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I address briefly the issue of location specificity. Ministers made a commitment in the other place that both nuclear and aviation NPSs would be location-specific
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- “statements that cover nuclear power stations and airport development—the two most contentious forms of development covered by the Bill—will be location specific”.—[Official Report, Commons, 25/06/08; col. 348.]
The noble Lord, Lord Jenkin, described why the locations of nuclear power stations would be in all logic constrained by a number of different factors.
More choices are to be made with other NPSs. Clearly the NPS itself will not be as locationally specific, but it will set out criteria about the types of locations that might be suitable for the development of NSIPs.
The terms “suitable” and “potentially suitable” are virtually interchangeable. They highlight that the suitability itself might be conditional on external factors. One cannot set out specific criteria for these situations in all cases. The NPSs must be rational and sensible documents. In all cases we expect the identification of the suitability of a location to be ultimately dependent on the details of the particular project proposal. It would be one of the tasks of the IPC. The IPC would have to look closely at the details. I am addressing Amendment No. 46 in this context. It would have to look at the specific application and the precise siting of potential impacts to determine whether the application was appropriate to go in the place identified.
In some cases it is possible that the suitability of a location identified in an NPS was conditional and not simply on the details of the particular application. There would be other factors as well—for example, we might find that there was a location that was suitable for an airport. That might depend on whether the air quality was of a satisfactory standard regardless of the details of the other aspects of the project actually fitting the other sets of criteria. The flexibility that these terms give us is important.
Baroness Hamwee: It seems to me that the noble Baroness is addressing an amendment that I have not tabled. It is as though I am trying to take out “suitable”. I entirely agree with her. All I am saying is that the provision should be limited to “potentially suitable”. Her argument seems to be that one cannot go beyond “potentially suitable”, and that is precisely my argument.
Baroness Andrews: I take the noble Baroness’s point. In fact I think that everything I have said applies to “potentially suitable”, for the very reason that I gave.
Perhaps I may move to the question of mission creep and Amendments Nos. 27, 29 and 53. Noble Lords argue that it is necessary to place these conditions in the Bill to prevent it extending its sphere of influence beyond the parameters set out in Clause 14. I understand why noble Lords are exercised about this. The provisions of the Bill are specifically drawn up in order to prevent this happening. Perhaps I may give some reassurance here. My fears are that Amendment No. 27 could constrain Ministers in ways that would not be helpful. I do not think noble Lords would want to do that.
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The principal purpose of national policy statements is to provide a clear statement of national policy on particular nationally significant infrastructure which will be relevant to the IPC.
However, there may be occasions when the Secretary of State wishes to set out aspects of national policy in relation to the fields in question without designating them for the purposes of the Bill. For example, Ministers would decide to publish a general and wide-ranging statement of policy in relation to any of the infrastructure types covered by the Bill, setting out long-term strategic goals, but which was not intended to function as a decision-making tool. The amendment would remove that. The Secretary of State must retain the flexibility and authority to set out policy statements in future, as happens now, alongside the NPSs.
Ministers may also wish to set out policy in relation to an area of infrastructure covered by the Bill but aimed at decision-making below the threshold set out in the Bill, such as in certain planning policy statements. They would be directed at local planning authorities rather than the IPC. Amendment No. 27 would constrain Ministers from doing that, and foreclose on these important possibilities. Any such documents will obviously form part of the policy background that national policy statements must take into account. Indeed, the NPS would have to explain how it had taken those sorts of policy statements into account, and the full range of factors set out there.
Amendments Nos. 29 and 53 attempt to restrict the areas in which the Secretary of State can set out policy in an NPS to developments in the fields of energy, transport, water, waste water and waste. They clarify that national policy statements might be issued in relation to the categories of project set out in Clause 14. In fact, they would have no practical effect. NPSs will be designated under the proposals of the Bill for the purposes of the Bill. Although they will have the same status as other statements of national policy for the TCPA system generally, their principal purpose is in relation to an application for development consent for a nationally significant infrastructure project, as set out in Clause 14. Clause 14 makes it clear that any new projects could be added to this list only if they fell within those fields. I understand that Members of the Committee were seeking clarification, but—
Lord Berkeley: I do not understand some of that; maybe it is the time of night. I thought that the whole point of the Bill and the policy statement was to give developers comfort. They have an enormous amount of work before anything even gets to the NPC, which they will have to fund themselves. If they comply with the national policy statement, however, they have a good chance of getting a fair hearing and possibly getting permission. Without a policy statement, where is the comfort for them to go ahead?
Baroness Andrews: Maybe my noble friend misunderstood me. He is absolutely right that national policy statements will be the decision-making frameworks that the IPC will follow. Developers need to know that there is certainty and clarity. I am saying that the amendments’ objectives are achieved by Clause 14. I obviously did not explain it clearly enough.
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I was reassuring Members of the Committee that the Bill will apply only to the five broad types of development set out in Clause 14. Amendment No. 31 would require publication of a process and a timetable for each case. The amendment was tabled in the other place, and the Member who did so expressed concerns that the processes for designation, consultation and so on might not be adequate, especially in the context of Clause 12’s provision for designating pre-existing statements of policy. I understand the need for Members of the Committee to be reassured that we have a clear and appropriate process that meets these same high standards, whether they are newly designated or based on existing standards.
The amendment would not have much practical effect. It requires the publication of only a process and timetable before designation, at the very end of the process. However, I shall address the spirit of the amendment and hopefully allay the noble Lord’s concerns. We can all agree that it is important that NPSs are produced in a timely and efficient manner. Each NPS will need to undergo public consultation, appraisal of sustainability and parliamentary scrutiny. However, they will vary a lot in complexity, depending on the type of infrastructure with which they deal. Therefore, the timescales will differ as well, so I do not think we can set down a specified timetable. We need the flexibility to respond appropriately, but the amendment would not enable us to do that. However, I take the point and we will address as best we can the issue of having a clear and specified process. Different issues of varying degrees of impact will arise too, which is why we need to achieve a balance between flexibility and speed.
Amendment No. 32 would require a single NPS dealing with all the transport projects set out in Clause 14. The noble Lord argued eloquently that it is important that strategic policy priorities related to transport infrastructure are considered together, in view of the relationships and interactions between them, to ensure consistency and synergy. I assure him that the Government are actively pursuing the development of an overarching transport strategy, as set out in the discussion document Towards a Sustainable Transport Strategy, which we published last year. That approach reflected the advice of the Eddington report, looking across the transport modes and markets at the outcomes. The DfT will be consulting formally later this year on the emerging conclusions and the next steps.
The transport strategy will extend far wider than the relatively few major infrastructure schemes that will be affected by the Bill. It will look across all the transport networks and the physical infrastructure. I am indebted to my noble friend Lord Woolmer for putting this so powerfully. Putting all that into an NPS would make for an unwieldy, complex and probably very delayed document. Having done that, it would be difficult to distil the key issues. I am afraid that it could hinder rather than help. However, the overarching strategy is subject to a substantial programme of further analysis. The aim is to produce by 2012 a programme of action for implementation from 2014 onwards. Therefore, it makes more sense at this stage to produce an NPS which is specific to the sectors and networks that we need to deal with. However, I assure
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Amendment No. 43 seeks to tie national policy statements into the regional planning framework and it is extremely important to do that. We must have the various layers of the planning decision system tied closely together. The NPSs will inform the regional spatial strategies as well as local development frameworks. However, this amendment would create confusion as it would create an impression that NPSs might operate at a regional level. That is a problem. However, NPSs seek to set out national policy in relation to infrastructure and then it will be fed down the planning chain. I hope that the noble Lord will be satisfied with that explanation.
Amendment No. 32A in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Jenkin, would require a Secretary of State to consider any request from an applicant for the production of a national policy statement on an issue on which a national policy statement has not yet been produced. The whole burden of what we have said today is that it is the responsibility of the Secretary of State to produce a national policy statement to meet national needs. Government Ministers are fully in the frame. However, when coming to a view on whether an NPS would be appropriate for a certain area of infrastructure they have an obligation to listen to stakeholders. This is something that I should like to think occurs as a matter of course. However, the noble Lord has put that necessity on the record and that was an important contribution. I do not think that we need to specify it in legislation.
Amendment No. 51 would require an NPS to set out the flood risk of identified locations. Noble Lords rightly argue that flood risk is an extremely important consideration, and should be included in the Bill. I certainly do not dispute the increasing importance of taking into account PPS 25 with its various degrees of flood risk identified in terms of the planning decision.
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I think that the amendment, however, adds too great a level of detail to the Bill. If we were to add flood risk, I can see that we might end up adding all sorts of things. The key is appraisal of sustainability, which is key to the policy development process. That will assess the various impacts and will ensure that they are properly taken account of. I have made it clear during the debates today that NPSs must integrate the environmental, social and economic aspects of policy and all the relevant planning policy documents, which certainly includes PPS25 on flooding. That will be critical, whatever infrastructure we are talking about. Under Clause 5(6), Ministers must give reasons for the policies set out in the statement. We can expect a clear explanation of the factors, and in some instances they will include flooding. NPSs will be subject to public consultation and parliamentary scrutiny. Flood risk is very much in the minds of the public and in our minds here in Parliament.
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Finally, Amendments Nos. 49 and 50 are the final items in the list of examples of policy that may be included in a national policy statement. I think the intention of the noble Lord was to allow NPSs to specify when a type of development is appropriate only if specific mitigation is applied. Nothing in Clause 5 rules that out. I would like to look again at what the noble Baroness said to make sure that we have an adequate response.
I am sorry to have taken such a long time. If there had not been so many different amendments, I would not have taken so much time. They were all worth debating. I am grateful to all noble Lords who have spoken.
Lord Dixon-Smith: I am looking at the clock and wondering how soon midnight might arrive. This has been a very interesting and helpful debate, and I will run through one or two points that arose, which I do not regret. I was slightly amused when the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, wondered how we managed to reduce 16 areas down to five, and then began to talk about a uniform, overarching transport policy. That seemed to me to make my point. The subjects in Clause 16 can be reduced to the five headings that we gave in Amendment No. 27.
The only thing that I want to say on the question of overarching policy across particular fields is that you have to cater for complete changes in circumstances. Historically, the obvious example is the impact of the railways on coaching and coaching inns. More recently, very much in our time, the channel ferries thought that they had it made until someone dreamed up the tunnel. We have to be able to cater for that sort of change. That is a particular area.
I agree with the points made by the noble Lord and the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, about site specificity. This is very difficult. The fact of the matter is that the commission will be considering specific sites and, if granted, the permission will relate to the site and not to the owner or operator of the site at the time. If the current financial explosions were to have an impact on an applicant two or three years down the line and they had to pack up and go out of business, a successor would still have the benefit of the permission, and there would not be a problem. However, I find myself wondering about a subject that we have not mentioned
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The noble and learned Lord, Lord Boyd of Duncansby, also sympathised with our amendment and raised the question of flood risk and nuclear sites. My problem with flood risk is that one has to consider it in the context of timescales. In my area in 2001, we had a one-in-800-years flood. The problem with such a flood is that nothing prevents you having another one in the succeeding year. Thank heavens, that has not happened, but no one whom I have read has considered what the potential sea level rise will be in 800 years if we continue along our present path. At that point it becomes very significant and perhaps we need to think about this matter strategically in relation to coastal sites for power stations. My view is that the insurers are doing very nicely out of that one-in-800-years flood. They have upped their premiums accordingly and they may take the money for 800 years before it is called on. We need to recognise that there are long-term risks out there that are longer than the timescales that we are used to thinking about.
I am sorry that the noble Baroness says that our amendment on floods is too severe to be considered, but I am glad that she has some sympathy with it. I shall read the whole of her response with considerable interest, because she covered a number of points in great detail. I could go on for another 10 minutes, but I guess that at this hour the Committee would prefer that I did not. With the assurance that I shall read with interest her response to my noble friend Lord Jenkin and her statement, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Baroness Thornton: I beg to move that the House do now resume.
Moved accordingly, and, on Question, Motion agreed to.
- House adjourned at 10.23 pm.
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