Twenty Third Report
Instruments Drawn to the Special Attention
of the House
Draft Infrastructure Planning
(Onshore Wind Generating Stations) Order 2016
Date laid: 14 January 2016
Parliamentary procedure: affirmative
Onshore Wind Generating Stations
(Exemption) (England and Wales) Order 2016
Date laid: 14 January 2016
Parliamentary procedure: negative
Summary: The combined effect of both Orders is
that planning permission for onshore wind generating stations
over 50 megawatts (MW) will have to be sought from local planning
authorities, under the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 ("the
1990 Act"), rather than from the Secretary of State as hitherto.
The Department for Energy and Climate Change says that the policy
objective is to ensure that the consenting process for onshore
windfarms is primarily handled at the local level.
When the Orders were laid before Parliament, they
were accompanied by an Impact Assessment (IA) which related to
other measures; when this was replaced by a relevant IA, it in
turn lacked information that is necessary to judge the impact
of the changes. Moreover, the Explanatory Memorandum (EM) as originally
laid provided only minimal information about the relevant consultation
process and failed to include a specific web-link. In our view,
the EM would also have served the needs of Parliamentary scrutiny
better if it had said more about the wider context for the changes
being made by this Order, in terms of arrangements for consenting
other forms of energy-related development.
We draw these Orders to the special attention
of the House on the ground that the explanatory material laid
in support provides insufficient information to gain a clear understanding
about the instruments' policy objective and intended implementation.
1. The Department for Energy and Climate Change
(DECC) laid these Orders on 14 January 2016, with an Explanatory
Memorandum (EM) and Impact Assessment (IA). The IA related to
the closure of the Renewables Obligation to onshore windfarms,
however, not to the changes proposed in the Orders. It was only
on 26 January that DECC laid an IA which related to the Orders.
2. The draft Infrastructure Planning (Onshore
Wind Generating Stations) Order 2016 amends the Planning Act 2008
("the 2008 Act") to remove the provision for onshore
wind generating stations to apply to the Secretary of State for
development consent. The Onshore Wind Generating Stations (Exemption)
(England and Wales) Order 2016 (SI 2016/21) removes the
requirement for the Secretary of State's consent for onshore wind
projects. DECC says that both Orders are needed because, under
current law, if development consent for a generating station over
50 megawatts (MW) under the 2008 Act is not needed, then consent
under section 36 of the Electricity Act 1989 is needed. The combined
effect of both Orders is that planning permission for onshore
wind generating stations over 50MW will have to be sought from
local planning authorities (LPAs), under the Town and Country
Planning Act 1990 ("the 1990 Act"). Onshore generating
stations up to 50MW are already subject to the 1990 Act.
3. The IA laid on 26 January contains some figures
on the relative costs for developers of applying for consent to
onshore windfarms either from the Secretary of State or from a
LPA. However, it signally fails to offer information about the
impact of the changes made by the Orders on approval rates for
future applications, stating at paragraph 36 that:
"it is not possible to make a robust assessment
of how the proposed changes to planning consent decisions would
affect the approval rate for onshore windfarms above 50MW of installed
capacity".
Despite acknowledging its failure to assess whether
the changes will help or hinder future approvals of windfarms,
the Department states at paragraph 41 of the IA that:
"as no change in the level of onshore wind
generating capacity is projected as a result of this policy in
isolation, there are no estimated impacts on CO2 emissions."
We would comment that an Impact Assessment that
fails to make key assessments and avoids estimating important
impacts is hardly worthy of the name.
Consultation
4. In the EM, DECC says that a "light touch
consultation" was carried out in relation to these changes,
contacting the three parties currently in the pre-application
stages under the 2008 Act. We asked the Department why it handled
consultation in this way, and have been told that:
"the reason for consulting these parties
is because these were the only parties that had made the Planning
Inspectorate aware of an intention to submit an application for
an onshore wind farm under the Planning Act 2008, and that would
therefore be impacted by the proposed changes, as their application
would move from being taken forward under the Planning Act 2008
to being taken forward under the Town and Country Planning Act
1990. As far as we are aware, no other party has raised any comments
on the proposed changes."
5. In the EM as laid before Parliament on 14
January, DECC stated that further information about the consultation
could be found on its website, though no web-link was given. DECC
provided a web-link in response to our queries.[1]
While this brings up extensive information about "Consents
and planning applications for national energy infrastructure projects",
it contains no reference to this consultation.
Local communities and consenting process
6. In the EM, DECC says that the policy objective
is to ensure that the consenting process for onshore windfarms
is primarily handled at the local level, adding that local communities
are often opposed to onshore wind farm development, arguing that
they have direct noise and detrimental impacts on their communities.
7. The Department states as well that the changes
to legislation are being made alongside the new procedures for
LPAs to consider when determining planning applications for onshore
wind farms, which were set out in the Written Ministerial Statement
made by the Secretary of State for the Department for Communities
and Local Government (DCLG) on 18 June 2015.[2]
That made it clear that, when determining planning applications
for developments involving one or more wind turbines, LPAs should
only grant planning permission if the development site was in
an area identified as suitable for wind energy development in
a Local or Neighbourhood Plan, and the planning impacts identified
by affected local communities had been fully addressed and therefore
the proposal had their backing.
Comparison with shale gas development
8. The approach being followed by Government
to planning permission for onshore windfarms, ensuring that this
is a matter for LPAs, may be compared with their approach to planning
permission for exploring and developing shale gas. On 13 August
2015, DCLG and DECC jointly published a "Shale gas and oil
policy statement"[3]
which, among other things, said that the Secretary of State would
actively consider calling in shale applications, that each case
would be considered on its individual merits, and that priority
would be given to any called-in planning applications. Opposition
to shale gas development among local communities can be every
bit as strong as opposition to windfarms, but the August 2015
statement indicated that the Government might choose to place
greater constraints on the ability of LPAs to determine whether
such development went ahead.
9. We obtained further information from DECC
about these apparent differences, which we are publishing as Appendix
1. The Department has said that:
"the measures introduced to ensure that
determinations are made in a timely fashion for shale developments
[are] in order to address a problem that causes unnecessary delays,
and could cause a serious impact on our energy security, jobs
and wider economy".
Conclusion
10. These Orders make important changes to the
arrangements for obtaining consent to the development of onshore
windfarms. When they were laid before Parliament, however,
they were accompanied by an Impact Assessment (IA) which related
to other measures; when this was replaced by a relevant IA, it
in turn lacked information that is necessary to judge the impact
of the changes. Moreover, the Explanatory Memorandum (EM) as originally
laid provided only minimal information about the relevant consultation
process and failed to include a specific web-link. In our view,
the EM would also have served the needs of Parliamentary scrutiny
better if it had said more about the wider context for the changes
being made by this Order, in terms of arrangements for consenting
other forms of energy-related development. In short, the explanatory
material laid in support provided insufficient information to
gain a clear understanding about the instrument's policy objective
and intended implementation.
1 Namely: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/consents-and-planning-applications-for-national-energy-infrastructure-projects. Back
2
See: http://www.parliament.uk/documents/commons-vote-office/June%202015/18%20June/1-DCLG-Planning.pdf. Back
3
See: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/shale-gas-and-oil-policy-statement-by-decc-and-dclg/shale-gas-and-oil-policy-statement-by-decc-and-dclg. Back
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