Planning Bill

This has been an extremely interesting debate. I shall deal with the waste-water amendment first, and the question of thresholds. I failed to persuade the noble Lord, Lord Dixon-Smith, in moving my amendments, as to why it was appropriate to change the threshold, although I should have thought from his general stance that he would have welcomed the fact that we have raised the threshold. During the White Paper consultation we asked questions about whether the 150,000 population threshold was about right. We consulted with stakeholders and a pretty strong view came back that we did not get the threshold right in the Bill and that the 150,000 threshold would catch too many numerous schemes that are not genuinely nationally significant. My noble friend Lord Berkeley challenged me to make comparisons between the previous debate with my noble friend on what is nationally significant in relation to waste water. It is a good question, but it is difficult to answer in strict comparisons. If we are frank, common-sense judgments have to be made here, and I take him back to the original impact assessment on the Bill of an anticipated application approval of about one in 10 years. He may say that that is not a proper definition of ““nationally significant””, but our view is that that kind of scale and threshold is of national significance. He mentioned the Thames Tideway, which is an interesting point that embraces major developments through an existing sewerage treatment works. My understanding is that the planning application for the 32 kilometre Thames tunnel is part of the project and would, under the threshold, go to the IPC, which is one illustration of what we mean by nationally significant. As for the hazardous waste facility threshold, in comparison to existing facilities I do not have the figures that my noble friend asked for. I shall try to find out and let him know. On how the threshold now in the Bill would impact, my understanding is that currently there are only nine hazardous waste landfills and one deep storage facility, each with a permitted throughput of 100 kilotonnes or more per annum. These all serve a national need, which is why we think that we have the threshold figures about right. Clearly, as I think we are beginning to understand, these are judgments. For each project area listed in the Bill there are different considerations in relation to the threshold. Overall we believe that we have the balance right; overall we believe that in its work the IPC will deal with projects of national significance, but that the IPC should not be swamped with applications that would impact on its ability to come to appropriate decisions on projects of national importance. In the end it is a judgment, but we think that we have the judgment about right. On Question, amendment agreed to.