Planning Bill

I have no idea why these amendments are grouped. I thought that it might be because the noble Earl anticipated that my noble friend, with his commendable zeal for rail freight, was about to propose a new dedicated goods line between England and Scotland. However, he has not yet done so, so I can only assume that the amendments were grouped because it was thought that there might be rail implications in them all. However, I will deal with them separately. In respect of cross-border railways and Amendments Nos. 144 and 145, let me say, as the Government have said in response to previous amendments with a similar intent, that this Bill does not seek to alter the devolution settlements. Welsh and Scottish Ministers will continue to authorise railway projects wholly in Wales or Scotland respectively. Cross-border projects will be handled in accordance with the existing devolution settlement. Where a proposed Anglo-Scottish scheme comes forward, there are two ways of proceeding. The scheme could be split at the border, with the IPC considering the English part and Scottish Ministers the Scottish part, or such a scheme could be authorised by means of a private or possibly hybrid Bill presented to the Westminster Parliament and very likely requiring a Sewel motion. Discussions on which of these options would be best would take place at the appropriate time. I hope that that deals with the noble Earl’s concerns in this regard. I turn to my noble friend’s amendments. I can tell him that we appreciate the points that he makes about the definition of container trains in Clause 25, in subsections (4) and (9). We are keen to look at these further with him between now and the Report stage. On rail freight interchanges, I know that my noble friend has had detailed discussions on these points with officials from my department, so my responses will come as no surprise to him. However, I think that I should put the Government’s position on the record. In respect of Amendments Nos. 146 and 149, we are not attracted to lowering the area threshold for rail freight interchanges from 60 hectares to 30 hectares. We arrived at the 60-hectare threshold after considerable research and we still believe that the terminals considered to be nationally significant strategic rail freight interchanges would be in excess of 60 hectares. While we share the concerns of both my noble friends to see that appropriate support is given to the rail freight industry and that interchanges at a certain appropriate level are considered to be national projects, we believe that the 60-hectare threshold meets that requirement. Reducing the threshold to 30 hectares in the way proposed would take away from local authorities decisions that we do not believe to be of genuine national significance. We are not attracted to the use of the phrase ““suitable storage facilities”” in Amendment No. 148, which we feel is not sufficiently defined and moves away from the primary purpose of Clause 25, which is to capture the sort of proposed development that is of national significance. We also believe that warehousing is a key element of any such development. On that basis, we believe that the word ““warehouses”” in subsection (6) is already adequate. Finally, government Amendment No. 172, on Crossrail extensions, will ensure that extensions to the Crossrail scheme and alterations to railway facilities for the purpose of or in connection with Crossrail do not necessarily need to be considered under the planning Acts, but can instead be authorised under the Transport and Works Act 1992 in respect of which Section 48 of the Crossrail Act 2008 confers additional enabling powers. Without this proposed amendment, Crossrail extensions and alterations that meet the railway threshold in Clause 24 would be prevented from being authorised through the enhanced TWA regime and would be precluded from making use of enhanced TWA powers provided in Section 48 of the Crossrail Act. Instead, they would inevitably require development consent from the IPC. While there are at present no firm plans for any such extensions or alterations, they remain a distinct possibility for a project of this significance, complexity and construction timescale. We therefore think it appropriate to put this provision in place.