Planning Bill

My Lords, I want to add my ha’penny-worth to this amendment. My noble friend raises an important point that requires clarification. It is a matter of observation and practice that a great many small issues in local areas run into quite severe difficulties when in general principle they are desirable, even if that does not necessarily mean that they are right. Like the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, I have difficulty with the idea that because something is in a national policy statement specifically designed to deal with really big national infrastructure projects, that principle will cascade through the existing guidance so that it has a relationship with regional spatial policies and so on. The linkage between national policy and regional spatial policy, which then cascades down to local planning authorities, is clear. I must admit that, until now, I have largely considered the Bill as very much outside of that field. However, my noble friend has raised a significant issue by asking how far this should apply. With regard to the power generation sector, this country is likely to move quite seriously into what is known as dispersed generation and we will have a situation where many relatively small projects will produce a significant national effect. However, that will not happen if the projects are stopped at the local level. That is a real issue which needs to be considered because we all know how desirable and necessary these developments are. There are fiscal and other obstacles because at the moment many energy-friendly sources are, in relative cost terms, not particularly competitive. When we have a more effective carbon market, which I acknowledge is nothing to do with this Bill, some of those difficulties may be overcome and we will begin to see real incentives for people to push these proposals forward. At the moment, however, there are local difficulties. My noble friend is right to put this proposal to the Government because we need to make the relationship absolutely clear. If this is not the right vehicle to deal with the problem, it needs to be thought about in another context.