Planning Bill

I should like to add to what the noble and learned Lord, Lord Boyd, has said, particularly with reference to nuclear stations. Last year there was a report by a firm of consultants, Jackson Consulting, at the request of the Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform, on the best potential sites for new nuclear power stations. By that time it was clearly going to be the Government’s policy that there should be new nuclear build. I shall not go into great detail, but that report listed three categories of site that would be suitable for new stations. Not surprisingly, most of them were existing power stations, on sites either of the existing one or immediately adjacent to it. That is for two very good reasons. The first is that at those sites the infrastructure for transmission is already in being—even though some of it may have to be upgraded, as I think is becoming apparent. Secondly, there is likely to be far less popular opposition to a nuclear power station if a lot of jobs depend on it. If the existing stations—all of them Magnox at present, but eventually some of the AGR stations will be included—are going to be closed down and decommissioned, the local community will want the continuity of jobs. The report recently presented by Professor Pidgeon and his colleagues from Cardiff and East Anglia universities has also emphasised that there is a considerably greater appeal for new nuclear build in the areas where there are existing nuclear power stations. The third category in the Jackson Consulting report is one or two former—as they will be—coal power stations. Under the European large plant directive, they are going to have to be closed because they are too polluting. There again, the infrastructure is there and it is certain that the local population will want the jobs that would be available in building and operating new nuclear power stations. In relation to that, and in relation to this clause, it seems highly appropriate that the national policy statement should be, in that sense, site specific. It may not want to mention all the sites by name; I do not know. Nevertheless, I would have thought that the Government, in putting forward their national policy statement, would say that there was clearly a preference for building any nuclear power stations on sites where they can have the benefit of the existing transmission infrastructure and are likely to have the support of local populations. I do not know how this is going to be done, but here is a case where it would be perfectly appropriate for the national policy statement to give some indication of what would be the preferred location of the infrastructure that it is referring to. I understand the points that were made about wanting to take that out, but this is an example of where, on the basis of existing knowledge and existing reports, I am sure BERR would be able to produce a national policy statement that would, to that extent, indicate the preferred location. Of course, as I am sure the noble Baroness will want to reaffirm once again, the actual decision on where applications will be made will be for the private sector companies that will be doing the investing. A number of them are already negotiating. There is the merger currently going ahead between British Energy and EDF—Électricité de France. EnergySolutions, a company that I have mentioned in the House on previous occasions, is currently decommissioning nuclear power stations in the south of England; it is very anxious to get consideration regarding building a new one at Wylfa, one possibly at Oldbury and another in Essex—somewhere that begins with a B—