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Baroness Wilkins: My Lords, I strongly support the three amendments. They are essential for ensuring that access is brought into the beginning of the planning process. I hope that the Minister will give a favourable response.
Lord Addington: My Lords, if we manage to get the planning process to take forward the issue of access, we shall probably save everyone a great deal of time and money. Probably the only people whom it will affect, I am afraid, are the lawyers, because they will have to ensure that the legislation complies with the new regulations coming in at present. The draft Bill is being discussed. Can the Minister give an assurance that if the Government stay where they are they will not be contradicting the spirit of the Disability Discrimination Act? If they cannot give that assurance, they should look long and hard at this issue.
Lord Rooker: My Lords, this is a classic example of where a Minister should put his oar into the debate straightaway. I do not wish to prolong the discussion. The case has been made that the access statement should be on the face of the Bill. I shall take these amendments away and come back at Third Reading with something that addresses these concerns.
Baroness Hamwee: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord for that answer and for his obvious preparedness for Third Reading—I know that the Government Chief Whip is listening to this—which will be quite a long occasion and certainly a very interesting one.
Although the Minister said that what is proposed is instantly acceptable, that does not always stop people talking. His reply is obviously welcome, but I hope that he will forgive me for making the point again—it may seem a little trite and obvious—that it is important that the Government's amendments are published in time, not only for those of us who will speak to them, but for stakeholders to be consulted. I have no doubt that the Government are working with them in any event and will continue to do so. Those who have proposed amendments such as those to which I have spoken should be in no doubt that the Government's proposals meet all the points that have been raised. The issues before us have been around for a good while. They are not wholly straightforward. It is important that stakeholders are satisfied with the outcome. I am not trying to teach my grandmother to suck eggs on that point. It is merely an issue that should be addressed before Third Reading. In thanking the Minister, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
[Amendment No. 137 not moved.]
Clause 45 [Major infrastructure projects]:
Lord Hanningfield moved Amendment No. 138:
- Page 31, line 14, at end insert—
The noble Lord said: My Lords, we now come to an extremely important amendment to the Government's proposals for major infrastructure projects. As I stated in Committee, I am particularly engaged with these issues as the leader of an authority that was severely affected by the Government's proposals for the expansion of airport capacity in the south-east.
The amendment would ensure that major infrastructure projects are subject to an economic impact report. It excludes site-specific proposals in White Paper national policy statements to prevent them reducing the scope of a public inquiry.
The two provisions in Amendment No. 138 are crucial to enhancing the Government's proposals for major infrastructure projects. I shall speak to each in turn.
The first part of the amendment would require the Secretary of State to conduct an economic impact report on any planning matter that he deems to fall within this part of the Bill. Major infrastructure projects, which may cause great damage to the environment, are usually promoted on the basis that they will deliver economic regeneration benefits. Therefore, a robust appraisal of whether demonstrable economic benefits will accrue must take place.
The examples of the Hastings bypasses and the West Midlands strategic western bypasses, which have been brought to my attention by the CPRE, show that an economic impact report would have greatly helped the decision-making process in each case. In each case, there was a lack of clarity about the assumptions which underlay the bypasses and the proper justification for them. Economic impact reports would avoid those problems by comprehensively probing new infrastructure proposals for their genuine economic implications, both positive and negative. They would provide a firm, realistic and impartial basis for discussion of a project's likely economic consequences.
Noble Lords may be interested to know that the Government have already accepted the logic of my argument. The Department for Transport is taking forward the recommendation of its standing advisory committee on trunk road assessments that economic impact reports be produced before decisions on new transport infrastructure are taken forward.
Since that is the case, why would the Government change the rules only for transport infrastructure and only via guidance? The importance of major infrastructure projects to local communities merits including economic impact reports in the Bill.
We support economic impact reports also because the arguments about the economic impact should be in the public domain at an early stage. It was stated in another place that a statutory economic impact report would be unnecessary, because the economic effects of development would be examined by the inspector. That is in no way acceptable.
Local people who are affected by major planning proposals will not wait until an inquiry to make their voices heard. They will want to confront the issues head-on. By the time the inquiry takes place, positions will have hardened and there will be little chance of persuading people of the merits of a particular development. That would be fine if one were not too concerned about local community support, but it is wrong. We should make every effort to ensure that local people fully understand the rationale behind planning proposals of that kind.
Those who are in favour of development would welcome robust arguments being put into the public domain. I would have thought that the Government would seek to reshape local debate in that way.
The second part of the amendment is equally important. It will enable an inspector to examine the justification of a site-specific proposal in the Government's White Paper. Planning by White Paper is simply unacceptable. Of course we support the use of White Papers to provide a framework for guiding the planner of major infrastructures. However, bypassing the checks and balances in the planning system by making site-specific recommendations is another matter entirely. That is what has happened with Stansted, and Labour Peers will be aware of the legal objections being pursued by various local authorities, including my own.
Major infrastructure projects rarely enjoy all-round support, but they must have public legitimacy. It is an erosion of democratic decision-making if a White Paper pre-empts the question of whether a specific development is needed. A White Paper consultation certainly does not adhere to the same checks and balances as a planning application.
In Committee, the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, said that during an inquiry the inspector will consider all aspects of the application, including the need for a specific development. However, a little later in the same speech, he said that the inspector should not have to spend inquiry time considering whether the need for a development exists, but should consider instead whether the need identified is outweighed by other factors.
The difference between those two statements is very important. The first suggests that the principle of major infrastructure projects should be examined and either taken forward or rejected. The second suggests that if a proposal is in the White Paper, the arguments about the principle or need for the development will be deemed to have taken place, but without the legitimacy of the planning process. The emphasis of any inquiry
It is essential that the democratic safeguards in a planning system that help protect the environment and enhance the quality of life in local communities are not bypassed. We think the amendment very important. I beg to move.
Baroness Hamwee: My Lords, I spoke to the amendment at the previous stage and so convinced myself that we have added our names to it. The noble Lord, Lord Hanningfield, has dealt very thoroughly with the issue, and we certainly support the amendment.
The Minister's response in Committee—I think that other amendments were dealt with at the same time; I am not sure, but we were certainly focusing on the issue—was to give an interesting explanation of how major infrastructure inquiries would work. I was grateful for and interested in that, but I did not think that that explanation really answered the points made today by the noble Lord.
"( ) Any planning application that the Secretary of State declares is of national or regional importance, as designated through subsection (1) must be subject to an economic impact report.
( ) Any planning application for a major infrastructure project based on a site-specific proposal in a national policy statement White Paper shall be considered by an inspector who shall be able to question the need for a specific development."
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