Planning Bill

My Lords, this has been a long-running argument. It has run through the debates in another place and has figured substantially in debates in this House at every stage of the Bill. I have received, as have, no doubt, many noble Lords, a sheaf of representations on this issue. It will not surprise noble Lords who were perhaps not in the House yesterday that I have received a lot of information and advice from those who are concerned with the energy infrastructure of this country. I have also had evidence from a variety of statutory and voluntary bodies which seek to argue the case that has been argued by my noble friend and the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee. I find the argument slightly difficult. At Second Reading, I made my opinion very clear, which is that the key part of this process is the approval of the national policy statements. In Committee, I moved amendments to require that those statements be approved by both Houses of Parliament. Amendments on this Marshalled List would have the same effect. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Dixon-Smith, who said at the beginning of his speech that the structure of the Bill is the wrong way round, because the process starts with the national policy statements. When they are approved—howsoever that is done—the planning commission takes possession of the individual applications. We have to consider this the other way round, and it is a difficult process. However, we will come to the other question later. I was delighted to hear what the noble Lord, Lord Williamson of Horton, said about that. I hope that we shall have his support for the amendment seeking affirmative approval by both Houses for the national planning statements. One comes back, therefore, to the function of the commission. I am not sure that I would go the whole way with the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, who said that the new Secretary of State for Transport was able to take the decision on increasing the number of flights on the first runway at Stansted in a matter of six days. As Financial Secretary in 1970, I think I approved the expenditure on the Thames Barrier in rather less time than that. But, of course, it had been considered by Treasury officials for years before I came into office. I was puzzled as to why my predecessor had not taken the decision and signed the authorisation but, under the rules, as anyone who has served in government will know, my officials were not allowed to discuss that at all. I did not ask them, because I knew that they would not be able to tell me. So the point about the right honourable Geoff Hoon taking a decision in six days is not wholly convincing. I have occupied the position of Secretary of State for Industry and been, therefore, concerned with industrial developments and related issues. I have been Minister for Energy and concerned with investment; in those days, it was primarily about the North Sea. But I have also held office as the Secretary of State for Environment and been responsible for the planning process. No doubt, in the eyes of applicants or opponents, I was seen to take an astonishingly long time to reach a decision required by the Secretary of State after an appeal on a planning application. So in a sense I have seen both sides of this. I was interested in the remarks made by the noble Lord, Lord Hart of Chilton, who has much longer experience on this matter than me, on where he saw the balance lie. I find this an extremely difficult decision, largely because I start from the proposition that I should like to support my Front Bench. When I was a Minister, I liked my Back-Benchers to support me, although they did not always do so and it could sometimes be rather painful. At the same time, I have been mightily impressed by the weight of evidence from those who will be responsible for producing the infrastructure investment which lies at the heart of this Bill. It is in order to accelerate the process of vastly needed investment, not just in energy but in other infrastructure projects, that the whole of the first part of the Bill has been introduced. I addressed a conference the day before yesterday, in the City, which happened to be hosted by the City Forum and was headed ““Nuclear renaissance””. I was asked to talk from the point of view of the political and planning aspects. I described for that audience on Tuesday the argument between, on the one hand, those who would hope to invest in major infrastructure projects and those responsible for bringing them forward and, on the other hand, a mixture of the environmentalists, who make their views very clear, and the constitutionalists, who feel that somehow this has to be a political decision. I said that on the whole I had the impression that the former group was winning the argument. The noble Lords, Lord Williamson of Horton and Lord Hart of Chilton, reflected what I have come to regard as perhaps the better view. I will not vote against my noble friend’s amendment but, as I have discussed with him at some length over recent weeks, I think that I shall find it difficult to vote with him. I shall probably abstain.