UK Parliament / Open data

Planning Bill

I hesitate to interrupt, but would the Minister mind answering a question about a different subject? It is related to associated development, and I have raised it with her before. I am talking about carbon dioxide pipelines, and the reason for raising the subject once again is that over the weekend there were reports that some generating companies were considering putting in applications for further coal-fired electricity generation across the country. That is fine. All these generating stations are to be carbon-sequestration compatible, whatever that may mean; we do not know if carbon sequestration will either work or be economical if it does work. We know it is technically possible, but that is the limit of our knowledge at the moment. Those pipelines, if they are part of the original application, will undoubtedly, under the Minister’s explanation, be associated development and will cause no problem. Associated development they may well be, though. But because no one knows whether this will work, and may not know for a decade, would that be considered part of the original application when it eventually arose, or would it have to be a completely separate application? For the sake of those who might be thinking these things through, it is essential to have that defined so they know what ground they are standing on before they start on this particular type of enterprise.

About this proceeding contribution

Reference

704 c948 

Session

2007-08

Chamber / Committee

House of Lords chamber

Legislation

Planning Bill 2007-08
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