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4 Mar 2010 : Column GC401
4 Mar 2010 : Column GC401
Thursday, 4 March 2010.
2 pm
The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Viscount Simon): My Lords, before the Minister moves that the draft national policy statement be considered, I remind noble Lords that the Motion before the Committee will be that the Committee do consider, rather than approve, the draft national policy statement.
Ports: Draft National Policy Statement
Considered in Grand Committee
2.01 pm
Moved By Lord Faulkner of Worcester
That the Grand Committee do report to the House that it has considered the Draft National Policy Statement for Ports.
Lord Faulkner of Worcester: My Lords, I am very pleased that we have the opportunity today to debate the Government's proposed national policy statement for ports. Last Tuesday, your Lordships held the first of three debates on the suite of energy national policy statements. We heard some interesting points on that occasion, some of which are salient to the national policy statement for ports, and I am pleased to reassure the Committee that there is only one of those.
For some years, it has been widely agreed that the planning system for major projects is in need of an overhaul. I do not think that that is a contentious assertion. Opinions have differed-and still do to some extent-as to what sort of overhaul it should be, but I believe that the essential desirability of producing national policy statements to set a clear framework of national policy, so that decision-makers can concentrate on the local specifics of each case, now enjoys a wide consensus.
There were vigorous debates during the passage of the Planning Bill, and those debates shaped the Act which now sets the framework for the national policy statement that we are here to consider.
The ports industry in England and Wales-and in Scotland and Northern Ireland, where ports policy is devolved-is a vital national asset. Well over 90 per cent of the country's international trade, encompassing everything from crude raw materials to finished goods of all kinds, travels by sea and enters or leaves through one of our sea ports. Ports are essential for domestic trade and for private passengers too. Therefore, it is no small matter to make sure that there will continue to be enough capacity in the right places long into the future. This is the case now, and it is a position that has been reached very largely by a free and competitive market, in mixed ownership, almost entirely without recourse to government subsidy. On the contrary, private sector port developers are contributing to investment in the public road and rail links that their customers will use. This, I grant, is not universally popular with
4 Mar 2010 : Column GC402
Therefore, the national policy statement is an important element in the Government's programme to deliver the reforms to the planning system included in the Planning Act. The fundamental aim is to make the planning system fairer and faster. We want to see a more streamlined process that is responsive to current economic and environmental challenges but also more predictable, in the sense that both applicants and objectors will know more clearly what is expected of them, and by when. In short, the planning process for major developments should be more transparent and accountable, with full and fair opportunities for participation by port users, neighbours and others.
The Infrastructure Planning Commission-the IPC-will be required to decide cases in accordance with the national policy statement, once it has been designated, provided that the adverse impacts are not found to outweigh the benefits and the proposal is compatible with domestic and international law.
The national policy statement will not have that same statutory force for smaller development cases falling below the thresholds in the Act, but it is our intention that it should carry substantial weight as a material consideration for such cases as will be decided by the new Marine Management Organisation, or other decision-makers, in future. That is why your Lordships will have seen the term "decision-maker" used widely in the text, with the IPC being referred to specifically only when we intend the reference to apply only to it.
The challenge that the Government faced in drafting this particular national policy statement was to convey the vital need to the country of continued development of ports in response to market demand, if port capacity is not to become a real constraint on economic growth and well-being. At the same time, we had to be clear about the stringent environmental requirements that any new development will have to meet.
The Government's policy on ports is clear: it is to encourage sustainable port development to meet the demand that will result from renewed growth; to leave judgments about when and where that development should occur to those in the industry best placed to make those judgments; and to require all proposed developments to meet the high environmental standards set by legislation and wider policy. This policy has been successful so far. Before the current downturn, overall demand has been well matched by port capacity, and where congestion was starting to occur, the industry came forward with solutions.
In the short term, the industry introduced lorry-booking systems, for example, to spread the peaks and prevent gluts of vehicles all turning up at the same time, annoying each other, private motorists and local residents. It promoted rail usage, getting boxes away from the port faster. Ports responded to long-term expected growth in unit-load demand by bringing forward a series of planning applications, particularly for container terminals, with appropriate mitigation and compensation arrangements built in. So far, all
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In recent years, the Government have thoroughly examined the underlying market-led policy in the ports policy review, and this was widely welcomed. That led to reaffirmation of the market-led approach to ports in our interim report published in July 2007. Nothing that has happened since suggests there is a need to change course now. The policy set out in the draft national policy statement ensures that development will be responsive to real needs, and flexible enough to meet demand where and when it arises.
The national policy statement explains the need for port development to serve the economy, society and the environment. It says that the applicant's view of commercial prospects should normally be accepted in assessing need for capacity. Different applicants will have different and perhaps mutually inconsistent views of the future. That is normal and healthy in a market sector. It explains when and how alternatives to the development should be taken into account, in line with regulations, to arrive at the right layout both commercially and environmentally, and it sets out details as to how economic, social and environmental impacts should be secured, if positive, or avoided, mitigated or compensated if negative.
Despite the uncertainties, the evidence points to a resumption of growth in the wider economy and, with it, of demand for port capacity. For example, our consultant's pre-recession forecasts for containers suggested a yearly average growth of 4 per cent out to 2030. That was exceeded in some years-growth was more than 10 per cent in 2007, for example. In 2009, by contrast, we have seen a severe downturn, estimated at 12 per cent year-on-year in the third quarter, and we expect some lasting effect. Overall, however, the long-term trend remains one of growth, and we expect the level of demand initially forecast for 2030 to be attained, albeit some years later. This long-term growth would still be within the viable economic lifetime of a typical ports development.
So the proposed national policy statement stresses that developing the country's ports infrastructure is not just a matter of simple arithmetic, of allowing exactly as much new capacity as adds up to the forecast change in national demand, irrespective of detailed type or location. It is not a case of predict and provide. Rather, it is a matter of allowing ports to take their own view on market prospects in the belief that this will enable the most efficient use of capacity in the long term. It has also been shown to allow for innovation, improved productivity, and national resilience.
Alternatives such as limiting growth or directing where development should occur would damage our economy and be much less successful in ensuring that capacity is made available where it is needed. So this is a non-locational policy; it does not need to be otherwise. I should add that the policy is consistent with our climate change objectives. These, as the national policy statement notes, will be delivered taking the transport
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Some of our consultees have already remarked on the length of the impacts section of the national policy statement, especially the environmental impacts, compared with the rest. We make no apology for that. It is a fact that port developments, being themselves diverse, generate a wide range of environmental impacts in varying degrees. It is important that we deal with these thoroughly, and the appraisal of sustainability has helped us to do that. However, your Lordships should not infer from the relative lengths of text that economic benefits are to be downgraded. On the contrary, the argument of the national policy statement is that applicants will typically, with good design and appropriate mitigation, be able to manage and minimise the environmental impacts well within acceptable bounds.
I shall mention the other national policy statements for which the Department for Transport is responsible. It is currently envisaged that the national policy statement for national networks will be published later this month, taking into account the timing of the Government's response to the advice that my noble friend the Secretary of State has received about high-speed rail services from High Speed 2. It is likely that a consultation on that draft national policy statement would be affected by the period of sensitivity before a general election-a period of sensitivity that many of us refer to as purdah. In this event, we intend to offer an extended consultation period, and therefore the scrutiny period for this Committee, by a period equivalent to that lost.
A third transport national policy statement, for airports, is scheduled for consultation in 2011.
In conclusion, we have consulted widely on the proposed Draft National Policy Statement for Ports. It was open to all to respond, online or on paper. We held a series of regional consultation events, open to all, and participated in events held by others. We engaged the organisation Planning Aid to help us reach a wider readership. We have discussed it with individual stakeholders when they have asked us to. The Department for Transport is now carefully considering more than 150 written responses to the consultation, many of them detailed. That is far fewer than responses to the suite of energy national policy statements, as one would expect, but it is still a very good response considering the nature of the exercise in this case. We are very grateful to everybody who took the trouble to respond, or took the time to consider the consultation.
The Transport Select Committee in another place has taken evidence on the national policy statement, including from the Minister for Shipping, Paul Clark MP, and we await its report with interest, as I do your
4 Mar 2010 : Column GC405
2.14 pm
Earl Attlee: My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for introducing this matter with his usual clarity and care, although I think that my grandfather Lord Attlee would have been shocked by the Minister's sensible reliance on the market. I agree that there are problems with our planning process and that something needs to be done. I recall the enjoyment of asking Ministers questions about the cost of the T5 inquiry.
We on these Benches support the concept of an NPS for the various areas of national infrastructure, but we part company on the Infrastructure Planning Commission, to which I will return. The ports NPS is unusual in that it is used for the IPC process for port developments of national significance and for the MMO for smaller developments, such as harbour extensions. I shall touch on transport networks later.
With one crucial caveat, this document is an excellent piece of work. It is well laid out clear and appears to answer all the questions comprehensively. The caveat is that all this is true if the question to be answered is: when industry desires to seek planning permission for a port or harbour development, what factors in its proposal must be taken into consideration and discussed? In written evidence to the Transport Select Committee in another place, the chair of the Infrastructure Planning Commission, Sir Michael Pitt, expressed concern that section 1 of the national policy statement fails to offer,
One wonders whether this is because there is no policy to identify.
The Royal Town Planning Institute, a professional body which represents 22,000 planners, also has difficulties with the Government's draft NPS. It says that the statement,
we know that there is a requirement-
- "or give any guidance on how they should relate to road and rail networks or centres of industry or population";
- "security for investors or for local communities that may be affected. Nor does it consider impacts on Britain's existing ports, improvements to which may be a better option than building an entirely new port".
If the Committee requires further evidence of how little help the NPS is, I have to say that I have had very little briefing from outside bodies. Perhaps that can be explained by industry's relief that the NPS is not geographically specific and allows the market to determine where to place capacity. However, the NPS is not very helpful about connecting transport infrastructure. There will be a problem for the IPC and the MMO. Can the Minister indicate whether the NPS on national networks will shed any light on this? How will it help them? To an extent the Minister did that in his opening comments, which I will read carefully in Hansard; so if he does not come back on the point, it is not a problem.
4 Mar 2010 : Column GC406
I have had a good quality briefing from the Campaign for National Parks-not least because it was confined to just two sides. It raises some good points which concern it, but as the NPS is a list of factors to be taken into account when proposing or assessing a port development and not a series of decisions that have been taken, there are no pros and cons to be taken into consideration in today's debate.
I have a few questions for the Minister. The draft NPS appears to confuse the role of the applicant with that of the IPC in respect of environmental and security assessments. Who is responsible for carrying them out? Is it the IPC, the applicant or both?
Another question arises about the safeguarding of land that could be used for port development at some point in the future. My understanding is that there are safeguarding provisions for land adjacent to existing ports; but what about potential ports or a facility that is only a harbour now but could be something much more in the future? The Minister, with his understanding of railways, can easily see how a rail alignment could be interfered with by a perfectly sensible development that is some distance inland.
I am sorry that I do not have more to say on the NPS itself, but that is due to its nature. I have to say that I was rather surprised when I got my marching orders from the shadow Secretary of State, but on studying the NPS they did turn out to be apposite.
On the IPC regime, we have already indicated that we would abolish the Infrastructure Planning Commission while retaining its expertise and fast-track process. We would do this by creating a specific unit for major infrastructure projects-the major infrastructure unit-with its own special character within a revised departmental structure that includes the Planning Inspectorate. At the same time, we would integrate the national policy statements into our revised and simplified system of national panning guidance in order to achieve the outcome that we all desire. I think that there is little doubt that a genuine NPS approved by Parliament would be helpful in this process.
At the conclusion of the inquiries, planning inspectors from the major infrastructure unit would make recommendations to the Secretary of State. The Secretary of State would then be required to make a final decision on the application within a specified time limit on the basis of the material presented, and, of course, the Secretary of State is democratically accountable to Parliament. I look forward to the Minister's response.
2.21 pm
Lord Greenway: I, too, thank the Minister for outlining this policy statement. He will be pleased to hear that I am not going to follow the noble Earl down the road of playing politics and doing away with the IPC. This House has already spent many days discussing both the IPC and the Marine Management Organisation, which is to be very much involved in these future port development decisions. So I shall steer well clear of the political side.
The statement has broadly received a welcome from the industry, and I think that the Government have more or less got it right. The ports make a major
4 Mar 2010 : Column GC407
I should at the outset have declared a minor interest in that I have worked as a paid consultant to a small company operating in the ports business. However, our clients are basically from other parts of the world and we have not in fact worked for British ports for seven or eight years at least.
We operate in difficult economical times, but this statement is looking far ahead, and I think that that is absolutely right. We all hope that things will get better. I am pleased to read just today that there has been a sudden surge in shipments over the past two or three months, which has to some extent caught the shipping companies on the hop. They were not expecting things to recover quite so quickly. However, they are still cautious-it could be just a little blip.
As the Minister said, a number of consents have already been given to major port developments, and those are indeed welcome. However, the economic circumstances have necessarily delayed some of them, and I believe that in one case consent for a container terminal has been changed to a different use. This is something else that happens in ports-conditions and traffic forecasts change. On the Humber I think that a container terminal has now been changed to a biomass power station with a facility for bulk ships to bring in the biomass.
Although the statement has received broad support, there are one or two areas of concern, one of which is the need for a closer link to the other national policy statements, especially regarding road and rail networks. It is generally thought that it would have been much better if they had been issued at the same time, because obviously ports need close links to the hinterland through either road or rail.
Incidentally, while on that subject, the Minister mentioned the Transport Select Committee. I have read some of the evidence given to it and there was quite a lot of discussion about why ports in the south-east seemed to take precedence all the time. In many ways, the reason is quite obvious: it is because the main trade routes coming in, especially from Asia, go to the continent as well, and the south-east ports are adjacent to the continental ports. I have known the shipping companies for many years and they all say that there is no way that they would move those ships up to Liverpool or even the Bristol Channel. It is very expensive to divert a ship and it is still cheaper to send the goods from Felixstowe or the other south-east ports to the Midlands and other places by road or rail.
4 Mar 2010 : Column GC408
There is also concern over the financing of inland transport links. By and large, the Government have expected ports to pay for road and rail infrastructure when they have a new development. This is a difficult point because on the continent-and our ports are competing with the continental ports-such developments are paid for by the relevant Government. I think that our Government should look at their overall plan and be responsible for providing those links if new port developments need them.
There are also concerns over prioritisation where decisions on port developments are to be left to the IPC or the MMO. I think that the Government need to give greater guidance, especially in relation to their economic and transport policies, and particularly to the Marine Management Organisation, which will be dealing with many of the smaller harbour changes-what used to be called the harbour revision orders. I think that these will multiply in view of the Government's energy policy, which includes the development of many offshore wind farms, and obviously ports will be keen to get some of that business. It is important that the MMO is given more guidance in regard to ports because the IPC will be dealing with major port developments, whereas the MMO will be dealing with all sorts of different areas. Therefore, I believe that the Government should make certain that it gets more specific guidance on any port decisions that it has to make.
Finally, perhaps greater emphasis could be put in the statement on the single consent regime. This is a major point in all the changes in the planning process. Over the years, ports have argued that getting permission for any new development takes so long and is so long-winded and that so many people have to be consulted that having a single consent regime would be a great step in the right direction. However, I think that it should be borne out in the statement.
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