies in the
UK. But all those major energy companies have interests in developing
what are referred to as much more distributed or decentralised energy
systems, some to a greater extent than others, so I would not want to
typify by saying that they are all just focusing on large generation
and large infrastructure—it varies depending on the market
position they
take.
Q
45
Dan
Rogerson:
That is helpful. In terms of the thresholds that
are therefore in the Bill, in terms of when a project becomes subject
to the new procedure, would you not agree that that provides an
incentive to go towards single bigger schemes rather than looking at
multiple smaller ways of generating and distributing
energy?
David
Green:
Clearly, there has to be a threshold
somewhere, and we think that the thresholds currently in place have
served well for a period of time, and that it is quite fair to keep
them as they are and import them into the Bill. In our wider work on
planning, hence the discussions we have been having with the Local
Government Association, and with Natural England as well, we think that
there is still a lot of work to be done on how you can refresh the town
and country planning system, because quite a lot of the new renewable
developments are still likely to sit at the smaller end of the scale.
It is therefore important to make sure that those people who are
dealing with them in local communities, particularly elected members,
have a deeper understanding of why particular schemes are coming
forward at a particular time, and the policy and political context in
which they are
happening.
The other
thing that has changed significantly since the Planning Bill was
introduced is the UK’s commitment to signing up to its share of
the EU’s 20 per cent. renewable target. I suspect that a lot of
that new capacity will be quite large plant, be it onshore or offshore,
be it wind or other technologies; we will have to wait and see how that
pans out. But in grid terms, or in distribution network terms, they
could well have a similar characteristic, in terms of planning
requirements, to any large conventional power station, because you
could be talking about quite large bits of development in order to
achieve, in a timely manner, the target for 2020, which after all is
only 12 years off. As colleagues in the industry would tell you, 12
years is not a long time when it comes to, quite apart from the
planning regime, just physically getting assets in
place.
Q
46
Mrs.
Lait:
You mentioned, on a number of occasions, the single
consents regime, and most of us would support that in principle. But
what interests me
is that, within the Bill, the legislation that currently covers the
varying consents is being consolidated but not repealed. So there is
the potential for two systems running in parallel. Do you think there
should be a repeal of the legislation governing the current
system?
David
Green:
I can only imagine that some of it will be to
do with transition arrangements. But in terms of why we think there is
a need to improve existing arrangements, I am glad that you share our
view that there is a need for more integration. Perhaps this might be a
position for Nick to comment on, as he has had some particular
difficulties with lack of integration between the different aspects of
the planning system, and he could emphasise why we think that
integration is particularly
important.
Nick
Winser:
I cannot comment technically on whether bits
of other Acts need to be repealed, but certainly our recent experience
is that for a major piece of infrastructure we quite often need to get
consent of some form from the Secretary of State, and we may also need
to go to five or six different local planning authorities that will
each consider a different part of a project. So bringing all that
together in one place and making it contemporaneous would be a big step
forward.
Q
47
Mrs.
Lait:
May I go back to your very sensible point that the
national planning statements need to be fully consulted on and that
everybody should have the right to be heard? You will have heard
Mr. Cridland from the CBI talking about an inquisitorial as
opposed to an adversarial system. Would you like to comment on whether
the inquisitorial system would be sufficient for your members if they
were put in a position where they wished to be heard or to challenge
the evidence? Would an inquisitorial system be strong enough for that
or would they in extremis wish to revert to an adversarial
system?
David
Green:
That is an interesting question because there
are two very different concepts of public policy behind this. In
general, support in the industry has been for moving towards the
inquisitorial system because they feel that it is a better way of
producing a good consensus to move forward on. The advantage of the
adversarial system is that you can sometimes tease out issues. There is
a strong sense in the industry that, because of the length of time some
of the investments take, the more we can build a consensus and
therefore the benefits of an inquisitorial system are greater. That is
the general view. It does have the disadvantage that you cannot always
tease out the issues.
In my personal experience there
is often a very thin dividing line between one and the other. An
inquisitorial session can often involve probing which brings out fresh
information which can be helpful in
considerations.
Q
48
Mrs.
Lait:
But under the inquisitorial system would you able to
pick up on the fresh information or would it just lie
there?
David
Green:
At the end of the day that will depend on the
guidance that is set for the local hearings and for the way in which
the commission operates. We would
hope—and this is reflected in the way that Ministers have
maintained some reserve powers—that when brand new information
comes into play, the guidance will enable a mechanism for that to be
taken into account. We know that, certainly in the energy field, new
information does come along and market circumstances
change.
The
Chairman:
We have a few minutes left and I am happy to
take any supplementary questions that make up the
time.
Q
49
Chris
Mole (Ipswich):
Are you happy about the arrangements in this Bill
for the consent regimes between onshore and offshore energy
infrastructure, and what are your particular concerns about the
interaction with any proposed draft marine
Bill?
David
Green:
Given that the marine Bill is still in draft
and has been a little while in coming—it is still some way off
and the Government say that they will consult now on a draft
Bill—it is a little difficult to say, but in principle what we
have always thought is that you need to have a planning regime that
works effectively both onshore and offshore. What many colleagues who
are looking at offshore developments are concerned about is that, in
the absence of the marine Bill, there will potentially be a slight
vacuum.
The area we
focused on particularly in this Bill is that, even when you do get a
clear regime for offshore investment, a lot of that is going to have an
impact onshore because the electricity that is generated offshore must
still come in somewhere. It will still be picked up by Nick and his
colleagues somewhere in the transmission system. As far as we are
concerned, the sooner that we can get that kind of integrated package
the better, particularly bearing in mind the imperative of achieving
the new EU targets that are currently being negotiated and that are
likely to be quite tight for the UK.
Q
50
Chris
Mole:
So there are no problems internally within this
Bill; the problem is the uncertainty of where we are with the UK marine
Bill?
David
Green:
It would be easier to answer your question
fully—and I am quite happy to come back to you in a separate
note if that would be helpful—if we knew in detail what was
going to be in the marine Bill. The expectation is that, through a
combination of this, which deals with land-based developments, and the
marine Bill, we will hopefully get—and this is what we will be
lobbying for—an integrated approach.
If it would be helpful,
Mr. Chairman, I would be happy to send the Committee a
separate note.
12.15
pm
Q
51
Robert
Neill:
To come back to your comments on the adversarial
versus inquisitorial systems, you seemed to say to Mrs. Lait
that, at the end of the day, you would not be unhappy for fresh
information to come back to the Secretary of State.
David
Green:
No, what I was saying is that it is
interesting that the Secretary of State is planning to take that power
because it is an indication that fresh information may well come into
consideration.
David
Green:
Yes.
Q
53
Robert
Neill:
The problem, I suppose, is that no one will have
had the opportunity to test that further information, either through an
adversarial or inquisitorial form, will they? You would have to take
the Secretary of State’s assessment of that press information as
read, in effect, would you not? Is that entirely satisfactory, given
your desire to achieve consensus? Otherwise, you would have to reopen
the inquiry, would you
not?
David
Green:
We desire consensus and consistency. We would
hope that all the powers that the Secretary of State is retaining would
be used sparingly and only where there is a clear national interest to
reopen something because of a clear change of
circumstances—which does happen, particularly in the energy
sector, as we are moving to greater dependence on the wider European
and global
market.
Q
54
Robert
Neill:
It is your desire for consensus, I take it, which
leads you to welcome the inclusion of a right to be
heard?
David
Green:
Yes.
Q
55
Robert
Neill:
So, you would not want to see anything which
diminished the opportunity for legitimately interested parties to put
their
case?
David
Green:
We think that it would be vital, particularly
in the work that the IPC will be doing, to have those open hearings.
There will be an issue to be teased out as to the circumstances in
which the Secretary of State would exercise his or her powers, and what
you would do to handle that new information. We would hope that it
would be used very sparingly, because people are looking to create a
situation that will build investor confidence. The investment then
flows. We think that, both in the area of national security that has
been referred to, and in the area of new information, those powers will
be used sparingly, but, given that the Government want to ensure that
the UK has a secure energy supply, it will be important that
Governments can take a rounded view of how progress will be
made.
Nick
Winser:
Careful crafting of the national policy
statements should remove that potential problem to a great degree. They
need to be crafted to give some flexibility for changing circumstances
in energy markets in Europe and
globally.
Q
56
Robert
Neill:
So, while you welcome the separation of the
national policy decisions, where you can hopefully get some consensus,
and parliamentary approval in the way that you have accepted, you also
accept, in the case of the individual location-specific application,
the need for there not to be anything that undermines the ability of
interested parties to put their case? Is that
right?
David
Green:
What we are saying is that there is a
hierarchy, with the right to be heard at the local hearings, the
processes that the IPC will go through, and also the national
statements set by Government.
We find it interesting that the Government have recognised that, in the
international energy markets we operate in—I am sure that it
could be the same in other areas—there may well be circumstances
in which things have changed in that process, and the Government are
reserving their right to consider matters in that area. As Nick has
said, we do not envisage circumstances in which that would be used very
often, because we hope that, in the work that the Government do with
the industry and other stakeholders to craft the national statements,
those situations could be well
accommodated.
As we
have pointed out in our evidence, for base load generation we are
moving to a situation of more or less national self-sufficiency in gas,
at a very high import dependency. We will see many changes occurring in
the energy market over the next few years, many of which we probably
cannot foresee at the moment, but which will need some flexibility from
the Government and their planning procedures to accommodate them,
subject to the fact that we must ensure that there is an adequate
process which carries people with them. So, we are trying to strike a
balance between wanting to ensure that people are fully and actively
involved in the direction of travel, and ensuring that we maintain the
nation’s security of supply so that, at the end of the day, the
lights and other vital national infrastructure are maintained
effectively.
Q
57
Robert
Neill:
So the key test, however you put it, is to speed up
the process but not to leave people feeling alienated
either.
David
Green:
Absolutely.
The
Chairman:
We have one minute left. Is there anything that
you would like to say to the Committee, Mr. Green, by way of
getting evidence on the record that has not been teased out by the
questions?
David
Green:
I think that we have covered most points. In
our evidence paper we covered a wide range of points. The questions
have teased out the areas that are clearly on the Committee’s
mind. I do not particularly want to add anything further. I would just
say that we welcome the fact that the Committee has chosen to take this
route, which is quite an innovation in parliamentary procedure, of
having organisations in to give evidence for a public Bill. We hope
that that process will be carried through to build the consensus that
we are looking for to get the investment flowing, which companies are
prepared to make, not only to improve security of supply, but to reduce
carbon
emissions.
The
Chairman:
I thank you and your colleague, Mr.
Winser, for coming along. We now have the next witness, Mr.
Bird, executive director of the UK Major Ports
Group.
Q
58
Robert
Neill:
On a point of order, Sir John. I have a written
submission from the next witness, although it does not appear on the
list. It is a very useful submission, but it does not appear that the
rest of the Committee has it. My researcher got it somehow, by means of
an e-mail. He is very good, but I did not realise that he had
pre-empted everybody else.
It is
Mr. Everitt that I welcome, I am sorry. It is very good of
you to come along and give evidence. Will you introduce your
colleagues?
Richard
Everitt:
I am Richard Everitt, chairman of the United
Kingdom Major Ports Group and chief executive of the Port of London
Authority. Mr. Bird was going to come along, but is in New
Zealand, so I am substituting for him. On my left is Andrew Harston
from Hutchison Ports, which is responsible for Felixstowe and the
container port at Thamesport on the Medway. Additionally, it has
secured planning consent, subject to conditions, for a container
development at Bathside bay in Harwich. On my right is Ken Bell from
Associated British Ports, which operates 21 ports in the UK including
Southampton port and ports on the Humber. We have tried to bring before
the Committee quite a broad range of port experience to discuss the
Bill. The port industry has gone through a number of applications
recently under the planning system, primarily for container port
developments.
The
Chairman:
Thank you. Is there an opening statement that
you would like to make briefly, before we move to
questions?
Richard
Everitt:
I will do so briefly, if I may,
Mr. Chairman. I apologise that our submission got to the
Committee late yesterday, but it was caught up in Christmas to-ing and
fro-ing. In effect, the industry is supportive of the general approach
of the Bill. We believe that the national policy statement approach is
sound. We are very pleased that ports will come within it, but ports
are part of the logistics system and it will be very important that the
national statement for ports is well co-ordinated with the statements
for roads and rail. Clearly, there is a strong dependency on those
modes.
We are also
concerned to ensure that the processes under the marine Bill, when
finally published, are consistent with the approaches being taken in
the Planning Bill. Ports, by their nature, are linked to the marine
environment, and what happens in the marine environment is equally as
important as what happens in the terrestrial environment.
We believe that the proposed
consolidation of consents is also a very sound move forward. Indeed,
the applications that are currently going through for container
developments in many cases have not yet been implemented because of
dependence on other consents coming through. To deal with those
proposals in a holistic way would clearly be beneficial in terms of
securing the capacity that is needed, and the greater certainty over
the inquiry process and decision timing is also to be welcomed.
Inquiries in the port sector have generally been quite short, but the
decision processes subsequent to inquiries have been very long and,
indeed, the dependencies that have been created when those decisions
have finally been made have extended the time frame for those
developments even further.
Although the ports industry
might be seen as low-technology, the reality is very different.
Technology is changing rapidly in the port scene, ships are getting
larger by the year and the industry needs to
be able to respond in a timely way, not least because we have an economy
that is highly international and heavily dependent on imports and
exports: ports are obviously the key node in driving those changes to
our economy.
Therefore, joined-up thinking
between the agencies to get the capacity is critically important. With
regard to containers, we have not seen new capacity since
2003—an extension at Felixstowe—and new capacity is
certainly overdue. Essentially, we welcome the Bill because we believe
it will create a more certain environment in which to promote the port
developments that are necessary in the type of economy that we
operate.
12.30
pm
In the time that I
have managed to speed-read your submission, I got the impression that
you wish to see the inclusion of the associated transport
infrastructure in your national policy statement about ports. I wonder
if I am reading that correctly and, given that you support the
CBI’s position on the creation of the national policy statements
and the full consultation and parliamentary scrutiny, how you see a
national policy statement on ports that included the associated
infrastructure and the related other transport national policy
statements. We teased out from previous witnesses that they would
expect a separate national policy statement on each form of energy and
therefore one would assume that there would be a national policy
statement for each form of
transport.
Richard
Everitt:
It would possibly be too ambitious to think
that the ports policy statement would include road and rail, but we
think that the road and rail national policy statements should take
full account of the current and prospective needs of ports. Clearly,
ports act as nodes for distributing imports and gathering exports, and
one of the big issues that we have found in all of the developments
that have been proposed in the last few years is the need to ensure
that the road and rail systems serving ports are developed in a way
that is consistent with the proposed development of the port. So I
think that it will be in those statements that we will be looking for
consistency. I think that that is what the Eddington report was really
saying in one of its three big priorities: that gateways—and
ports are gateways—should be well linked into the key markets
that they serve.
Q
60
Mrs.
Lait:
You refer to the single consent regime, and I will
ask you the same question I put to previous witnesses. Do you think
that currently existing legislation—which, as I understand it,
is being transferred into this Bill—should be repealed from the
relevant Acts of which it is currently
part?
Richard
Everitt:
That is probably unnecessary, if I have read
the Bill correctly. I think what the Bill is, in effect, saying is that
if you get development consent from the IPC, it will cover a number of
other consents: ancient monument consent, listed building consent,
footpath changes, and so on. Given that for projects of non-national
importance we are still going to be living
under the current regime, it is probably unnecessary in the way that the
Bill is drafted. However, we would certainly want to maximise the
number of consents being granted by a development consent from the
IPC.
Q
61
Mrs.
Lait:
You cannot, for instance, see an appeal being made
under separate legislation, to run in parallel with an IPC
investigation, which could have an impact, malign or
otherwise?
Richard
Everitt:
I could not see that in reading the Bill. I
think the Bill is pretty clear that, if an application were made, the
Secretary of State could refer it—I am trying to recall my
reading, but there seemed to be sufficient provision so that any scheme
being considered by the IPC would have to be handled through the IPC,
and you could not make another application while that process was under
way.
Q
62
Tom
Brake:
Would it be fair to say that the
industry view is that birds, flora and fauna, and the environment
generally, get in the way of port
development?
Richard
Everitt:
Unequivocally not. We work in some of the
most sensitive coastal environments in the United Kingdom. Huge amounts
of work and effort are put into balancing the need to expand ports with
protecting some of the most sensitive sites in Europe. Andrew, you have
had a lot of experience of that in Felixstowe, as I have in
London.
Andrew
Harston:
In terms of the habitat
site relating to our application for the Bathside Bay
development—which is also known as Harwich International Port
Container Terminal, and which was an application made under overriding
public interest—we found that by engaging positively with the
agencies, and particularly the non-governmental ones such as the Royal
Society for the Protection of Birds, we were able to work very
constructively with the birds’ interests, as well as those of
the rest of the flora and fauna, in identifying what we could do in
terms of compensatory habitat. I would rather refer to it as part of
the process that one has to go through in developing a port, and one in
which the agencies and English Nature—and we ourselves as port
developers—would acknowledge that the game has changed very much
over the last five years, with the major schemes advanced by Associated
British Ports in Dibden, ourselves in Bathside and Felixstowe, and the
then P&O scheme in London Gateway. We have reached an accommodation
in how those interests worked together to provide beneficial gain for
the
future.
Ken
Bell:
Could I add to that? The RSPB has stated
publicly, quite recently, that it commends the UK
port industry for, frankly, having got its act together on this and
actually working with them to ensure an acceptable solution for all
concerned. The RSPB is commending the UK ports industry as a model for
how this should be done.
Q
63
Tom
Brake:
Is your reading of the Bill that the safeguards in
terms of sustainability, as they apply either to the national policy
statement or the IPC, are just as strong as the safeguards in existing
planning legislation?
Richard
Everitt:
Yes, certainly, because a lot of this is
now driven by European legislation—the
habitats directive, the birds directive—and they are as
applicable under
this regime as under any other, and we do not see any watering-down of
that. We will have to satisfy the same criteria as we have had to
satisfy until now, hopefully within a more streamlined
process.
Q
64
Robert
Neill:
To join together the threads of your helpful
submission, gentlemen, it seems to me that what you are seeking is,
first, greater speed, for the reasons that you set out; secondly,
greater integration of the single consent regime with the other
strategies; and, thirdly, greater clarity in terms of the operation.
That seems to be it, in a nutshell. I am interested that you look at
the delays from that point of view. I suspect that your experience has
been how the proliferation of issues can sometimes make an inquiry run
on, create repetition and cause delay after the hearing. That is your
most striking
point.
Richard
Everitt:
Indeed. In the case of London
Gateway, for example, it took nearly four years to come to a decision.
Andrew’s experience at Felixstowe South, which is a pretty
simple development, is that it has become dependent upon other
applications, as has Bathside Bay. Resolving those issues will very
much depend on the capability of the IPC to get the applications
process to a very high level of consistency between the various issues
before they go into the inquiry. At the moment we seem to have a
sequential approach. Somehow or other we have to get an approach in
which everything is brought together.
Q
65
Robert
Neill:
The other thing you flag up in paragraph 11 is the
example of how that is being done by adapting existing structures, but
in the High Court, particularly in relation to commercial litigation,
there is much tighter judge-management of the cases, binding
preliminary decisions, binding time frames and penalties in terms of
costs for going beyond
them.
Richard
Everitt:
If you don’t meet your
deadline there is a penalty.
Q
66
Robert
Neill:
Exactly. There are binding decisions at the
beginning as to what the relevant issues are. Therefore, you simply
rule out repetitious cross-examination if that issue has already been
ventilated or if it is
irrelevant.
Richard
Everitt:
I flew this idea because it seemed to me to
have some resonance from my experience in another field of planning
inquiries that an IPC-type body has a real management function to get
the thing into shape so that decent decisions can be taken and the
wider population has an opportunity to give their views on the totality
of what is being proposed.
Q
67
Robert
Neill:
Then you still have the parties able to
cross-examine and so on, but they are strictly controlled as to what
they do; that is the essence of it.
Andrew
Harston:
The current lack of certainty about the
overall timetable means that very large parts of the UK port industry
are now owned by non-UK parent companies, which sounds very similar to
the arguments we heard earlier in respect of energy. One of the
problems we have had with our own shareholders is that Hutchison Port
Holdings operates globally in the
same way as Dubai Ports, the company that purchased
P&O, and it is making investment decisions all around the world. As
Richard pointed out, we are the end of a global supply chain, which in
large part starts in the far east, where these organisations are able
to deliver large port complexes and other transport businesses with
much shorter time frames but, importantly, a high degree of certainty
about what the time frame is. It has been very difficult under the
current process.
We
appreciate that the Government were trying to decide on a number of
broadly competing applications for deep-sea container ports from three
separate companies. However, it is very difficult to continue to
justify to a non-UK shareholder that you cannot get any indication of
when a decision might be taken on whether you can go ahead. Frankly, it
does not matter whether the answer is yes or no. It is about the
certainty in being able to plan and to plan within a global treasury
operation, where you are seeking funds to develop on a global basis.
The danger is that we will get left
behind.
Q
68
Mrs.
Ellman:
You state in your written
submission that national policy statements should be integrated into
regional spatial strategies and local development plans. Will you say
how important you think that is? Do you have any ideas about how it
could be
done?
Richard
Everitt:
We think that it is very important because
if Government and Parliament—because Parliament is heavily
involved in that process—decide that national infrastructure
should be created or developed in a particular way, it is important
that that is translated down to the regional and local levels. Ports,
by their nature, are big employers and big sources of economic
activity. They are dependent, as far as terrestrial planning is
concerned, on road and rail, hence the reason that we asked that the
NPS for those two modes should take full account of ports. However,
there are many other
issues.
I am not as
well versed as perhaps I ought to be on how the parameters for regional
spatial strategies and local planning frameworks are handed down from
Government, but there needs to be a mechanism that ensures that it is
joined up. Otherwise, we will get a situation in which there is a
national policy that we should do certain things, which is frustrated
at a regional or local
level.
Q
69
Mrs.
Ellman:
You also referred to the
criteria on designating nationally significant infrastructure projects.
You referred to clause 20. Are there any other areas of the Bill where
the definitions impede the
objectives?
Richard
Everitt:
We felt, as an industry, that the thresholds
were quite high for us. In our submission, we asked for some clarity
between new ports and extensions to ports. That did not come through
very clearly in clause 20 and needs to be looked at to ensure that the
objective is stated clearly on extensions. Normally, in container port
development one talks about containers, but we should also talk about
energy because ports are important in terms of energy importation.
There needs to be some clarity on what is major infrastructure as far
as extensions are concerned. There are a number of small, detailed
points on the Bill that Ken wished to raise. This
might be an appropriate time to do so.
Ken
Bell:
In addition to the point that Richard is making
about clarity and whether this measure relates to the extension or the
totality is the question of the thresholds themselves, which seem
extremely high for ports. We would suggest rather lower
figures.
The two
additional points that I would like to mention relate to general
permitted development rights with regard to statutory undertakings.
First, having taken legal advice on this matter, there is an opinion
that an effect of the Bill, which we suspect is unintended, will remove
those rights when an application is made to the commission. That does
not seem to make any great sense. We suspect that it is unintended and
we ask that the relevant wording in clause 27 be examined so that
confirmation can be given that there is no intent to remove general
permitted development order powers from
ports.
My second point
relates to the compulsory purchase provisions in the Bill, again with
respect to statutory undertakers. The decision-making process appears
to be broadly similar to what now exists: the Secretary of State would
review that and its consequences. However, the Bill is silent about the
process that would follow. This is quite an important issue for ports
and other statutory bodies. If we could have clarification on the
process it would be appreciated. It would be helpful to know whether
the intention is to replicate the system that now prevails. At the
moment we are unclear about how this would
work.
Q
70
James
Duddridge:
Given that you are looking to change the
threshold and clear up the ambiguity about construction and extension
which you described, could you give us some perspective? As a layman,
it is difficult to understand how many ports over the next 10 years
will have to go through a process as a national infrastructure project
under current Government proposals and how many would go through that
process under your reduced criteria.
12.45
pm
Richard
Everitt:
I looked at this essentially
from the perspective of what sort of throughput there would be for a
berth, whether a ro-ro berth, a container berth, or a facility to
handle general cargo which could be coal or gas. As you can see from
paragraph 3 of our submission, we have proposed that it would be
250,000 TEU, which is 20 ft equivalent units of containers—sorry
for using jargon—or 150,000 units for ro-ro. When you think
about the next 10 years and what we would be likely to see, ro-ro is
projected to more than double in the next 20 years and we could
certainly expect two or three applications on the ro-ro front, if not
more.
Q
71
James
Duddridge:
For clarity’s sake, is that new
applications for new ports or applications for extensions on existing
ports?
Richard
Everitt:
It would almost certainly be
for extensions on existing ports. It would be quite rare to see new
applications for new ports. At the moment the nearest new port,
although it might say that it is an extension, would be Yarmouth, which
is a big change of port. We would be very surprised if there were new
port applications. It would be essentially new
infrastructure
at existing ports. On containers, there are a number of consents to be
implemented which will probably carry us through for a number of years.
We may see one or two in the next 10 years.
Andrew
Harston:
I think that part of your original question
was to try to get some sense of scale. In terms of a national policy
statement—and I am looking at Jim Fitzpatrick—the
Department has taken some initiative in the ports policy review to look
at long-term forecasts to 2030 for a variety of imported and exported
goods through the UK. My primary interest is the container port
business. That is what Hutchison does in the UK. The independent
forecasts that the Department for Transport has commissioned from MDS
Transmodal look at about 250,000 TEUs, which is about 80,000 additional
containers every year, or 4.3 per cent. long-term growth from now to
2030.
In essence, and
in very practical terms, that is 500 more containers coming into the UK
every day of every year until 2030. Those 500 containers in
practice—250,000 TEUs annualised—are roughly what Richard
describes as one berth. In a linear sense, if it was possible to do
that, you would add an extra berth to existing UK container capacity
every year until 2030. The two schemes for which we have consents in
Felixstowe and Harwich provide for up to eight berths. You could say
that that is eight years’ worth of stored consent capacity when
we can fulfil all our remaining consents and are able to start
constructing them.
To
pick up the point that Mr. Bell raised earlier, and to give
some context, we received final consent for Felixstowe on 1 February
2006. I have no idea what the time frame is for getting those consents
in order to start the construction, despite the fact that everything
else has been dealt
with.
Q
72
James
Duddridge:
May I just probe that? As someone from
Southend, ports are particularly interesting to me. Is it possible that
the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs will not give
you those consents and say that, for ecological reasons, it is
inappropriate for it to go ahead, full
stop?
Andrew
Harston:
It would be a surprise, to the extent that
the public inquiry process to date is the best thing that we can
consider as a mini-IPC, because of the public scrutiny and hearings
that took place and the agreements that were reached. Frankly, I do not
know the answer, because it has been very difficult to engage with
DEFRA in dialogue. However, there is the question of scale: there will
be 250,000 TEUs and 500 containers a day. On roll-on/roll-off, which is
trailer traffic that goes on and off ferries, principally to the EU,
which as we know, is our greatest trading partner, there will be more
than 100 per cent. growth in the same time
frame.
Ken
Bell:
I have a supplementary point on scale. If the
thresholds for electricity were applied pro rata to the ports industry,
there would be port developments of some 5,000 to 10,000 tonnes. The
thresholds for electricity are extremely low and a tiny proportion of
the entire capacity will be represented by one scheme. Ports are
completely at the other end of the spectrum, so it seems that there is
a complete disparity between how thresholds have been chosen for the
ports industry and how they have been chosen for other sectors,
particularly
electricity.
The
Chairman:
Order. I will come back to the hon. Member for
Rochford and Southend, East, when everybody who wants to have a go has
done so. I know that others want to ask
supplementaries.
Q
73
Jim
Sheridan:
Gentlemen, in your submission you make no
mention of the growing concerns of local communities who live in and
around ports, or of environmental agencies, about the potential for a
disaster with the ship-to-ship transfer of oil. I know that
representations have been made by many parliamentarians on that. Do you
not agree with the environmental groups and local communities that the
Bill would be an ideal opportunity to address the concerns about a
potential environmental disaster should a ship-to-ship transfer go
wrong?
Richard
Everitt:
With respect, I do not think that this is
the right Bill to deal with that issue, which is comprehensively
regulated through the harbour authorities. I know that there are
concerns, and they are being addressed, but I do not think that this
would be the right Bill to do
it.
Richard
Everitt:
It is not fundamentally a planning issue. It
is an environmental issue and one that is regulated. The debate is
whether people are satisfied with the degree of regulation or how
regulation
works.
Q
75
Jim
Sheridan:
Up to now, you have mentioned container ships
and other types of ships that come into port, but you have not
mentioned the oil ships that come into ports. There is a major problem
there, and it is an issue that is affecting local communities living in
and around ports throughout the
UK.
Richard
Everitt:
Indeed. My port is a major importer of oil,
and we have comprehensive plans in
place.
Richard
Everitt:
Well, the adequacy of those plans is open to
scrutiny by all sorts of agencies, not least the Maritime and
Coastguard Agency. They are tested plans, not just plans that sit on
paper. We have boats on the water with crews standing by to operate
them, and our record on how frequently they are deployed is published.
I am pleased to say that they are deployed very infrequently, and
normally on minor issues. There is a comprehensive scheme in place. I
agree that, helping people to understand the processes that are in
place is important in addressing the concerns that people continue to
express, but I am not sure that the Bill could properly address the
issue, because it is about planning new
developments.
Q
77
James
Duddridge:
Yes, I just I wanted to probe Mr.
Bell further on how he would like clause 20 to be amended in relation
to construction and extension. I am not sure whether it is ambiguous,
or whether it is clear. However, I suspect that it does not make sense
to
you and that that the legislation is flawed. What would you like
Government Ministers to go away and look at and what form of wording
would be more helpful to
you?
Ken
Bell:
To the extent that the IPC is considering port
developments, our assumption is that the capacity being measured is the
development. We suggest that the current wording is unclear and can be
read both ways. First, we need clarity on what the words mean. Our
assumption is that the intent, as with airports, is to refer to the
capacity of the extension, not that of the pre-existing port including
the
extension.
Ken
Bell:
The first absolute need is clarity: at the
moment the words are not clear and therefore we suggest that they be
revisited.
Richard
Everitt:
Our concern was, to put it in simple terms,
that if we had a port handling 500,000 TEU and applied for a 100,000
TEU extension, common sense says that 100,000 TEU would not be
considered a nationally important infrastructure. However, the port as
built would be 600,000 TEU, so does that bring it in? I do not think
that that was the intention. Perhaps that is just my lack of
understanding of how the provision is drafted, but it should be
compared to clause 19(3), which relates to airports and says clearly
that if you bring 10 million passengers in or your extension brings 10
million passengers in, it is considered nationally
important.
James
Duddridge:
I am sure that the Committee will want to seek
that clarity on your behalf later in the
process.
Q
79
Paul
Clark:
I know what you are saying is sufficient about the
community infrastructure levy and accept what you are saying, to a
certain extent, about the major benefits that you bring—and will
continue to bring—to local communities in a raft of ways. In
relation to clause 20, its implications and the numbers that you are
talking about, when you say that the community infrastructure levy
should not apply to port developments, does that refer to not only the
new ports, but to extensions
also?
Richard
Everitt:
Indeed.
Q
80
Paul
Clark:
I can think of an example where a port
wants to extend its operation, and the local
community and businesses clearly want to see it develop for all the
good reasons that you have pointed out, but the development of that
port may be hampered by the need to find the money to develop road or
rail links. If you
were involved in the community infrastructure levy, however, would not
that help to speed forward what you and all the local community want? I
suspect that Joe Bloggs, living on the edge of the road, does not
necessarily see the benefits of a port expansion because of lorries
trundling down a small, minor
road.
Richard
Everitt:
You will not be surprised to
hear that that has been quite a big issue in relation to the port
applications that have been going through recently. My
organisation’s view on the degree to which contributions should
be made for the provision of infrastructure is that it is perhaps right
to fund a road running down to a port off a main road. However, trying
to sort the rail system out in Peterborough for a London or Felixstowe
operation should be dealt with nationally, not least because you cannot
see the direct benefit and secure your train paths against your
investment. I think that is right,
Andrew.
Andrew
Harston:
To put it more simply, my concern from a
developer’s perspective is that you would not want to pay twice.
For instance, we are currently funding railway improvements, as Richard
suggested, as far afield as Doncaster, having agreed with the then
Strategic Rail Authority that that was necessary to deal with the wider
impact of the developments at Felixstowe and Harwich. However, that
quite clearly relates to the wider national railway network at a time
when applicants for other, similarly sized schemes are not making any
contribution at all to the railway network. From our point of view,
provided there was consistency and the measure applied in such a way
that you paid only once, we would be happy to look at either
approach.
Our concern
is that we do not yet understand what agreements we would still be
required to reach before an application went to the IPC, and therefore
to what extent a developer might still be required to enter into
section 106 agreements to fund elements of infrastructure and to fund
the CIL as well. Frankly, if it were clear what was being paid
for—it must be one or the other—I would be indifferent.
The opportunity for that cost, for much of the road and rail network,
to be distributed over many of the beneficiaries, as widely as
possible, would be
welcome.
The
Chairman:
Order. I am afraid that time is up.
Mr. Everitt, may I thank you and your colleagues,
Mr. Bell and Mr. Harston, for giving evidence
this morning? It has been interesting and helpful for us. I remind the
Committee that we will resume at 4 o’clock in this room. In the
meantime, the room will be locked so you may leave your papers
here.
It being One
o’clock,
The Chairman
adjourned
the Committee without Question put, pursuant to the Standing
Order.
Adjourned
till this day at
Four
o’clock.
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