Clause 41
Planning Bill
9:15 am
Jacqui Lait (Shadow Minister, Communities and Local Government; Beckenham, Conservative)
Given that the Committee has agreed that there should be an infrastructure planning commission, the provision for consultation with the IPC prior to public consultation is to be welcomed, and would seem to be good practice. It will be a big change for many people, because we are probably all aware that many planning departments and local authorities are so overwhelmed that they positively discourage discussions before an application. In principle, pre-consultation discussion between the promoter and the IPC is a good idea.
However, I would like the Minister to reassure us on one or two points. One is the extent of the application. Would an applicant find themselves in difficulty with the commission if it emerged later on that information the applicant may inadvertently not have realised was needed was not forthcoming? To get a positive response, any applicant would obviously want to be as forthcoming as possible but, with the best will in the world, there are times when new information appears. We have already discussed the potential impact of that situation, and I am sure we will refer to it again.
The other aspect is whether, in having these discussions with the commission, an applicant will be able to suggest that it would be helpful if none of the information gets into the public domain while they are still thinking about the application. In any well-managed project, it is crucial that the information is managed properly. Any applicant will have serious experience of how that information should be managed. They could make inquiries of the IPC that are exceedingly sensitive. Such applicants would appreciate indications on the degree of confidentiality there would be for any question that they ask the IPC, however far-fetched and unlikely what they are talking about proves to be.
The applicant could be dealing with an area of new technology. We are not expecting that an application for a nuclear power station will suggest anything other than the tried and trusted technology. However, it is not impossible that somebody might manage to create nuclear fusion. Should there be a planning application for a nuclear fusion plant, it would be revolutionary and there would be implications for it. As I have said before, I am no scientist, but one can imagine that there would be implications for such an application that nobody has got their head around, other than those very bright people who can work out nuclear fusion. If there were such a proposal, an applicant would have to know that it would remain totally confidential at that stage.
I have given an extreme example, but it is not difficult to envisage a situation in which an applicant might wish to try out a new technology that would have implications beyond those that anybody with an interest in the land or any direct interest has thought about. It is that requirement for confidentiality about which I want the Minister to reassure us.