Examination of Witnesses (Questions 20
- 36)
WEDNESDAY 6 JANUARY 2010
MR HUGH
ELLIS
Q20 Mr Weir:
The alternative viewpoint, is it not, is if you give the IPC this
power you are in effect setting up yet another organisation to
monitor carbon emissions. The Government is setting targets for
carbon emissions, presumably setting down what it considers to
be the proper energy mix, and it is for the Government to determine,
through the Climate Change Committee or whatever, whether these
targets are being met and to monitor that, and the IPC's role
is to look at specific issues relating to planning not to carbon
emissions and by giving them this power you are simply duplicating
what DECC and the Climate Change Committee should be doing in
any event?
Mr Ellis: I think that would be
right if the NPSs set out a clear framework for an energy mix
that delivered on the target. That is not the case so we are back
into this position where there is an accumulation of problems
and it is for the private sector to determine our energy mix and
the IPC cannot consider need so it cannot refuse any application
that comes forward on the basis of need. If there is more gas
in the system that is nothing to do with the IPC because the NPSs
make it clear that that is a private sector-led initiative.
Q21 Mr Weir:
It is for the Government and the Climate Change Committee in terms
of our targets for carbon emissions. It is up to them to say this
is not right the way forward for energy, we do not need more gas,
we need more renewables, nuclear, whichever way you want to go,
so it is not really a matter for the IPC and it should be done
at a different level?
Mr Ellis: This is the difficulty.
At the highest level the accounting process certainly is a matter
for the Committee on Climate Change, but the IPC has new and extraordinary
power to grant the development consent that generates the carbon.
The Committee has no involvement in that process. Perhaps it should.
The Committee has an involvement in the preparation of National
Policy Statements and presumably they will produce a response
as a statutory consultee (and we are not aware of where that response
is going) but they have no involvement with the IPC at the decision-making
stage at the point where emissions will begin to be generated,
and because there is no connection between that, there is potential
for huge carbon leakage in the system. There is a delivery problem
is what I am trying to say.
Q22 Mr Weir:
You have talked about decentralisation of energy and there will
be a lot of energy that is less than 50 MW that will not fall
within the IPC system, so if the IPC have the power that you are
looking for in respect of carbon emissions then is there not a
huge black hole because of decentralisation because of the growth
of smaller generators, and is it not more sensible to have the
power either with DECC or with the Climate Change Committee to
set the overall limits? Is it not right that the IPC merely looks
at the development rather than the carbon emissions of the particular
development?
Mr Ellis: There are difficulties.
There is quite a lot there. It is certainly the case that the
rest of the planning system has strong obligations in policy to
consider climate change but it does not have any relationship
with the accounting mechanism that the Committee has at the moment,
and that is a problem, absolutely. For me it is absolutely vital
if we are to make forward progress on climate change that from
the point of view of the front-line in terms of detailed planning
decisions, the sum total of all planning decisions taken—and
let us just stick with energy for a second—needs to be accounted
for effectively if we are to deliver below the curve by mid-century.
There cannot be a sector where we make a huge predictions about
the energy profile without understanding in detail what those
profiles would be. It seems to me that at the point of decision,
and particularly with the IPC because the energy projects are
so big they need to understand the carbon profile, even if they
pass that information instantly on to another body to deal with
like the Committee that would be perfectly acceptable. It is also
the case that the environmental impact assessment regulations
require applicants to submit evidence on atmospheric emissions
already, so we are already in a position where applicants are
having to deal with producing the carbon profile of their developments.
Whether that has been tested at law I do not think it has yet,
but it certainly would be a challenge if for example a major new
gas-fired power station came along that did not contain a carbon
profile of the life cycle of that development in the application.
If that is the case, the information is being generated at the
point of application for the benefit of the IPC. All we are arguing
is that the IPC then needs to do something with that information
whereas at the moment the Government is saying it cannot. It needs
either to pass it on to the Committee or to make its own judgment
or report annually on the level of emissions it has approved.
Q23 Mr Weir:
Given the ways things are moving, dealing with carbon capture
and storage for example where we are talking about once it is
approved fitting it to new stations as they are built, surely
that information is being developed at an earlier stage because
anybody going forward for example with a new coal-fired power
station within the next few years will have to take into account
the carbon emissions from that, the efforts of carbon capture
and storage or whatever to clean up these emissions, so that would
be developed presumably at an early stage before the application
gets before the IPC because that will have to be an integral part
of any application for a future power station under the rules
being developed?
Mr Ellis: Again there is some
complexity there but there are two responses. The first one is
that if you give the IPC a metric to understand carbon, a system
to understand carbon, that works both ways. Those applications
coming forward that decarbonise our energy supply should expect
to have positive treatment in the system. They are meeting the
policy requirements and that clearly makes them move through the
process faster. However, for a carbon intensive project, and just
to pick up the point about carbon capture, my understanding is
that we have a carbon capture regime for coal and we have carbon
readiness for gas but not any ambition at the moment in the immediate
future to fit gas.
Q24 Mr Weir:
I think those are Energy Bill arguments coming through.
Mr Ellis: My only point from a
planning perspective about it is that that means there is still
a potential for carbon-intensive energy development to come through
the system. What has worried me personally about it is to see
the level of gas being approved under the old regime. That is
my concern. That reflects back on whether or not the IPC needs
to consider carbon because if carbon capture solved all our problems,
which we hope in an ideal world it would, that would be fine,
but it does not seem that is going to happen in the immediate
future and particularly not for gas, and it seems that gas is
going to be one of our lead fossil fuel alternatives. Given all
of that we are still in the position where the IPC needs to have
a role on carbon. After all, just taking a step back, it has a
role thinking about almost everything else in detail but not carbon.
It has been given the information so there is no greater burden
on the private sector because they have to generate the information
anyway in relation to environmental impact assessments, so in
our view in that sense it does seem almost perverse that the IPC
cannot at least be able to say to government, "You do realise
that we are approving a lot more gas in the framework than you
anticipated?" and a memorandum of understanding with the
Climate Change Committee would be a start. Ultimately, in the
case of NPSs it should be in strategic policy where this issue
is resolved. If there were an agreed energy mix probably NPSs
could make more progress on the framework for a low carbon energy
system for the future.
Paddy Tipping: Let us change the focus
and move away from carbon and talk about the energy mix and the
need for an energy mix and needs and issues that you have talked
about quite a lot. John, are you going to pursue this?
Q25 Mr Anderson:
The TCPA was concerned that the NPSs do not allow the IPC to consider
need. Why would they need to consider the need?
Mr Ellis: This relates back to
the worries that we have about reaching the right energy mix and
the Low Carbon Transition Plan lead scenario. It is simply an
issue that the argument presented to us is that market mechanisms
will influence what applications come forward and therefore, as
we have already debated, the IPC need not think about it, but
the IPC needs to be able to understand need to ensure that we
do not end up with a very highly carbon intensive energy mix.
Q26 Mr Anderson:
Are you saying then that the IPC should dictate what the mix should
be?
Mr Ellis: No, I think that the
right framework would be that the National Policy Statements should
provide more prescription on the delivery of the lead scenario
in the Low Carbon Transition Plan. Having created that prescription
it is for the IPC to deliver it. To give a practical example,
if that amounted, crudely, to four gas stations and not five,
when the fifth application came forward it would be for the IPC
to say, "Actually we cannot see that there is the need for
this application." That seems to us to be really powerfully
logical and perfectly reasonable. Again it is something that happens
in the rest of the planning framework.
Q27 Mr Anderson:
You talk a lot about gas and the Government's policy of course
is to try and steer away from gas. You never talk about security
of supply and yet that surely is part of why we are going towards
a mix? There is an obvious anti-nuclear slant either coming from
yourself or your group. Why would it be that you do not consider
the mix as a general whole and that you just want to talk about
certain bits that your body does not like?
Mr Ellis: I think in relation
to nuclear the reason that we are focused and upset about it is
not because we have taken a strong position in TCPA to be anti-nuclear
(although we remain sceptical) it is because of the issues around
public consultation specifically, and nuclear happens to be the
only site-specific energy NPS there is to debate. I am absolutely
convinced that if we are going to have any chance of dealing with
climate change we need a very strong strategic policy on an energy
mix, absolutely maximising to the greatest possible degree our
renewable resources. In that sense, if the framework delivered
on than ambition—and that requires a mix and it requires
consideration of energy security; I absolutely accept that—then
there would be a strong case for the NPSs as written. I think
our issue is what is buried in the NPSs clearly is a strong market-led
idea about the energy mix and we are not satisfied that we can
have confidence that the private sector will bring forward the
technology that we need. It is not that they necessarily will
not; it is just that the private sector has to operate in a powerful
strategic framework set by government. The powerful strategic
framework is there in principle in the NPSs but it is not there
in practice, in the sense that they do not contain strong guidance
about what the energy mix should be. Ultimately, I am sure the
Government will be committed to wanting nuclear to be part of
the energy mix. It has said that and that is policy and therefore
that is where we are and there is no point arguing about that.
What I am suggesting is that if we for example go on not having
a consideration of need, we may end up with an awful lot more
gas in our energy mix than renewables, and that really worries
me, partly because of the potential economic development prospects
around renewables and obviously more crucially because of the
carbon intensity of that profile.
Q28 Mr Anderson:
Would you not accept then that is precisely the problem we have
had in years gone by in getting planning permission for renewables
in particular, and it has been not very helpful, to say the very
least, and that the hold-ups in the planning process have in effect
caused the problems that you are talking about?
Mr Ellis: The problems about onshore
renewables worry me deeply. It has to be said that we still await—and
it is about to be published—the new PPS on climate change
which we hope will provide even stronger policy. Most of the programmes
of course are under 50 MW in the local planning framework and
it is absolutely clear that we have need to have a much stronger
sense that the planning programme is committed to delivering on
climate change. The CLG's own research on that over the summer
suggested that climate change only featured in about ten per cent
of planning applications as an issue. There is a massive problem
with the profession, frankly, and with the culture of planning.
I put my hands up to the immense progress that we need to make
inside planning on climate change, but that does not change the
fact that we need to have an effective delivery mechanism and
effective policy, and at 50 MW and above that requires biting
the bullet about how much ambition we want for renewables. I would
never set a limit on the amount of renewables, you cannot really
have enough, but I would want to understand in detail before the
NPS is published whether the heavy commitment to approving gas
under the current system may or may not compromise our ability
to build the amount of renewables that we need. That is my worry.
Q29 Mr Anderson:
Let us talk specifically about the needs of the nation and what
we need in relation to a baseload electricity power supply. You
have put a lot of emphasis on renewables and how much you would
like to see it, and we all would love to see a lot more renewables,
but at the end of the day we do have to have that baseload that
keeps the country ticking over. Due to our commitment to the EU
that will necessitate either carbon capture and storage being
developed or the building of new nuclear plants or the reliance
on gas coming from international markets. Do you accept then that
there is a need for these new plants to be built to maintain the
baseload for the nation and that the planning process cannot be
used as a stopgap to stop these plants being built?
Mr Ellis: I certainly accept that
there is clearly a role for fossil fuels in the mix in the immediate
future and going forward. There is certainly huge potential for
renewables and the idea of a smart European grid for renewables
was talked about yesterday in the media. I am also quite clear
though looking at the issue of security of supply that we have
approved under the old system either under construction or consented
to construct somewhere in the region of 20 MW which replaces what
is being decommissioned. This is in this useful diagram in the
overarching Energy NPS and repeated in the Low Carbon Transition
Plan. That is all under the old system, a system that was not
meant to work and that does not include a figure for those applications
for gas currently under consideration in the old framework. I
am not making in any sense a ridiculous point that there should
be no fossil fuels in the mix. My point is that if we establish
a mix we should then try and deliver it coherently. If we are
going to say, as the NPS does, that it is for the private sector
to determine the mix, that is what the overarching Energy NPS
says, and then we say to the IPC that means you do not need to
think about need because there is need for all energy projects,
need is just established—
Q30 Mr Anderson:
Would not the planning process guarantee what your graphs are
showing that that would have been committed and successfully achieved
under the present planning processes?
Mr Ellis: Not necessarily because
the current planning process needed reform. I am not trying to
suggest that there is not a need for a new framework. What I am
suggesting is very simple: once we have established what the mix
should be—and that is not for TCPA to determine—then
the NPS in policy and the IPC in its decisions should deliver
that mix. That is essentially what the ambition for private sector-led
energy development inside a strategic policy framework amounts
to. That is not what the overarching Energy NPS delivers for the
nation. The overarching Energy NPS delivers a market-led view
with an organisation making a decision unable to think about need,
and that is not sensible.
Paddy Tipping: That is a powerful point.
Des, you want to pursue this?
Q31 Dr Turner:
Of course it is a sad reflection of life that most of this gas
capacity that you are worried about has already been consented
by the existing process and is likely to be consented by the existing
process even to come. Would your fears—and there is a certain
legitimacy to your fears, I agree—be addressed if the overarching
NPS were slightly modified to indicate a hierarchy of preferred
mixes, so starting with renewables, nuclear, down to fossil fuel
as needed for security of supply? Would some sort of change of
wording—it only needs a paragraph or two—satisfy your
concerns?
Mr Ellis: They would go some way
to addressing it if we could see that there was this framework
which exists in almost every other aspect of planning policy,
particularly the waste hierarchy, which provides proper guidance
for planners on the ground, yes. Whether it goes all the way to
meeting the ambition of a National Policy Statement that could
provide very clear guidance about an energy mix, I am not sure.
However, if I we move to that system—and I agree there is
merit in it—it requires the IPC to be able to employ judgment
and to think about the relative issues of need. For example, when
an application came in for gas which was perhaps at the bottom
of the hierarchy, how would it make a judgment because it would
have to consider all the other applications presumably? NPS would
need to provide, as it really should, more guidance around that
issue. I would just make this comment about planning policy. There
is a strong feeling—and it will no doubt be said that planning
policy always needs to be streamlined; it is one of the great
myths that exists—that planning policy needs to be effective.
Effective planning policy is rarely short precisely because the
issues are so complex, so moving to a hierarchy would be very
powerful but it would need to contain sufficient guidance to the
IPC for them to be able to apply it effectively.
Q32 Dr Turner:
That guidance would presumably be received through its statutory
consultee, the Committee on Climate Change?
Mr Ellis: All I can say is I look
forward to the Committee on Climate Change's submission on the
NPS series.
Q33 Dr Turner:
That is the purpose of having such an arrangement, I would have
thought.
Mr Ellis: It is, but can I make
one very important point which personally worries me from a planning
perspective. Spatial planning is an important and separate and
distinct discipline. The statutory consultees and the Climate
Change Committee have expertise in carbon accounting and many
other aspects of climate change, but not necessarily any expertise
in spatial planning. The IPC and this forum has to judge very
carefully whether the advice coming from statutory consultees
is the right advice. It cannot always be taken as read.
Q34 Dr Turner:
But the particular case of a gas-fired power station application
is not really a fundamental spatial planning issue surely because
it does not really matter to the system, within limits, where
it is put; the question is whether it is put anywhere.
Mr Ellis: I think it is crucial
because the devil is always in the detail spatially. We can make
a judgment that we need X amount of new capacity in energy, but
the really tough part is where it goes, whether that is the best
place, how many local communities are affected, how many biodiversity
interests are affected, and whether it actually works on the ground.
That discipline is a hard discipline. We may want to have a go
at planning, but it is a hard discipline. Unless you crack that
at strategic level by providing sufficient detail, investigation
and proper assessment, or unless you allow the decision-maker
to be able to fully consider it at the local level then you have
a problem. My fear is that you have neither of those two things
in the current NPS framework.
Paddy Tipping: We are running towards
the end of our time, you will be pleased to know. You have worked
hard for us. One of the things that is interesting and has not
had a lot of discussion and deserves more is the relationship
between the NPS, the IPC and, let me put it like this, the remainder
of the planning system. Again, you have had interesting things
to say about that.
Q35 Charles Hendry:
I have just an observation first. I wonder whether you are expecting
too much of the planning system. That is clearly one element in
the fight against climate change but there are other elements
as well. The businesses which are looking to invest in new gas
plant will be aware that there is talk about an emissions performance
standard, expectations that they would need to be retrofitted
and they would have to take that into account with CCS technology
in their planning decisions and applications. It is not just the
planning system but a whole range of other policies which would
be involved in that. Particularly on the point that Paddy raised,
how do you see the threshold of the 50 MW? Do you think that the
NPSs should be looking more generally at the whole range of areas?
You have talked about some of the microgeneration issues and the
local generation capacity opportunities. Do you think there should
be a more cohesive approach towards all aspects of energy generation
and supply rather than having it fragmented in the way that it
is?
Mr Ellis: There are certainly
two concerns. Dealing quickly with the first one, if the RTPI
were here they would certainly be saying there is a need for greater
integration, as would we, in terms of a national strategic framework.
The idea of a plan for England, like there is a plan for Wales
and Scotland, that integrates infrastructure is absolutely vital
and the idea of separate NPSs does not quite fulfil that ambition.
That is certainly one point. The other issue is the 2008 Act is
not well related to the rest of the town and country planning
regime and that is going to be a significant issue. While it is
absolutely right in law that local and regional planning should
take account of what is written in any government policy statement,
including National Policy Statements, the problem is that NPSs
have a very tightly legally defined role in giving advice to the
IPC. To be frank, what worries me is that the development of NPSs
by different government departments outside CLG is not providing
the opportunity necessarily for proper integration for the contents
of that policy and the regional local planning framework. At the
same time there is discussion, although it may not have progressed,
that some critical policy on renewables, for example, will be
contained in NPSs but not repeated in the Planning Policy Statement
framework. Why is that important? It is important for a detailed
legal reason, and that is that the status of PPSs has been established
through High Court challenge in case law over a long period and
they have a relevance to town and country planning. National Policy
Statements have no clearly defined status in the rest of the town
and country planning regime and if I were wanting to object to
renewables, which I profoundly do not, then I would simply make
a smart move that whenever the content of impacts, which I understand
is to be contained in National Policy Statements for the whole
of renewables, 50 MW below and above, is contained in a statement
that is intended for a different legislative framework it will
be tested at law and will result in significant delay. It is crucial
for onshore renewables that the framework is made clear in Planning
Policy Statements and in National Policy Statements and not one
or the other if we want to have delivery. There is inevitable
and quite understandable bedding down when new legislation arrives
at the national level, I completely understand that, but there
is certainly an urgent need to make sure there is coherence between
the two regimes. That relates to one other very final, quick point
and that is the status and importance of local government in the
consultation process on NPSs. After all, local and regional bodies
have to take onboard the impacts, which are significant, in National
Policy Statements for their planning process. At the moment we
are not necessarily getting great feedback that that process is
going on and it is critical they are involved in NPS development
so that the plans dovetail together. This should be ideally one
narrative from national to regional to local and at the moment
it is not.
Q36 Charles Hendry:
Do you think we are doing enough to get popular buy-in to support
local developments of energy infrastructure? Very often local
communities feel they are being imposed upon them and they do
not see they are getting a benefit from them. Could more be done
which would create greater acceptance through financial arrangements,
reducing the electricity prices, community ownership of wind turbines,
aspects like that which you think would start to change the debate
about this and where the community would start to see they get
a real benefit out of this rather than simply hosting something
which is of a wider national benefit?
Mr Ellis: Absolutely. We need
an absolute cultural transformation about the way the debate on
climate and energy takes place including, as you rightly say,
the kinds of benefits that accrue to local communities from energy
projects. There is absolute determined resistance to onshore wind
and it is getting worse. Why? Because the argument about climate
is not presented with the argument on energy in a mechanism which
is effective. It is crucial that all of us in the professions
get out there and talk to communities about the benefits. It is
also crucial to have one more critical issue identified. People
are not a problem but sometimes the system solely regards communities
as a problem to get round, to persuade, not to include in the
process of planning. Planning will only work if people are at
the heart of it because you cannot build without consent. What
terrifies me is if we engineer conflict into the national planning
framework by not consulting then our ability to deliver major
onshore wind proposals, which we desperately need, is going to
be ten times, 100 times more difficult.
Paddy Tipping: That is a very good point
to finish on. Thank you for coming and spending so much time with
us. I am sorry you have been by yourself, I know it feels a bit
lonely out there. If, as you are going back, there are one or
two things where you think, "I should have told them that",
do not hesitate to drop us a note. Thank you very much indeed.
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