(1 day, 10 hours ago)
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Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill
That the Grand Committee takes note of the initial proposal for an amended National Policy Statement for Ports.
The Minister of State, Department for Transport (Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill) (Lab)
My Lords, I am pleased to open this debate. National policy statements set out the primary legal framework for planning decisions on nationally significant infrastructure projects, with the Planning Inspectorate providing the examining authority. In the case of ports, they will normally also incorporate a deemed marine licence, on advice from the Marine Management Organisation.
In July 2024, the Chancellor of the Exchequer announced a review of relevant national policy statements to provide greater clarity for applicants and decision-makers. In the case of ports, a review had already been announced under the previous Administration, and this Government agreed that the review was indeed justified according to the criteria in Section 6 of the Planning Act 2008. The extant National Policy Statement for Ports was designated in 2012, and a great deal has happened institutionally, empirically and policy-wise since then.
The National Policy Statement for Ports initially applied to the whole of England and Wales, but following the Wales Act 2017 it now applies only to England—plus Milford Haven, which is a reserved trust port as defined in the Act. Nevertheless, we have sought to make sure that the national policy statement will continue to take full account of institutional and regulatory differences in Wales, where relevant.
The initial proposed revised national policy statement for ports was laid in Parliament on 4 June 2025 and published for public consultation, alongside an appraisal of sustainability and habitats regulations assessment. When I refer to the national policy statement for ports from now on, I will mean this initial proposed revised version unless the context indicates otherwise.
In parallel with this publication, the department issued revised port freight demand forecasts for the whole of the United Kingdom, and these forecasts are quoted in the revised national policy statement for ports. The forecasts, very briefly, predict substantial demand-driven growth in unit load traffic—in roll-on roll-off and containers primarily—alongside a continuing decline in liquid bulks, particularly reflecting the changing energy generation mix. The consultation closed on 29 July 2025, and 38 responses were received—not a great number, but including numerous seriously considered suggestions for detailed amendments from respondents closely engaged with the sector. We are considering these and will issue a formal response in due course and revise the draft national policy statement for ports as necessary.
One message that has come through from many respondents, aside from the drafting of the NPSP, is the need for promoting wider familiarity with it, especially among local authorities, in view of its relevance to other consenting regimes, as well as for development consent orders under the Planning Act, for which it sets the statutory framework.
In another place, the Transport Select Committee is currently scrutinising the proposed national policy statement for ports and will publish its report by 14 November, the end of the relevant period that has been stipulated. The committee took written submissions up to 1 August and held oral hearings on 10 and 16 September. After the committee has reported, the Secretary of State will formally respond to its report, as prescribed by the Planning Act. The Government then aim to lay the national policy statement for ports in its final form for its statutory 21 sitting-day consideration period. I look forward to hearing all the contributions to today’s debate. I beg to move.
Lord Moynihan (Con)
My Lords, I welcome this debate and the initiative the Government have offered us in extending, in many respects, the public consultation that ended in July this year, on which your Lordships’ views, as we have heard from the Minister, will be taken into account. In the absence of a single ports Bill, a revised national policy statement for ports, while welcome, is a good first step but needs to be turbocharged with a business strategy to encourage investment, create jobs and encourage a competitive response to bring shipping to our ports. All the people working in those ports demand first-class facilities, excellent operations and competitive pricing.
I intend to focus on one aspect of the consultation. One of the implications of the regulations that we increasingly have to follow is the need for fast charging facilities, which do not figure sufficiently in the proposal we are considering today. EU rules, which require major ports to provide shoreside electricity for large passenger and container ships by 2030, aim to cut emissions and support maritime decarbonisation goals. The move towards battery-driven container shipping is accelerating but remains concentrated in certain vessel types and regions, with full-scale adoption for large ocean-going container ships still in its early stage. As of 2025, more than 1,000 vessels worldwide use large battery systems for propulsion, either fully electric or hybrid, with about 550 more on order, representing a dramatic increase from just a few dozen ships a decade ago.
However, most of those are ferries, offshore supply vessels and smaller cargo ships. Container ships are just beginning to see commercial-scale battery adoption. In a long-term strategy document of this type, it is vital that the Government are ahead of the game and creating economic growth in this sector. Today, fast charging infrastructure at UK ports is in its early infancy, with significant pilot projects and investments under way but not yet widespread or universally available. I urge the Government to give this subject greater consideration.
The UK’s first major shore-power cold ironing and electric ship charging project is under way at Heysham Port. Cold ironing is the process of supplying a docked ship with electricity from an onshore power grid, which allows the ship to shut down its auxiliary engines and reduce emissions, noise and vibrations. The work at Heysham is part of a broader plan to create green shipping corridors across the Irish Sea, supporting shore power for conventional ships and fast charging for future fully electric vehicles. This includes the eight-port network. Peel Ports Group and NatPower Marine are investing some £100 million to equip eight key UK and Ireland ports with charging infrastructure by 2030, with Heysham leading as the first net-zero port in the UK. These ports will support vessel charging and electric vehicle charging for landside operations. Then there are the south coast demonstrators. The Electric Seaway project has installed eight fast charging sites along the south coast, primarily supporting leisure and small commercial vessels under 24 metres. This is a robust regional network but is not yet designed for the largest container or deep sea ships. However, that must come.
The major problem that the Government, the Minister and his department need to address is limited grid capacity to our ports. As of now, only eight of the 32 major UK ports are expected to have sufficient electrical capacity by 2050 without significant upgrades, indicating that the fast charging rollout is still in its infancy and faces infrastructure challenges. The Minister’s comments on that major hurdle to growth would be greatly appreciated. However, let me try to help the Government with some suggestions.
Thought needs to be given to increasing the number of pilot and funding schemes, such as the Government’s clean maritime demonstration competition, to accelerate infrastructure upgrades. We need to assess port electricity capacity and plans for phased upgrades to handle high-power ship charging. We need to collaborate with technology providers and shipping lines to prioritise routes and vessel types for electrification. We need to monitor lessons from early projects at Heysham and the Electric Seaway for best practices and pitfalls.
The Minister himself has been a pioneer of similar work in the rail sector. Here, I argue, there is an opportunity at an early stage for the Government to position themselves as leaders by investing early in scalable future-proofed charging networks that can be expanded as more electric vessels enter service. This is really important because the global electric shipping market is projected to grow rapidly from about $4.85 billion in 2025 to $18 billion by 2032, with compound annual growth rates ranging from 10% to 20% depending on the vessel segment.
Environmental regulations also apply to shipping. Stricter emission laws are pushing ship operators to adopt cleaner technologies, including batteries, especially on short sea and regional routes where charging infrastructure is more viable. There are technology advances to be supported. Improvements in lithium-ion battery energy density, lifespan and safety, along with falling battery costs, make electrification increasingly feasible for larger vessels and longer routes.
The geographic leaders such as Norway and China are at the forefront. Norway leads in battery ferries. China is launching fully electric coastal container ships and has certified more than 30 battery makers for marine use. There is hybridisation: many new car and truck carriers and some container ships use hybrid battery-LNG systems for port manoeuvring and emission reduction, with pure battery power still limited by current battery energy density.
The UK Government have the opportunity to build on this important document and outline a clear road map with specific objectives and milestones for the deployment of charging facilities. This strategic plan should include short-term goals, such as the number of ports equipped with basic facilities, and long-term targets for full-scale electrification.
Lord Moynihan (Con)
My Lords, it is back to the world of cold ironing. The UK Government have the opportunity to outline a clear road map with specific objectives and milestones for the deployment of charging facilities. A strategic plan should build on what we have been considering in this document to include short-term goals, such as the number of ports equipped with basic facilities, and long-term targets for full-scale electrification.
All the good intentions in this plan are meaningless unless we invest in grid upgrades. That means that the UK Government should collaborate with distribution network operators to upgrade grid connections now and ensure robust energy supplies. This may involve investing in new substations, transformers and high-voltage connections to handle the increased demand. Given the constraints on the public sector investment plans, this calls for a new PFI approach, one that balances risk between government and the private sector, learns the lessons from the past—not least over complex and bureaucratic contracts—and accelerates investment. In some ways, given its size and stand-alone features, it can be a test case for government, working with the Treasury and the private sector, as has been successfully done with the Thames Tideway project.
Finally, in all the work that we are doing, it is vital that we make our ports safe for employees, crews, passengers and the public.
Lord Fuller (Con)
Before my noble friend sits down, although I do not want to disagree with a word he said about electricity, does he agree that any policy must keep an open mind as to all new forms of energy, in particular methanol-powered ships using clean-burning methanol, which is increasingly becoming a viable alternative to heavy crude oil? The policy needs to keep its mind open.
Lord Moynihan (Con)
My Lords, I absolutely do have an open mind to that. We must not only be open-minded towards the challenges that are faced by battery technology and reducing the weight of batteries, for example, but look at all forms of clean energy that can benefit our international maritime trade. The point that my noble friend has made is absolutely accurate in that sense.
In my comments today, I wished to concentrate very much on the current direction of travel that is occurring in the industry because it is vital when it comes to designing a policy for ports and making sure that we are ready to take on the challenges that we already see embedded in European Union legislation. That is important for ports in Wales and on the west coast of the United Kingdom, for example, when it comes to ferries going to Ireland.
The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Baroness Watkins of Tavistock) (CB)
My Lords, let me just clarify that there should be only points of clarification in Grand Committee, not the reopening of an issue.
Baroness Scott of Needham Market (LD)
After that innovative departure from our normal process, it is a pleasure to speak—an unusual pleasure because, despite the centrality of ports and shipping to this country, we rarely debate such things in the House.
I have no current interests in the maritime sector but I do, as they say, have form. I was on the board of the Lloyd’s Register, which was founded in 1760, and I was the first woman to be appointed to the board of the Harwich Haven Authority. That authority was founded in 1863 and serves the massive Port of Felixstowe; Ipswich, which has been a port since Anglo-Saxon times; the ferry service from Harwich; cruise ships that call occasionally; support vessels for offshore wind; and a green energy hub at Bathside Bay. I mention all that because it exemplifies the diversity and complexity of the modern maritime sector.
The Harwich Haven Authority is a trust port. Not only does it ensure the safe navigation of some of the largest ships in the world accessing the Port of Felixstowe; it is also the custodian of the estuary in terms of both safe and efficient access and the health of its environment. My first ask of the Minister is that the national policy statement more explicitly reference the distinct legal and operational responsibilities of trust ports such as Harwich Haven.
As we have already heard in a single speech, so much has changed since this document was last published in 2012. I want to begin by reflecting on whether it would not have been better to have had a more fundamental revision of the document, because this feels rather like tweaking. The complexity of the modern port sector might be better served if the document were a little more up to date and far reaching.
It is not just me saying that: in its submission, Portsmouth International Port commented that the document should reflect the entire breadth of the ports industry as it is now, not as it was in 2012. Various evidence to the House of Commons Select Committee reflected the fact that the document does not identify the import of sustainable aviation fuels, alternative maritime fuels, and carbon capture and storage.
It has also been pointed out that there are no government forecasts for offshore energy or passengers in the way that there are for freight. Evidence from Associated British Ports suggests that more emphasis should be put on non-tonnage routes, and Portsmouth has highlighted the increasing development of passenger-related activities and their ever-changing needs. Harwich Haven talked to me about how bulk cargo patterns are changing due to global trade realignments—the less said about that, the better—and climate change requirements, which are leading to a need for more flexible storage and modernised handling structures.
It is particularly important that we get the basis of this document right now because, once the Planning and Infrastructure Bill takes effect, these documents will be reviewed every five years. It is important to have a solid baseline for that five-yearly review to take place. The Government have set out a number of objectives, including growth, efficiency and support for their own clean energy ambitions. They rightly frame the approach as market-led. Indeed, they see competition in the sector as key to driving up efficiencies and improving innovation. I think we could all agree with that, but a market-led approach leaves us with a particular challenge when it comes to the major infra- structure required to support the port sector. Road and rail improvements are provided long after the development has taken place. Political indecision, funding challenges and lengthy and complex planning processes mean that significant problems build up before any serious attention is given to dealing with them.
For example, the Orwell Bridge near Ipswich is the only HGV-suitable route out of the Port of Felixstowe. It is an ageing asset and requires regular maintenance; it was closed for a long period over the summer, when all the vehicles, including HGVs, were rerouted through the centre of Ipswich, which has narrow roads and subsequently suffered very serious congestion right through the summer. The A120 between the A12 and the ports is one lane in each direction for much of the route and is increasingly inadequate.
Given the Minister’s background, and given that the Government have a rail freight target of 75% growth by 2050, I was particularly interested to see that this document is entirely non-rail. Rail gets no specific mention, although there is a mention of HGV parking. As an example, the huge volume of freight movement between the Port of Felixstowe and the Midlands would benefit enormously from a series of measures to improve rail links between the hub of Nuneaton and Felixstowe. The branch line between Felixstowe and Ipswich is single track and is already operating at capacity. Improvements at Ely and Haughley junction are desperately needed. The noble Lord, Lord Moynihan, just referred to how grid connections are increasingly essential.
My final set of points relates to the highly complex and changing nature of the planning and consent regimes that face ports undertaking development of any kind. This is a recurring theme throughout the consultation responses and in the oral evidence given to the Select Committee. The Government’s intention is to save ports time and money on planning, and everyone would welcome that, but this threshold does not suit all the types of work that are needed to sustain, for example, offshore energy. My noble friend Lady Pidgeon will talk about that. Portsmouth International Port talked to me about how it wants to be sure that the NPSP offers support and context to all its throughput activities, development projects and improvements that it promotes.
I have observed the increasing physical distance between port activity and the physical port itself. Logistics or even security can be quite some distance from the port, which is important in the context of local planning. Stakeholders have suggested that deemed consent orders should include activities such as berth deepening, access roads, security and grid connections, and that this should be explicit in the NPSP. RenewableUK highlighted that, with multiple consenting routes for renewable energy projects, a clear overall framework is essential.
Many ports have developed master plans, which have been encouraged by the DfT since 2008. This document, interestingly, is silent on the role of port master plans and their status, which is a pity, because they can act as a very useful tool for working with local planning authorities. What exactly is the status of this document with regard to local plans? Will it be a material consideration for local authorities and the MMO, for example? Will the Government consider discussing with stakeholders the potential for port master plans to be explicitly recognised?
This is particularly important when it comes to protecting potentially valuable port-related land from other developments such as housing. It is a real issue in ports such as Portsmouth and London Gateway, which are located in urban areas. Witnesses are suggesting that the read-across to the current planning Bill is not clear, which is unfortunate; we should not be in that position.
I have three quick points to conclude. Statutory decision-makers are all subject to reductions in funding, people shortages and backlogs in decision-making. Speeding up the planning process will not happen unless we look at the resourcing of it. During the oral evidence session, witnesses spoke about the potential for a one-stop shop approach to help applicants through the maze of legal and regulatory permissions required. Finally, will the Minister assure the Grand Committee that his Government will look at the representations carefully to see whether improvements can be made to the clarity, hierarchy and status of this important document?
Lord Mountevans (CB)
My Lords, I welcome the proposal for a revised national policy statement for ports. We know that ports matter; they are a key element of sea-borne trade and national resilience. As we saw so clearly during Covid, they deliver, they perform and they make negligible demands of the state for their funding. I have worked in the maritime industries, primarily shipping, for all my adult life. Initially, I was a shipbroker with the world’s largest shipping services provider, a British company, and in recent years I have held senior positions in major maritime trade associations and bodies.
When talking of the port sector as a key element of British maritime in speeches in the 2010s, I used to note that they were investing around £600 million of their own money in their facilities annually. But the figure has been growing. Since the pandemic alone, something between £4.4 billion and £6 billion of port investment has been made. In the coming five years, they are planning to invest £1 billion annually, and there is an expectation that this could go higher.
There are some 130 commercial ports handling imports and exports, with over 80% of trade conducted through the 20 leading ports. Investment in the coming years will be spread widely. The biggest scheme at present is DP World’s expansion of London Gateway, which is more than £1 billion of investment on its own. This is focused on container berths and rail freight facilities. Another notable investment is the new £400 million port development in the highlands to recreate the dormant Port of Ardersier, which will target the offshore wind market as a major hub for the North Sea.
Ports matter not only because they are the gateway for the UK’s international trade, and are broadly self-financed, but because they are key employers in our often-disadvantaged coastal communities.
I particularly welcome the fact that the statement fundamentally recognises the value of the sector as structured, with a number of different ownership models, but essentially private and very competitive. I believe the continued presumption in favour of port development and the support for a market-led approach is the right course, backing our successful ports and their managements. Overcapacity in each market segment now appears to be an explicit policy aim, rather than a welcome side-effect of a market-led approach. New capacity can stimulate increased demand. This will all drive growth, the Government’s key objective.
But this continued presumption in favour of port development and a market-led approach has very important implications for security, defence and national resilience. The UK, like so much of western Europe, faces increasing threats and grey zone activity. We all recall that in March this year the container vessel “Solong” collided with the tanker “Stena Immaculate”, which was at anchor off the Humber. The tanker was on charter to the US Military Sealift Command, carrying jet fuel for the US Air Force. The collision caused a fire and the release of aviation fuel, which then ignited. I am sure I was not alone in immediately thinking that this was no accident. However, my understanding subsequently is that it was a most unfortunate accident. The fact that the emergency services performed superbly should not blind us to the realisation of what might have happened.
I chair the Maritime Security Advisory Group, a small group whose aim is to increase awareness of the vulnerability of the UK in key areas such as international cables; undersea oil and gas pipelines and infrastructure; electricity interconnectors; offshore wind turbines and their shore connections; and, of course, ports themselves. Just imagine for a moment if the “Stena Immaculate” had, as a result of the collision, shifted position and moved in the direction of one of the communities or numerous installations that line the Humber. Or imagine if the vessel had sunk in one of the channels. There could have been major economic disruption, and even loss of life.
Of course, as an island the UK has a very long coastline. The scope for a hostile state or actor to inflict profound regional or national damage is enormous. The UK is very vulnerable given the very extended coastline, the subsea infrastructure and the ports. The more our ports expand and compete under the new strategy, with growing capacity giving wider options, the better.
The NPSfP is to be warmly welcomed not only for boosting growth but, importantly, for directionally boosting national resilience, but the policy could do more. Ports are not merely gateways for international freight. The policy could seek more actively to support port developments that address wider non-volume, non-traditional cargo activities. For example, there is enormous potential provided by renewable energy, the cruise trade—3 million passengers per year are passing through—and logistics development. Offshore wind remains a huge opportunity for the UK and will require significant expansion of port infrastructure, much of it highly specialised.
Meeting the requirements of the offshore wind industry should be accorded a higher priority by Government. A legitimate concern is that this opportunity has not been grasped more strongly earlier. Ports are designated as a foundational industry in the Government’s industrial strategy; it is of the upmost importance that they support growth and competitiveness, ensuring that the UK remains an attractive destination for global shipping businesses.
I know the industry feels that a higher important should be accorded to port investment. There are a number of actions that could help in the area of planning. First, the policy could be made more effective if planning policymakers were required to take account of it as a material consideration when drafting development plans, marine plans or other plan-making documents. Secondly, it should identify port operators and statutory harbour authorities as formal statutory consultees in the plan-making process. Thirdly, it could better protect the role of ports and their paths to future development through including or strengthening in the policy the status of the NPSfP against other national policy statements, giving ports mandatory consultee status in relevant development proposal assessments and ensuring that ports are better recognised within strategic spatial planning. Finally, the NPSfP— this acronym is worse than the one for the Caribbean trade agreement—should place greater emphasis on the importance of port connectivity, as road and rail development projects that are particularly significant for the movement of goods to and from ports can clearly reference the NPSfP in their proposals.
I also draw attention to the lack of measures to support alternative fuels, along with necessary shore power for vessels as well as the essential grid upgrades that the noble Lord, Lord Moynihan, mentioned. In a week when the IMO will be debating and voting on its net-zero proposals for shipping, I ask the Minister if there should not be a stronger alignment proposed with international frameworks such as the IMO net-zero framework and the FuelEU maritime regulation.
My final point is that the industry feels that greater recognition should be given to the scope for UK ports to act as trans-shipment hubs for Europe and more distant locations. In conclusion, the call made by the noble Baroness, Lady Scott of Needham Market, for a more fundamental review has much merit.
Lord Fuller (Con)
My Lords, I want to lay out my involvement in global ship-borne trade, terminal operations and the associated professions. My private business trades from two terminals—the Port of Sunderland, a council-owned deep-water port, and Great Yarmouth, which is a trust port. Both are on the east coast. Through a joint venture I bring tankers of liquid nitrogen fertiliser up to 50,000 tonnes deadweight to Sunderland. A YouTube video of one of our most recent shipments has had over 50,000 views, which I am very pleased with. I received the draft bill of lading for my latest shipment last night, so I know what the global shipping trade is all about.
The draft policy starts from the premise that developments in trade should be underpinned by commercial principles and should be market led. That is absolutely right, but if only it were that simple. Not all ports operate on the same statutory or capital structure, so the purity of that market-led approach is not quite what the policy would have you believe—mainly because it fails to recognise that particularly the trust ports, the largest cohort, are constrained in their ability to borrow, which constrains their ability to expand. I was with the chief executive of the Port of Dover last week and he made that point very powerfully; his credit card is maxed out. The policy needs to have regard to the particular needs of trust ports as opposed to the other operators.
That should not be a problem but the capital and structural differences between the ports have led to an oligopolist situation. It was just referred to by my noble friend who said that the top 20 operators have 80% of the market. That is resulting in a lack of competition where, by any measure, UK ports are uncompetitive against our near continental neighbours. This is important to the point about trans-shipments made by the noble Lord, Lord Mountevans.
I asked a colleague in my industry trade body to provide me with some figures for the landed cost of bulk commodities onto the quayside for two commonly used ship types, based on the rack rate. First, for a 4,000-tonne deadweight dry bulker, compared to ARAG —Amsterdam, Rotterdam, Antwerp or Ghent—UK ports are between 88% and 189% more expensive on the east coast and 213% more expensive on the south coast. For a much larger deep-water 35,000-tonne deadweight handysize bulk vessel, it is between 123% and 200% more expensive on the UK east coast, 250% more expensive on the south coast and a whopping 502% more expensive on the west coast. In cash terms, it is £62,000 for Amsterdam and £311,000 for Liverpool.
That is a problem—a £0.25 million problem—for the UK economy, but this competitive disadvantage is not referred to in the policy at all. It should be, because it is damaging our ability to trade with and earn our place in the world, especially as we are now able to operate our own independent trade policy with, for many commodities, a tariff advantage of 6.5% over the EU default on some goods. It is in everyone’s interest that we leverage this comparative advantage, but we cannot do so because we are under-ported and the policy does not mention it anyway. At this rate, we will never get to the expected 62.5% increase in dry bulks. I am doing my best to arrest the decline in liquid bulk traffics—a number that does not intuitively sound right to me given the huge volumes of LNG coming through Milford Haven, but I shall put that point to one side.
The case for new ports and port infrastructure is made. We cannot carry on without a dramatic increase in capacity and other break-bulk opportunities. We have a fleeting moment of comparative advantage to seize, so we must do it. However, we are here today because the 2012 policy has not worked. I am grateful for the short briefing from the British Ports Association, which told me that, since the existing policy was published in 2012, only four consequential consents have been issued. I take that at face value. The policy highlights a number of pre-2012 extant consents that have not been built. The UK’s ports infrastructure is sort of beached, so we have to ask why. With all the obvious demand, have we made it just too difficult to expand existing ports or build new ones? Will the draft policy make it easier or harder to expand the ports that our country needs?
Moving on, I am very surprised—here, I support the points made by the noble Baroness, Lady Scott—that the policy makes no reference to the astonishing ecosystem multiplier that supports the ports in terms of, for the most part, privately operated businesses, stevedores, cargo surveyors, ships’ agents, hauliers, warehouses, freight forwarders and customs agents, to name but a few. It is a massive sector, but the port policy is silent on this. I cannot understand that.
Also, in my view, the policy fails in its analysis to make the distinction between the ports; the harbour authorities, which maintain the navigations and provide pilotage, dredging and so on; and the terminal operators, which occupy land and quaysides within a port from which they ply their private trade. The preamble is completely incomplete in this regard, and the order of battle is misunderstood. I support the noble Baroness, Lady Scott, in calling for a more fundamental redesign and recasting of this policy in order to reflect the richness and texture of the industry, rather than just copying and pasting a policy that has not, sadly, yielded fruit since 2012.
I consider myself a terminal operator. My experience tells me why the UK does not have the dynamic ports and logistics infrastructure that we might have. Back in 2019, I wanted to build a terminal in the north-east to handle liquid fertilisers. There was a significant upfront capital cost for tanks and a new local market to build from scratch. It was a risky operation. I could not go to the big five ports—this is a problem—because they will lease you land for only 15 or 20 years. Investing millions up front, only to hand the asset back to the landlord after 180 months so that he can punt the opportunity on to someone else using infrastructure that you built and paid for—as well as the market that you built—was not a good business strategy. The fact is that the terms offered by most UK ports do not make it easy for private operators to make long-term, generational investment decisions to build businesses and trades. There is not enough choice or competition.
We went to the Port of Sunderland, a council-owned port where we were able to enter into a much more long-term partnership that made it easy for my business to develop a patient plan to build a market and be rewarded for it. You might say that this is a case of the market-based approach working, and you would be right. However, for every Port of Sunderland—I cannot praise it highly enough for its can-do attitude and customer focus—there are dozens of less accommodating take-it-or-leave-it ports, unconcerned about competition because there is such a structural shortage of supply. That is a problem that this policy should grip; we have a market failure in that terminal operators are unable to secure premises on a long leasehold or freehold basis in the UK to grow our trade.
Just as an aside—I am looking at the clock— I welcome the points about freeports, but I express surprise that the opportunity for customs warehouses has not been appropriately recognised. A customs warehouse is like a freeport but just for a single warehouse or individual terminal located within a port estate. I have one of these, and I want to give credit to HMRC and thank it for putting its shoulder to the wheel to drive my trade forward. It is invidious to name names, but the trade taxes team in Manchester know who I am talking about. There is a part of the state that understands the need for trade and works collaboratively and positively. That opportunity for customs warehouses should be publicised more. I am astonished that it is not at all in the policy.
I support the broad thrust of the first 16 pages of the policy. I would suggest the re-emphasis of some points, but I think we can all agree that ports are important, that we are under-ported and that we need more competition. We are missing out on global trade, and we need to have a wider variety of types of tenures in a market-led approach. This is the lens through which I approach the 66 pages that follow that essential preamble. Oh dear. Very briefly, we have nine pages talking about how an applicant might confidently demonstrate the commercial, wealth-creation, tax-generating economic and socioeconomic benefits of a proposal, then we have 57 pages on the need for various appraisals, surveys and analysis, attempting to prove the unproveable. It is all very worthy and well meaning, but wholly counterproductive and at odds with the overarching imperative to get the trade flowing and the economy moving.
I read it again, and I suppose that I should have taken comfort from paragraph 2.4.2, where it says that
“the Secretary of State should start with a presumption in favour of granting consent to applications”,
which is good,
“unless other policies in this NPS provide a clear reason for refusal”,
which is bad. After the nine positive pages, the trouble is that on every one of those 57 pages that follow is a clear reason to refuse an application for reasons that can be confected. The cumulative effects of any of them are enough to topple any proposal into the drink.
We have been sitting through the Planning and Infrastructure Bill, and a lot of the well-meaning but counterproductive proposals in Part 3 will slow down development, not speed it up. I would like noble Lords to listen to my following remarks through the lens of the Chancellor—I cannot believe that I am saying this —quoted today in the Times on the day the Government have apparently consigned much of the nature-based bureaucracy to the deep. She says:
“The outdated planning system has been gummed up by burdensome bureaucracy and held to ransom by blockers for too long. Our pro-growth planning bill shows we are serious about cutting red tape to get Britain building again”.
At last! I take her comments at face value, but we need to do the same with this policy.
I read the Hutchison Ports response to the consultation. Not only are so many of the outside-the-port requirements unproveable but required, even once a consent might be granted the costs of the conditions still are not known. Even if you have spent all your money on the surveys, traffic analysis and hydraulic predictions and got your consent, you still have no idea what it might cost. It is only at that point the bills start coming in.
You have to question the value of some of these surveys. In Gorleston-on-Sea, from where I take my territorial designation, they built an outer harbour in the early 2000s. I remember that there were dire predictions from the world’s leading hydrological practice that Gorleston beach would be scoured away, and that warning held up the proposal for many years. The harbour has been built, and the beach is as wide as it has ever been—it is the beach at Hopton just down the coast that has copped it. The crime is that so many people believed the expensive report in the first place. Here lies the problem—an expensive report based on arbitrary precision and dodgy modelling misdirected the whole investment process. Is it any wonder that we have not had a significant new port development delivered in the last 15 years? Will this policy make it any easier?
The whole tone of the policy presupposes that ports are, by their very nature, bad things for the environment. That is a false premise. Keeping shipping channels open with dredging speeds the flow of water out to sea and removes sedimentary contaminants. The wildlife habituates. That is not an argument for no regulation, but we need to return to a sense of proportion and the £1.2 billion spent on environmental reports for the lower Thames crossing proves we have gone too far. We just cannot afford it.
Biodiversity net gain sounds so nice, and it is good on land, but it is totally unproven and unprovable in the tidal marine context. While we try and work it all out, the key deals for wind turbine installation and oil rig decommissioning are all being sorted out over the water by 2028. We are at risk of missing the boat— absolutely. Then I read that there are restrictions on port development in flood zones. Guess what? Show me a port that is not in a flood zone. That is not well meaning; that is wholly counterproductive.
The NSIP process, although welcome, is not going to help that much because it is not going to whittle down those 57 pages into a more sensible number. It is less wading through mud, more like stuck in the mud. It is like the whole policy was written by the Dutch—that other great seafaring nation; a competitor nation that is not known for its ambivalence towards the environment or environmental protections, and much of which is beneath sea level.
We have a document that pays lip service to economic development but strangles it in red tape. It is a statutory charter for the objectors and blockers. As the Chancellor said this morning, we need to show investors that we are a country that gets spades in the ground and our economy moving. What to do? We need to think hard about this policy and how serious we are about growing the economy, driving global trade and earning our place in the world. The policy proposal places so many risk factors and hurdles that only those with the deepest pockets can contemplate expanding their port. That wipes out the trust ports and the smaller private ports.
Consultees broadly welcome the draft presumption in favour of port development, and so do I, but it must be bolstered with a sequential test that starts with the overwhelming weight of port development that our island nation requires—a clear presumption in favour of trust ports obviously, with weight given to safety and security. While you need to sacrifice some small areas to grow the economy insofar as the environment is concerned, there should be an overriding recognition that sea freight is the most environmentally benign form of transport and the leveraging of existing infrastructure, such as a more intensive use of existing channels. This is clearly a mitigation to which nature has habituated.
Lord Fuller (Con)
If we are really serious about growth in the UK ports sector, I ask the Minister to take a knife to the now-discarded copy-and-paste parts from Part 3 of the Planning and Infrastructure Bill. A significant rewrite is indicated, and I think there is a consensus on that among noble Lords in this debate. Otherwise, we will have another lost decade in ports, with trade drag-anchored 20 years back. We should be the seagull soaring. Unless there is a rewrite, this policy will be an albatross around our neck.
Baroness Maclean of Redditch (Con)
My Lords, we are a maritime nation. I first understood the importance of this in my role as Transport Minister in the previous Government, when I was given one of those responsibilities that nobody else really wanted—to look after the EU exit preparedness work.
In that role, I also got another dodgy promotion; I was promoted to be the Minister for Kent, despite representing beautiful Redditch in Worcestershire. My brief was to keep cross-channel traffic moving via Dover Port and to support hauliers. In that capacity, I brought forward the heavy commercial vehicles in Kent orders underpinning Operation Brock and the Kent access permit to protect communities and keep trade flowing. When France closed its border a day or so before Christmas that year, the “Keep Dover Clear” plan helped to restore movement and clear thousands of HGVs. Little did I know that, in that role, I would suddenly become an expert in ordering Portaloos for lorry drivers to be situated at the side of all the dual carriageways. I hope they will thank me now. I will end this digression, but I hope it illustrated why I know how important not only Dover but our other ports are. As many noble Lords have said, these vital arteries handle around £122 billion worth of trade in a normal year. A delay at one port can impact the movement of people and freight across the UK.
This debate is not a political hot potato; we all want to give our ports the certainty to invest. Their success means supply chain resilience, lower costs for British consumers and, of course, growth and jobs. This statement brings a much-needed update to the planning framework for our ports. I know that it has been widely welcomed by the port sector, which I commend for its pragmatism and flexibility over the years. I also add my support for the remarks of the noble Lord, Lord Fuller, with his detailed, front-line commercial business experience and his industry background. I really look forward to the Minister’s response to the gaps in this policy that the noble Lord highlighted. I will broadly base my comments in this debate on the evidence given by the sector, Ministers and officials in the hearings before the Transport Select Committee, which highlighted a few gaps and missed opportunities.
We all know that in any planning policy the overriding objective should be to balance planning acceleration, clarity and certainty with community consultation and any adverse impacts on coastal ecosystems and residents. I very much agree with some of the points made about the lack of linkage and read-across to the Planning and Infrastructure Bill, which will shortly return to this House for Report. In my opinion, and as noted by the committee, there is no interaction in this policy statement with the proposed new environmental delivery plans and the nature restoration levies proposed in that Bill. For example, it is not clear whether EDPs would provide a model for or supersede the ideas around the proposal for maritime net gain. Investors want certainty and clarity on this point, so would paying into an EDP interact with the ports-specific marine licensing and the habitats regulations assessment?
The draft policy statement could also do more to guide applicants and decision-makers through the interplay among the myriad environmental plans and designations that are now in place, which give the marine context such extraordinary complexity. To name just some, we have: marine protected areas, highly protected marine areas, the water framework directive regulations and the associated EA guidance Clearing the Waters for All, the Marine Strategy Regulations, the Environmental Targets (Marine Protected Areas) Regulations 2022 and the environmental improvement plan 2023 targets for designated features in MPAs. Can the Minister explain whether an explicit map will be created or whether this will be simplified in guidance, regulations or legislation?
Next, I address the issue of demand and capacity. The draft statement states that, if all the already consented development schemes were built out, aggregate container capacity would be broadly in line with the “pre-recession forecast for demand”. This reference is to the recession of 2008-09, which intervened between the demand forecasts for the previous NPS and its subsequent adoption in 2012. In the view of some witnesses, this is an unnecessary historical hangover and should be removed or updated given major trade events since then and the availability of DfT forecasts from 2025. The draft recognises that additional and alternative developments might be beneficial for competition and flexibility. Of course, this is important in order not to close the door on a supportive needs case for new container development. We know the Government believe that, to encourage the total port capacity in any sector, it must exceed forecast overall demand if the sector is to remain competitive and resilient. Will the Minister look again at those capacity forecasts?
On the environment, we have been told by witnesses that there are air quality tests, BNG and the maritime net gain that I referred to earlier. Industry wants a single playbook across the many designations to cut duplication and delay. Noble Lords have also spoken about the multitude of pages and reports that are necessary for planning applications.
There is something referred to as the FLOW gap in this document. While offshore wind, in the NPS EN-3, often treats energy infrastructure with a high priority, the ports needed to supply it are not afforded the same elevated designation in this ports NPS. Floating offshore wind loading requires heavy lift cranes, large quays with wide access channels, wet storage and high-load berths. Many ports do not have these, so the upgrade demands are intensive. Will the Minister review the supporting policy statements and the support for this critical opportunity?
This policy statement also says that we should update the national policy statements every five years and streamline consultation. Witnesses said that the ports NPS should say that explicitly and set concise theme-based consultation expectations for applicants, so they can truly benefit from the time savings that Parliament intended.
I have one final point. There is a suggestion, with which I agree, that the NPSP should apply fully to Section 35 directed projects. This was heard by the committee, where witnesses highlighted the ambivalent treatment of Section 35 cases and urged a clear line: if a ports project is brought into the Planning Act regime by direction, the ports NPS should apply in full.
I look forward to the Minister’s comments on all of those points and thank noble Lords for the opportunity to contribute to this debate.
Lord Berkeley (Lab)
My Lords, I rise to speak briefly in the gap. Unlike many noble Lords, I very much welcome this document. The Government have done pretty well in getting this far, because it is incredibly complicated, but I have a few questions, which I hope my noble friend the Minister will be able to answer.
The first issue—it is pretty obvious, I suppose—is how far this policy applies to Scotland and Wales. My noble friend the Minister mentioned Scotland briefly but, as we all know, there are some very big ports in Scotland. Wales has a large number of ports as well; some of them are pretty large and some of them think that they will get even bigger when the new offshore wind farms are built somewhere in the Celtic Sea. It would be nice to know about the scope of this document in those two countries.
Along with that, I would be interested to know who will be in charge. This week, I was a bit surprised to see a press release saying that the lower Thames tideway tunnel is going to be built not by the Department for Transport, because it is not capable, but by the Government. I thought that the Department for Transport was government. It is a good department, but this is an odd way of saying who will be in charge of the budget, or who will be in charge when things do or do not go well.
On my other worry, most of the discussion in this debate has been about energy; the noble Lord, Lord Moynihan, started it. Energy is a terribly important element of input/output, et cetera. I am involved in a hydro scheme—or whatever it is—for passenger services between the Isles of Scilly and the mainland, which is entirely electric. It is charged at each end, and it has enough power to get across the 25 miles of rough sea in the middle. There are many other ones that could continue like this, and I hope that the Government will continue to encourage them.
My worry is that the document does not appear to include many energy projects; as I understand it, those have been left to the energy NPS. For ports, they cover everything, as noble Lords have said. However, it is difficult to get things through the so-called planning approval process for ports. You have all kinds of people saying, “You can’t do this because of that, and you cannot do that because of the other”. We had this off the coast of Penzance last year, when somebody said that you could not run a ferry over the sea because there was eel grass underneath it. It was 10 metres down—how serious can the grass get? Years ago, the Environment Agency told me that one could not run new services into the Isles of Scilly because they were entirely covered by a local environmental protection order. I asked, “Are people going to starve, then?” The agency said, “No, it’s just difficult”. I said, “Well, it works on the continent. It is in European legislation”. We really have to sort all this out.
My last point is on forecasts, because the Government say that they would like to take keep control of all the forecasts themselves, but that is wrong. The ports should be given a major role to play in telling everyone what their forecast is, and if the Government do not like it, there can be a debate. But it is important that that is done by the private sector, which is, after all, in charge of all the different cargoes that go in and out of ports. I wish this project well and congratulate the Government on producing it.
Lord Greenway (CB)
My Lords, for domestic reasons, I was unable to put my name down to speak today. I should like to make just a couple of quick observations. Much has been talked about electricity, both for powering ships and transport within ports. I agree entirely with the noble Lord who spoke about this. The grid is the problem; there simply is not the capacity in it. Remember that if we are going to get ships to turn off their generators in port to stop pollution, they will have to plug into the normal electricity supply. How many other people are going to be adding to that supply? We have electric cars, electric this and electric that. AI, of course, is going to use more electricity than anybody has even thought of. It is not going to be easy.
Southampton, our largest cruise port, has been looking at shore supply of electricity for it for some time. It probably has one provision operating now, but if five large cruise ships were in port, as they are today, with 150,000 tonne ships all plugging in, Southampton would lose its electricity. It is as simple as that. So we have a long way to go there.
My other observation is slightly tongue in cheek. We have a robust ports industry. We are an island. In general, the ports do a good job. I remind the Committee that it was largely due to two Members of this House that the ports are in that position today. The noble Lord, Lord Fowler, who was Secretary of State in the Commons at the time, and Lord Brabazon, who was Shipping Minister, were two of the only six people who knew that the iniquitous dock labour scheme was going to be abolished. The unions were caught on the hop; they called a token strike, which lasted two or three weeks then fizzled out. It is largely due to those two Members of this House that our ports are in the pretty good position that they are in today.
Baroness Pidgeon (LD)
My Lords, I welcome this debate on the amended national policy statement for ports, the continuation of the presumption in favour of port development and the market-led approach based on demand. Some important points have been raised by noble Lords in this debate. I particularly support the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Moynihan, about grid capacity for ports. It is an important issue.
A lot has happened since the previous statement was produced back in 2012 and designated under the Planning Act 2008. It is absolutely right that the Government are amending it at this time. Perhaps they should go further, as my colleague, my noble friend Lady Scott, mentioned. Overall, the amended national policy statement for ports is welcome. However, there are some clear opportunities to properly address short- comings in a number of areas.
Many in the sector feel strongly that the revised statement should reflect the industrial strategy underlining the role of ports as foundational to the UK economy and, crucially, affording ports critical national priority designation. If low-carbon energy projects and the energy NPS are granted critical national priority status, why not ports or port projects that directly support strategic national priority energy schemes? Perhaps the Minister will be able to explain the Government’s thinking.
One concern that has been expressed to me is that ports are far more than just gateways through which freight volumes travel and that the statement could better support tonnage-light development, which still supports economic growth and jobs, such as renewable energy, cruise and logistics development, as other noble Lords mentioned.
A major concern is around port connectivity, which needs to be strengthened in the statement. Rail and, in some cases, road projects are needed to help move goods to and from ports. A stronger emphasis on transport connectivity would help support such developments, particularly in the link to rail freight, modal shift and the development of Great British Railways. The statement recognises that much of the tonnage is concentrated in a small number of ports, with the top 15 ports accounting for around 80% of the UK’s total traffic. This makes rail highly relevant, yet it does not feature strongly enough, as has already been highlighted by my noble friend Lady Scott.
The statement feels like a missed opportunity to advance decarbonisation and modal shift. Ports seem to be considered in isolation from the rest of the supply chain activity, yet they are among the largest generators of freight traffic. Ports should be used to drive change in the economy and the environment—therefore, I would have liked to have seen a greater focus on transport connectivity and onward rail transport links. Will this area be further reviewed by the Government?
The revised draft restates the position that there is a compelling need for additional port capacity over the next 30 years to respond to forecast growth in volumes for all commodity types, to support offshore energy and ensure competition and indeed resilience—something on which I am sure we all agree.
I must thank a number of organisations, which have briefed me on the key issues in the sector, including Midlands Connect, Associated British Ports and RenewableUK. One issue that came up time and time again is that the amended statement does not provide the greater certainty needed by the sector to meet the demand for floating offshore wind—FLOW. Ports are expected to play a pivotal role in transitioning to net zero and FLOW will need bespoke port facilities, as we have heard from other speakers. More focus is therefore needed on the future of FLOW development, as the UK does not currently have the required port infrastructure to develop industrial-scale FLOW development. The finalised statement should provide clarity to decision-makers in this area.
Can the Minister also update the Committee on what actions are being taken via the Crown Estate’s supply chain accelerator programme? As I have already mentioned, one key anomaly is that the nationally significant infrastructure project threshold for ports does not suit port infrastructure upgrades critical for offshore wind development. I ask the Government again to consider this type of infrastructure as a critical national priority, which would mirror the approach to offshore infrastructure and associated cabling.
I welcome that impact assessments need to be updated to reflect environmental legislation, as well as to introduce the concept of marine net gain. Given this ambition, what support will the Government provide to guide applicants through the range of plans that now exist for marine areas? Although it is outside the direct scope of the document, this policy has a crucial role in supporting regional and local port schemes that fall beneath the thresholds. To that end, and following points raised at the Commons Transport Committee, what will the Government do to ensure that the document is given due consideration by all planning authorities when considering future port schemes?
What consideration has been given to strengthening the monitoring measures, with a requirement for either annual parliamentary reporting or monitoring conducted by an independent body such as the OEP? One final question that remains is how this reads across to the Planning and Infrastructure Bill currently making its way through Parliament, in particular in areas such as environmental delivery plans and the nature restoration levy. Will this statement need updating again shortly? I await the Minister’s response to my questions with interest.
Lord Moylan (Con)
We have had a pretty devastating critique of all sides of this document in this debate. The revisions were initiated by the previous Government with a view to promoting a thriving, modern port sector, but it has emerged under this Government as something of a damp squib. Even the Minister does not seem to think that it has much content. I listened to his speech carefully, and he delivered the preamble very well, telling us all about the procedural history of the document—including even the dates on which the Select Committee in the other place had taken evidence. I expected him to go on to tell us about what the document actually said, the main changes that it was going to make and how it was going to achieve the Government’s growth agenda—but he just sat down at that point. That is because the document is wholly inadequate to the challenges and opportunities.
My noble friend Lord Moynihan spoke about the grid connections and the need to increase them, and the noble Baroness, Lady Scott of Needham Market, spoke about rail and road connectivity and other matters of that sort. I am not summarising the whole debate—but my noble friends Lord Mountevans and Lord Fuller added devastatingly to her critique, on the basis of very considerable knowledge. My noble friend Lady Maclean of Redditch pointed out that the NPSP lives in a sort of parallel universe, with no connection to the Government’s Planning and Infrastructure Bill, which we are debating in a different forum at this very moment—from day to day, in the course of this week. It does not seem to do the job.
Ports are central to the economy of this country; they handle the overwhelming majority of our trade and act as gateways for energy and manufacturing, providing employment and opportunities in coastal communities. They are strategic national infrastructure without which growth, resilience and security cannot be delivered. What marks out the United Kingdom port sector is the environment in which it operates. It is unsubsidised, competitive and dynamic—well, reasonably dynamic if one believes what my noble friend Lord Fuller said; perhaps some parts of it need a little shaking up.
When a port expands, develops a new terminal or invests in green technology, it does so with private capital and at its own risk, which means that the framework set by the Government must not disincentivise investment. We support that approach to the provision of ports in this country; we do not want to go back to the disaster of nationalised ports—and the mention of the dock labour scheme by the noble Lord, Lord Greenway, reminds one of the horrors that existed on those occasions. But to be successful and invest, the ports need some sort of certainty.
The current planning system is, frankly, far too complex. Ports have to navigate local planning authorities, marine licensing regimes, environmental regulators and in some cases the national infrastructure planning process; the result is fragmentation, duplication and delay. We could look to a document like this to start removing those problems, but it does nothing—it changes nothing of any real significance at all. Time and again, applicants face the uncertainty of competing judgments from different authorities.
This is no small matter—every delay in planning ties up capital, weakens competitiveness and deters future proposals. In a sector where operators already carry full commercial risk, that uncertainty is corrosive. If an operator is prepared to risk its own capital within the bounds of environmental and safety law, that willingness should be taken as compelling evidence of need. That principle is acknowledged in the draft statement, but it must be made stronger and clearer. Forecasts have a role in setting context, but they must never be allowed to become shackled or allow the planning system to be used to constrain investment.
The draft statement includes national freight forecasts. As background, they are useful, but they are no more useful than if anybody else commissioned a national freight forecast from a reputable body. There is nothing particularly insightful about them simply because they are published by the Government, but they must not be allowed to become constraints. To treat them as in some ways binding would be to undermine the very responsiveness that has been a defining feature of the port sector in this country.
Somebody a moment ago—forgive me if I forget which noble Lord—said that to have competition you need some surplus capacity. Tying the system to forecasts would be fatal in that regard. Ports operate in fast-moving competitive markets; they must be able to respond to emerging opportunities, such as hydrogen, carbon shipping and storage, offshore renewables and international redistribution. But they must continue simply to feed us and provide us with the goods that we depend on day to day. All these wonderful, environmental, green things are very important, but we fundamentally depend on this: 40% of our food is imported into this country and a lot of it comes on ships. A lot of other heavy goods also come here. This cannot be captured adequately on backward-looking models by this sort of forecast. If every scheme is required to prove its case against centrally produced forecasts, we will miss opportunities that are vital to the future of the economy.
The draft statement acknowledges that it is for each port to take its own commercial view of demand and to bear its own risks. That is the correct principle, and it must be reinforced clearly throughout the final document. Building capacity and resilience ahead of demand is not speculative extravagance; it is a strategic necessity if the UK is to withstand shocks to supply chains and maintain competitiveness. I was horrified by the figures quoted by my noble friend Lord Fuller on the costs of landing goods at different ports in this country compared with a serious network of major ports facing us across the North Sea.
We come then to energy. Ports stand ready to enable cleaner growth from shore power, electrification and new fuels, but cannot do this while electricity prices in the United Kingdom remain among the highest in Europe. They are not among the highest actually; they are the highest—driven in part by layers of environmental regulations. Nor can they deliver if grid connections are delayed year after year. The outcome is perverse: a policy environment that speaks of net zero with urgency but in practice deters the very investment needed to achieve it.
I put three questions to the Minister. First, will he confirm that the forecasts in the final statement will be contextual only and not determinative nor taken by the planning system as being determinative, and that promoters will be free to take their own view of need? Secondly, what steps will the Government take to bring down electricity costs and accelerate grid connections so that ports can invest in green infrastructure rather than being held back by policy-driven costs? Thirdly, how does this document fit in with the Chancellor’s ambition, which she stated in a Written Statement on 17 March this year? I quote:
“To reset the UK’s regulatory landscape and achieve this vision, the government will implement a package of reforms over the Parliament that focus on … tackling complexity and reducing the burden of regulation, including that the government will commit to reducing the administrative costs of regulation for businesses by 25% by the end of this Parliament”.
Is the port sector going to benefit from that pledge and why does it not appear in this document as a driving consideration?
The port sector needs a framework that provides clarity, consistency and proportion. If the national policy statement delivers these qualities, ports will invest boldly, they will innovate and they will support the growth and resilience that this country needs. But if the statement leaves ambiguity, lacks ambition, constrains investments or piles systemic obligations onto individual schemes, we will deter the very capital on which future prosperity depends.
Looked at as a narrow planning document, this might just work—but as a vision of the ports system that we want to see in this country, it fails systematically and comprehensively. I do not think I am going too far in saying that the tenor of this debate is that the Government should take this away, start again and come back with something that sets a real vision for ports that will serve us well into the future.
Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)
My Lords, I thank all noble Lords who have taken part in this debate. It is fitting that, in calling the debate, the House has recognised the importance of the port sector in England and the UK as a whole. Our ports are essential to our trade and our economy, and it is important that they should have a stable, clear planning framework that respects commercial judgment and the competitive setting that has successfully nurtured investment over the years, while at the same time providing for not only environmental protection but environmental enhancement.
Noble Lords will recognise the consultative nature of the draft policy and of this Grand Committee debate, and the range of representations made across the consultation and in the hearings of the Transport Select Committee in the other place. All of those will be considered by the Secretary of State. I say to the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, that I was not going to take the time of this Committee or test the patience of those attending it, some of whom are very well versed in ports, by going through the document in detail. I will attempt to deal with many of the points that have been raised, but, for any that I fail to deal with, I will write.
The noble Lord, Lord Moynihan, and others raised important points about energy supply, power supply and new technologies. I listened carefully to what he said, because it was very well argued. The noble Lords, Lord Berkeley and Lord Greenway, and the noble Baroness, Lady Pidgeon, also raised those points. We will go away and further consider this. There are energy national policy statements that will deal with the supply of energy, and the Government are working with the energy supply companies, but I very much take on board the rapidly changing nature of energy supply and, therefore, the need for this policy to recognise those opportunities and for us as a nation and the Government to take advantage of what ports can propose to do. The answer to the question of whether we are open-minded to all forms of new energy is that we are; some are immature and therefore need to evolve, but it would be daft, frankly, not to have regard to the points made by the noble Lords, Lord Moynihan and Lord Fuller, and others about taking this in hand.
I recognise the extensive experience of the noble Baroness, Lady Scott, at Harwich. We must do this national strategy now because it has not been done since 2012. There is an opportunity to do something more fundamental in the future, but, having not had one for 13 years, the Government intend to get it more up to date to enable port development to be more easily examined through the planning processes and hence go forward more quickly than it otherwise might have done. I take the point, also made by others, that it could be more fundamentally reworked, but the Government are committed to doing something now because, although I hear criticisms from the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, and others, the previous Government do not seem to have had regard to this strongly. They started the process but did not finish it, and our job is to finish this sooner rather than later and then do it regularly.
The noble Baroness, Lady Pidgeon, and other noble Lords raised the matter of connectivity to ports. As in other boundary areas between this and the national policy statements, we must take a view on what is covered in which area. I absolutely recognise the proposition that ports need good road and rail connections. As she and other noble Lords will know, we were challenged in the rail enhancements programme simply by the current state of the economy. Proposals that would improve freight routes to ports were not taken forward, but they have not been removed from the plans for ever; they will be considered further. In the meantime, there is consideration of further rail connections at London Gateway—I spoke to DP World about them the other day—so we are thinking about those areas and recognise the importance of those connections. The use of port master plans is primarily for early engagement with communities and planning authorities. We will think further about how much more useful they might be. I recognise what the noble Baroness said.
The noble Lord, Lord Mountevans, referred to important issues around security. We fully agree that, with the current state of international relations and modern technology, we should be very mindful of security. Indeed, this policy is designed fully to include security considerations. He referred to the recent ship collision in the North Sea; it was an unfortunate collision but it was not motivated by security considerations, although we obviously recognise that it could have been. We are mindful of that.
We are also mindful of the need for local authorities to recognise the importance of ports. Indeed, one of the strengths in renewing this document is our renewed commitment to draw this issue to the attention of appropriate local authorities so that they are fully engaged with the development and importance of ports —including the critical nature of ports for all communities in Britain, particularly in the communities where they are placed.
The noble Lord, Lord Fuller, clearly has intimate knowledge of this sector; I recognise and respect what he says. He is, as many people who are close to these subjects might be, more critical of how this works in practice and how it might work. The best thing I can do is take away his detailed comments and consider them carefully, bearing in mind his long and current experience. I would say that there is no legal impediment to long leases—take, for example, the recent development in Southampton—but I am not going to challenge anything he says, other than to say that the Government are anxious to make the best of this. We will listen carefully to what he has to say. The intention of this policy is to make port development easier and better. We will reflect carefully on what the noble Lord has to say and see what we can do about the points that he raises.
I welcome the general support given by a number of noble Lords in this discussion. A number of noble Lords, including the noble Baroness, Lady Maclean of Redditch, raised the relationship with the Planning and Infrastructure Bill. The answer to this is that the Government intend to make things easier to do. This is very complicated; it is not a subject that has been tackled by previous Governments, but this Government are determined to do it. The relationship between these proposals and elements of the Planning and Infrastructure Bill needs to be considered carefully. The final ports strategy will relate to, and be relevant to, the Planning and Infrastructure Bill, which noble Lords will recognise is going through this House as we speak.
There is a point about the use of forecasts, which is that the forecasts in here are those from Government, but they are not constraints—a point just made by the noble Lord, Lord Moylan. Applicants are welcome to make their own forecasts. The Government should have some forecasts about port usage, but there is no universal knowledge, so applicants are welcome to make their own. We are going to think about doing more with floating offshore wind farms. The point about FLOW from the noble Baroness, Lady Maclean, and others is well taken.
The noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, talked about Scotland, which has its own policies so this document does not and should not refer to it. He too referred to the interaction with other policies. We must draw a line somewhere about which national policy statements deal with which issues, and we are expecting the energy national policy statement.
Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)
My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Greenway, referred to grid capacity, which I mentioned before. The Government are working with power suppliers. It is clearly an important part of the Government’s energy policy to have enough capacity on the grid and the connections into places that need it in order to supply the power that is so obviously needed, and to which the noble Lord, Lord Moynihan, and others referred.
The noble Baroness, Lady Pidgeon, asked me to reflect on the connection between this national policy statement for ports and the industrial strategy, and I will do so. She raised several other matters that I have already dealt with in terms of onward transport and the capacity of road and, in particular, rail. She raised the matter of the Crown Estate; the department works closely with it. She also raised offshore wind, on which I have already commented. I recognise that she also raised some points about the connection between this policy statement and the Planning and Infrastructure Bill. We will go away and make sure that the statement is consistent with the outcome of that Bill’s consideration in the House.
The intention of the national policy statement is to make it easier for applicants who want to expand ports to do so. That has to be considered at the point of revising the statement. It is not the intention—other noble Lords suggested that it might be—to make this more complex. The outcomes of the Planning and Infrastructure Bill and of this national policy statement are clearly designed to enable those who own and operate ports to more easily expand them in order to deal with the commercial development of port traffic.
Finally, the glass of the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, is definitely half empty this afternoon. I do not recognise some of the things that he is talking about. In any event, I should say to him very quietly but probably persistently, that if the previous Government thought that this was so bad and that the fragmentation of the planning system prevented the commercial development of ports, they could have done something rather more about it in their term of office than they did. Starting this process off, which is obviously the right thing to do after not having an updated statement for 13 years, is designed to make development easier and improve the commerce of this country, and hence its economy.
The noble Lord, Lord Moylan, asked me three direct questions at the end, the first of which was: are the forecasts contestable? Yes, they are, and applicants are welcome to use their own forecasts. Secondly, he asked: will the Government take steps on electricity costs and grid connections? They will and I have said that the Government are working with power suppliers. Thirdly, he made a comparison of this with the Chancellor’s Statement in March. The answer is that there is no inconsistency at all. The intention of revising this policy statement is to produce a clearer playing field for port expansion and development. That is exactly what the Chancellor was talking about in terms of developing trade in this country. It has not been done for 13 years. It should have been done; it is being done now, and this is the right thing to do.