"My hon. Friend makes an excellent point. There is a good crossover between the Planning and Infrastructure Bill going through Parliament and the amendments made to the national policy statement. Our recommendations pick up some of the linkages between the two, as she suggests. The key point is how we …..." Bill Esterson - View Speech
"I am also grateful to the hon. Lady for her contribution since the start of the Committee—she is another assiduous attender. She makes absolutely the right point. Where we have identified areas of ambiguity—there are many around grid connection and planning, which I have touched on before—the Government need to …..." Bill Esterson - View Speech
"It is important that we have proper co-ordination between developers and different projects, which we also touched on in our report. The national policy statement is the strategically important element of planning, so it is very much relevant to my hon. Friend’s point. I think she will find that some …..." Bill Esterson - View Speech
"I think most of that question is probably better answered by Ministers, but as to what we found in our evidence, it is very much the case that we have to work with local communities to address their concerns about having to host significant amounts of infrastructure, as in the …..." Bill Esterson - View Speech
"I am sure the Secretary of State will not be surprised to hear me say that I very much welcome what he has announced. He set out three priorities: fairness, lower bills—including and especially in industry and business, where my Committee heard as recently as yesterday that energy bills are …..." Bill Esterson - View Speech