Clause 15
Planning Bill
12:30 pm

Jacqui Lait (Shadow Minister, Communities and Local Government; Beckenham, Conservative)

We are not going to object to the clause, but this is a useful opportunity to get some clarification on one of my favourite or pet subjects—Scotland. Will the Minister clarify how paragraph 15(1)(d), which reads

“partly in England and partly in Scotland”

relates to clause 187, which is on the extent of the Bill, and which says that the Bill extends

“to England and Wales only”?

While he is thinking about that, perhaps I could ask him to allay my concern about the consultation with Scotland on difficult decisions. What consideration have the Government given to situations in which Scotland, under its devolved structure, has a reverse impact on England and does not provide, thereby putting extra demand on England? Hazardous waste is a particularly controversial example. How will the Government and the IPC deal with applications within England to deal with areas in which Scotland is not providing sufficient capacity?

Scotland has historically provided much of the UK’s nuclear electricity. Hunterston, Torness and Chapelcross have been key in that. Chapelcross is being decommissioned. Hunterston and Torness have planning permission or presumption of planning for more sites, as does Chapelcross. But the previous Labour-Liberal Administration set their face against building any new nuclear power stations, as has the new Scottish National party Administration. Therefore the pressure is on England to provide for the UK in a way that historically it did not have to do. This is going slightly wide of the matter under discussion, but it gives the Minister the chance to answer my question about clause 187 and to tell us how the Government are approaching the issue of England having to provide because Scotland is not doing its fair share.

Jim Fitzpatrick (Parliamentary Under-Secretary, Department for Transport; Poplar and Canning Town, Labour)

I will study Hansard to examine some of the nuances that the hon. Lady is getting at because a more considered response than I might be able to give is required. However, I shall give that which I have in respect of power lines going across borders.

Clause 15 sets out when the installation of an electric line above ground will be a nationally significant infrastructure project. That will include projects in England and Wales, projects that are partly in England and partly in Wales, and projects that are partly in England and partly in Scotland. To respect the devolution settlement, where projects are partly in England and partly in Scotland, the commission will only be responsible for approving the part of the line that is in England. All projects will be within the IPC’s remit except for the following two types of project: installing a line that is intended to be used for a single consumer and that does not exceed a nominal voltage of 20 kV; and installing a line within premises in the occupation or control of the person responsible for its installation.

These thresholds are consistent with existing thresholds under the Electricity Act 1989 and include all the projects currently consented by the Secretary of State which are deemed to be nationally significant. Overhead lines may cut across a number of local authority boundaries and have significant national as well as local benefits. As such, the Government believe  that they merit treatment as nationally significant. In addition, each link of the electricity transmission and distribution network is critical to the effectiveness and resilience of the network as a whole. The network is of strategic national significance and it is important that the overall integrity of the network is maintained through consistent national-level decision making.

The development control system must also be able to take into account the anticipated greater role of renewable energy, with the changes to the network structures that implies, and the likelihood of a more localised pattern of generation and distribution in future. Responses to the planning White Paper consultation showed a large majority of those responding on this issue in favour of including electric lines in the commission’s remit. The clause makes an electric line a nationally significant infrastructure project only in relation to the English part of the line.

If the hon. Lady will allow me, I will study her remarks and come back to her in due course with a more comprehensive response once I have determined exactly where she wants to get a response from.