Planning Bill

moved Amendment No. 69A: 69A: Schedule 2, page 151, line 24, at end insert— ““Planning and Compulsory Purchase Act 2004 (c. 5) (1) The PCPA 2004 is amended as follows. (2) After section 1(2) (regional spatial strategy) insert— ““(2A) In subsection (2) the Secretary of State’s policies include national policy statements.”” (3) In section 19(2)(a) (preparation of local plan documents) before ““national policies”” insert ““national policy statements, other””. (4) In section 38(5) (development plan) after ““contained”” insert ““in a national policy statement or, where the conflict is not between a national policy statement and another document””. (5) After section 117(3) (interpretation) insert— ““(3A) Expressions used in this Act and in the Planning Act 2008 have the same meaning in this Act as in that Act.”””” The noble Lord said: My Lords, there has been a lot of discussion at various stages of the Bill, not least in our debate on the amendment which the noble Lord, Lord Howarth, just moved, about the relationship between national policy statements and other statements of government or local planning policy. Much of the discussion in the past has centred on whether the national policy statements should take account of existing planning policy statements, planning policy guidance, regional spatial strategies and local spatial strategies. A number of noble Lords, and indeed Members in the other place, wanted to import what they saw as the best of those into the national policy statements. The purpose of my amendment is to look at this the other way round. If, after all the consultation, all the parliamentary scrutiny and all the rest of it, a national policy statement is established, that statement will eventually be adopted by government. It is felt that it should carry greater weight in local matters than the existing local regional documents, spatial strategies and the rest. That point was put to me rather forcefully by the British Wind Energy Association, which recognises that a large number of wind farm proposals will be below the thresholds that fall to be dealt with by the Infrastructure Planning Commission and will therefore still come under local planning arrangements. It is well known—it was debated at some length during the passage of the Energy Bill; if the noble Lord, Lord Hunt of Kings Heath, were here, he would recognise it—that many of these proposals for the smaller size of wind farms are still languishing in the planning system. In a debate recently I quoted from the headline of an article which suggested that if wind farms are not coming forward, one should blame the councillors, the implication being that it is local planning authorities which make it very difficult to obtain the necessary planning guidance to get wind farms up and running. My amendments would amend the Planning and Compulsory Purchase Act 2004 to make it absolutely clear to those concerned with drawing up regional or local planning strategies that they have to have regard to national policy statements. I recognise that national policy statements are specifically designed to deal with major projects, but techniques such as wind farms come in all shapes and sizes and a large number of them will be dealt with, as I said, by local planning authorities. These amendments make it clear that, because of the status they will have, the national policy statements should be regarded as the overriding guidance. If we had, as I expect we will eventually, a national policy statement covering the whole energy field, and then another one directed specifically at renewables or perhaps just at wind energy, the local planning authorities should take great account of those documents to ensure that the policies on the larger scale are consistent with those that are applied at the smaller scale. It is a comparatively simple point. However, if there is any conflict, as there may well be, between the two statements, the propositions in the national policy statement should prevail. One would hope that, over time, local planning authorities at the regional, county or district level would bring their strategies into line with the national policy statement. This is a comparatively short point. In her note to noble Lords taking part in discussions on the Bill, the noble Baroness wrote: "““It is also worth noting that under existing planning law regional planning bodies and local authorities must have regard to national policies and guidance when preparing development plans such as Regional Spatial Strategies and Local Development Frameworks. NPSs will fall into this category of national policies and guidance, and therefore once an NPS is established, it should be reflected as appropriate in relevant development plans””;" and she went on to enlarge on that. That is not provided for in this Bill. There is no downward link between the NPS and the local planning strategies, which is clearly what the Government want. My amendments suggest that those amendments to the 2004 Act will implement what the Government have stated as their intentions. I hope that Ministers will be able to smile on my amendments or, if they are not properly drafted, that they will come back at Third Reading with something that parliamentary counsel would approve of. I beg to move.