National Policy Statements

Julian Lewis Excerpts

Tuesday 29th November 2011 Commons Chamber

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport (Norman Baker)]

I beg to move,

That this House takes note of and approves the National Policy Statement for Ports, which was laid before this House on 24 October.

It falls to me to introduce the motion because the Under-Secretary of State for Transport, my hon. Friend the Member for Hemel Hempstead (Mike Penning), the Minister with responsibility for shipping, is this evening hosting a reception on the occasion of the 27th assembly of the International Maritime Organisation.

The national policy statement sets out national policy which must be considered in determining whether development consent should be granted to port infrastructure projects that are examined by the Infrastructure Planning Commission or, with effect from next April, when it is intended that the Infrastructure Planning Commission will be abolished, the major infrastructure planning unit in the Planning Inspectorate. It is also intended that the national policy statement will stand as a material consideration for port developments below the capacity thresholds that are set out in section 24 of the Planning Act 2008, which fall to be considered by the Marine Management Organisation. The national policy statement applies to ports in England and Wales, but not in Scotland or Northern Ireland, where ports policy is devolved.

Members will know that the previous Administration consulted on a proposal for the national policy statement on ports between November 2009 and February 2010. Alongside and beyond this consultation, Parliament also undertook scrutiny of the draft national policy statement. Scrutiny in this House was undertaken by the Select Committee on Transport, which held three oral hearings, took written evidence and in March 2010 published a report of its findings with 22 recommendations and conclusions, to which the Government have responded. I would like to take this opportunity to thank members of the previous Transport Committee, including the then and present Chairman, the hon. Member for Liverpool, Riverside (Mrs Ellman), for the important work that they undertook, the thoroughness with which they approached it, and their readiness to do that within a relatively short period.

This debate is taking place because the Government have agreed with the House to anticipate, as we did earlier this year for the suite of energy national policy statements, the relevant requirements of the Localism Act 2011, which will not come into effect until next year. I will speak briefly about the Government’s planning reform agenda; the purpose of national policy statements; and the background to the Government’s ports policy and the need for new infrastructure, which is central to the national policy statement.

On the planning reform agenda, the Government are committed to making the planning system as a whole work better. “Better” means faster, fairer and easier to understand for all involved, including applicants and objectors, while of course giving due regard to environmental considerations. It most emphatically does not mean denying people a right to be heard. My ministerial colleagues at the Department for Communities and Local Government are satisfied that the system of engagement and consultation set up by the Planning Act 2008 fully secures that right, so we have not sought to modify that. Engagement with local people and their representatives from an early stage is crucial if applications are to come to the Infrastructure Planning Commission or Planning Inspectorate with the project as well defined as it can be, and with proposals for avoiding, mitigating and/or compensating for adverse impacts.

[Dr Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)]

Is the Minister aware that after a year-long planning inquiry, a proposal for a massive container port at Dibden bay on the edge of the New Forest was turned down? I understand that there would not be provision for any such inquiry in the future. Can he assure me and my constituents that a streamlined planning process for such a proposal would be no more likely to be carried than it was under the previous, rather more detailed opportunities for challenging it?

[Norman Baker]

I do not believe that the change in arrangements makes that more likely, but obviously every application is considered on its merits and according to the circumstances that apply at the time.

The Government have set demanding targets for the consideration of what could be complex cases, but applicants and their consultees must contribute by thinking well ahead and ensuring that applications are fit for purpose. The Department recommends that ports should start in this spirit by consulting on port master plans. These are neither statutory documents, nor part of the formal Planning Act regime, but nevertheless they could help enormously to promote local understanding of what a port is trying to achieve and how best to avoid or mitigate adverse impacts. Master plans are not confined to large ports. Newhaven in my constituency is an excellent example of a port engaging thoroughly with its community in that way.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mrs Louise Ellman (Liverpool, Riverside) (Lab/Co-op)]

The Select Committee on Transport published its report on the national policy statement on ports when the last Government were in office. We reported in March 2010—indeed, it was the first national policy statement to be reported on. The cross-party Transport Committee is not influenced by which party is in power. We reported at the time of the previous Government and we registered several serious concerns, and concluded that, unless proper consideration was given to our recommendations, the national policy statement was not fit for purpose. We therefore made a very clear statement then.

Considerable time has elapsed and several changes have been made. We are now looking at the revised national policy statement, so my comments will refer to some of our criticisms and also to some of the changes that have been made since we produced our report.

The key change since that time is the decision to abolish the Infrastructure Planning Commission. It was decided that, following consideration by the infrastructure planning unit and the Planning Inspectorate, the Secretary of State would make the decisions. It was also decided to abolish regional economic strategies and regional planning strategies. Some of our criticisms were of the planning process and the lack of clarity. The changes bring more clarity to the system whereby decisions are made. The background against which the planning statement is being assessed is therefore now rather different.

Time has resolved another major criticism that we made. We were extremely concerned that the policy statement was made before the Marine Management Organisation, which was to examine port development below the threshold for the infrastructure commission, had actually been set up. The Marine Management Organisation has now been set up and consulted, so that major criticism and concern has been addressed.

We expressed several concerns about environmental issues, and the Government’s response states that our concerns have been considered in a different part of the statement—in the documents appended to it. We register the Government’s response. We still have some concerns, but we accept that the Government have pointed out another way of addressing them.

We were very worried that the Government were not providing an update on ports’ traffic forecasts, which are extremely important. There was some dissension about the forecasting of ports traffic that was proposed as a basis for the ports statement. The Government’s response has not been to accept the precise form in which we wanted those forecasts to be updated, but it states that they will provide

“new forecasts in the near future”.

In a spirit of reasonableness, we accept that that concern has been addressed. We will wait and see how those new forecasts are provided.

Those major concerns have therefore been addressed, at least in part. The changes go some way towards dealing with some of the major concerns that we, as a Committee in the previous Parliament, had when we stated that we did not think that the statement was fit for purpose.

It is very important that the ports policy statement is correct. As hon. Members have pointed out this evening, ports are extremely important: 90% of the UK’s trade by tonnage and 512 million tonnes of freight go through our ports, and ports traffic contributes £17.9 billion to GDP, taken together with the employment that it generates. Indeed, the direct employment is at least 132,000 jobs, with many more indirect jobs. The ports sector is extremely important and that is why having the correct ports policy matters.

I want to deal with some concerns to which we have not received a satisfactory response. I think it is important to register them. One is the absence of a definitive ports policy, other than to say that the Government’s policy on ports is market-led. The Committee in the last Parliament felt that that was not good enough, because ports are such an important part of a thriving economy. Little progress has been made since in defining a ports policy. In fact, the ports policy such as it is was defined in an interim policy set out in 2007, and the Government have now said that that interim policy, together with additional statements that have been made, is their definitive ports policy. I suppose that we could look at it that way, but it does not meet in full the point of concern that the Committee has raised, and I hope that we can see further progress on that.

The Committee also raised the concern that the policy statement on ports seemed to concentrate almost wholly on container traffic. While that is the basis of the ports’ trade, we are concerned that other developments, such as offshore wind, were not considered properly. I am still unclear where such additional developments feature in the Government’s statement.

I reiterate the concern that the Committee raised about the absence of national policy statements on national networks at the time that the ports policy statement was put forward. I accept that some progress is being made. We are now being told that the national network statements will be laid in January. That is progress, but it would have been better if it had been done before we approve the ports policy statement. At least we have had some assurances that those statements are coming.

It is important that we know the Government’s plans for other transport networks apart from ports, partly because of the economic importance of ports, but also because their impact on the economy, including the regional economies, is affected a great deal by how goods are transported to and from those ports. It is therefore necessary to look at road, rail and inland networks, and at the issue of multi-modal transport, and how that can be encouraged. It is important that we know how that will be addressed, and I hope that the Minister can give us some more information on that basis.

We heard evidence during our inquiry from the northern ports that they felt that southern ports were very much at an advantage because of the extensive public investment in road and rail networks around them. The Committee in the previous Parliament felt that that was a very important issue, and this Parliament's Committee is of the same view. I noted the comments made by my right hon. Friend the Member for Southampton, Itchen (Mr Denham) this evening about the application from Liverpool for a turnaround cruise facility at the port. The application has been made because the possibility of such a facility, and the return of the cruise ships to Liverpool, is so very important to the regeneration of the city. I hope that when a decision is made on this issue—and there has had to be a consultation, as is proper—a reasoned approach will be taken, and recognition given to the fact that Southampton currently has 65% of the market for the turnaround facility, while Liverpool has only 5%.

[Dr Julian Lewis]

The hon. Lady of course has a constituency interest in this matter, and I represent a constituency close to Southampton. Does she appreciate that what is really worrying is that Liverpool received a great deal of both European and public money in order to build its port of call facility, and it gave undertakings that it would not use that facility as a turnaround point to start and end cruises? It now appears that it never had any intention of sticking to those undertakings, so if it were—bizarrely—to achieve retrospective permission to do what it promised not to do, surely it should have to pay back all the money and not just a quarter of it over a very long period, as is proposed.

[Mrs Ellman]

As a constituency MP I recognise the supreme importance of the turnaround facility to Liverpool. However, I also recognise that a reasoned judgment has to be made on the proper way in which to go ahead. The statements that the hon. Gentleman made about Liverpool’s intentions are not accurate, but this is not the place in which to pursue the detail of that. I hope that a reasonable decision is made. Liverpool City council has made an offer to deal with the very point that the hon. Gentleman has made, but that is for somebody else in another place to address. I simply ask for reason to be applied to resolve the issue.

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[Dr Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)]

I understand that, for reasons that are slightly beyond my ken, people seem to be very anxious to finish at 7 o’clock this evening rather than at the normal time of 10 o’clock. I suppose that that is something to do with the fact that we are beginning to sit rather earlier.

The issue of Dibden bay, which I referred to in an intervention, is the single most important constituency issue in New Forest East in the 14 years that I have represented it. As my hon. Friend the Member for Dover (Charlie Elphicke) said, it was a long time before the considerations on whether a giant container port should be built at Dibden bay produced decisive outcomes. We had a year-long public inquiry, as I said in an intervention, but we also had, as he said, several years leading up to that public inquiry. If the new procedure, first through the Infrastructure Planning Commission put forward by the previous Government and then under the replacement arrangements proposed by this Government, allowed for public consultation—