Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill

Lord Kennedy of Southwark Excerpts

Committee stage
Monday 24th April 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Stunell (LD)]

My Lords, I give three-quarters support—I was going to say half-hearted support—to what the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, has moved by way of his amendment. The nationally significant infrastructure projects programme was quite a radical change when it was introduced. It was seen as a way of what one might call railroading—except that would perhaps be unfortunate given some of the projects—or delivering national projects which would be perpetually trapped in the local planning system should they go by the conventional route.

It is something of a planning bulldozer, and I absolutely share the concern of the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, about the expansion of Heathrow; we are on the same page as far as that goes. It is equally clear that, if a project such as Heathrow was ever to go forward, it would not survive the local planning processes, so the existence of a nationally significant infrastructure project mechanism for delivery is certainly well justified in the legislation. The question is: what happens when a project begins to fade from the priority list of the Government or, for that matter, that of investors in a private project? The noble Lord has produced two examples, known very well to him from his personal work experience and career, which illustrate the point.

I say to the Minister that surely there should be some process of project review in central government. The Built Environment Select Committee—I was a member until January—considered that in some detail, in looking at some evidence that we received in relation to reports. The committee took evidence from various parties. Who is actually in charge of the oversight of whether projects will proceed, are proceeding or are making progress? The committee was not convinced at that time that the Government had a viable and clear process for deciding that a project was or was not a priority, what that priority might be or what its consequences might be. The idea that there is a national pipeline, with projects neatly lined up going in at one end and coming out completed at the other, is fanciful. However, that is the way that the thinking, and often the public expression, about having a national infrastructure plan is expressed.

I am with the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, and this amendment, but I see it much more as being about hearing from the Government that they have a review process, that the review process is capable of taking a hard decisions, and that, when it takes a hard decision, it makes it operational on the ground so that we do not have huge areas, such as those around Heathrow, that are blighted. Indeed, on the peninsula on the Thames estuary, to which the noble Lord, Lord Moylan referred, progress is going in no direction. In the presence of a Section 35 designation, nobody else can go there either. It is essentially a dead development area, which I would have thought the Government would be anxious to avoid.

I am keen to hear what the Minister believes the mechanism is and whether, in the judgment of the Government, it is effective. If it is effective, it should be quite easy to answer the question put by the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, on how long it will be before the Ebbsfleet peninsula is de-designated. I suspect that it would be difficult for the Minister to de-designate Heathrow at the Dispatch Box today for a variety of reasons, but I hope that it is clear the direction from which I am coming, and that the Minister in replying can give us some satisfaction on this before we proceed further.

[Lord Kennedy of Southwark (Lab Co-op)]

I will come in very briefly. I certainly see the point of the amendment tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, and of the three-year review. I am not convinced that yearly after that is necessarily the right way to go; it could be a longer period between the reviews. However, I see the point he is making, and the problems it causes if things do not happen in an area.

I will leave it there, other than to say that I have always been a backer of Heathrow expansion. I want to put that on record because we have had a couple of people opposed to it. I think it would be good for the economy and that we should get on with it.

[Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, for his amendment and for enabling a short debate on NSIPs, because I think it is pretty important.

I ought to say that, before I was elected to the other place, my job was to work on various national infrastructure projects, or NSIPs—when I started working on them, they were not called that, of course, but that all changed—mainly around energy and water. I remember vividly when the new regime came in, back in 2008, under the Planning Act. At the time, it was a big change but very welcome because, as people have said, projects just got stuck all the time. As well as establishing statutory timescales and a streamlined DCO process, it brought more attention to the importance of public consultation. This helps local communities to understand why a project is happening near them and can unpick some of the problems and help move projects on.

It is worth pointing out that, since the NSIP system came into force in 2010, 113 transport, energy and wastewater projects have been considered, which shows a huge difference from the system we had before. It has sped up the planning process between submitting an application and the DCO being granted. We know that in the national infrastructure strategy in 2020 the Government committed to the NSIP reform programme, which aimed to speed up timescales by up to 50% for projects entering the system from the end of this year. It is really good to see this included in the levelling-up Bill, because projects can still get horribly stuck.

One that springs to mind from personal perspective is Hinkley Point C. I think that I started working with National Grid on the connections into Hinkley Point C in 2007, and one of my jobs was to do the timeline for the project. Every six months I would add another year or two on—and so it continues. It is getting there, but it is many years behind, and the trouble is that you then have an enormous amount of extra cost. Anything that can be done to support that fast-track consenting that the Bill suggests—faster post-consent changes—is really to be supported.