Town and Country Planning (Border Facilities and Infrastructure) (EU Exit) (England) Special Development Order 2020 (SI 2020/928)

Baroness Randerson Excerpts

Thursday 11th February 2021 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Baroness Randerson]

That this House regrets that the Town and Country Planning (Border Facilities and Infrastructure) (EU Exit) (England) Special Development Order 2020 (SI 2020/928) will have considerable implications for the haulage industry and the local areas that these measures will affect, and regrets that the failure of Her Majesty’s Government to prepare for Brexit has required these measures to be implemented. Special attention drawn to the instrument by the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee, 26th Report

[Baroness Randerson (LD) [V]]

My Lords, I make it clear that I in no way question the need for the proposed border facilities to take pressure off some of our ports. Many port sites are too congested to process the number of vehicles they deal with, now that border checks are so much more complex. Unfortunately, in keeping within the strange time warp within which we now operate in this House, we are debating something that is already in force. However, the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee drew our attention to it in September.

I am moving this regret Motion to question the use of the special development order as the procedure of choice for the Government. It is apparently only the second time, since its introduction in 1990, that this procedure has been used—in this case, to grant temporary planning permission until 2025. The process allows the Government, in the form of the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government, to give themselves planning permission, applied for by the so-called border departments. There is no statutory obligation to consult the public.

I ask the Minister for some explanation of why so little was done by the Government until it was too late to provide satisfactory democratic accountability for the siting of border facilities. Not surprisingly, local residents are concerned about traffic congestion, environmental and noise impacts, air quality and more. I ask why the haulage industry does not yet have the support and facilities it urgently requires, because inland lorry parks are needed to provide food, toilets and rest facilities for drivers.

In 2016, the UK voted to leave the EU. In January 2017, Prime Minister Theresa May made it clear that the UK would not remain in the single market and customs union. From that point onwards, the negotiations were only ever going to make a marginal difference to the complexities of doing business with the EU. Time and again, the Government were warned, by hauliers, haulage representatives and exporters, of the need for early preparation. Therefore, I find the repeated pleas of urgency in the Explanatory Memorandum completely unacceptable. The Government have had four and a half years to prepare for Brexit; it is no good shouting “emergency” now.

The special development order in Schedule 1 gives the Government development powers over great swathes of England. The list of 29 areas includes whole counties and most of the south coast. Seven actual sites have been approved so far. There are several in Kent, because Dover is the busiest port and is very congested. Surprisingly, Birmingham and Warrington are there, because they are needed to service Holyhead port, 100-plus miles away.

In Kent there is the controversial proposed White Cliffs site, a rural site that is close to an AONB, but there is no environmental impact assessment for the application. The site includes an ancient Roman right of way. The residents of the neighbouring villages of Whitfield and Guston are disgusted by the way that they have been treated by this process. Letters arrived for them on 31 December telling them that the Government had acquired the site and it would be used from July. Their rights to protest or even to know what is going on are minimal. This week Dover District Council dealt with the issue. Councillors say they were not allowed to see the application until 24 hours before the meeting, and that they had to do so in secret and were not allowed to disclose details to others. Residents have not seen the detailed plans. Will the Minister specify exactly what information, plans and reports will eventually be made public?

Inland border facilities are only one part of tackling the provision of adequate port facilities. The Government set up the Port Infrastructure Fund, to which ports made bids to adapt their facilities, but it was seriously underfunded, so ports, already badly overstretched by the combined impact of Covid and Brexit, are left with a major shortfall. Portsmouth, for example, is some £5 million short.

SMEs are struggling with the major complications of new customs checks; an estimated one in seven is at risk of going out of business. Even for the largest companies that can employ specialist staff, there are big additional costs. Both Logistics UK and the Road Haulage Association urged the Government a year ago to speed up the employment of new customs agents to help with the process, but so far we have only 10,000 of the 50,000 required.

The anticipated long queues of lorries waiting to be processed have not yet materialised. Instead, traffic into ports is way down on previous years, reported as a 68% fall in volume of exports to the EU so far, while up to 75% of EU lorries are going home empty. That reflects a huge fall in business activity by UK companies. Many businesses are moving jobs to the EU because even if you are the only lorry in the port, the procedures and preliminary form-filling now required are time-consuming and expensive.

Welsh ports are particularly hard-hit by the Northern Ireland protocol. Rather than using the Great Britain land bridge, hauliers are driving straight down to the Republic to take ferries to mainland Europe. There used to be three sailings a week from Rosslare to France and Spain; now there are 15 and rising. Obviously, this hits the survival of Holyhead, Fishguard and Pembroke Dock.

My purpose today is to shed some light on the factors behind the headlines and, in respect of the special development order, to demonstrate what the Government are doing, and how they have chosen to do it via a planning process designed for emergencies, when they are dealing with an entirely predictable set of consequences of a decision made over four years ago. I beg to move.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Randerson (LD) [V]]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for her detailed response. I am sure she will forgive me if I say that I find some of the Government’s arguments very unpersuasive. However, I look forward to her letter explaining the additional issues that I fully understand she did not have time to address.

I thank all noble Lords who have taken part. Across the parties here today there has been a very high level of unanimity and great concern about the loss of local democratic processes and the potential level of environmental damage involved in this.

The Minister finished by commenting on the time lapse, which other noble Lords have mentioned. I am afraid that is an issue with our current procedures, but in the light of that time lapse this Motion today could only ever be a probing Motion. In that spirit, I am therefore prepared to withdraw it.

Motion withdrawn.