Clause 94 - Consents for generating stations offshore
Energy Bill [Lords]
4:15 pm
Mr Norman Baker (Shadow Secretary of State for the Environment, Environment, Food & Rural Affairs; Lewes, Liberal Democrat)
This is a significant and serious amendment, to which I hope the Minister will respond accordingly. It would require the Secretary of State to hold a public inquiry into proposed offshore renewable energy installation development, if the relevant statutory nature conservation organisation requested such an inquiry. The reason for tabling the amendment is that under the Bill as drafted, if the development of an offshore renewable energy installation is proposed outside an area in which a local authority has jurisdiction, the ability of a objecting body to request a public inquiry into that proposal is weakened or lost. Whether a public inquiry is held becomes a matter for the discretion of the Secretary of State.
Normally with planning matters, we assume that there is a role for local authorities, which are democratically elected and reflect their local area. In some respects that is a safeguard in planning towns. There is no such safeguard in the Bill because it gives the Secretary of State much more discretion to decide whether public inquiries into proposed developments are held than would be the case on land. Therefore, it seems sensible, right and wise to build in a counterbalancing mechanism.
The Secretary of State will, to some extent, be judge and jury in these matters. He will, rightly, be promoting offshore energy electricity generation and he or she may not wish to listen carefully to objections, no matter how well founded they are. A counterbalance between the powers of one part of the constitution and those that are exercised elsewhere is needed. That balance, by and large, exists at local level in respect of planning matters, but not in the Bill because local authorities are excluded, as matters are outside their jurisdiction.
The amendments would require a public inquiry or hearing to be held into any proposed offshore renewable energy installation if the statutory nature conservation agencies requested such an inquiry. As presently constructed, those agencies are English Nature, the Countryside Council for Wales, Scottish Natural Heritage and the Environment and Heritage
Service in Northern Ireland, if the proposed installation is within territorial waters, or the Joint Nature Conservation Committee if it is beyond those territorial waters. If that provision were included, it would encourage developers to think carefully about nature conservation interests when deciding where to establish installations. It would also encourage Ministers to scrutinise applications carefully and to ensure that the marine environment was properly considered, something to which all members of the Committee are sympathetic. The amendments go no further than similar amendments to the Harbours Bill.
The Minister may argue that the amendments are unnecessary because if the relevant statutory nature conservation agencies had serious objections to a proposed application, it is inconceivable that the application would not be subject to a public inquiry or a hearing. But that rather depends on the good will of the Secretary of State at the time. If he argues that it is inconceivable that such representations will be ignored, nothing will be lost by including the provision in the Bill. It will save the Secretary of State from having to take an embarrassing decision on whether to heed the objections.
Equally, I am sure that if a public inquiry or hearing were triggered by the objection of a statutory body, such bodies would be more careful about what they objected to. They will not use that power lightly. If, however, they cannot trigger a public inquiry or a hearing automatically, but simply use it as a pressure point on the Secretary of State of the day, they may be inclined to call for a public inquiry more often, knowing that they cannot require it. They will use it as a weapon with which to beat the Secretary of State over the head and to state that he has not listened to their views. It would make sense to include the amendment, or a similar provision, in the Bill.