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I therefore draw an analogy in this instance with the MPC, a body set up with the express purpose of denying ministerial political involvement by the Treasury in virtually every circumstance in the determination of interest rates. I offer the House the information that the interest rate has today been cut by 1.5 per cent, a cut of such magnitude that no politician would ever have had the guts to make it. Even with the respect that I have for Alistair Darling, a friend of many years’ standing, I do not think that any politician would have taken a chance like that. I do not think that the IPC is about taking chances, but it is about

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taking necessary decisions which at times might be popular and which at times might, equally importantly, be unpopular.

Frankly, in my 40 years and more of political involvement, the degree of courage shown across the political spectrum has not been of an order to indicate that political accountability would enable people to make that kind of decision. It is near hypocritical for people to tell us that Ministers like taking unpopular decisions and that they will go boldly on and take the consequences. They do not do that. They certainly do not do it in council groups where, as I understand it, there is no political involvement in the planning committee and there is no attempt by Whips to interfere, or so I am told. Certainly, no one would ever put anything on paper—conversations never took place and meetings were never held. We know that these things happen and that little councils sometimes come to decisions for daft reasons, in the almost certain knowledge that the applicants do not have the resources to appeal. Where the applicants do have the resources to appeal, they appeal and appeal and appeal, and the infrastructure gets into a dreadful state. We are not able to sustain the kind of economy or the kind of environment that is becoming ever more important in these sorts of debates.

There is a large dose of hypocrisy in what is being said today. I think that the amendment will be defeated and the proposers will be quietly satisfied, because they will know that they will not have to deal with that kind of problem in the future and that it will be left to the IPC to do so.

Lord Boyd of Duncansby: My Lords, I, too, declare interests, which are in the Register. My law firm also deals with planning matters, including infrastructure issues.

The noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, quoted my intervention in Committee, and it may be said, as someone who has just been acting as counsel in a planning inquiry in Scotland, and having just received a positive response from Ministers to my client’s application, that it ill behoves me to take issue with the involvement of Ministers. However, I do so, and I do so in this context. The architecture of the Bill is to set up a new procedure to deal with large infrastructure projects. As I see it, the national policy statements are at the core of that. To that extent, I agree with those noble Lords who have suggested that we have got the Bill the wrong way round; not that it matters at the end of the day, but the key issue is the national policy statements, which will set out the strategic direction for the construction of infrastructure in our country.

Against that, the role of the IPC is critical and crucial. It will take decisions in an independent and quasi-judicial manner. Independence is at the core of the role of the Infrastructure Planning Commission. It is absolutely critical. To that extent, the amendments that have been tabled are almost wrecking conditions, because of the way in which they would go to the heart of the operation of the Infrastructure Planning Commission.

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I draw noble Lords’ attention to Clause 102(3), which sets out the role of the commission in taking these decisions. It states:

“The Panel or Council must decide the application in accordance with any relevant national policy statement, except to the extent that one or more of the following subsections applies”.

That is absolutely clear. The national policy statements, which have gone through the procedure set out in the Bill, subject to whatever parliamentary procedure is finally agreed, are the determining factor. One of the key subsections is Clause 102(7):

“the adverse impact of the proposed development would outweigh its benefits”.

I suggest that that will be at the core of much of the IPC’s consideration. The IPC will have before it the national policy statement, which may very well support the application that it is considering; but the adverse impacts of the development on the locality are the key consideration.

I suggest that the body that is most able and which ought to take that decision is that which is charged with receiving all the evidence and, to the extent it is necessary, testing it. That is the IPC. To have, otherwise, the intervention of a Minister goes to the heart of the independent and quasi-judicial nature of the IPC. The amendments, particularly those from the Liberal Democrat Benches, suggest that the decision, once the IPC has taken it, would be subject to ratification by the Secretary of State. The Secretary of State’s alternative, as I understand it, is to remit the decision back to the IPC.

On what grounds would the Secretary of State undertake that function? It would only happen if the Secretary of State felt for some reason that he had got it wrong. If I were on the IPC I would send it straight back because to countenance a remit on that basis would go to the heart of the independence and the quasi-judicial nature of the function that I as a member of the IPC had been charged to fulfil.

With the greatest respect to those who tabled the amendment, it is a dangerous proposition for the House to contemplate. It is also dangerous for the Secretary of State. Let us imagine that the IPC has taken a decision in accordance with the NPS, to the effect that there are adverse impacts from the development but those adverse impacts do not in its judgment outweigh the benefits of the development; so it makes a judgment in favour of the applicant. In some communities, particularly the more middle-class and vociferous communities, there might very well be a vociferous campaign to try to overturn the decision. That would come, for example, through questions to Ministers and newspaper campaigns, as pressure increased on the Secretary of State to remit the decision back to the IPC. That goes to the heart of the constitutional arrangements that the Bill sets out—that there should be a clear division between the strategic direction which the IPC is implementing, and the independent, quasi-judicial decision on the individual applications.

I wish to raise two final matters. The noble Lord, Lord Tyler, suggested that one needed a long stop—the Secretary of State, not the courts. In fact, the courts are always a long stop. They are the long stop now and they are the long stop in the Planning Bill, because we

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live in a constitutional democracy, subject to the rule of law. The courts will always have a function. I, too, am concerned at the delay that may very well be occasioned by remitting back or involving the Secretary of State in any way. I echo what has been said by other noble Lords, and recall the words of a chief executive of one of our major utilities companies, who told me that in his opinion this was the most important Bill that Parliament had considered in the past 50 years, because it was critical to achieving security of energy supply and meeting the challenges of climate change. After recently debating climate change and energy matters, we should keep these issues at the forefront and defeat these amendments.

Lord Best: My Lords, I am wondering what is left for me to add in opposition to these amendments. Perhaps I may take up two points that may not have had as much exposure as they could have. The first relates to the views of all those trying to carry out infrastructure projects who have written to many of us and made their views well known. They include the CBI, the British Chambers of Commerce, the transport industry, the UK Business Council for Sustainable Energy, the British Wind Energy Association and the Renewable Energy Association. The list goes on. These are the organisations that we are expecting to produce energy-saving measures, let alone to maintain supplies of gas and electricity and build the infrastructure to create the new transport links. These are the organisations that are asking us to get on with the job and not proceed with an amendment that they believe would—if the Secretary of State were to take his responsibilities seriously—create delay. It would slow things down, which would mean waits of more months. The Secretary of State could intervene but then be distracted by other matters. Not only would there be delay; there would be the uncertainty that came from not knowing on what basis the Secretary of State was coming in possibly to exercise a different judgment from that of the independent experts. One would expect noble Lords on these Benches to believe that independent expertise had merit in its own right. We on these Benches do not inherently believe that politicians will always exercise superior wisdom over and above the views of the experts in these circumstances.

I have been subject to local pressures. The noble Lord, Lord Dixon-Smith, has cited a parallel example involving local councillors who have to stand up to an awful lot of pressure at the local level. In trying to achieve affordable housing schemes, I have had the letters through the post box, anonymous phone calls made to my wife in the day, the local protests making themselves known in the very unpleasant ways that they do, let alone the formal representations from national lobby groups and the rest. I know how councillors feel. When a project is unpopular it requires great powers of leadership at the local level to stand up to these pressures and say yes. It is very difficult for politicians. If my affordable housing schemes can cause so much hostility and resentment, how much greater will it be if we are considering large-scale national infrastructure projects? A nuclear power station will multiply by 100 the pressure on politicians. I suspect that if we take the Secretary of State and frontline politicians out of the equation and allow the independent,

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impartial and expert group, the IPC, to take these decisions, we will be blessed not only by those who want to get out there and get on with doing the job, but by any political party that finds itself in power on another day and needs to face up to these difficult decisions.

12.45 pm

Lord Brooke of Sutton Mandeville: My Lords, I promise the Minister that I will be brief, particularly at this stage and hour. I am grateful to my noble friend Lord Jenkin of Roding for helping me to resolve my dilemma. I happened to have a personal leper’s squint on the Sizewell B inquiry. On 1 January 1983, the Treasury Solicitor rang my brother, shortly after he became a Silk, to say that the Secretary of State for Energy, my noble friend Lord Lawson of Blaby, had decided to brief counsel to the inquiry and to ask my brother if he would undertake that role. Two-and-a-half years later, I was in the British Embassy in Tokyo and coincided with the late, great Walter Marshall, whose accent a number of noble Lords will have in their minds’ ear. He kindly said that although the quality and quantity of the questions which my brother had asked had greatly prolonged the inquiry, which at that stage had been running for two-and-a-half years, he was satisfied that those on the technology and the hazards absolutely needed to be asked. He said that provided the questions were asked only rarely and there was confidence that they would not have to be repeated, he, at the receiving end, was happy for them to be asked.

I understand the pressure of the questions that have been brought to us and I can understand them more readily, because of the Sizewell B case. At about the same time, I attended a public seminar conducted by the noble Lord, Lord Flowers, on the transportation of irradiated fuel. That was not strictly a planning matter but it was an analogous situation. He said that he was totally satisfied with the safety of the urban transportation of irradiated fuel. I was the only Member of Parliament to attend, but I was an urban MP. However, he realised that there would be very grave public apprehension about that process and that, therefore, it was important that by one means or another, the public should be satisfied that the right decisions were being taken.

What we are contemplating in the Bill would confer a major responsibility on the IPC to explain and justify its decisions on a host of matters to the general public and to the specific public, in the context of specific applications. It would be welcome if the Minister said a little about the discharge of that responsibility on the part of the IPC. In the mean time, I am minded to follow my noble friend.

Lord Mackay of Clashfern: My Lords, having listened carefully to the noble Lord, Lord O’Neill of Clackmannan, it occurs to me that his proposition would result in no person who depended for their position on elections taking an executive decision. That seems to be a wide proposition. I do not express any view about the desirability of applying that doctrine in this case, but it seems to be a doctrine of very general application which would have a great effect on the machinery of government in our country.

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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Communities and Local Government (Baroness Andrews): My Lords, I am extremely grateful to everyone who has spoken in this debate. The noble Lord, Lord Williamson of Horton, started by saying that this is the fundamental clause, and indeed it expresses the fundamental purpose of the Bill. Therefore, I am grateful that we have had such a serious, thoughtful and expert debate on this group of amendments.

I do not want to repeat the arguments that I set out at length in Committee; they have been well rehearsed this morning. However, I believe that the weight of the argument has been with the Government. Despite my best efforts—and I shall continue to try to persuade the opposition Front Bench—the amendments still seem to suggest that an independent body making final planning decisions is a step too far because Ministers should be seen to be, and indeed be, politically accountable, and that the Secretary of State can and should continue to have a residual role at the end of the planning process.

I find it slightly odd that noble Lords opposite accept the scale of the challenges that we face, together with the logic of the NPS and what it is designed to achieve, but that they are still reluctant to follow that logic when it comes to the role of an independent Infrastructure Planning Commission, which will bring greater certainty, transparency, expertise and efficiency to the final planning processes.

The question before us—it was posed by the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, in Committee, and I shall return to it because it is the right question—is: where does accountability more properly and effectively lie in the new system set up by the Bill? What are we trying to achieve through the changes in the Bill, and how can that best be secured in the new processes that we have put forward and amended since Committee?

The case that I want to reinforce this morning—it has already been made by many of my noble friends and by noble Lords across the House—is not simply that the Bill provides for a stronger and more certain response to the formidable challenges that we face in terms of energy and climate security, but that the process that we have put in place brings greater accountability and divisibility within the political process and in terms of ministerial responsibility. It also provides a process which will allow for the community to exert greater influence—I take the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, on this—at different key stages, and, as my noble friend Lord Howarth said, for decisions to be taken by those who have heard and weighed up the evidence and are able to balance national need and local impact, and are as free to reject an application for development consent as they are to accept it.

A great deal unites us across the House, despite our different conclusions on the place and role of Ministers. The noble Lord, Lord Dixon-Smith, agrees that we need to change the system, and few would dispute that or dispute the definition of failure—which is where he started his argument today—or the scale of failure. It has been documented by the Eddington and Barker reports, and by the weight of evidence that has been brought to your Lordships’ attention and attested to this morning. In simple terms, that evidence means

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that, when it comes to major infrastructure projects, our planning system is so slow, so uncertain and so unclear that most applications are begun “at risk” by promoters. The deterrent effect is the default mechanism. We have heard evidence of the costs of failure. The ports industry has put a price tag of £45 million on the Dibden Bay application process.

The wider costs are borne by the community, which lives with uncertainty and blight for many years. Ultimately, if we fail to build the power stations, reservoirs and roads—the things that we need for our survival—we will all pay a far higher cost. The problems are becoming more urgent. There is no exaggeration in the statement that the great challenge to our generation is to provide energy and climate security together in a way that promotes and guarantees economic and social sustainability.

Those are common challenges for every country, which is one reason why this is such a competitive situation when we are looking for investment. However, we have specific problems in this country. We are the first industrial nation; we have a growing and ageing population, which we need to house; we need to provide transport; and we need to meet energy needs. Much of our infrastructure requires urgent replacement now, and it needs to be done sustainably. At the same time, we need to grow a competitive, knowledge-led and energy-dependent economy. That would be a big enough challenge but doing so in the face of a need to move towards an 80 per cent cut in carbon emissions by 2050 to avert catastrophic climate change means a tenfold increase in renewable generation over the next 12 years. To secure a new supply, the best modelling that we have suggests that between 10 and 20 new power stations and around a dozen major gas storage facilities will be needed by 2020.

The point about competitiveness comes in when you look at the scale of all this. Let us take Shellhaven Port as an example. It is phenomenally expensive, involving a £1.5 billion investment, and it will bring with it the largest logistics centre in Europe. It will generate 12,000 jobs and bring huge regeneration benefits for the Thames Gateway. That is the sort of investment that we need.

To achieve that, we need a predictable, clear planning system, which we do not have but other countries do. It is to other countries that the investment and skills will go unless we get this right in the Bill now. They will attract the skills to modernise their infrastructure because their planning systems are more certain—whether you are talking about Australia, Germany or North America—more welcoming and more liable to manage risk. Why should anyone commit to building our new power stations or ports when what we offer is a process where nothing—timetables, processes, outcomes or decisions—is certain, where national policy is debated and disputed on the floor of the planning inquiry at the final stage, where local interests and impacts are often overlooked, and when countless separate consents are needed.

Therefore, we are putting forward a planning regime for major energy, transport, waste and water infrastructure that addresses those things. Thresholds are set out in the Bill for each sector to capture only those projects

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which can genuinely be described as nationally significant—about 45 each year. That is why I do not take the parallel with the local planning decision that noble Lords have been making. The Bill replaces the eight current consent regimes for major infrastructure with a single consent regime. There are three stages in this regime and they are all interdependent.

The first stage in an entirely new process is indeed the national policy statements, which will set out the Government’s overall objectives for infrastructure development, including in relation to need. In some cases, as we have debated, these may specify locations as being potentially suitable for development; in others, they will need to specify criteria against which the suitability of locations can be assessed. In all cases, national policy statements will be subject to mandatory consultation, appraisal of sustainability and an entirely new form of parliamentary scrutiny. The noble Lord, Lord Burnett, referred to the failure of the process in relation to Heathrow—not least because we had no national policy statement.

Lord Burnett: My Lords, I am very grateful to the Minister for giving way. I think there is consensus around the House that there is a very powerful case for these national policy statements. The Minister makes a very powerful argument. She has talked about the planning system being uncertain and expensive and about the fact that we need a predictable planning system. I am moved to ask her whether the Government will alter, or try to streamline, the remaining elements of the planning system which are also unsatisfactory.

Baroness Andrews: My Lords, I can answer that. At the moment, we have an end-to-end review—the Killian/Pretty review—which is looking at just the sort of problem that the noble Lord and I both know exists.

The second stage is about project development. The Bill requires applicants to consult those whose land interests may be affected, the local community, the local authority and statutory consultees. This, again, is a new process of pre-application.

The final stage is consideration by the Infrastructure Planning Commission. Complex projects will be considered by a panel of expert commissioners, with less complex cases being considered by single commissioners. The time limits will be very important. There is a statutory six-month limit for inquiries and a further three months for a decision, both measured from the point at which the inquiry begins. Decisions will be made by the commission, taking into account the national policy statement, the local impacts report from relevant local authorities and any other matters which the commission considers important and relevant. That is the framework in which we are having this discussion on accountability.

The charge here is that, by giving decision-making to an unelected body, the proposals undermine the accountability of such decisions to the public. The argument, which we heard again on Report, is that this in turn is unacceptable because of the significance of these decisions.

I should like to make three arguments. The first—I could not agree more with the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee—is that we fully recognise that the decisions

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on power stations, airports and major roads are indeed big political matters. They involve important questions of the balance of the public interest, the national economy and sustainability. Because we believe that so deeply, the essential change that we are making in the Bill is not to remove the Minister, not to reduce responsibility and certainly not to humiliate the Minister, as the noble Lord, Lord Dixon-Smith, suggested, but to reposition the Minister, the Government and that responsibility in a way that makes the process visible and actually enhances it.

I am grateful to my noble friend Lord O’Neill for a very powerful speech, which drew out some rather uncomfortable home truths. For the first time, Ministers will have to set a clear policy framework for our key elements of infrastructure. They will have to make their case for their policy through public consultation; they will have to set out clearly how sustainability is achieved and where the balance of public interest lies; and they will have to consult and go through parliamentary scrutiny.

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