Clause 41
Planning Bill
9:30 am
John Healey (Minister of State (Local Government), Department for Communities and Local Government; Wentworth, Labour)
The hon. Lady has set her concerns in such general terms that it is quite difficult for me to say that we can legislate to cover them. However, I will make two points in response. First, were someone to invent a nuclear fusion process, I doubt that the first people to hear about it would be members of the IPC in relation to a particular application. Were a new technology developed in the nuclear or the renewable sectors, there would be more of an issue over whether the relevant national policy statement was sufficiently comprehensive and up to date. Therefore, I think that the provisions of parts 1 and 2, in relation to national policy statements, are more relevant to her concerns than the problem of confidentiality.
Secondly, this is a quite narrow clause. It is about the duty of promoters to provide certain information to the commission in relation to the pre-application consultation. It is much more narrowly drawn than the general concern that the hon. Lady raises.