Growth and Infrastructure Bill

Baroness Parminter Excerpts

Tuesday 8th January 2013 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Parminter]

My Lords, before the new National Planning Policy Framework has even bedded in, and only six months after the Localism Act—as the noble Baroness, Lady Eaton, well said—the Government have been seduced by the siren voices blaming planning as the obstacle to growth. As the noble Lord, Lord Tope, said, they have ignored the reality that it is financial restraint, borrowing difficulties and, critically, consumer confidence that are holding back development. But planning is the convenient whipping boy, and the one thing the Government can easily be seen to be doing something about.

While I support the Government’s vigour in doing all they can to support appropriate growth and infrastructure, that growth must contribute towards delivering sustainable development—a term I did not find in the Bill. As Liberal Democrats have long argued, local people should have a say in shaping their communities and environment. As it stands, this Bill falls short in several areas of securing that. Two areas that I—along with fellow Peers—will highlight are Clauses 8 and 24.

The purpose of Clause 8 is to facilitate superfast broadband. It is a laudable aim but one which needs to ensure that what is special and valuable about our most treasured landscapes is not lost—special and valuable not only to our personal sense of well-being when we enjoy the magnificence of the scenery, the tranquillity of the environment and the overwhelming sense of awe that such areas inspire, but valuable economically given the significant tourism revenue that national parks and AONBs generate precisely because of their unique beauty and wild nature.

This clause is a sledgehammer to crack a nut—and one where the existing nutcracker does not even seem to be broken. While there have been planning problems in some areas—I cite the borough of Kensington and Chelsea as the most prominent of those—there is no evidence of any planning problems in national parks with facilitating broadband delivery. I echo the comments of fellow Peers that it would be good to hear from the Minister during the progress of the Bill what evidence there is that planning in national parks creates a problem with facilitating broadband delivery. It is a sledgehammer which creates a precedent by allowing the key purposes of protected landscapes to be overridden for the first time since their creation more than 60 years ago.

It is also a sledgehammer because primary legislation cannot be technology-specific. Like the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, I was pleased to hear the Minister rule out mobile phone masts through secondary legislation. What I have not heard from the Government—or in any of the briefings that we have had—are the number of new poles and overhead broadband lines that could stomp across our most cherished landscapes if this legislation goes through. The Government anticipate 72,000 new broadband cabinets to deliver superfast broadband services to 90% of the UK. That is their stated aim. Surely this House should be asking the Government to confirm during the process of this Bill how many poles and lines could be needed if the requirement for underground telecommunications apparatus in national parks and AONBs is removed and the final decision about siting is given to operators—and, indeed, what impacts such a move would have on the arrangements that Ofgem have put in place with electricity providers for underground power lines in sensitive landscape areas.

Clause 24 allows decisions of major local importance to be removed from local authorities. If the intent is to fast-track decisions, again, the Government will need to show the House the evidence that a significant number of large-scale, major applications are not being met within 12 months—something their own figures seem to refute. How realistic is it that the major infrastructure planning regime will speed things up in the absence of national planning policy statements that set the policy framework for decisions and thus guide the Planning Inspectorate?

More than this, this clause flies in the face of the commitment the Government gave during the debates on the then Localism Bill, which was enshrined in the resulting Act that the local plan was sovereign and that decision-making should be devolved to the lowest possible appropriate level. The Minister in this House said on Report that,

“our reforms achieve their objective of putting the local plan and the views of the local community at the heart of the system” —[Official Report, 17/10/11; col.140.]

It comes before measures we fought hard to win during the passage of the Localism Bill have been introduced that would help smooth the path of contentious local applications. I am talking about pre-application scrutiny for departure applications. It comes as no surprise that it is proposed that gas extraction projects should fall under these new procedures. Gas will play a part in meeting the energy requirements of the UK as we transition to a low-carbon economy; but we are not America. We are a densely populated country. Local communities in the north-west have the right to a say in the siting of energy infrastructure. If the Government want to argue that fracking has more than a very limited future in ensuring UK energy security consistent with our climate change obligations—and, as such, that the new infrastructure is nationally significant—they should first introduce a national planning policy statement which we can debate in this House.

I am sure that the Minister is as pleased as I am to look forward over the coming weeks to replaying some of the debates we had, which resulted in the hard-won policy approach to sustainable development set out in the final NPPF. Growth may be this Government’s byword, but we should not be afraid to say that what makes this country—and in particular our countryside —so special is equally worth protecting.