 House of Commons |
Session 2007 - 08 Publications on the internet General Committee Debates Planning Bill |
Planning Bill |
The Committee consisted of the following Members:Alan Sandall,
Committee Clerk
† attended
the
Committee
WitnessesPhil
Jones, President, Energy Networks
Association
David Smith, Acting
Chief Executive, Energy Networks
Association
Neil Sinden, Policy
Director, Campaign to Protect Rural
England
Paul Miner, Planning
Campaigner, Campaign to Protect Rural
England
Rt Hon John Healey MP,
Minister for Local Government, Department for Communities and Local
Government
Rt Hon Yvette Cooper MP,
Minister for Housing
, Department for Communities and Local
Government
Bernadette Kelly,
Executive
Director of Planning, Department for Communities
and Local Government
Ian Scotter,
Head of Planning
Reform Team
, Department for
Communities and Local
Government
Miles
Gibson, Deputy Director for Economic and Social
Policy
, Department for Communities and Local
Government
Public Bill CommitteeThursday 10 January 2008(Afternoon)[Sir John Butterfill in the Chair]Planning Bill1
pm
The
Committee deliberated in
private.
1.3
pm
On
resuming—
The
Chairman:
Good afternoon, ladies and
gentlemen. Could I make an announcement about mobile phones? Would you
please turn any mobile phones off? It is not sufficient to leave them
on silent because even on silent they interfere with the sound system
in this room. Could everyone therefore ensure that their mobile phones
are turned off during this
sitting?
I
am very pleased to welcome Philip Jones and his colleague David Smith
from the Energy Networks Association. Do you have any opening statement
that you would like to make briefly or shall we proceed directly to
questions?
David
Smith:
I am David Smith, the acting chief executive
of the Energy Networks Association. With me this afternoon is Phil
Jones, who is the president and chief operating officer of CE Electric,
which covers the north-east of England and Yorkshire. We are delighted
to be here to talk about the Planning Bill. I will take questions
first, if that is okay, and then Phil will pick up on specific
points.
Q
274274
Mrs.
Jacqui Lait (Beckenham) (Con): Welcome. I hope that you
are pleased about the Government’s announcement earlier today on
nuclear power. That will keep your industry going for some time to
come. I do not know whether you have seen the statement, but it says
that the Government will be inviting energy companies to put forward
proposals for new power stations. This obviously affects your
association. I wonder what you think about the policy statement
process. We will keep the infrastructure planning commission out of it
for the moment, but what, from your point of view, should be in the
national policy
statements?
David
Smith:
I have not seen the announcement, so apologies
for
that.
David
Smith:
I think the interesting thing is that nuclear
and wind will be quite remote, so there is some need, not only for us
to build new, but for network reinforcements, and we will need to look
at that.
The national
policy statement on planning must have some legitimacy through a wide,
deep democratic process, which may take a long time, and we are quite
comfortable with that. However, we must ensure that they are agreed to
the widest legitimacy and that they will go into the right levels of
detail to aid the IPC in its decision-making process. Investment now,
looking at it very carefully, will save time later and prevent the need
for amendment by the Minister at a future
stage.
Phil
Jones:
From the point of view of a company like my
own—I should stress that it is pretty much exclusively a network
organisation; we move other people’s power around for them to
the good people who want to use it—the acid test of the policy
statement would be to ask if it is able to change the proposal that
people would make. I used to do that kind of work in the organisation,
planning and laying-out of networks.
The test at
the drafting and consultation stages is whether it gives guidance on
what are effectively the network planner’s key choices. We are
fairly old technology—there is nothing brand new about the kind
of assets that we put in place—so the straight question about
whether or not we should be there has pretty much already been
answered. Until we find a way to broadcast power without some kind of
physical infrastructure something will have to be there. The questions
are not so much, “Shall we have it or shan’t
we?”—if there is a requirement for power we shall have to
be there in some form—but about overhead or underground. Policy
guidance on where those kind of things are acceptable and where they
are not would substantially aid the process. By way of illustration, we
are running a fairly complicated process at the moment with our
colleagues at National Grid. That is just an example, but it is
probably the best example I can think of.
We did
detailed planning on well over 40 different scenarios for a particular
route to a particular site, which is the kind of guidance that we would
expect from a national policy statement, for example. It would help us
say, “Don’t bother with nos. 37 and 42. They are
no-hopers because the policy statement is quite clear.” What we
do not want is something that says, “It needs to be very
carefully considered,” because I like to think that we always do
that. To the extent that it can influence the choices made by the
planners, that will be the acid
test.
May
I tell you what I think they should say? As I said, we are quite
neutral as an organisation. Lots of our assets are above ground and
lots are below ground; some of it is a long way from the sub-station
and some is close. As a generality, we are indifferent to those
choices. Guiding the choices in practice would be my observation. I
hope that does not seem as if I am evading the question; I am trying to
answer it effectively.
Q
275
Mrs.
Lait:
I draw from that that you would like to know from
the national policy statement the precise locations of the power
stations so that you would know the points that you are connecting. In
the jargon that we are using, you want a location-specific
policy.
Phil
Jones:
Yes, if it was in a policy
statement about power stations it would definitely help. I apologise if
it is stating the obvious, but to companies like ours, the fact that
there has been an announcement today that a certain type of technology
will be encouraged is neither
here nor there. It could be any type of technology that requires a
connection; we would still have to put the same kind of assets in
place, it just depends on its capacity.
Location is
definitely a key issue and so is proximity to other development. For
example, it makes a big difference to us how close is it to where
people live and how close it will be to the users of the network. If
you are talking about a national policy statement for something other
than the stations themselves—perhaps for the kind of assets that
we put in the ground—more specific guidance would be, “We
do not like it in these circumstances, but do under those.”
Basically, changing the decision of the planner would be the acid test,
and I think that is what to look out
for.
Q
276
Mrs.
Lait:
Have you considered that, if it was a
location-specific statement, it is the equivalent of giving planning
permission in principle without having consulted the local community,
and hence there is the potential for conflict between the development
and the local
community?
Phil
Jones:
We have considered it from a point of view
that is much more self-interested for the kind of business that we are,
as I guess you would expect. I do not think that a policy statement
would in any way amount to that for us. Leaving aside for a moment
whether it is true that the power stations will go there, with regard
to the infrastructure assets, which is what I am qualified to speak
about, I do not think that it would amount to that.
If a policy
statement said, “We are going to put a power station
there,” we would look for some common sense that said,
“By the way, all that goes with it, subject to it going through
the proper process, also now needs to be tested.” Right now, I
have schemes running in Yorkshire and the north-east for which
permission has already been granted for the site-specific location, as
you would describe it, but the debate about whether there can be a line
to connect it is completely and utterly separate. That is the kind of
scenario we face in reality and do not want, as schemes can be paused
for 10 or 15 years—I have one that has been running longer than
I have been in the industry—because we cannot get permission for
a line to something that is already permitted as the development
itself.
Imagine the
situation where we can have all of those power stations ready to go
now. That might be excellent, but it carries no weight whatsoever in
whether the local infrastructure company can proceed, and from what I
have gathered about the statements I have read in the papers this week,
I do not think that they will be troubling us to put too many wires to
those nuclear power stations. Imagine if whoever has to do the
application can in absolutely no way whatsoever try to get some wires
to the place. You will end up with some power stations, but they will
be of absolutely no use to
anyone.
Q
277
Tom
Brake (Carshalton and Wallington) (LD): I shall come on to
the issue of infrastructure planning permission and accountability. In
your submission you mentioned how, in relation to the IPC, the
legitimate needs and concerns of local communities must be a central
consideration and that they must be effectively consulted before an
application is made. I just wonder
whether you have any views about consultation at the stage when the IPC
is actually considering an application, and particularly relating to
cross-examination.
David
Smith:
We are of the view that community engagement
will be enhanced under the IPC. The vital role of pre-application
consultation, combined with a more holistic consent process, will
ensure better-informed and, indeed, more empowered stakeholders who can
communicate with each other more effectively than is probably the case
currently.
Q
278
Tom
Brake:
It was not so much the pre-application stage that I
was worried about. You have identified that it is important that the
needs and concerns of local communities are a central consideration for
the IPC, but if the Bill goes ahead, the IPC will not allow local
communities to cross-examine, for instance. Do you still feel that the
needs and concerns of local communities will be a central consideration
for the
IPC?
Phil
Jones:
My company and I do not feel particularly
strongly about where that comes in the technical process of the IPC. As
far as I am concerned, it can do it when it likes. What we favour very
strongly about the whole concept of the planning commission is that, in
scenarios not dissimilar to that which I described a few moments ago,
it puts us in a situation where we would be engaging with a set of
people who would probably be quite well qualified to have those kind of
discussions. Certainly, after working at it for a while, they would
become increasingly proficient in the difficult trade-offs and dilemmas
that have to be faced when questions are being asked, such as,
“Where shall we put the assets that people do not think are too
pretty?”
1.15
pm
From
our point of view, I do not think it holds any positive prospects for
us, in the sense that there is more, or less, cross-examination. What
we like about it is the measure of consistency and the opportunity to
go to a place that is proficient, expert, well resourced and set up to
do that kind of thing, and it will debate till the cows come home. Then
we would be told in one place, by people who know what they are talking
about, that we have brought a bad proposal, and to go away and come
back with something different. I do not profess to be an expert in
whether that is appropriate or otherwise, or whether it is feasible and
practical to allow that kind of cross-examination, but I certainly do
not mind it. They can do it whenever is most appropriate.
We would like
to be able to put our hand on our heart and say, “This makes us
more accountable, not less.” We are not trying to move the
debate into a smoke-filled room somewhere, where it is done behind
closed doors and nobody has a say. Just bring the debate on in one
place, so that we do not have to go to six different planning
authorities for different aspects of the same scheme. If somebody wants
a connection, and if it is in the national interest, and it brings with
it a whole host—maybe many miles—of overhead lines,
cables, substations and lots of other works, let us put it all on the
table, and let everybody who is interested in any part of it come and
challenge us. They can cross-examine us, or do it however they wish, in
our view.
Q
279
Tom
Brake:
Have you, as an industry, assessed what was implied
by one of our earlier witnesses: that if the IPC, for instance, goes
ahead in the form set out in the Bill and does not allow
cross-examination, there may be scope for significant civil unrest?
Have you, as an industry, considered the implications of that, and what
it might mean in terms of the time scales, for instance, for delivering
some of your
projects?
David
Smith:
I do not think we have considered it in such
fine detail. Certainly, the fine detail of the inquisitorial rather
than the adversarial approach will need to be sorted out. I believe
there are some amendments down to consider allowing a single barrister
within each IPC. It is difficult for us to say. If you can go through
and have people who are professional—and you need a networked
person on the IPC—who understand the issues, and are able to sit
there and have a discussion rather than a legalistic bouncing backwards
and forwards in an adversarial role, that seems to us to be more
appropriate.
Q
280
James
Duddridge (Rochford and Southend, East) (Con):
The Local Government Association expressed support for the Bill on
the condition that the number of nationally significant infrastructure
projects was going to be in single figures. In the energy sector, how
many do you believe there will be each
year?
Phil
Jones:
More than single figures. I would not like to
pin myself to a number. I think we would be happy to be more precise of
that outside of here, but I can see what they are driving at. Quite
frankly, we drive in entirely the opposite direction. Our agenda, as
the network—the Cinderella part of the organisation, as we like
to complain to everybody—is that everybody always forgets about
this kind of thing. I can think of an offshore wind farm we are
considering a connection for. It is not our wind farm, but we are
considering the connection for it right now. The sub-station that we
are working on is 15 miles, I think, from where the thing would come on
shore. We would say: what is the point taking, in this case, the
IPC’s time and trouble to look at the development itself, and
maybe the overhead line that connects it? We would want to lump
everything in, as I have said, and all that goes with it. Right now, we
have three or four of those being considered at any one time. We cover,
say, a fifth to a sixth of the UK land mass. There are going to be 20
or 40—not 100, I would have thought, but not single
figures.
James
Duddridge:
The figure the Local Government Association was
quoting meant overall, not just in the sector. That is well out of
kilter with what they think is
acceptable.
Phi
l
Jones:
This is on existing arrangements, by the way.
This is before you start pursing the kind of climate change objectives
that have been kicked around in the past 12 months. “When we say
20 per cent. did we mean electrical energy?” “No, we
meant all energy.” “Oh, better stick to it, then.”
That kind of thing. That is a massive change that is being talked about
now. Against that backdrop, I would not like to hazard a guess or stake
my professional reputation, at this point, on how many nationally
significant developments there would be. I can see the concern that
they would not want people like us trying to flash everything through
as being nationally significant, and therefore, perhaps, you
get back into the kind of guidance that is given, whether in the
national policy statements or otherwise, as to what is nationally
significant and what is not. Again, I would sound a real note of
caution: “joined-up” is a phrase that is used often about
government. Our assets are physically joined up. That is the whole
point of them. In this whole scheme of things, essential components of
a piece of infrastructure development are joined up. I do not know of
any developments that get held up because of planning where all of it
is a problem. It is nearly always one piece of the development that is
a problem. I can think of one scheme right now that has been delayed
for well north of 15 years and only 25 per cent. of the line that is
required is under contest. The local authorities and local communities
are happy with the other three quarters. I am not saying that that is
wrong—the individual who is objecting has a right to do
so—but years and years can drag by, not because the whole thing
is being questioned but one piece of it. We would just like the whole
thing settled; we think that the right thing is to get on and build the
infrastructure. The individual is never going to be happy with
it.
Q
281
James
Duddridge:
Can I put it to you that, in some cases, when 1
per cent. is not agreed, perhaps the whole thing is not appropriate? It
is not simply a numbers game. Theoretically, if only 1 per cent. was
objected to, it is quite possible that the project should not go ahead.
When we look at these things on a more regional basis rather than
looking at them from a local authority perspective, you are moving the
decision-making process further away—literally—from those
who know about the area and know about that 1 per cent.
Phil
Jones:
Yes. So far as we have been able to tell, one
of the big question marks for us about the Bill as drafted is what
would be attached to any given proposal. Let us say that we are talking
about the scenario that I have described, where the thing at the end is
clearly material. Our question as a network company is whether you will
include all the things that go with it. I do not mean that you should
give us open season on anything in that particular set of postcodes to
do whatever we want, but you should put us through a process that can
be validated externally, which says, “Is this or is this not the
marginal infrastructure that is required to put this in place?”
By the way, the person who is developing the nationally significant
asset has an interest in making sure that we are not doing that,
because generally speaking they will be paying for those connection
assets. The honest truth is that I think that it will be a bigger
number than those people who are lobbying you, for sure, if we want to
hit the type of targets that we are talking about. It is just time for
some hard
choices.
Q
282
Mr.
Clive Betts (Sheffield, Attercliffe) (Lab): There are two
issues that I would like to explore with you. The first is the national
policy statements, which you say that you have generally supported. But
you have put in your evidence to us at the top of page
2:
“However the
interrelationship between them and the hierarchy of the existing suite
of planning policies, statements and guidance must be addressed if they
are to be
effective.”
In
saying that, are you basically concurring with what the Royal Town
Planning Institute said to us yesterday? Their representatives said
that the planning policy
statements that exist and development plans, which already exist in many
cases or are being developed, should also be relevant considerations
for the commission when it comes to look at particular applications,
and that we must sort out how consideration is given to what, in some
cases, could be slightly contradictory guidance from the various
statements
involved.
Phil
Jones:
I neither wrote the letter nor made the
statement, so I cannot be certain what was in the minds of the people
who said what they said to you yesterday, but it sounds that way to me,
yes. It just needs to all make sense; that is what we are saying. There
are some existing frameworks that we know would stay in place; this is
not going to supersede everything that is to do with planning. We just
want to take care to make sure that those things are not at odds with
each
other.
Q
283
Mr.
Betts:
Can I come on to the community
infrastructure levy? With any proposal to collect money, some
organisations will be against it. In this case, most organisations do
not appear to be absolutely against it. One or two, such as yours, are
saying, “Actually, it is quite a good idea, as long as it does
not apply to us”.
There are two
reasons that you advance as to why you should be exempt from the levy.
The first is that you pay through section 106 arrangements anyway, but
that is true of all developers and the interrelationship between
section 106 and the levy is one of the issues that we have explored.
Secondly, it is argued that there will not be any uplift in value on
your sites generally and therefore, because the levy is about capturing
some of that uplift in value for the public purse, you should be exempt
from it.
However, is
it not the case that there will be many types of development, not just
energy developments, where there may not be an uplift in value but they
will still have the levy applied to them? As an industry, why should
you be exempt, given that we will have applications from the transport
industry, the minerals industry and lots of other people who would want
to advance a similar case?
Phil
Jones:
Our position is as you reflect it; it is that
we look and say, “If everybody was like us, would there be such
a thing?” I take your point that it is not clear-cut; we are not
the minor exception and everybody else over here is making out.
However, I would say that “never” is only just too
strong; we hardly ever, if ever, harvest any of the benefits that you
rightly describe in the levy as seeking to put back into the public
purse. It does not accrue to us.
Generally
speaking, we reduce the value of land and I facetiously said to
colleagues, “Hey, if this thing is symmetrical and we can have a
pay-out every time of a share of the diminution that we have created, I
guess we would be in favour.” I say that because if you put an
overhead line right across some land, it does not generally increase
the value of property in that area. Generally speaking, we end up
settling claims because of a diminution. The value that is released is
in the hotel, the retail development or whatever industrial site we are
enabling by our network assets. We have a hard time seeing how we would
ever be in pay-out mode for our
assets.
Q
284
Mr.
Betts:
I know that there is a problem because of the use
of the word “valuing” in clause 163, which people latch
on to. When we talked to the Local
Government Association and to others yesterday, we heard that the
intention for the levy is that it will be developed as part of the
local development framework, which gives the development plan for the
area. That will look at the infrastructure needs that go with the
development and will lead on to how some of that infrastructure will be
funded through a levy. There is then a process of allocating that levy
across the various developments involved. Surely, there is no doubt
that your sort of developments will create infrastructure costs in an
area, so is it not reasonable that you should pay a contribution
towards
them?
David
Smith:
We already contribute through section 106
agreements, as you rightly
said.
David
Smith:
The other way that we pay is through
arrangements by which we pay wayleaves where our assets cross land,
which are predominantly paid to local community farmers. That has been
a feature of our industry for several decades. We believe that the
bureaucracy will cause more of a problem because we will have to get
people in to deal with it. There are very few occasions on which we
believe that any benefits will come back to us. Strengthen section 106
and carry on using the wayleaves; we believe that that would be a more
appropriate way of doing
this.
Q
285
Mr.
Elfyn Llwyd (Meirionnydd Nant Conwy) (PC): Do you have a
standard pre-application consultation
procedure?
Phil
Jones:
Do you mean does the industry have
that?
Phil
Jones:
The answer to your question is no. At the
level to which it is currently standard, you would say that it is not
standard. I could say political things such as that our standard is
that it is always carefully considered, that it always involves the
right people and that we always ask the right questions. However, the
honest answer is, no, we bespoke it to the situation. If we think that
it is a straightforward industrial brownfield development site, we
might not need to engage in any—never mind very
much—consultation. If we are undergrounding overhead lines in
the Yorkshire dales, for example, and are consulting the Association of
National Park Authorities, Friends of the Lake District and all of the
people who have pushed very hard for funding for such things, that will
be a much longer and drawn-out process. We have to consult with them
about where the vans will park when we arrive on site and so
forth.
Generally
speaking, we bespoke the consultation to the project. Do I think that
this is something about which the industry can learn lessons going
forward? Yes, for sure. It will have to over the next 30 or 40 years.
For example, the electricity industry has probably got something to
learn from the water industry, which makes a bigger impact when it
arrives in a community wanting to do a big piece of work. The answer is
no, we do not have a standard consultation
period.
Q
286
Mr.
Llwyd:
Living in a national park myself, I am aware of the
delicacy of the position, whether going below or above ground. Looking
at the Bill, have you had any thoughts on the pre-application
consultation that is
envisaged?
Phil
Jones:
It did not frighten us, if that is the nature
of the question. For my company, it will be a refreshing challenge to
have to go back to first principles and be asked to engage with an
expert body that regularly does this kind of thing. The manner in which
we had dealt with the local community before it had got to that stage
would be a factor in how our considerations proceeded. Because of the
very ad hoc nature of the planning process now—it depends upon
what the scheme is, where it is, how many people will be cut
across—there is not that level of consistency that you have
described. Do I think that we are geared up for it on that scale now? I
should not speak for the industry; I can speak only for my company. At
the moment we handle each scheme on its merits. It will be a positive
challenge for us to become a better organisation. We do not fear it,
but are not ready for it in
full.
Q
287
Mr.
Llwyd:
Earlier on, you said that you would be happy
for decisions to be taken by the IPC because it would be manned by
experts—that was your word. But is it not right that experts do
not always get things right, otherwise there would not be such things
as appeal courts? Looking at the Bill, are you confident that the IPC
will strike the right balance between economic factors, environmental
factors, local considerations and so on? If not, would either of you
like to see any change in the
Bill?
1.30
pm
Ph
il
Jones:
Shall I dive in to answer
that?
David
Smith:
Yes, go ahead. I will follow
up.
Phil
Jones:
No we are not, but that is not trying to
be unduly confrontational. We are not as confident as we would wish to
be, until, for a start, we see how that group is resourced, what levels
of expertise sit there and exactly what kind of process it will go
through. I was asking colleagues about that on the way here. I presume
that it would amount to a similar situation to the one that I am used
to in terms of network
regulation.
If
we sufficiently dislike the “body of experts” that Ofgem
decide on, we can take them to the Competition Commission and,
ultimately, we could go to judicial review. But those are very onerous
routes for us to take as a company, so we would have to be very sure of
our ground. We say that generally, because we can scrutinise the
quality of the work of the organisation that we are dealing with. Until
we are able to look at the IPC—if it is one man and a dog, then
I would say that I would be confident that they would get it wrong lots
of times and, whatever is behind it, decent-sized companies like us
would not have too much trouble overturning some of those decisions if
it is not well
organised.
You
have to look at how our public bodies have had their decisions
overturned. It is generally done on process, on the quality with which
they have consulted, on the type of advice that they have been able to
afford, and the quality of people they have on their teams; if the
decision is not good enough, companies like us—or whoever is on
the other side—get it overturned in the
end. If it is well recognised, if it is carefully thought-through, and
there has been open and transparent consultation so you can see the
rationale as it has been built up, it makes life very difficult for
people in my job who might not like the decision. When the choice is
put on your desk that says, “Do you want to go to the commission
about this?”—in this case, the Competition
Commission—you would only go there if you really think that it
would not get a lot worse for you, because obviously it could do. So,
no, we are not confident. It needs to be resourced and set up
properly.
David
Smith:
The other important point to remember is that
a large number of decisions are taken by the Secretary of State anyway,
under the electricity and gas Acts. The consent team would also move
across, which is a body of expertise. We have been quite clear in our
evidence that people who understand energy infrastructure need to be
involved in this, because we require particularly unique planning
regimes.
Q
288
Robert
Neill (Bromley and Chislehurst) (Con): Gentlemen, you have
just said, “At the moment, there is a control” for all
the reasons that you have just set out to Mr. Llwyd, but is
that not, in reality, precisely because there is an appeal? Exactly the
point you and Mr. Jones are making, Mr. Smith, is
that, because there is an appeal, that is a discipline. You get it
right and you do not go to the commission unless you really must. There
will not be any appeal from the IPC, will there? Who will judge the
experts? Other
experts?
Phil
Jones:
I may be misguided here; I only checked it
yesterday. Is this parallel to the situation that we are dealing with,
where, if we do not like a regulatory settlement, behind that is the
competition
commission?
Robert
Neill:
They say that it is not, Mr. Jones. That
is the point. Apart from the Secretary of State calling something in,
there is no
appeal.
Phil
Jones:
So you would not be able to JR these guys at
all?
Phil
Jones:
That is my point. I realise that it is not
entirely analogous, but the point is that in the end we do actively
consider, “Would we push this decision all the way to judicial
review?”
Robert
Neill:
I am just wondering whether you really think that
that will give you major savings, or does the idea that the only route
is judicial review make life more complicated, do you
think?
Phil
Jones:
I would not have thought so. Maybe I am just
guilty of being comfortable with the framework I am used to working
with.
The
other thing that interests me is that Mr. Smith said that
you must have someone from the industry on there. I understand
why—there must be some expertise in how it works—but the
IPC will also have to take decisions on the balance of benefit versus
impact, which
may involve local impact. Who will be there to represent the people who
are on the receiving end of the local
impact?
David
Smith:
The pre-application consultation, combined
with this holistic consent process will mean that community engagement
will be enhanced,
potentially.
Q
289
Robert
Neill:
Mr. Jones, you do not have a problem
with cross-examination—it is robust enough. Once it is done, if
you have single consent, which is important, you can get on with the
job. That is the key thing for you, is it
not?
Phil
Jones:
Indeed. I think so,
yes.
Q
290
Robert
Neill:
I can understand that side of it. I suppose that
some lawyers would have to be involved, would they not, as the IPC will
have to take decisions on domestic and international law? That is one
of the grounds on which it can depart from a national policy statement.
It makes one wonder how much it will have to expand to include an
expert in
everything.
Phil
Jones:
I will give a personal view—in the
sense that it is a company view, not necessarily an industry one. I
have a hard time imagining that this thing could ever
be—although it is easy to say that it needs to be—staffed
up with all the expertise that it needs. I was careful when I chose my
words. It needs to have access to the expertise that it will need on a
case-by-case basis. In other words, it will have to have a budget to
pay for decent advisers at times, on specific issues. That is what it
will turn on. It will not be, “Do we dislike this entire
process?” It will be “This is stuck because of that
particular support on that line, from that aspect and that
view.” It will have to be specific. You cannot be ready for all
questions with permanent staff; no
way.
Phil
Jones:
Indeed.
David
Smith:
I did make the point early on that it needs to
be high-quality and well
resourced.
Q
291
Jim
Sheridan (Paisley and Renfrewshire, North)
(Lab): In his most recent statement, the Secretary of State
said that the Planning Bill will expedite planning applications more
effectively and efficiently, particularly when it comes to new nuclear
power stations, but he also mentioned what concerns some people who
object to nuclear power—the cost. He said quite
clearly:
“It
will be for energy companies, not Government, to fund, develop and
build new nuclear power stations, including meeting the full costs of
decommissioning and each operator’s full share of waste
management costs”.
Can
you envisage any situation where the taxpayer, not consumers or
businesses, will be asked to pay either directly or indirectly towards
the building of any new nuclear power
station?
Phil
Jones:
I realise that I am the person giving evidence
here, but I suppose that I could ask you that. I would hope that you
would say no. I can see why you might be concerned, but of course I can
envisage it. It is like asking six months ago whether I could envisage
that the taxpayer ever having to shore up a bank that
went bust. I would have said no, but some guy has decided that that is a
good idea. That is not what I am paid to do. I would hope not, but let
us see whether people hold their nerve as and when those situations
arise.
Q
292
Jim
Sheridan:
But do you think that it would be helpful for
the industry to clarify that it will not expect the Government or the
taxpayer to pick up the bill for any new build nuclear power
stations?
Phil
Jones:
I am not qualified to comment on the nuclear
industry. I guess that what I am asking is whether it would be worth
anything when it came to stick and lift. The lawyers would come back
into play again then—“Fifteen years ago, somebody said
that they could assure the taxpayer that they would not be doing
this.” Then, no doubt, there would be some reason why it should
not be changed. I am not in a position to give that assurance, on
nuclear or any other form of technology. We just connect
them.
The
Chairman:
We have two minutes left. Does anybody have
another question for these witnesses? No. In that case, thank you very
much, gentlemen. We are grateful to you. You have been most helpful in
assisting us in our deliberations on the
Bill.
Gentlemen,
thank you very much for coming. Mr. Sinden, would you
introduce your colleague,
please?
Neil
Sinden:
I am Neil Sinden, policy director of the
Campaign to Protect Rural England. On my right is Paul Miner, a senior
planning officer at the Campaign to Protect Rural
England.
Neil
Sinden:
Yes please, Chairman—briefly, if I
may. I should clarify that CPRE has been campaigning and working
jointly as part of the “Making Planning Better” coalition
on the planning White Paper in the Bill. That coalition consists of
environmental organisations that, together, are supported, we estimate,
by more than 5 million people. CPRE considers itself one of the leading
third-party participants in the planning process at all levels through
our local groups, local volunteers, regional groups and national
office.
We firmly
believe that the planning system is a crucial, well-established but
undervalued part of the democratic process. It has a crucial role to
play in delivering sustainable development, and we recognise that
climate change is an important part of that agenda and a huge
challenge. We are deeply concerned, however, that the Bill could lead
to things getting worse in relation climate change, rather than better,
as some may claim. The infrastructure that the Government want to
fast-track through these new procedures includes such things as
airports, major roads, power stations that will run on fossil fuels,
and incinerators. All of those are likely to increase greenhouse gas
emissions. Renewable energy schemes are only one of the kinds of
infrastructure about which the Bill is concerned.
We are also
concerned about the treatment that the Government have given to
responses to the planning White Paper. The vast majority of the
responses that the Government received came from supporters of
coalition
organisations, and we are rather alarmed that, in the report on the
consultation, the Government take a dismissive attitude towards those
public concerns. In places, for example, the White Paper response
document says that there was strong support for some of the proposals
from all groups, “except the public”. In using that form
of words, the Government seem to be dismissing the concerns expressed
by members of the public about elements of the reform
package.
Finally, our
concerns revolve around three key themes. The first is the proposals
for national policy statements. We welcome, in principle, the
recognition of the need for clearer national policies and the
commitment to sustainability appraisal in relation to national policy
statements, but such statements need meaningfully to contribute to
sustainable development and to complement existing planning policy
statements, rather than supersede them. Secondly, we are concerned
about the need for the proposed infrastructure planning commission. A
far better option, we believe, would be to use existing Government
agencies to assist Ministers in making quicker decisions on
infrastructure schemes. Finally, the proposed reforms of public inquiry
procedures do not inspire confidence in ourselves or, we believe, the
public.
Q
293
Mrs.
Lait:
Good afternoon, gentlemen. You talked latterly about
the national policy statements. You were very brief on the subject, and
I just wondered whether you had any views about what they should and
should not encompass. As you may have heard, we have had evidence that
the ENA would like to have all the substations included in them and
others wanted all the ancillary roads included. Would you be looking
for NPSs that went into that level of
detail?
Neil
Sinden:
First, to come back to
the point that I made in my opening remarks, we need to look at the
national policy statements in the context of the existing suite of
planning policy statements. It is important to recognise that we have
more than 20 PPSs, which already set out national policy considerations
on a wide range of issues—not only infrastructure, but issues of
environmental quality, housing delivery and so on. In terms of the
content of national policy statements, we would like to see the
Government using the framework provided by the existing suite of PPSs
and to develop that. As I say, they should be seen as a complement to
existing PPSs, rather than as a substitute for them.
In terms of
the specific issues of content, we believe that national policy
statements in general should address very fully and thoroughly the
question of need in relation to certain kinds of infrastructure. They
should look very carefully at alternative ways of meeting the needs
that are identified in relation to energy supply and so on. As part of
that process, they should look at issues to do with demand
reduction—at ways in which needs and demands can be reduced. In
relation to energy, for example, we would have better promotion of
energy efficiency and so
on.
We
believe that in very few cases, if any, should national policy
statements be site-specific. However, we would draw a distinction
between site specificity and locational specificity. In relation to
sites, we have deep concerns that the national policy statements go too
far down the road of identifying particular sites for particular kinds
of infrastructure. We are slightly less exercised
about national policy statements setting down locational criteria that
should guide decisions on the siting of specific
schemes.
1.45
pm
My
final point on this question is that the national policy statements
should seek to embrace a wide range of considerations and give guidance
to the decision-making body, whoever that may be, on the kind of weight
to be attached to a wide range of economic and environmental
considerations relating to particular forms of infrastructure, rather
than dictating or determining the weight that should be attached to
specific considerations. Fundamentally, we believe that it is very
difficult, if not impossible, to separate considerations of national
policy need from considerations of the impacts that a particular scheme
will have on a particular site. It is vital that the inquiry process,
whatever that may be, is not constrained to the extent that full and
proper consideration cannot be given to those locational and
site-specific
considerations.
Q
294
Mrs.
Lait:
I am grateful to you for that and for bringing up
the consultation process to which an NPS should be subject. Do you have
any more extensive thoughts on how that should be accomplished,
particularly given that, as I understand it, the Government want
Parliament to give final approval to any
statement?
Neil
Sinden:
We are very interested to see what Parliament
decides on the remit and the role of Select Committees in examining
draft national policy statements. We believe that Select Committee
investigations into draft statements could very usefully identify no-go
areas in terms of a degree of site-specificity that would be
unjustified for a draft national policy statement. A Select Committee
investigation could highlight areas where the commission, or any
decision-making body that we may see given responsibility for decisions
on these schemes, might test and cross-examine particular pieces of
evidence at the inquiry level. We would also want the Select Committee
to consider very carefully the extent to which the Government have
adequately appraised draft national policy statements from the point of
view of sustainable development. It is important that that process is
transparent and can be tested, probed and judged by Select Committees
looking at draft national policy statements.
Paul
Miner:
We think that there is a strong case as well
for the public examination process that already happens for existing
regional spatial strategies. That would enable some of the pressure to
be taken off Select Committee inquiries in terms of looking at all the
relevant planning considerations that national policy statements would
have to
consider.
Q
295
Mrs.
Lait:
So do I gather from that that you would see the
Select Committee as the driver of the consultation, or just one part of
the process of the
consultation?
Neil
Sinden:
That is an interesting question. It may be
too much to ask of a Select Committee to be driving that process, and
possibly inappropriate in the light of these statements being
Government documents. But I think it should be seen potentially as a
critical part of that consultation process, a sort of testing of the
robustness of the evidence that is being brought to bear on questions
of need, for example, and testing the degree and appropriateness of
locational specificity and so on and so forth and, indeed, testing the
robustness of any sustainability appraisal that accompanies a national
policy statement. So it would be a critical part of the process, but
probably not driving
it.
Q
296
Mr.
Betts:
Can I take you through one or two of the points you
raised in your evidence? First, you said that you welcome the concept
of the national policy statements, but you do not want them to be
accorded greater weight than existing PPSs and PPGs. In particular, you
drew attention to PPG2 on the green belt and PPS7 on nationally
designated landscapes. In the end, must not one document take
precedence over the others? Otherwise there will be conflict between a
policy statement and PPSs—planning statements—or planning
guidance? If there is that degree of conflict, the commission must know
which is the priority
statement.
Neil
Sinden:
If I may, I will start on this and then hand
over to my colleague. This is an important question, which comes back
to my original comment about the relationship between national policy
statements and existing PPSs. To some extent, of course, national
policy statements concerning particular kinds of infrastructure will
need to be much more explicit and deterministic about questions of need
and location, and so on. But in so doing, they will need fully to take
account of existing national planning policy principles set out in
PPSs.
We believe
that the decision-making authority needs, to some extent, to play a
role in balancing the weight of consideration to be given to different
statements of national policy. For example, in relation to green belts
or protected areas such as national parks, weight should still be
accorded to the national policy considerations set out in PPS7 and PPG2
alongside the national policy statement on a particular kind of
infrastructure.
Paul
Miner:
In the planning process at present there is a
well-established formula that has been around since 1990, that
decisions shall be taken in line with the development plan unless
material considerations dictate otherwise. We think that such a formula
should be used in these cases as well. As you mentioned, in the last
sitting the RTPI gave evidence to that effect, saying that PPSs and
development plans should be relevant considerations. If you start
saying that national policy statements can be primary considerations,
you will have a two-tier planning system, with some levels of policy
having more weight than others, which will be very
confusing.
Neil
Sinden:
I want to emphasise that there are some very
important national policy principles set out in the current suite of
PPSs. Precisely how the relationship between those and the national
policy statements evolves is a critical issue for the CPRE and many
other environmental organisations.
Q
297
Mr.
Betts:
. One of the issues you raised—some of us
have a degree of sympathy with you on it—is that the Secretary
of State should be the responsible decision-maker in all cases. When
some of us have put that argument before, we have been told that all
the
Secretary of State does is to act in a quasi-judicial role, not in a
political role, therefore there is no need for a politician to get
involved. Why are you so concerned, therefore, about the removal of the
Secretary of State’s role in these
matters?
Neil
Sinden:
This is a fundamental issue of principle for
us. You have heard evidence from previous witnesses that suggests that
there is a big gap, or issue, to be addressed in relation to the
opportunities for third parties—or, indeed, first
parties—to appeal against or to probe decisions or
recommendations made by the proposed new commission. At the moment, the
system is that the Planning Inspectorate, in many but not all cases,
prepares reports for Ministers, with a recommended decision. Ministers
then take on those reports and consider the recommendations in the
light of wider factors.
That system
contains enough checks and balances for wider considerations concerning
domestic or international law, for example—which the IPC
possibly does not have the expertise to take into account adequately or
to address—to be considered by a Minister. It allows third
parties and other interests better to inform the way in which a
Minister considers a report by the commission or, as is currently the
case, by the Planning Inspectorate.
A lot can
hide behind the phrase “quasi-judicial” but fundamentally
we believe that the decisions on some of the big infrastructure schemes
are inevitably hugely controversial and require a degree of political
judgment in weighing up the very wide range of issues that are often
entailed in consideration of these schemes. They are not only
exclusively technical issues or issues of science or the weight of
evidence; in many cases, they are political judgments, which we think
can effectively be made only by elected
politicians.
Paul
Miner:
May I point you to the example of the
Competition Commission? One of the bodies that it replaced was the
Monopolies and Mergers Commission, which had a very wide remit to
consider competition policy in relation to wider issues of public
interest. Since the creation of the Competition Commission, its remit
has been narrowed to focus very stringently on competition policy
issues and on making recommendations to Ministers. In the Competition
Commission’s 2006 annual report, the chairman said that it is
far better for issues of public interest to be considered by Ministers
than by bodies such as ours. That is a very relevant comparison because
if you look at how the IPC is to be constituted, its structure with a
panel, commissioners and such like, strongly suggests that it will be
an advisory body like the Competition
Commission.
Q
298
Mr.
Betts:
In responding to the proposed changes in procedure
that the commission will adopt, you have said that all we really need
to do is to work through the Town and Country Planning (Major
Infrastructure Project Inquiries Procedure) (England) Rules 2005, which
you say have already worked on a trial basis at Stansted. You think
that those should simply be adopted. When I put that to a witness on
Tuesday, I think from the Planning Inspectorate, I was
told that that was alright, except that those rules apply only to Town
and Country Planning Act inquiries. There are a lot of Acts and
inquiries that they do not apply to, which would not be reformed unless
the Bill goes
through.
Neil
Sinden:
That is true to an extent, but I think that I
am right in saying that very similar procedures have applied to energy
projects. Two pieces of secondary legislation were introduced in 2005,
one relating to the Town and Country Planning Act schemes and the other
to energy infrastructure schemes. There is no reason why the new
procedures, which are yet to be effectively tested, could not be
applied to a wider range of kinds of
infrastructure.
Paul
Miner:
We would accept that you would need to apply
the principles within those rules to a much wider selection of
projects, such as those defined in clause 13 of the Bill. You would
need to bring those provisions into the Bill, or say in it that
regulations will make provision for inquiries and then apply the
existing town and country planning major infrastructure projects rules
to all nationally significant infrastructure projects, as outlined in
the Bill. That change would need to be
made.
Q
299
Tom
Brake:
I am not sure whether they are part of the umbrella
group, but the wildlife trusts have put forward the idea that there
should be a national policy statement on the environment, so that
whichever body considers the NPSs when deliberating on projects will
have to also consider an NPS containing environmental considerations.
Do you think that there is any merit in that and, if so, what would you
want to see in that
NPS?
Neil
Sinden:
That really depends on the relationship
between PPSs and NPSs. At the moment, we have a number of planning
policy statements that address—perhaps inadequately from the
point of view of the wildlife trusts, the Campaign to Protect Rural
England and other environmental groups—a wide range of
environmental factors. There is one on nature conservation, one on
countryside and protected areas, and so on. If the relationship between
NPSs and PPSs is one of equality or complementarity, there might be no
need for a national policy statement on the natural environment.
However, if there is a clear hierarchical relationship and a sense that
the national policy statements relating to particular kinds of
infrastructure are trumping the national policy considerations set out
in PPSs at the moment, we would support the call of the wildlife trusts
for a national policy statement that gives full and proper weight to
environmental
considerations.
Q
300
Tom
Brake:
Okay. So if the NPSs were trumping PPSs, what would
you want to see, in brief, in the NPS covering the natural
environment?
Neil
Sinden:
We would want to see the national policies
that are set out in existing PPSs translated into, and built on and
developed within, the new national policy statement. We would want to
see proper coverage of international legal requirements, such as those
relating to the habitats directive and the strategic environmental
assessment directive, so that they are translated into the
national policy statement. We would want to see proper consideration
given to the need to protect nationally designated areas, whether
national parks, areas of outstanding natural beauty, sites of special
scientific interest or green belt. We would want a wide range of
factors embodied in that kind of
approach.
2
pm
Paul
Miner:
I think that this also highlights the
sustainability appraisal, which we spoke about briefly. We very much
welcome what the Government have done in spelling out clearly that all
national policy statements will be subject to a sustainability
appraisal, but we would like to see quite a bit more detail about how
that will work in practice. It is important that a sustainability
appraisal is published when a national policy statement is produced,
and that the Government explain the reasons for their final policy
decision and also are required to have regard to the findings of the
sustainability
appraisal.
Q
301
Paul
Clark (Gillingham) (Lab): May I turn your attention to the
community infrastructure levy? You said in your written statement that
you are concerned about it and that it should
“derive benefit for localities
less able to attract
development”.
How do you
see it working, and what proposals would you lay down for calculating
the
charge?
Neil
Sinden:
The first thing to say about the community
infrastructure levy is that we welcome Government efforts to secure a
better mechanism for extracting what planners call
“betterment” from development schemes. However, we are
concerned about how they will work in practice, particularly the
relationship between the levy and section 106 agreements, and
specifically in the area of affordable housing provision. I am sure
that Members are aware that, at present, a significant proportion of
such provision comes through section 106 agreements on the ground. They
are a useful complement to Government subsidies for affordable housing
provision.
The
danger with the community infrastructure levy, regardless of where it
is applied, is that it could draw money and resources away from the
provision of affordable housing through section 106 and thereby damage
the Government’s objectives of increasing the provision of
affordable housing in appropriate locations to meet identified
needs.
Paul
Miner:
We would add that the National Housing
Federation has also expressed concerns about this aspect of the Bill,
and we agree with its concern that a clear relationship between the new
levy and existing section 106 agreements is
needed.
Q
302
Paul
Clark:
Just to follow through on that. Do you think that
safeguards should be put into the policies developed for the levy, and
do you have a view on whether some of the levy should be used
for sub-regional or even regional spending on
infrastructure
projects?
Neil
Sinden:
There is an important issue around
geographical disparities in development pressures and the need for
infrastructure and such things as affordable housing. We probably need
to give this further thought, but, basically, we feel that
redistribution of a levy generated through development should be,
first, through
the local authority development plan. Policies should be clearly set out
in the plan—the local development framework, as it is currently
termed—which clarify how a local authority would apply funds
generated through a levy across its area and, in so doing, promote a
degree of redistribution of funds so that the needs of under-resourced
areas could be met. A similar level of geographical redistribution
could take place through the establishment of policies at the regional
level through regional spatial strategies. I suppose that we would want
a plan-led approach to the question that you
pose.
Q
303
Dan
Rogerson (North Cornwall) (LD): I have
to say that you are not too enamoured of the idea of the commission.
There are several factors that slow down applications and lead to
uncertainty, duplications and so on. Do you think that other measures
in the Bill would be sufficient to overcome those problems without the
need for an independent commission to make the final decision on
applications?
Neil
Sinden:
To a large extent, they would. We welcome the
principle of a unified consent regime, for example. There is a lot of
merit in that proposal. We welcome the Government’s recognition
of the need to increase the institutional capacity for decisions on
major infrastructure. It is just that we do not believe that that
institutional capacity should come from the establishment of a new
body. We believe that the Planning Inspectorate would be well suited to
having a division set up within it to deal with major infrastructure
projects, which could be resourced and staffed by experienced senior
planning inspectors and staff, and would achieve many of the
Government’s aspirations with regard to speeding up decisions in
an appropriate manner. However, on a matter of principle we have a
fundamental concern about a body such as the IPC taking decisions out
of the hands of elected Ministers.
Paul
Miner:
We would also point you to an article that the
former chief planner at the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister, Mike
Ash, wrote in Planning
magazine, in which he suggested
the setting up of an authoritative taskforce to look at major
infrastructure
projects.
Q
304
Robert
Neill:
I want come back to the IPC and the issue raised in
paragraph 15 of your written submission. Perhaps you could flesh it out
for me. As everyone seems to accept, there is merit in the single
consent regime, in more work being done at the pre-application stage
and in trying to limit the issues that arise when a decision-making
process has to be gone through. We have had other witnesses say,
“Well, the more we talk to the IPC and the more information that
we are able to exchange between our experts, that will simplify
things.” I wonder whether you have concerns—perhaps you
will amplify them—about the real difficulty of having one party
talking to the person who is, in effect, the judge and jury behind the
back of any other
party?
Paul
Miner:
Yes, we very much agree with the concern. The
proposed IPC has a significant range of functions in relation to
producing guidance, giving advice, monitoring the quality of
pre-application discussions and then making a decision on the final
planning application at the end of it. Again, the way it has been set
up suggests an investigative body like the Competition Commission.
If the IPC was purely focused on investigation and on making reports and
recommendations, it could work along the existing precedent of the
Planning Inspectorate. It has that huge range of confusing and
contradictory functions that we do not think will work in practice and
will run the risk of undermining the public’s confidence in the
process.
Q
305
Robert
Neill:
Are there other ways in which you could achieve a
safer division in that regard?
Paul
Miner:
We actually think that the Planning
Inspectorate could have the role of issuing advice on how the
procedures work, as it already does for appeals and compulsory purchase
orders. It would not take too much more for the Planning Inspectorate
to continue doing that role in relation to the new development consent
regime proposed in the Bill. We also have other Government bodies that
can provide advice, such as the Planning Advisory
Service.
Q
306
Robert
Neill:
I wonder whether clause 45, if it were operated in
the way suggested, runs the risk of falling foul of the Aarhus
convention.
Paul
Miner:
We think that it does and that there is a very
strong danger of that, because one of the central points of the
Government’s reform is to have this two-stage process where all
of the national policy principles are decided at the national policy
statement stage and then a local inquiry is solely focused on
site-specific issues.
As I am sure
many of you will be aware, we have been here before. The Town and
Country Planning Act 1990 provides for a planning inquiry commission
procedure, which would be a two-stage procedure with the national
policy issues debated at an inquiry at the first stage and the
site-specific issues debated at the second. That commission procedure
has never been used because in 1986 the Government responded to a
Select Committee inquiry by saying that it is impossible to untangle
general national policy issues from site-specific environmental
impacts. Bob Woolf also said in 1985 that the Minister is entitled to
have a policy, but must always be prepared to derogate from it in
special
circumstances.
Q
307
Tom
Brake:
In relation to the national
policy statement, or potential national policy statement on aviation,
assuming that the Bill went ahead in its present form, what do you
think could be done to convert the White Paper into a national policy
statement on
aviation?
Neil
Sinden:
I think, bluntly, we would have to start from
scratch. We are entirely dissatisfied with both the process and the
outcome of the air transport White Paper consultation. If we are being
optimistic, we would see the Government’s commitment to
preparing a national policy statement on aviation as an opportunity to
properly address the wide range of very difficult issues surrounding
aviation policy, not least the problems associated with projected
expansion and climate change
emissions.
Paul
Miner:
It is important to remember as well that the
air transport White Paper was not sold to the public as a national
policy statement when it was consulted on. If the public were
aware—and they will become aware—of
the weight of the national policy statements, there
would be increased public interest in them, even though there are
difficulties with the public engaging in the process. That is another
important thing to bear in
mind.
Q
308
Tom
Brake:
Presumably there is the potential for the energy
statement today to become a national policy statement on energy as
well. Do you have similar concerns about a conversion process
there?
Paul
Miner:
There is an interesting point raised here
about what national policy is. The Planning Bill aims to address the
lack of clarity in national policy at present. Clause 98, I think,
includes a power that enables the Secretary of State to call in a
decision for his own determination if the policies in the national
policy statement have changed materially since they were produced and
that change was not anticipated at the time. We think that the power
needs to be much wider and should cover all matters of controversy at
the very least, or preferably that the infrastructure planning
commission should not have the decision-making
role.
Q
309
Tom
Brake:
You said all matters of
controversy. What would you like to include in that phrase?
Paul
Miner:
The existing call-in power does not define
what controversial matters are. It says it could include issues that
affect the interests of foreign Governments, matters of substantial
national or regional controversy. We think that virtually all
nationally significant infrastructure projects, with a few exceptions,
will be controversial, which is why we do not think it appropriate for
the infrastructure planning commission to make decisions on such
projects.
The
Chairman:
There being no further questions, may I thank
you very much for coming to give evidence to us this afternoon? It has
been most helpful and instructive.
2.13
pm
Sitting
suspended.
2.21
pm
On
resuming—
The
Chairman:
This room is susceptible to mobile phones and
they should, therefore, be turned off completely, rather than simply
put on silent, as it seems to interfere with the sound
system.
We
now come to a very important part of the proceedings: evidence being
given by the Minister and his colleagues. Mr. Healey, would
you like to introduce your colleagues,
please.
John
Healey:
Thank you, Sir John, for that welcome. I am
the Minister in charge of the Bill. Yvette Cooper, of course, is
Housing Minister, and she is also responsible for the Housing and
Regeneration Bill. Unfortunately, we will be deprived of her expertise
through all the subsequent stages of the passage of this Bill. With us
are three officials: Bernadette Kelly, who is director of planning in
the Department; Miles Gibson, at the far end, who is deputy director of
planning policy; and Ian Scotter, who is deputy director of
the planning reform team.
I will briefly
make a couple of remarks in two areas, by way of introduction. First, I
welcome the chance for this evidence session before we get into
scrutiny. My interests are in getting the best possible legislation to
achieve our policy purposes, and in getting the strongest possible
support or assent for our proposals. I know, of course, that not
everyone will agree with everything that we propose in the Bill. That
is inevitable. I will not go into detail, but I hope that the way that
we have developed our proposals to date, and the significant
strengthening and changes made since the White Paper, as a result of
the consultation, are demonstrated in the content of the
Bill.
When
I referred to our policy purpose, I had this in mind: we are facing
far-reaching and long-term challenges in this country at present.
Several of the witnesses who have come before us in the past two days
have mentioned the need to replace about one third of our electricity
generation capacity in the next 25 years or so. That is more
electricity than is needed to power probably at least two thirds of the
homes in this country. Of course, there is also the need to ensure that
we have much more secure energy supplies. Some have also mentioned the
need to see new and renewed infrastructure for transport, waste and
water. Others, not least the environmental groups, have emphasised the
need to transform what is a successful economy in Britain into a
successful low-carbon
economy.
Big
decisions will be involved as part of those challenges, some of which
will be about major infrastructure investments and applications. We
simply do not have a planning system at present in Britain that is up
to that task. That is what the proposals in the Bill are designed to
deliver.
Q
310
Mr.
David Curry (Skipton and Ripon) (Con): After listening to
two days of evidence, what amendments do you think you will need to
make to the Bill to take account of concerns that have been expressed
by
witnesses?
John
Healey:
It has been a very interesting couple of
days. All of the witnesses whom we have heard today—this will
not surprise you—played an active part in the consultation and
have been involved in detailed discussions with the Department,
including in the run-up to the publication of the White Paper.
Therefore, I am relatively familiar with many of the arguments that we
have
heard.
Q
311
Mr.
Curry:
Sorry to interrupt, but are you telling us that you
have delivered domestic witnesses in front of the Committee, who are
all
house-trained?
John
Healey:
Not much of what we have heard from the
witnesses over the last two days would suggest that, and if it is the
case we have not done a very good job of training them. I simply make
the point that many of the groups, quite rightly, are those with an
established interest in this field from a range of points of view, have
already submitted written evidence to the Committee and have had
detailed discussions with the Department, as one would expect them to
do.
You
asked specifically about amendments. It is my intention to ensure that
any Government amendments will be tabled in good time and I will try to
ensure that the time in which we do that is better than the required
convention. We have no amendments in mind for part 1.
Hon. Members will note that we have already tabled two amendments to
part 2 and we will table several amendments to part 3 today.
Essentially, the amendments that we have in mind at the moment are
principally technical or clarifying ones, or about matters that have
been signalled clearly already. They will be in response to the
detailed points that have been raised with us in the sort of
discussions that I have referred to, since we have published the Bill.
I hope that that is helpful to the
Committee.
Q
312
Mr.
Curry:
As you know, I am interested particularly in the
infrastructure levy. Just on the process of that, could we have an
assurance that the regulations that will give flesh to it will be
available during the course of our discussions? Otherwise, we have to
agree or object to something in principle, whereas the devil is very
much in the detail. That is something that came out fairly clearly from
the
witnesses.
John
Healey:
Perhaps I can respond on the process, and if
members of the Committee want to get into the substance of the policy,
Yvette might want to pick it
up.
It
has never been our intention to set out in detail in the primary
legislation how the community infrastructure levy will work. It has
always been our intention to develop that in detail with those who have
a direct interest and to introduce most of the detail in secondary
legislation, which we will publish in draft and on which we will
consult. Members of the Committee will remember from Tuesday’s
evidence that that approach has been welcomed by the Home Builders
Federation and the British Property Federation. That is the approach
that we plan to take. The framework in the Bill gives us the provision
that we require to introduce such a levy. Were any amendments to what
is in the Bill required, in the spirit of what I have said, they will
largely be technical or clarifying or to ensure that we have a working
framework.
John
Healey:
The short answer to your question is
no.
Q
313
Mr.
Curry:
The problem caused by that is that I am broadly in
favour of the infrastructure levy and accept that we need to fund the
infrastructure that developments entail. Provided that local
authorities are the prime movers of that levying, so that for local
infrastructure it is predominantly local, I am relatively satisfied. I
would get very upset if I felt that the regional development agencies
were precepting—as it were—into that process because that
would make me feel differently about it. I give you notice that I would
like to come back to that
issue.
If
the Chairman will allow me to ask an additional question after this, I
will accept your
answer.
Yvette
Cooper:
There is one additional piece of information
that might be useful in terms of the process; I will not go into the
content. We expect to publish more information about the approach to
the community infrastructure levy relatively shortly, and we are
working
on that with stakeholders at the moment. That will not be draft
regulations because there is a considerable amount of further detailed
work to do in advance of draft regulations and we will have a full
consultation on them.
In addition
to the draft regulations, we expect to publish relatively shortly a
more detailed account of the approach we want to take to the community
infrastructure levy, and I hope that some of that detail will be
available for the Committee to discuss in advance of detailed
consideration of the
clauses.
2.30
pm
Q
314
Mr.
Curry:
Finally, I listened to the Secretary of State make
a statement on nuclear power in the Chamber today. He said in his final
paragraph:
“I
therefore invite energy companies today to bring forward plans to build
and operate new nuclear power
stations.”
That is a
national policy statement, is it
not?
John
Healey:
No.
Q
315
Mr.
Curry:
Well, what would a national policy statement have
that this does not, other than to say
where?
John
Healey:
Today the Government announced that we
believe that it is in the public interest to allow energy companies the
option of looking to invest in new nuclear capacity. A careful study of
what has been published today—the decision was set out in a
White Paper—would make it clear that there are two essential
steps in relation to national policy statements that will have to be
completed first, as an element of the work that the Government are
proposing today: first, the completion of a strategic siting
assessment, which we do not anticipate being completed until perhaps
autumn next year. The second is a strategic environmental assessment.
They will be two essential building blocks towards any national policy
statement that may cover nuclear power, which will have to be in place
before we get a national policy statement.
Q
316
Mr.
Curry:
So the national policy statement would be
site-specific in this case. If it is site-specific, it is difficult to
see what the planning commission’s job is, other than to sign it
off, is it not?
John
Healey:
It is reasonable to expect the strategic
siting assessment work to conclude with a statement which may confirm
criteria for siting and potentially a list of sites. In a sense,
however, we are pre-empting the work that must go
on.
My
point here, in reference to the Planning Bill and national policy
statements, is that those two elements at least will need to be in
place before a national policy statement that applies to nuclear could
be in place. Were any potential developer to submit an application
before that, it would be handled and dealt with under the current
arrangements.
Q
317
Mr.
Llwyd:
A few minutes ago, Minister, you said that you
would bring forward amendments in good time. We are in Committee on
Tuesday; where are the Welsh framework
clauses?
Ian
Scotter:
The Welsh Assembly Government asked for
framework powers under the Government of Wales Act 1998. They are being
worked on at the moment and
they will be with the Committee before we reach that part of the Bill.
They will be in part 9 of the Bill. As the Minister said, the
amendments will be laid in good time before we reach discussion of
them.
John
Healey:
I hope we make good progress in our scrutiny
sessions, but I do not expect us to reach part 9 on
Tuesday.
Q
318
Mr.
Llwyd:
I am not saying that, Minister. It would be normal
to see a Bill before we go into Committee, would it
not?
John
Healey:
Indeed, and it is before us; it is what we
are examining.
John
Healey:
You asked about amendments and I explained
our approach to amendments. Any amendments in relation to any of the
Welsh provisions will be entirely within the devolution settlement, as
is the
Bill.
Q
319
Mr.
Llwyd:
Yes, and I spoke with the Minister for the
Environment yesterday, who was a little concerned about the length of
time being taken to draft these clauses, but we will leave it
there.
Would
you agree, Minister, that consultation is a very important word in
relation to this
Bill?
John
Healey:
I would indeed. I think that that is
recognised strongly in three important parts, from a public point of
view, and has been strengthened between the proposals in the White
Paper and the
Bill.
There
is a provision for and a requirement on Ministers for consultation in
the preparation of national policy statements. There is a new
requirement, as part of the pre-application process that the IPC will
oversee, which we have examined with witnesses over the last two days,
and which will include rights to consultation and to be heard. There
are also clear provisions and rights, particularly for those who are
interested parties or affected by any potential application, to be
heard, to play a part and to have their views known, as part of any
application procedures that the IPC
conducts.
Q
320
Mr.
Llwyd:
On the issue of consultation, will you confirm that
the planning White Paper drew 32,000 individual responses, of which the
vast majority were against the
Bill?
John
Healey:
I will, indeed. It was confirmed in the
published summary of the responses to the consultation that we set out.
It was referred to by the Secretary of State in her statement and
discussion in the House. It is certainly the case that around 30,000 of
those were largely individual members of the public. They were mostly
members of organisations who had come together in the early days,
before they really understood or were able to see what was proposed in
the Bill, under the “Planning Disaster” campaign. Those
organisations have a total membership of perhaps 4 million or 5
million.
Q
321
Mr.
Llwyd:
Again regarding the White Paper, the initial
assessment was that there would be about 10 major infrastructure
projects each year. Subsequently, when the impact assessment came in,
that rose to 46. Which is the more likely
figure?
John
Healey:
The later figure is the one contained in the
impact assessment. We anticipate a figure of around 45 applications a
year that are likely to fall to the IPC, on average, to be
examined.
Q
322
Mr.
Llwyd:
For accuracy, the impact
assessment for the Planning Bill found the annual cost of the IPC would
be about £9.3 million, and setting up the IPC would cost
£5 million. Are those figures accurate, as of
today?
John
Healey:
They are indeed. Those are the latest figures
that we have and are working with. You will understand that the purpose
of an impact assessment is to publish, so that it can be
cross-examined, the latest estimate of those sorts of features, and
that can be revised at various stages. Those remain the best estimates
and the working basis for the likely number of cases on average each
year and for the set-up and annual running costs of the
IPC.
Q
323
Mr.
Llwyd:
Finally, and briefly, I ask you to consider that,
from my reading of the Bill, the IPC can rule in or rule out,
in a hearing, the right to cross-examine and for parties to be heard.
Is that
correct?
John
Healey:
We have been concerned, and it has been clear
from the outset that we have been anxious to see the IPC operate in a
way that avoids some of the problems and pitfalls that all members of
the Committee and many of our witnesses have recognised are part of
some of the inquiry processes at the moment. What this emphatically
does not do is rule out cross-examination, but it does start with the
predisposition to see a different approach to the probing and
interrogation of evidence and views. That approach is principally led
by the IPC and its members, not by expensive hired hands and third
parties who perhaps have the resources and some interest in stringing
out the proceedings, rather than getting to the heart of the
matter.
Q
324
Mr.
Llwyd:
As an inexpensive hired hand, may
I finally put to you what the Secretary of State for
Communities and Local Government said on 27 November? She
said:
“The
Bill will make it clear that any person who registers an interest can
give oral evidence at relevant stages of the
inquiry.”
In other words,
that overrides the IPC’s right to discount oral
evidence.
John
Healey:
I think that there are two things.
Cross-examination is a particular form of oral evidence, but the
Secretary of State was of course right: within the Bill there is a
right for those who register the wish to do so to be able to give oral
evidence in an open session, and where the IPC has sessions that look
at specific issues, it will be possible for those with an interest and
a wish to do so also to give evidence orally at that
point.
Q
325
Dan
Rogerson:
I have heard from pretty much everyone who has
given evidence that there is a desire to see a more streamlined
process. With regard to bigger projects, people accept that there are
too many regimes under which schemes are decided. This is the same
question that I asked a previous witness. If we have national policy
statements and a unified development consent scheme, why do we have to
have a new body to do that? Why cannot we look at existing means of
deciding on those applications?
John
Healey:
First, it is important not to overlook how
radical and important an innovation national policy statements will be.
They have been described in various terms, but by several of our
witnesses in a way consistent with that argument. Any body that is set
up to hear major applications in the context of national policy
statements, and which would provide a principle primary source of
reference for the matters that need to be taken into account, would
require primary legislation. We have set out the arguments why we
believe that there is a strong case for setting up the IPC and for
doing so on basis that will make it independent and that will make it a
body taking decisions within the framework set principally by national
policy statements, which will have the authority of being developed
through a systematic process of public consultation, having been
scrutinised strongly and systematically in Parliament. The combination
of the national policy statements and the IPC gives us the fundamentals
for the sort of reform of the planning system that I spoke about in my
opening
statement.
Q
326
Dan
Rogerson:
I have heard their argument for national policy
statements, but still do not feel that I have heard an argument for the
IPC, other than it will take decisions so that Ministers will not have
to. What is the real justification for the decision having to rest with
an unelected
body?
John
Healey:
If your contention is that Ministers and not
members of the IPC on an independent basis should take such decisions,
I have two things to say. First, one of our objectives has been to try
to establish a system in which the roles and accountability for the
discharge of those roles is much clearer. At the heart of the
proposition for the IPC, therefore, is the idea of separating the
responsibility for policy making, which rightly should be with
Ministers and will be captured and set out in national policy
statements, from the process of taking decisions on specific
applications within that framework. At present, it is the case that in
some circumstances for some major projects, Ministers are acting as the
source of the policy—the promoters, in effect—of the
individual applications and the authority that makes the decision on
those applications. That is particularly true in areas of transport
such as highways. In my view, that is an unsatisfactory situation. This
gives us a chance to make that clearer and
stronger.
The
second reason is this. I have been struck by the observations of a
number of witnesses whom we have heard over the last couple of
days—and it is largely a misapprehension—about the
accountability of Ministers in acting in the planning capacity. It has
been acknowledged—quite rightly, because this is what
happens—that Ministers who take planning decisions do so in a
quasi-judicial fashion. Essentially, that means that the basis and the
terms on which they do so are tightly prescribed by planning
legislation. Ultimately, when one is concerned about accountability,
that means that were I as a Minister to take a planning decision, I
would not be accountable as a politician to Parliament, and I would not
be accountable to Members of this House or this Committee for that
decision; I would be accountable and challengeable through the courts
to a judge. That is the reality of the decision-taking role of
Ministers within the planning
system.
2.45
pm
Q
327
Dan
Rogerson:
In terms of consultation and the pre-application
stage, which is obviously a crucial stage, do you feel that people in
the local community where a project is proposed are likely to feel that
there has been enough independent engagement with them if the process
is being led by the developer and paid for by the developer and the
applicant?
John
Healey:
I thought your question to the Energy
Networks Association was very interesting, Mr. Rogerson; it
managed to smoke out the fact that the proposals in this system will be
a change and improvement on what is currently the established practice
within such companies. What is interesting is this: there will be a
pre-application process, which is not simply set out in significant
terms within the Bill, but will be overseen by the IPC. In other words,
what a developer must do in preparing an application, even before he
gets to the point of submitting it to the IPC, can be set out not just
as a reflection of the Bill but in guidance from Government and from
the IPC. It will require that developer to consult locally. It will
require him to consult with certain statutory consultees. It will allow
the IPC to set standards and specific things that it will require as
part of the preparation of his application. It will enable the IPC to
send back any proposed application if it does not believe that the
developer has met that, and it will allow the statutory consultees,
including local authorities and others, to make submissions to the IPC
if they do not believe that the developer has undertaken his duties
properly, including on the consultation, before submitting the
application. The IPC will then be obliged to take those into
account.
What we have
here is a proposal for something that is a new and important stage in
the process. It should give reassurance to local communities, local
authorities and other interest groups that they have a chance to have
their views and their concerns taken into account even before that
application gets into the process of consideration by the
IPC.
Q
328
Tom
Brake:
As the Minister, you have sat
here and listened to two days of evidence. You will have heard many
organisations, some of which you may regard as the usual suspects and
others that are not, expressing concerns about both the national policy
statements and the infrastructure planning commission, and how
concerned it will be about sustainability issues. You heard the debate
about whether appraisal of sustainability meant the same thing as
sustainability appraisal. What reassurance can you give Members that
the Bill and the different components that you propose will take on
board sustainability and climate change? For instance, will you give us
a guarantee that the national policy statements will be subject to a
strategic environmental
assessment?
John
Healey:
There are two elements to your concern: one
specifically about climate change and one about sustainability and the
environment. On climate change generally, I said in my opening remarks
that the Bill is being introduced alongside the energy Bill and the
Climate Change Bill as a set of three pieces of legislation this
Session that try to help us deal with some long-term and far-reaching
challenges. The Climate Change Bill includes the legally specified
target for Government. In other words, it will start to fashion an
overarching
concern, in everything that Government do, for the reduction of
emissions by at least 60 per cent. by 2050. The imperative and the
pressure on climate change will be built into the decisions and the
work of Government from that point on. It will therefore be an
important part of the context for the preparation of any national
policy
statement.
On
national policy statements, as several of the witnesses have
mentioned—I think that you, Mr. Brake, would
recognise that we have made it clear in the Bill, and these provisions
have been strengthened since the White Paper—in preparing a
national policy statement of whatever type, Ministers will be under an
obligation to do so with sustainable development in mind. That will
require an assessment of sustainability, including on the environment,
as part and parcel of the preparation of the policy statement. That
assessment will build the concern and the duty to take account of
sustainable development into the national policy statements. I have
described the national policy statement as the framework within which
the IPC will make any decisions. In that way, we can ensure that
concerns about sustainable development are built into the judgments
that the IPC will make on any
application.
Q
329
Tom
Brake:
You have not been able to confirm that the national
policy statements would be subject to a strategic environmental
assessment.
John
Healey:
If a strategic economic assessment is
required for a national policy statement, under the European directive,
it will have one. It is not entirely clear that that directive will be
applicable to all of the potential national policy statements that the
Government may produce. John Hutton this afternoon confirmed, and I
mentioned earlier, that whether or not a strategic environmental
assessment is required, it will be an element of what we do in relation
to nuclear. Whether or not a strategic environmental assessment is
required, we will ensure that there is a duty on Ministers about
sustainable development in every
NPS.
Q
330
Tom
Brake:
Earlier, you referred quite specifically to the
Climate Change Bill and have said that the national policy statements
would need to take that into account. Do you mean, therefore, that any
national policy statement on aviation will have to take into account
the 60 per cent. reduction in
emissions?
John
Healey:
Any national policy statement, whether on
aviation or anything else, will have to meet the criteria that are set
out in the Bill. The standards that we are setting out in the Bill for
consultation and sustainable development must be met for it to make the
grade as a national policy
statement.
Q
331
Tom
Brake:
I am not sure that that answers my question, but
perhaps we can continue with one final question on the national policy
statements. The Minister will have heard concerns expressed that the
current White Paper on aviation might simply be adopted as a national
policy statement. Minister, if this Bill were to become an Act, what
would be required for the aviation White Paper to be converted into a
national policy statement? Can it be
done?
John
Healey:
I thought I had just answered that. It would
certainly have to meet the standards that we set out for national
policy statements, such as those on
consultation or sustainability appraisal. We will have to
look at that matter, and, of course, Members of this
House and of this Committee may want to do so as
well.
Q
332
Tom
Brake:
Your initial assessment is that you are comfortable
that that could be done, taking on board the points that you have made
about the need for
consultation.
John
Healey:
We already have a commitment to review the
aviation White Paper between 2009 and 2011, and that is an opportunity
to examine the question of the suitability of the White Paper and
whether it makes the grade, as I put it earlier on, as a national
policy
statement.
Q
333
Mrs.
Lait:
May I be very boring and process-oriented? Having
spent two days listening to the witnesses, one of the things that I
cannot get my head around, and I would be grateful if the Minister
could give me an indication of this, is roughly how many national
policy statements he expects in total? What does he expect them to
cover, because we have heard representatives from ports and harbours
say that they want ancillary roads and railways, and we have heard the
Energy Networks Association saying that they want all their substations
to be included? What sort of scope should be included? What time scale
does the Minister reckon it could take each policy statement to get
through both the outside consultation process and whatever process he
is planning to invite Parliament to undertake? How will he create
consistency? I have a list of
questions.
John
Healey:
I have lost count of the number of questions
there, Mrs. Lait, but let me try to
reply.
With
regard to scope, the short answer is that we set out much of this
alongside the statement in November, and it is worth referring to that
if you have not got it in front of you. The scope will include things
such as waste, offshore renewables, water infrastructure, transport and
aspects of
energy.
As
regards timing, it will vary from policy area to policy area. It will
be different because the considerations are different for nuclear, for
instance, as they would be for ports infrastructure. In terms of the
process for Parliament, there are four points to make. First, for the
first time there will be wide consultation and debate in the production
of these policy statements, and a requirement on Ministers to ensure
that that
happens.
Secondly,
we are proposing to the House—although it will be a matter for
the House to make its decision, of course—that we draw on the
joint expertise of four Select Committees: the Business Enterprise and
Regulatory Reform Committee, the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
Committee, the Transport Committee, and the Communities and Local
Government Committee. I hope shortly, with the Leader of the House, to
meet the Chairs of the Committees. There is, after all, a precedent for
this with the Quadripartite Committee on arms
control.
Thirdly,
that Select Committee, or the arrangements that Parliament puts in
place, will have the scope, as closely as they wish and in the manner
that they wish, to scrutinise and comment on the proposals, and we will
then take them into consideration in the finalisation of our national
policy statement.
Finally, we
have made it very clear, in parliamentary terms, that if the Select
Committee—let us call it that for the moment—believes
that the matters are important enough to require parliamentary debate,
we will make time for that. Of course, there is also the option for
Parliament to decide to move to votes if it wishes to do so. I hope
that that covers the main points of your questions. You obviously have
more.
Q
334
Mrs.
Lait:
I can see us having policy statement
indigestion. You did not answer with a ballpark
figure of how many statements you were expecting: 20, 10,
five?
3
pm
John
Healey:
I am not sure that it is particularly
relevant or useful to have a fixed number. If you look at the energy
field, which is perhaps one of the most important and multi-faceted, we
have said that in 2009 we would look to be producing an overarching
national policy statement. That would consider things like security of
supply, climate change imperatives, energy markets, and some questions
about demand projections and energy efficiency. This is why I cannot
give you a fixed answer, because in the end it will be a decision not
for now or for me but for down the track in respect of either
separate national policy statements or—although I do not really
like the word—a suite of technical annexes. It is plausible and
reasonable to anticipate policy statements that will look at different
forms of energy generation, from renewables to fossil fuels, to annexes
or to a separate policy statement on electricity networks or gas
infrastructure. That is another reason why it is difficult to give you
a precise
answer.
Q
335
Mrs.
Lait:
So given that Mr. Hutton, in his answer
to me during his statement on the energy policy, said that he was
working on a national policy statement on nuclear power and that you
are saying that you expect an overarching national policy
statement—I assume in draft—in 2009, who is preceding
whom? If the Government are trying to get their first nuclear power
station built by 2020, given the difficulties in so doing, I cannot get
my head around whether we will have the nuclear statement separate and
free-standing or as a subset of the one coming out in 2009, or
subsequent to it. If it is going to be subsequent to it, why are the
Government working on one that is specifically site locational, as
Mr. Hutton told me, on nuclear power? To summarise, we are
already seeing inconsistency in the Government’s
approach.
John
Healey:
Perhaps I am being a little slow. I am not
really grasping your concern about inconsistency or uncertainty about
timing. I was quite clear earlier—as John Hutton was—that
one of the building blocks before a nuclear national policy statement
could be drawn up would be the strategic siting assessment. That is
likely, as things stand at the moment, to be completed in autumn 2009.
As we said, alongside the ministerial statement in November, and as I
said about four minutes ago, in 2009 we anticipate a broad, overarching
national policy statement on energy, encompassing some of the elements
that I have mentioned. In terms of timing, it is reasonable to conclude
that one could expect a broad national approach in a national policy
statement that attempted to deal with that and then, subsequently, when
the other elements essential to nuclear were in a fit state, to follow
up with one on nuclear.
Q
336
Mrs.
Lait:
I look forward to that process. Can we go back to
the consultation process that you will be undertaking on these
statements for the draft
policies?
John
Healey:
Yes. What would you like to know about
it?
Q
337
Mrs.
Lait:
Precisely how you expect it to work. Will it be a
document similar to a White Paper that you will put out for general
consultation? Would the Government expect to do a roadshow round the
country? Would they hold regional meetings? Would they expect
Parliament to be driving
this?
John
Healey:
I shall ask Bernadette Kelly to give you some
of the
specifics.
Bernadette
Kelly:
The Bill provides for a fundamental
requirement to consult on national policy statements. In reality, the
nature and character of the policy statements is going to vary quite a
lot. Some may be relatively technical in nature, and some may be fairly
substantive and raise bigger policy issues. The precise nature of the
consultation process that you would need to ensure the right level of
engagement will vary from national policy statement to national policy
statement. One thing that we have indicated in the Bill is that, where
they are locationally specific, there will also be an absolute
requirement for particular consultation with affected communities. That
is a
given.
I
would say that we are trying to provide a sensible balance between a
clear legal framework that creates strong obligations in relation to
consultation and a framework that allows the precise process of
consultations to vary according to the needs of the policy under
discussion.
We
do not generally prescribe consultation processes in great detail in
primary legislation because they become too rigid and unsuitable for
the purpose. We are trying to strike a balance between those elements.
The Government have been clear in the White Paper and their statement
in November that the consultation will need to be effective, will need
to properly engage communities and will need to be extensive to ensure
that it allows the level of debate and scrutiny that is
needed.
Q
338
Mrs.
Lait:
Given the Government’s view that so much of
our national infrastructure needs to be replaced in the very near
future, when do you expect any of these national policy statements to
be
effective?
Be
r
nadette
Kelly:
The Minister has indicated that we want the
policy statements to be in place by
2009.
Q
339
Mrs.
Lait:
No, you have not said that. As I understand it, you
will have published a draft by that
stage.
Be
r
nadette
Kelly:
There must be some misunderstanding. We have
not set out a detailed timescale for when consultation will begin on
the national policy statements because the relevant Departments that
will need to produce them are still deciding. Some things have been
indicated—for example, in relation to the strategic site
assessment, which is a building block in relation to the nuclear policy
statement. In practice, the Departments intend to move towards the
consultation on national policy statements sooner, where it is possible
to do so. One area in which it might be possible to begin the
consultation this year rather than next is that of ports, where
substantial work has already been done on the policy that will inform
the national policy statement. In reality, some of the consultation
will start to come on train in the course of this year. However, we do
not have detailed timescales just
yet.
Q
340
Mr.
David Jones (Clwyd, West) (Con): Minister, could I return
to the first point made by Mr. Llwyd, with respect to the
Welsh framework powers? When was the request first received from the
Welsh Assembly Government for framework powers to be incorporated in
the
Bill?
John
Healey:
I apologise; I did not hear the
question.
Mr.
Jones:
I am talking about the Welsh framework powers. Can
you tell us when the request was first received from the Welsh Assembly
Government for framework powers to be incorporated in the
Bill?
John
Healey:
Truthfully, no. I cannot tell you when it was
first received or when it was first
raised.
John
Healey:
I can tell you that we are working on it and
that we are planning. I think that it is right to look to use the Bill
to make those reforms, which are wanted in Wales. They are entirely
consistent with the devolution settlement and seem sensible. In terms
of the process, as I said at the outset, I will ensure that any
amendments that give effect to that are tabled in good time—I
hope in better time than the convention of this House
dictates—so that the Committee will be able to give them proper
scrutiny. I would be happy for any of my colleagues to add anything on
the specific background to
that.
Ian
Scotter:
I cannot remember the precise date, but it
was during the
summer.
Q
342
Mr.
Jones:
During the summer? That is about six months ago.
What concerns me is that the first I heard about these proposals was at
a briefing session organised by the Wales Office yesterday evening. I
was handed, together with other Welsh colleagues, a memorandum with a
letter that was apparently sent out on 17 December, although I do not
recall receiving it. We are talking about the devolution of primary
legislative powers to the Welsh Assembly, which, I think the Minister
would agree, is a matter of some constitutional
significance.
John
Healey:
I would not agree because these matters are
already devolved to Ministers in Wales. Essentially, these provisions
are likely to allow Welsh Ministers to have legislative competence in
the areas for which they already have devolved powers—in other
words, in relation to the Wales spatial plan and local development
plans in
Wales.
Q
343
Mr.
Jones:
Forgive me, Minister, but that is not right. This
is not the devolution of powers to Ministers. This is the devolution of
legislative power to the Welsh Assembly. It is extraordinary that the
Government are introducing these powers by a bolt-on provision to the
Bill without allowing hon. Members to debate it on Second Reading on
the Floor of the House. Does that not concern
you?
John
Healey:
Not as much as it appears to concern you. If
we wanted the Bill to alter the essential devolution settlement, a much
more substantive point would underlie your concern, but we are not
doing
that.
Q
344
Mr.
Jones:
Again, I must take issue with you. We are talking
about law-making powers being devolved to the Welsh Assembly. You say
that we are not likely to see the clauses for several days yet, until
we get to part 9. Is that
right?
John
Healey:
No, I said that all members of the Committee
will have any amendments that we propose on this matter, which is
within part 9 of the Bill, not only within the terms and in the time
that comply with the conventions of the conduct of Committees in this
House, but earlier than that. That was one of the undertakings that I
gave as my aim, in respect of the Committee and my responsibility for
seeing this Bill through Parliament.
Q
345
Mr.
Jones:
So the first opportunity the full House will have
to debate those proposals will be on Report. Is that
correct?
John
Healey:
Should it wish to debate them, that will be
the first time that the full House could consider
them.
Q
346
Mr.
Jones:
I wish to raise two more brief matters, with your
permission, Sir John. Clause 15 provides that competence will be
reserved in respect of power stations in excess of 50 MW generating
capacity onshore and 100 MW offshore. Is that correct?
John
Healey:
Correct.
Q
347
Mr.
Jones:
I see also from the White Paper that there has been
some pressure from the Welsh Assembly Government for such powers to be
devolved.
John
Healey:
Correct.
Q
348
Mr.
Jones:
I take it that the Government are adamant that they
will not devolve such powers. Is that
correct?
Q
349
John Healey:
Correct.
Mr.
Jones:
Finally, I revert to the point raised by
Mr. Curry, who commented on the somewhat skeletal nature of
the community infrastructure levy. Clause 164 provides that one of the
possible charging authorities will be the Welsh Ministers. Is that
right?
Yvette
Cooper:
That is right.
Mr.
Jones:
Can you say at this stage whether it is intended
that all levy-charging powers in Wales will be exercised by the Welsh
Ministers, or will it in some cases be the local planning authorities?
Perhaps you have not arrived at that point
yet.
Yvette
Cooper:
Our approach across the country is for local
authorities to be able to put a community infrastructure levy on new
development. That will include Welsh local authorities, as we have been
discussing with the Welsh Assembly. As part of clause 164 we have also
included the ability to empower Welsh Ministers also to be a charging
authority, but we are clear that this is
about local authorities being able to raise revenue. There is a wider
debate about how we deal with sub-regional and regional infrastructure
requirements. We are still talking about that to stakeholders,
including the Local Government Association and to the Welsh Assembly.
We have included it at this stage because, as I said at the beginning,
we want the flexibility to work with stakeholders in some detail on the
provisions that will then be in the regulations. We have not taken
final decisions in this area.
Q
350
Mr.
Jones:
Will any of the primary powers to be devolved to
the Welsh Assembly enable Welsh Ministers to make amendments to these
levy
provisions?
Yvette
Cooper:
By that, do you mean, “Will the Welsh
Assembly itself change this
framework?”
3.15
pm
Yvette
Cooper:
That is not what this does. This simply
empowers the Welsh Ministers to effectively be a charging authority in
order to be able to look, for example, at what issues might apply
across Wales. This is something that we will discuss further with Welsh
Ministers, but also as part of a wider consultation on how sub-regional
considerations will need to apply.
Q
351
Mrs.
Louise Ellman (Liverpool, Riverside) (Lab/Co-op): I would
like to understand a little more about how the IPC will operate and be
appointed. How will members be appointed to be commissioners, and is
the intention to designate particular categories of experience that
would be seen to be relevant or is it more open-ended? Would you
explain a little more about how that will be
done?
John
Healey:
The chair of the commission would be
appointed by the Secretary of State, and the appointment process for
the chair and all commissioners would be entirely consistent with the
guidance from the Commissioner for Public Appointments. The broad
composition of the commission—we are looking at a total of up to
35 commission members—would be drawn from experts in a wide
range of fields, including experts in planning, law, local government,
community involvement, engineering, economics, business, security,
environment, heritage and health. I had not thought about social
skills, which was raised by one of our witnesses in an earlier session,
but will reflect on that.
The other
important point is that the legislation also explicitly allows the
commission to engage experts for any particular purpose when
considering an application if it feels that it requires that in order
to conduct its proper scrutiny in assessing an
application.
Q
352
Mrs.
Ellman:
How are the reserve powers—the
circumstances in which a decision could go to a Minister—to be
drawn up and would there be ways of extending what those
are?
John
Healey:
Those reserve powers are proposed in the Bill
and are set out, therefore, in primary legislation. They are in two
areas: matters of national security; and in the territory where a
national policy statement was materially out of date and the urgency
for a decision
following consideration was such that it required or justified the
Minister taking that decision, rather than the
commission.
John
Healey:
That would be a matter that the commission
may take a view on, and one that Ministers would undoubtedly take a
view on, and ultimately, if it was challenged, the courts may take a
view on it.
Q
354
Mr.
Betts:
The degree of support that was shown in evidence
for the community infrastructure levy was quite interesting. It is
supported not merely by those who will collect it, the local
authorities, and those who are advising on it, the planning
professionals, but by those who will have to pay it. On Tuesday, it was
quite interesting to listen to the British Property Federation and the
Home Builders Federation enthusiastically endorsing a levy that their
members will have to pay.
Recognising
the general support for it, I wonder if you had time to reflect on the
issue that gave them collective cause for concern: the reference in
clause 166 to the increase in value as a way in which the levy might be
calculated. More particularly—this came out almost by default
from the evidence that we heard today from the Energy Networks
Association—clause 163 states that the primary purpose of the
levy is
“to ensure that
the costs incurred in providing infrastructure to support the
development of an area can be funded...by owners of land the value
of which increases.”
The
argument there is, “Well, our land has not increased in value
and we do not assume that it will from the development, and therefore
we should be exempt from the levy.” There is a possibility that
that basic requirement in clause 163 could lead to judicial review
challenges by some people. Have you had a chance to reflect on those
issues and whether there is a need for a revision of the wording of the
Bill?
John
Healey:
I have and I shall also ask Yvette to come in
on this. In our view the reference and the element of value is a useful
part of the provision that we are making. As the Minister for nearly
three years with responsibility for development work on the planning
gain supplement at the Treasury, I was very struck, as you were
Mr. Betts, by the range of support for the community
infrastructure levy among the witnesses here, and encouraged by it
too.
Yvette
Cooper:
On the issue of value, we hope to make this
clear in the further detail that we will publish about our approach to
the community infrastructure levy. Where this is very different from
the planning gain supplement approach is that the planning gain
supplement was an attempt effectively to have a valuation of each piece
of land and the increase in value of each piece of land according to
the planning permission being granted. The conclusion that we have come
to is that we recognise the concerns that have been raised about the
difficulties in getting that kind of valuation on each piece of land,
and so the community infrastructure levy should not take that
approach.
The approach
is therefore not to try to assess the value of every single piece of
land. However, we think that when the community infrastructure levy is
set, it
should be able to take account of land value. It also needs to be able
to take account of infrastructure needs. It needs to be based within
the planning process around the appropriate infrastructure needs in
that area over the long term. But it also needs to take account of
viability across the area.
If
the community infrastructure levy were set too high, it would prevent a
lot of important development from going ahead. So issues around land
value and broader assessments around increases in planning gain are the
kinds of things that would need to be taken into account by a local
authority when assessing what the community infrastructure levy should
be across the area as a whole. They might also be something that you
would expect the local authority to take into account.
Let
us suppose that it wanted to be able to say that a particular urban
extension, for example, should have a higher rate of community
infrastructure levy—perhaps it was a greenfield urban extension
or something like that. Again you might want to be able to include
value as part of the consideration of what the overall levy should be.
We are talking about value in the context of setting the levy as a
whole, which would then apply across areas, as opposed to the planning
gain supplement approach, which was to consider the value increase on
every individual piece of
land.
Q
355
Mr.
Betts:
I do not think that it is absolutely clear in the
Bill. We may want to return to that. I still think that there is a
danger that clause 163, as currently drafted, could lead to individual
owners of pieces of land that are developed arguing that they are
exempt from it. We have to be a bit concerned about that. I also think
that in terms of your urban extension, you might easily cover the
difference between that area and another area by simply putting the
word “locality” somewhere into clause 166. I think that
that was the original proposal from the British Property Federation and
the Home Builders Federation when they came forward with their
proposals.
Yvette
Cooper:
But what is it that is significant about one
locality rather than another? One of the things that is significant
about one locality rather than another will be around the land values
in that area. To be unable to take account of land values in the
setting of the levy would be to take a risk with viability. The key
issue here is being able to think about what the appropriate level of
the levy should be in order to ensure that it supports development,
housing growth and economic growth, and to make sure that development
in the area is viable.
In
order to have an assessment of what is viable in that area, one of the
things that you need to take into account is broad assessments of land
value. That is a very different approach from looking at valuations on
individual pieces of land or saying that individual pieces of land,
according to valuation, would not therefore be covered by the levy. The
approach is to look at the levy-setting across the area as a whole. As
I said, we are keen to set out further detail and hopefully to clarify
that for the Committee. But this is very different. The local planning
authorities are looking at setting a charge across an area as a whole
and they need to take viability into account. They are not looking to
assess the value on every individual site that will come
forward.
Q
356
Mr.
Betts:
We will have further discussion in due course about
whether clause 166(4)(b) allows for that possibility. I think that that
would be quite concerning, and that it is worrying some of the
stakeholders in the process, but we will probably come back to
that.
In
terms of the role of Parliament, I accept the Minister’s line
that in the end it is up to Parliament to determine its own procedures
for how it will give consideration to national policy statements, but
surely we ought to have laid down in the Bill that there will be a
right for Parliament to scrutinise the draft statements and eventually
to approve
them?
I
am told that, irrespective of which particular procedure Parliament
eventually adopts to do that, its right to do so is not dissimilar from
orders under the Regulatory Reform Act 2006 or the Human Rights Act
1998. In both those Acts, it is laid down that Ministers must propose a
draft order for Committee scrutiny and then lay an order for approval.
Are we not asking for something very similar for national policy
statements: giving Parliament the right to scrutinise and then to
approve?
John
Healey:
There is likely to be a substantive
difference between the general scope and significance of an order, and
a national policy statement. Although I understand your argument about
process, I am not entirely certain that, in principle, you can make
that direct
comparison.
Q
357
Mr.
Betts:
But ought there not to be something in the Bill
that gives Parliament the right to scrutinise and eventually to
approve? Ought we not just to have something laid down, not relating to
the process of it but enshrining the rights in
legislation?
John
Healey:
I am not sure that it is necessary or
sensible to put into primary legislation that sort of approach, but it
is clearly the case that the statements of Ministers in the passage of
legislation through Parliament have a significance. I think that the
commitments that I am making clear about the approach that we wish to
take as a Government to this, and the scope that we wish to give
Parliament to determine the way that it wishes to deal with proposed
draft national policy statements, are
right.
Q
358
James
Duddridge:
When you spoke earlier, Mr. Healey,
about national policy statements, you said that you were not sure how
important the potential number
was.
I
tend to agree with you, if the difference is between 20, 22 or 25.
However, if the difference is between 20, 70, 80, 90 or 100, would you
concede that there was a sizeable difference, and that that makes the
case more compelling for an overarching national policy framework
bringing together the different
elements?
John
Healey:
There are two questions there: one is about
numbers, and the other is about whether there is a case for what is
almost, in effect, a national development plan, bringing all potential
national policy statements covering all areas together. On the latter,
I do not think
that there is a case for that. As we discussed with the Committee
earlier on, the nature, the content and, to some extent, the elements
and purpose of the national policy statements will vary
considerably.
I
have been reluctant to talk about numbers because I think that it is
most relevant that we have national policy statements in the areas
which will be required in order to deal with
the—
Q
359
James
Duddridge:
Can I press you for a high point, because it
might become ridiculous? I foresee a point in the future, perhaps three
or four years down the line, where we have 150 national policy
statements, and the Minister has not put on the record that any number
in three figures would be pushing
it.
John
Healey:
You can press me, Mr. Duddridge.
Your low point was 24 or 25. I think that my ballpark estimate would be
about half of
that.
James
Duddridge:
So, 12 or 13 national policy statements? I am
reassured by that. Thank you,
Minister.
John
Healey:
I am glad to have been able to reassure
you.
John
Healey:
Length?
James
Duddridge:
Yes—the length of national policy
statements. You could simply have fewer and bigger national policy
statements. I was reminded particularly of the ports authority, which
talked about the interaction between the port infrastructure and the
rail infrastructure. Do you see each national policy statement having
linkages, meaning it will become big, or some type of overarching
document that will say how they connect and interrelate with one
another, because they may well be
contradictory?
3.30
pm
John
Healey:
You may want to pursue that with my good
friend and colleague, the Transport Minister, who is serving on the
Bill with me. The ports authority made an interesting point. It strikes
me that in the consideration and preparation of any potential national
policy statement on ports, those questions of linkage with transport
infrastructure—either road or rail—serving ports directly
would have to be looked at closely. I am glad that I have been able to
give you some reassurance on numbers, but I cannot possibly give you
any reassurance on
length.
John
Healey:
The Government have the capacity to write
very long documents and in some cases good and shorter documents. I
would hope that we get the latter rather than the former, but that will
be a matter for Departments, not
me.
Q
362
James
Duddridge:
Turning to the IPC, you have indicated that
there are likely to be around 45 nationally significant programmes
going through the IPC each year. The Local Government Association said
that it was comfortable with the legislation if that
number was in single figures. How do you respond to the LGA and could
you put a cap on it? I pick the figure of 100. If the nationally
significant projects moved up to three figures, would that start to
become a little ridiculous and would the IPC, with its current
structure and costings, start to become not fit for purpose at that
point?
John
Healey:
The likely number is defined by the criteria,
which specify which applications in particular areas will be a matter
for the IPC and, therefore, which will not. Because the Bill is
specific about that and because we have a system for dealing with such
applications at present, we can be pretty confident that, unless the
proposals in the Bill for what should qualify as infrastructure
projects for the IPC changes significantly, the sort of figure that we
are talking about—40 or 45 on average a year—is what the
IPC would be expected to deal with. The difference between our estimate
and the figures that the LGA gave us on Tuesday is simply that it may
have a different view about what is appropriate for the IPC to deal
with, and what is appropriate for local planning authorities, or other
forms of scrutiny, to deal
with.
Q
363
James
Duddridge:
Would you be able to supply the Committee with
some projected breakdown? Some criticism of the Bill says it is mainly
focused around the energy sector. It would be useful to get a feel for
this, because on looking at the definitions it is not clear how many
projects will come through which sectors. Again, going back to ports, I
am concerned that few ports might fulfil the criteria but an incredibly
large number of electricity projects would do
so.
John
Healey:
I am happy to try to give the Committee more
information, for example, on how we arrive at that estimate, but in the
end the decision on whether applications are prepared and submitted is
not for the Government but for potential developers, and their
decisions will turn not just on the nature of the planning
system—despite the reforms that I hope that we are able to
make—but on a number of other factors as well. But I will
certainly do
that.
Q
364
James
Duddridge:
Perhaps one way of looking at it would be to
look back 10 years and say how many would have qualified on that basis.
The Department can look backwards—I appreciate that you cannot
look into a crystal ball—and that would perhaps give us some
perspective and indication based on hard
facts.
John
Healey:
If the Committee would find that helpful, I
am happy to do
so.
Q
365
Robert
Neill:
I just want to come back to the IPC. Effectively,
you are creating a body—the IPC—that is neither subject
to the discipline of elections and the political process, nor are its
members bound by the obligations of a judicial oath. None the less, it
will have powers to amend, apply, modify or exclude provisions
of primary legislation. That is quite an extraordinary
constitutional innovation, is it not? What
parliamentary scrutiny will there be over the exercise of those
powers?
John
Healey:
The IPC will report annually to Parliament
about how it conducts its work. An important element of that report
will be on how it has used the powers to make the consequential
decisions to which you refer. Of
course, that is an important element of creating a single consents
regime, for which there has been very broad
support.
Q
366
Robert
Neill:
What I am interested in is that clause 105(6)(b)
talks about having the ability to use those powers on primary
legislation and local Acts when it is “expedient”. Some
of us would like a lot more information about what is meant by and what
will be covered by “expedient”. The consent regime is one
thing, but what else might be covered by expediency? That is what
worries
us.
Be
r
nadette
Kelly:
The sorts of primary legislation that we
envisage the IPC needing to amend to discharge its primary function of
allowing the development consent are primarily private Acts of
Parliament in relation to transport projects, many of which are
ancient. They will be about byways and other provisions. The Bill also
includes provision so that when the IPC exercises those powers, a
Secretary of State can ensure that it does so in a way that is
compliant with the European convention on human rights and other legal
obligations. It is not a swinging power to amend all legislation. It is
quite a narrow and confined area of competence for the
IPC.
Q
367
Robert
Neill:
There is always the worry of mission creep in such
matters. Perhaps there should be some obligation for there to be a
specific report to Parliament every time such powers are used so that
people do not to get too trigger-happy in the use of it. Could we look
at
that?
John
Healey:
Perhaps I was not clear enough earlier on.
That is precisely what the commission will be required to do. When it
exercises these powers, it will be required to explain how it has used
them. Bernadette Kelly is right that there is, to be precise, a power
of direction for Ministers to ensure that the commission uses the
powers in certain ways and particularly to ensure that we do not breach
any international obligations. To be clear, people who are subject to
compulsory purchase orders as a result of this provision will have
exactly the same rights that they have at
present.
Q
368
Robert
Neill:
Will they have any right of appeal other than by
judicial review if a compulsory purchase order is used as a result of a
decision of the
IPC?
John
Healey:
They will have a right to challenge any
decision on compulsory purchase in the
courts.
John
Healey:
They will have a right to compensation in the
same way as now, determined by the Lands
Tribunal.
Q
369
Robert
Neill:
Another point that interests me is what you
said about consultation. We discussed that a lot, but will you help me
with one issue? In what respect will the rights of people who would be
rule 6 parties under the 2005 rules be enhanced or reduced under the
new regime of national policy statements? How will their rights of
consultation
change?
Be
r
nadette
Kelly:
These are the rights of people who may be
subject to a compulsory purchase order? Their rights will not in any
way be adversely affected by this.
Be
r
nadette
Kelly:
I believe that the case still
applies.
Q
370
Robert
Neill:
It comes down to this. A lot has been made about
the delay caused by the planning process, which we all want to do
something about. Minister, you have seen evidence submitted by the
various witnesses that suggests that, in fact, a good deal of the delay
is not occasioned by the prolongation of hearings by third parties or
their representatives, but either by inadequate preparation by the
applicants to start with, which was the case at terminal 5, or by the
lengthy time taken within your own Department—about eight and a
half months or something like that is the average. You can cure both
those problems without setting up a quango, can you not?
John
Healey:
There are three things I would like to say,
Mr. Neill, if I may. First, I would like to refer back to
one of my starting points. We believe that there is a strong case for
separating out the responsibility and accountability for making policy
and making decisions.
Secondly,
and by way of providing some reassurance I hope, at no point will the
IPC decision on any application be taken by a single person. Even where
there may be some cases that are heard by a single member of the
commission, they will be referred and the decision will be taken by the
IPC council, which will have between five and nine members.
Thirdly, it
is not just a question of speed. If one thinks about some of the most
complex, major inquiries, we were in a situation with the terminal 5
inquiry, for example, where Hillingdon council played an important part
in ensuring that the views and concerns of its local residents were
registered as part of that process, but it had to withdraw because it
had exhausted its funds to be able to do so. In a situation such as
that, simply tinkering with the timing rules of the existing system
frankly will not do in order to put in place a planning system that can
play its part in meeting some of those very big challenges and in
helping to make some of the really difficult decisions that we face
more broadly, which I referred to earlier.
Q
371
Robert
Neill:
Given the likely economic benefits that it is said
will come from these projects, is it not rather odd to say that if it
is too costly for some people to participate, you will abolish the
right to cross-examination? Might it not be rather cheaper to give them
some assistance with the costs of participation and thereby perhaps
reduce the risk of costly appeals, both domestically and in
Europe?
John
Healey:
Sir John, this is a theme that Mr.
Neill has been pursuing all week. Just to be clear, if I may, this Bill
does not abolish the right to cross-examination nor the practice of
cross-examination. What it does is to set out a way of proceeding for
the IPC that aims to probe, test and assess the evidence through direct
questions rather than through cross-examination, particularly the
hiring of expensive third hands, as I mentioned earlier. However,
exceptionally—where it is necessary—if either the
adequate testing of any representations or the representation of
interested parties requires that type of cross-examination, there is
provision in clause 85 for that to happen, and that can be secured at
the discretion and decision of the commission.
There is also
scope in the way that the IPC will proceed for any interested party at
the point at which they give evidence on a specific issue as part of
the proceedings to counter the evidence of other parties by drawing in
expert witnesses who can make those points of
view.
Q
372
Jeff
Ennis (Barnsley, East and Mexborough) (Lab): My line of
questioning now is probably to try to obtain a point of clarification,
given the questions that Mr. Neill has just asked the
Minister. I would like to clarify the way that the new IPC will report
back into Parliament. What will the mechanism be to achieve that
reporting?
John
Healey:
We propose an annual report from the
commission to
Parliament.
John
Healey:
It would be a report to Parliament, but
formally it would probably be laid by the Secretary of State, simply
because the commission would not have the powers, independently, to lay
its report on its own directly before Parliament. But the effect would
be the same. The commission’s report would be laid formally via
the Secretary of State and it would then be for Parliament, and
whatever arrangements we have for taking an interest in these things,
to decide how to deal with
it.
Q
374
Jeff
Ennis:
I am just wondering, given the
national significance and importance of the establishment of the IPC,
whether we ought to be thinking along the lines whereby Ofsted reports
directly to the Select Committee on Children, Schools and Families, for
example. Might it not be more appropriate for the IPC to report back to
the appropriate Select Committee rather than to the Secretary of
State?
3.45
pm
John
Healey:
You have one over me in that you have served
for some time, and with great authority, on that Select Committee. I am
not aware of whether, and if so how, Ofsted has direct reporting
relations to that Committee. Particularly in the context of discussions
that are likely to take place before long between the Chairs of the
important four Select Committees, the Leader of the House and me, as
Minister responsible for the Bill, that is certainly something that I
will look
at.
Q
375
Jim
Sheridan:
Minister, you will have heard during the
evidence session that representatives from the CBI, National Grid and
others in general terms welcomed the Bill, particularly the simplified
planning applications that will help them grow their business. However,
you will also have heard them express some concern about devolved
planning applications that could slow the process. Some concerns were
expressed about that, not just on cost but about the security of
supply. Call me a cynic, but when organisations such as the CBI express
concern, that usually means either disinvestment or job losses, which
gives us cause for concern. Where planning applications are devolved,
please do not give up on your northern comrades. Reassure us and the
CBI, which asked for every level of Government in the UK to work
together to ensure that the energy policy throughout the UK can be
implemented.
Finally,
Minister, during our deliberations on the Bill, if you or your
officials can identify any concerns that may impact on the consumer or
on businesses in the devolved parts of the UK, will you make those
public so that we can bring pressure to bear on the appropriate people
making the decisions, particularly on planning issues such as nuclear
energy?
John
Healey:
Mr. Sheridan, you point to an
element of the arrangements that has some jagged edges. This is clearly
not a Bill in which it is appropriate to change or reopen the
devolution settlement. As you rightly say, planning is a devolved
matter, but aspects such as air transport policy or energy policy are
not. It would be a great shame and it would serve Scotland and the
people of Scotland badly if the exercise of the devolved functions in
relation to planning meant that some essential investment that may
otherwise appropriately look to Scotland did not come to Scotland
because of the approach that is
taken.
Q
376
Paul
Clark:
Let us go back to the community infrastructure
levy. I have been asking about that for most of this week and have been
pleased at the support for it, although when asking people how they
would calculate it and for their suggestions they have been slightly
more reticent in coming forward. However, having said that there has
been a useful
dialogue.
I
recognise the difference between the planning gain supplement and the
levy and the flexibility that that gives to local authorities and other
charging authorities to be able to make decisions locally. Knowing the
reticence and the delay that we have sometimes had with regard to
approvals for house building and home creation and the delivery of
that, will you take any steps to ensure that the levy is not used,
through the guidance, powers and provisions that you make, to delay
building where there are concerns about house numbers and house
building
figures?
Yvette
Cooper:
It is clearly important to ensure that the
levy supports development and does not deter it. Its whole purpose is
to raise additional resources on top of what is raised currently
through section 106 in order to fund the additional infrastructure we
need. We believe that there is significant additional planning gain
that can be tapped in that way, without deterring development, and one
of the strongest pieces of evidence supporting that is the fact that,
according to one piece of research, only 14 per cent. of planning
permissions for housing had a section 106 attached. Obviously, that is
not 14 per cent. of houses built because that will cover the largest
planning permissions granted and does not take account of the fact that
some planning permissions are granted but the houses are never
built.
We recognise
that, but nevertheless it is certainly clear that a lot of medium and
smaller-sized developments do not contribute anything to infrastructure
of affordable housing at the moment, and it is right that we should be
able to take account of the cumulative impact of a lot of
those smaller developments on infrastructure, and be
able to tap some of those resources for infrastructure
too.
We believe,
therefore, that it is possible to raise additional resources without
deterring development. You are of course right that, if the levy is set
too high, it could deter development and become a problem, so it is
important to take account of that as part of the regulations and
guidance and ensure that there is a process in place
to set the community infrastructure levy at the right level. That will
need to ensure that there is proper consultation in an area.
We will need
to work closely with stakeholders, including local government and
stakeholders such as the Home Builders Federation and the British
Property Federation, so as to be clear what factors need to be taken
into account in an area and what kind of processes need to be gone
through to be confident that an appropriate level is set. We envisage
safeguards as part of the regulations and guidance, but will need
considerably more consultation before we are ready to set out precisely
what those should
be.
The
Chairman:
We have eight minutes left and I have three
senior Members who would like a second bite of the cherry. If they
could each confine themselves to one question, we will see how we
go.
Q
377
Mrs.
Lait:
Mine is just one question. Why are you not repealing
the Planning-gain Supplement (Preparations) Act
2007?
Yvette
Cooper:
We think that it is important to move on with
the community infrastructure levy. We have the provisions in place here
to do so and have said that we will not be taking forward the planning
gain supplement as part of the Bill. We want to ensure that the
community infrastructure levy will work and do not think that there is
any need to repeal the previous Bill and consideration. We want to
ensure that we can raise additional resources from planning gain
through the community infrastructure levy, but it is important that
people should work with us to make it
work.
Q
378
Tom
Brake:
We talked a lot about law making, but could we talk
briefly about law breaking? A number of witnesses have suggested that
the IPC might be in breach of article 6 of the Human Rights Act for not
allowing people a fair and public hearing. What legal advice have you
received on
that?
John
Healey:
I will ask my colleagues to give you the
specific details. First, the Secretary of State has signed off the Bill
as being consistent with the Human Rights Act, which gives you your
top-line reassurance on that. Secondly, if you refer back to what I
said 15 minutes ago, I said that the conduct of the IPC’s
operations can be directed, if necessary, to ensure that there is no
breach of international obligations, including human
rights.
Q
379
Tom
Brake:
Does either the Minister or the official know
whether the arguments were finely balanced about whether it met article
6?
Be
r
nadette
Kelly:
All I can say is that in developing the policy
and developing the clauses of the Bill we have been extremely cognizant
of the fact that questions have been raised about consistency with
article 6 of the European convention on human rights. We have taken
care to ensure that our policy is robust and is consistent with the
ECHR. We have looked at this very closely in developing detailed
clauses and we have certainly subjected it to close legal scrutiny.
Clearly the Secretary of State would not have signed off the ECHR
memorandum were we not entirely satisfied that the Bill met the
requirements of the Act.
Q
381
Mr.
Curry:
Clause 164 deals with charging authorities and
subsection (2)(e) contains the catch-all phrase
“any other authority with
responsibility for town and country
planning.”
I should be
grateful if the Housing Minister could list the number of authorities
that will be involved in the setting of the levy. Could she also
explain what the reference to reimbursing expenditure in subsection
(4)(a) of the clause over the page is all
about?
Yvette
Cooper:
Which is the second
clause?
“permit CIL to be
used to reimburse expenditure already
incurred”.
Given our
concerns that this should be used to meet new infrastructure needs and
not to fill financial holes, what does that mean and could she list the
authorities that can precept or have a say in the fixing of the levy? I
just need to know how wide the base of this pyramid
goes.
Yvette
Cooper:
Clause 167(4)(e), did you
say?
Q
383
Mr.
Curry:
Clause 167(4)(a) permits CIL to reimburse
expenditure and the other query relates to clause
164.
Yvette
Cooper:
Let us deal first with clause 167. Again,
this is about enabling regulations. As we have set out before, we want
to have further consultation before we draw up the regulations and
those regulations will be consulted on in extensive detail in draft as
well. The principle that this is getting at is that there may well be
areas where, for example, a piece of infrastructure needs to be
provided up front and where a series of developments that take place
over time ought to contribute to that infrastructure because they will
all benefit from it. It might be appropriate for various agencies to
borrow or provide additional funding in advance to get the
infrastructure in place. However, as the development will start at a
later date, it will contribute towards the infrastructure through the
community infrastructure levy. A similar principle has been adopted as
part of the Milton Keynes tariff approach, where some of the funding is
being provided up front by English Partnerships and others, but is
being effectively reimbursed as the development takes
place.
There
is an important issue behind your question about the need to ensure
that this process is supporting infrastructure additional to that
provided by mainstream budgets and funding. We must recognise that some
of the things that it will contribute towards will also need mainstream
budget funding. There will be some pieces of infrastructure that will
get funding from not only a community infrastructure levy, but from the
Highways Agency or other budgets. It is important to have that
flexibility in order to get the infrastructure in place on
time.
With
regard to your second question about the charging authorities, we are
providing flexibility, which we can discuss further, as part of the
establishment of the regulations. Currently, there are bodies that can
collect
section 106 agreements as part of their planning work. We want to look
further at the range of bodies that need to be involved in setting the
levy.
We
envisage this primarily as a local authority-driven process, but there
is a wide debate about how to deal with sub-regional and regional
infrastructure requirements. For example, junction 30 of the M25 will
have an impact on south Essex and part of the Thames Gateway and will
have an impact across local authority boundaries. Crossrail is a
classic example of a piece of infrastructure that will have an impact
across local authority boundaries. We want to have further discussions
about how those arrangements should
work.
Another
example of that is the south-east councils that, through the South East
England regional assembly, put forward a proposal for a regional
infrastructure fund, which they wanted to be funded by our affordable
housing pot. We did not think that that was an appropriate source of
funds because that money should go towards affordable housing.
Nevertheless, they wanted to work together to have a regional
infrastructure fund so that they could look at some of their strategic
infrastructure issues across the region as a
whole.
We
have not taken any final decisions on how to support such arrangements.
We want to have flexibility in how we can deal with them. I cannot give
you a definitive list of all the bodies that might be involved, but I
am very happy to have further discussions on how it should work so that
it can work as effectively as
possible.
Further
consideration adjourned.—[Mr.
Watts.]
Adjourned
accordingly at
one minute
past Four o’clock till
Tuesday 15 January at half-past Ten
o’clock.
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