Planning Bill

This is a fascinating group of amendments and I am pleased that we are kicking off with it in our debates today. I shall respond first to Amendments Nos. 337 and 338, tabled by the noble Baroness. They would remove the provision in Clause 111 for an order granting development consent to be able to cover associated development as well. In effect, that would mean that an order could grant development consent only for development that is or forms part of a nationally significant infrastructure project, as described in Clauses 14, 30 and 31. The noble Baroness made it clear that she is concerned about the scope of this provision. She feels that it is inappropriately wide and seeks reassurance that it will not be misused or used inappropriately. We are seeking to ensure that the new regime has clear boundaries and does not allow unrelated development to sneak through the back door. That is the burden of it. I understand the noble Baroness’s concerns, but before I address her specific questions I shall say a little about the scope of the clause. Removing the provisions, as the amendments propose, would have serious consequences. Essentially, it would mean that development that was not part of a nationally significant infrastructure project but needed to facilitate it—for example, highways works and works in mitigation—could not be granted development consent by order. Any associated works would therefore need planning permission through the TCP system as it stands. As has been described in previous debates in Committee, the whole point of the Planning Bill is to make a single process out of what is now a disparate, contradictory and awkward one. The amendment would take us away from the spirit of the Bill by introducing another fragmentation. It would be inefficient and completely contrary because the Bill seeks to rationalise the various different regimes that currently exist and introduce a new single consent regime so that developers could make a single application. Granting consent for associated works is therefore completely consistent and a logical element in that overall process. We want to ensure that a promoter can combine the ““core element”” of a nationally significant infrastructure project together with associated works in a single application. Such associated works might include ensuring that the new infrastructure is connected to other national networks, for example, or other development which is needed to allow the infrastructure to operate as intended. I stress that associated works do not include the construction or extension of housing. I can reassure the noble Baroness that, to ensure that this provision is not misused, the Secretary of State will set out guidance on what should or should not be considered an associated work which could form part of an order granting development consent. Where doubt remains, the IPC—which we know is independent and impartial—will decide the issue based on the guidance set out by the Secretary of State. If the IPC does not believe that the proposed works count as associated development, they will not be included in an order granting development consent. I hope that I can answer categorically the two questions raised by the noble Baroness, of which she was kind enough to give me forewarning. She asked whether consent can be all or nothing. She is right up to a point. The IPC can grant consent on a different basis from that put forward by the developer—for example, in mitigation. If the IPC decides that the alignment of a runway needs to be corrected, to take an exaggerated example, it will have the flexibility to do that. That flexibility is extremely important. The IPC will be able to take a middle way, shall we say, between all or nothing. It will also deal with associated development at the same time as part of the attempt to streamline the process. On the question of whether the guidance will be limited to necessary or associated development, the answer is that it must be necessary, because the guidance itself must be relevant. It is unlikely that it will have too broad a scope and take itself into fields that are not necessary. It will have to cover that point in the kind of criteria that it works through. As the noble Baroness will know, guidance is found in Clause 111, in Part 6. I hope that that takes care of both those details.