My Lords, Amendment 87 is in my name and those of the noble Lords, Lord Jenkin of Roding and Lord Tyler, and the noble Earl, Lord Lytton, who regrets that he is unavoidably absent. I am also honoured to have the support of the Town and Country Planning Association and the Royal Town Planning Institute. We think that this amendment is crucial to realising the aspirations of the national policy statement, which lie behind and above infrastructure development, and to furthering public consent to the essential provision of new transport and energy infrastructure.
First, I welcome the many revisions in the strategic highways company draft licence, in particular paragraph 5.22, which says:
“The Licence holder must have due regard to relevant principles and guidance on good design, such as those set out by the Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment (Cabe) and the Design Council, to ensure that the development of the network takes account of geographical, environmental and socio-economic context”.
I salute the Minister on this progress. I hope it is not churlish to do an Oliver Twist act and ask for more. Oliver Twist did, after all, ask for more necessary sustenance. The problem is that the licence does not carry nearly the same weight as the statute. It is the national policy statement that is the critical decision-making document. My plea is for explicit recognition of the crucial role of design on the face of the relevant statute, in this case the Planning Act 2008, where it sets out the obligations of the Secretary of State in preparing the national policy statement. The change that we propose is a modest one. While it strengthens and simplifies the obligation with regard to climate
change—extremely important, too—and good design, it makes no change to the overarching and heavily qualified obligations in Section 10(2) that govern the section I propose to amend.
We need to look back to see why this amendment is so important. We need to remember those miles of urban highway that have created lasting problems, which my noble friend Lord Adonis referred to, by dividing communities, by ignoring the beauty element and by despoiling some of our most cherished landscapes; these include the M8 in Glasgow and the M3 in Belfast. Closer to the present time, we can think of High Speed 2’s path through the National Trust’s Hardwick Hall. Although this will be dealt with by the hybrid Bill, the issue illustrates the enormous concern we must have to ensure the right design outcomes for infrastructure with a life of many decades.
The purpose of the amendment is in a non-prescriptive way to ensure that design issues are taken more seriously by decision-makers in the preparation of policy. It does that by strengthening the Planning Act 2008’s obligation to consider good design and adaptability to climate change in the achievement of sustainable development. The 2008 Act says only that the Secretary of State must,
“have regard to the desirability of … mitigating, and adapting to, climate change”,
and “achieving good design”. We think that the words “the desirability of” must go. They make good design desirable rather than necessary, which is a misreading of the function of design. The obligation already includes a significant degree of flexibility, because of the words “contribute to” in the primary obligation of achieving sustainable development.
5.45 pm
Experience so far shows the value of a change such as this. Both the National Policy Statement for Ports, adopted in 2012, and the most recent National Policy Statement on National Networks have very brief generic statements on good design. Indeed, they are rather depressingly similar, with little or no reference to the specific design indications of differing forms of infra- structure, such as linear road structure compared with a major power plant. It is almost as if there has been a bit of cutting and pasting, and the language is very qualified. I quote the Town and Country Planning Association’s verdict that the national policy statement on design,
“lacks ambition and emphasis and is unlikely to direct decision-makers to prioritise high quality design outcomes.”
Basically, the current legislative provisions provide some rhetorical emphasis for good design, but they do not create the kind of priority for policymakers that could reassure us that our new infrastructure will be of the design quality which Britain needs and deserves. I beg to move.