Planning Bill

A series of important points, some of which I touched on, have been made, but I shall deal with them—I hope adequately—in my response to the debate. First, I say to the hon. Member for Clwyd, West (Mr. Jones) that we believe that what we have under the current regime—the range of provisions that a decision maker, which in this case is the IPC, can include in development consent orders—is the right mix. Our starting principle has been to try to ensure that, as far as possible, orders that grant development consent cover all the consents and authorisations to proceed—if that is the judgment of the commission and the judgment on the application—necessary for the nationally significant infrastructure project to proceed. As I described earlier this afternoon, that is one of the important prizes in the overall reforms that we propose in the Bill. However, we believe that two aspects—bylaws in particular and powers to make criminal offences—fall into what I suppose is a different category. We do not believe that, on its own, the IPC should decide such matters, nor should promoters apply simply to the IPC for them to be included in a development consent order. So, we have constructed the Bill in such a way that promoters may continue, as they do now, to apply separately under the Transport and Works Act 1992 and the Harbours Act 1964 if they want bylaw-making powers or the powers to create criminal offences for particular reasons related to their project. Government amendment No. 115 applies not simply to harbour developments; it applies to the 1992 Act and the 1964 Act together. The hon. Member for Clwyd, West probed a little further on harbours. New clause 21 allows the inclusion in a development consent order of the creation of a new harbour authority or the revision of provisions governing an existing harbour authority. That is expressed in schedule 2 to the 1964 Act. I did not spell that out before, but these remarks might be helpful because he was probing to find out precisely what that might entail. The schedule includes such things as the creation of a harbour authority, including the approval of a constitution; the conferring of powers and duties; setting the jurisdiction of the authority and allowing it to ask a justice of the peace to appoint constables; the revision of a harbour authority or the merging of two harbour authorities into one; the transfer of property from one harbour authority to another; the disposal of property vested in a harbour authority; and the charging of tolls, fares and other charges. That is the range of provision in existing legislation that we propose potentially to make available, where it is justified, as part of the single development consent. On coastal protection, the hon. Member for North Cornwall (Dan Rogerson) wants an assurance, particularly with the Marine Bill in prospect, that there will be no watering down of enforcement powers. Precisely for that reason, we are taking the approach that we are. Rather than make the Bill disapply the need for consents either under the Coastal Protection Act 1949 or under the Food and Environment Protection Act 1985, we are making the consent a deemed consent precisely so that the full range of enforcement powers under both Acts remains in place and can be discharged. The amendments delete the references to the 1949 Act, reinserting them as a deemed consent. They also insert in the Bill, for the first time, licences under the 1985 Act, again as deemed licences. We have done that to make the enforcement provisions as strong as they are at present. That gives the Secretary of State the same power to intervene in an emergency to require the owner of infrastructure offshore to take certain actions that may be required to prevent a danger to navigation. However, because those powers are operational only where what is termed a section 34 consent is in place, they will not be operational if a development consent order has disapplied rather than deemed as part of the consent agreement. Otherwise, the Secretary of State would lose the powers that he needs at the moment. To return to the starting point of the hon. Gentleman's concern, the Marine Bill will rework the regulatory regime for offshore development by streamlining the CPA consents and FEPA licences in a single regime. Uniform enforcement would be facilitated if the IPC deemed consents in respect of offshore nationally significant infrastructure project consents. That is the purpose of our amendment No. 165, clarifying, therefore, the fact that enforcement for those consents is to be carried out under those two existing provisions, which will, in time, be consolidated in the new Marine Bill. Incidentally, they will be enforced through the new marine management organisation. Finally, the hon. Gentleman was concerned about the breadth of the powers in relation to harbours. I have explained the restrictions under amendment No. 115. I have confirmed that the development consent orders will not allow the creation or modification of bylaws or criminal offences and why we believe that is right. I make it clear to the House that the development consent order for harbours will be able to provide for the creation of the harbour authority only where that is necessary or expedient in relation to a particular harbour nationally significant infrastructure project application. I say to the hon. Member for Cotswold (Mr. Clifton-Brown) that the fact that different items are listed in the Bill and in the proposal that we are making does not make any of those things less important. I tried to explain earlier that we are consolidating what we already have in clause 109(4) in new schedule 3 and adding items that we think are appropriate but that are not yet in that list. That is why the proposed list is longer and more comprehensive, and therefore a better reflection of the matters that may be required within a single development consent order, as well as appropriate for the commission to consider as part of any application, if that is what the promoter decides.