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Lord West of Spithead: My Lords, the noble Lord raises an interesting point. I can assure him that I will be looking very closely at any other ways of ensuring that, if we get to a position of people at 28 days, we are able to gather the evidence necessary to make a charge or to say they have to be released. There may or may
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Lord Clinton-Davis: My Lords, will my noble friend listen carefully to what the noble Lord, Lord Elystan-Morgan, has said? In his intervention there were the seeds of a possibility and I beg my noble friend not to dismiss it lightly. It is incumbent on this House to act speedily and effectively to the terrorist threat. I do not think any of us has the right answer at the moment. We have the possibility of acting effectively and speedily, but that requires the consent of both sides. Put aside what happened last night. I do not think that the Opposition have come to the right conclusion and I am not sure that the Government have. Think again.
Lord West of Spithead: My Lords, I thank my noble friend for his interjection. I certainly will not dismiss lightly the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Elystan-Morgan; as I hope I made clear before, I will think about it. As regards putting things behind us, I could not agree more. I should like to put this firmly aside, get the important things that still remain in the Counter-Terrorism Bill on the statute book and press on with trying to make the country safer.
Lord Thomas of Gresford: My Lords, the noble Lord has effectively dissociated himself from the insults that were thrown at this House by the Home Secretary yesterday and about those who oppose the Government’s plans. He heard the debate. Will he convey to the Home Secretary and those advising her that the main objection to the proposal that she put forward was that people would be kept for up to 28 days when there was not even a reasonable suspicion that they had committed an offence? If after 28 days those who were investigating did not have in their mind a reasonable suspicion that the person detained had committed a terrorist offence, then it would be just internment by another name. To extend the time limit to 42 days is ridiculous as well.
The last I heard, there were 14 computer analysts employed by the Home Office. Let us assume that the figure has doubled to 28. How long would it take them to decrypt and look at the 400 computers that were involved in Operation Overt, to which I referred yesterday? Could they do it between 28 days and 42 days? Obviously they could not. The whole scheme has been nonsense. It is ridiculous to have another Bill of this sort coming forward in which these mistakes and misunderstandings are maintained.
Lord West of Spithead: My Lords, I am afraid that I have to take the noble Lord to task. It is nonsense to suggest that we go into a pub, pick up eight people and say, “Let’s get these chaps and keep them in detention while we try and find some evidence”. The Security Service, GCHQ, SIS and SO15 have been involved.
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Lord Thomas of Gresford: My Lords—
Lord West of Spithead: I will not give way, my Lords. These are not people dragged in off the street—it is a very different situation. This makes me slightly annoyed because we do not do that. We put a huge effort into this; we do not scoop up little innocent chaps at a football match and throw them into detention. That is not what they are.
Baroness Manningham-Buller: My Lords—
Lord West of Spithead: My Lords, I must make this point to do with computers. I have looked at the number of people involved, and there are choke points which make it impossible—it would not matter if we had 10,000 analysts. There are also the problems of going into other jurisdictions. If you go to Pakistan, they are not always 100 per cent helpful and there are countries which will not help. These things all take time, so it as not as straightforward as has been said.
Baroness Manningham-Buller: My Lords, I support the Minister in his analysis. It may help the House, in thinking about this issue, to differentiate between intelligence from whatever source, whether it comes from overseas or is from a human source regarding what one person said to another. It is not admissible in evidence because it is hearsay. It is being developed to try to make it evidence on which to charge people. During the 28 days, intelligence that has been collected has been seen by the CPS and is shared with the police who will consider what of that intelligence amounts to evidence on which people can be charged. This is a proper process.
There has been too much confusion in Committee between intelligence, which is in most cases imprecise, incomplete and insufficient when it comes to charging people, and evidence which, quite rightly, meets a high standard before it can be used. That transition is what happens in a period of reasonable suspicion.
Lord West of Spithead: My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Manningham-Buller, for that interjection. She put far more eloquently than me, because I became slightly stroppy, exactly what I was trying to say. It is not as straightforward as that.
I slightly misled the House earlier. The coroner provisions will be in the fourth Session Bill, which will deal with coroner issues. It is not called the Coroners Bill.
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Planning Bill
3.51 pm
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Communities and Local Government (Baroness Andrews): My Lords, I beg to move that the House do now again resolve itself into Committee on this Bill.
Moved accordingly, and, on Question, Motion agreed to.
House in Committee accordingly.
[The LORD SPEAKER in the Chair.]
Clause 5 [National policy statements]:
Lord Dixon-Smith moved Amendment No. 41:
(a) identify any location or site as suitable (or potentially suitable) or unsuitable for a specified description of development;(b) identify any individual statutory undertaker or undertakers as appropriate persons to carry out a specified description of development.”The noble Lord said: This is so small a group of amendments that it is barely even an hors d’oeuvre for this session of the Committee. However, the two amendments in it raise an important point. They would remove the capacity, spelled out in the Bill, for national policy statements to be site specific. They are probing amendments, because there may be cases where it is appropriate to designate sites—I would be the first to acknowledge that. However, we need to do that with our eyes open.
The first and obvious question is how far, if we designate the sites, we are in effect pre-empting the whole planning process. If we are going to need seven nuclear power stations or reactors and we designate seven sites, is that designation not tantamount to granting permission? Perhaps that is what is intended. Of course, if the Minister can tell me that it is intended that 10 sites will be designated so that the commission has a choice, I will accept that the process is open and satisfactory, but there may be other people who would have concerns should that happen. Even worse would be the case where we knew that there was a demand for 10 sites but only seven were designated, which would leave people dissatisfied.
That is one aspect of the problem. We need also to be aware that any development of a power station is a long-term matter, not just in the process of development but in relation to the life of the power station. Circumstances may well change. I have tabled another amendment, with which the Minister’s noble friend will probably deal later, addressing heat recovery from power stations, but I will introduce the issue now because it is significant.
The electricity generating industry consumes more than 1,100 terawatts of energy to supply customers with somewhat more than 400 terawatts. The figures may have moved up or down since I last looked, but there is no variation in those proportions. Much of that difference is lost in the form of waste heat. We
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I know that the generators will be shocked when I say that, because the possibilities of using that waste heat have considerable expense attached to them. One obvious way in which to use the heat would be to supply it to communities, but the sort of sites that might be designated for nuclear power stations, in particular, might not be suitable for that because they are all inevitably in rather remote places. Another relevant planning implication is that we may be able to find an industrial use for that heat. However, that has further planning implications outside and outwith the site designation, because it may mean the creation of an industrial estate of some considerable size, given the volumes of energy that we are talking about, in an area where that would not perhaps be judged suitable because of the nature of the countryside and the remoteness of the area.
There are wide implications behind this decision on site specificity—if I can get my tongue around that word. We need to go into this with our eyes wide open, so it is worth discussing. I beg to move.
Lord Boyd of Duncansby: I oppose these amendments. Indeed, my concern is that the national policy statements might not be specific enough in certain respects. As I understand it, the Government have said that both nuclear and aviation will be site specific. I think that that is right. If the national policy statement designates an area for expansion of an airport, for example, or for a new airport, there are a lot of other components to it, particularly transport into the hub that is the new or expanded airport, with railway, road and other services. If the national policy statement is to be the bedrock of our policy and national infrastructure, a certain degree of specificity—I have the same problem as the noble Lord, Lord Dixon-Smith, in saying that word—and site specification is necessary.
The measure is important for two other reasons. It gives a degree of certainty not only to the nation but to communities affected by the national policy statement that identifies that location. In addition, it gives greater accountability to Parliament, because whatever system is used for parliamentary oversight on whether the national policy statement needs the formal approval of Parliament, nevertheless the policy statement will be debated. The identification of sites for infrastructure can be debated in Parliament in a way in which it has never been before, giving a much greater degree of specification, accountability and planning.
My worry is that national policy statements may not be specific enough. I hope that those statements that for various reasons are not site specific are couched in language that is as clear as possible, so as to remove any possible ambiguity. We are all familiar with policy statements that give a nod and a wink in different
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4 pm
Lord Jenkin of Roding: We touched on this subject on the first day of Committee in the context of the role of the Infrastructure Planning Commission. On that occasion, I said why I thought—and I agree very much with the views of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Boyd—that in some cases site-specific indications would inevitably be in the national policy statement. I will not repeat what I said on that occasion, which I hope is of some relief to the Minister, who is asking us to make a little more progress. I have some sympathy with that, as I do not want to sit here all night. However, my noble friend raised some perfectly valid points and I look forward to hearing the Minister’s reply.
Lord Turnbull: I suspect that, like other Members of the Committee, I am finding it difficult to fathom the game plan of the opposition Front Bench in general on the Bill and on these clauses in particular. Two weeks ago, the leader of the Conservative Party announced a commitment to a big expansion of the high-speed rail network in this country. Surely he must be thinking that, should he ever come to power, it would be extremely valuable to have this Bill on the statute book, as he will not get those plans through with a tinkered-with version of the status quo. Likewise, I do not understand the objection to these clauses. The amendments were introduced by the noble Lord, Lord Dixon-Smith, with his customary moderation and courtesy, but the truth is that, if passed, they would be very damaging to the Bill.
First and foremost, the purpose of this part of the Bill is to reduce uncertainty and unnecessary delay in the planning system. One of the key causes of such delay arises from location—I use “location” rather than “site” because I do not think that “site” appears anywhere in this legislation, although it appears in the amendment. A developer can spend years and millions of pounds pursuing a particular proposal only to find at a very late stage that the location is deemed unsuitable.
Even worse, a developer can find himself caught in what I call the Nirex fork. In developing its so-called Rock Characterisation Facility, Nirex initially canvassed a range of sites throughout the country, including one in the constituency of the Secretary of State for Energy at the time, which was probably a mistake. Quite naturally, there was uproar throughout the land. As only one of the sites would ever be chosen, much of the uproar was entirely unnecessary. Nirex then tried a different tack, which was to choose a suitable site and to make the case for it. It was rebuffed on the grounds that it had failed to establish whether the site was indeed the best location.
We also need to avoid the mistake made by British Rail in developing the route for the Channel Tunnel Rail Link. It put forward a whole series of options coursing across Kent, none of which was used in the end. The process caused major issues of blight and distress and claims for compensation.
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The noble and learned Lord, Lord Boyd, pointed out that there was a specific request in the other place that in some cases aviation and nuclear power NPSs should be location specific. But there is a misconception that a location-specific NPS would fix the outcome of the examination. That is not the case, because it would identify sites as unsuitable or potentially suitable for development, but would not go so far as to be site or project specific. These proposals need to be taken away as part of a wider rethink of what the Opposition want to get out of the Bill.
Baroness Hamwee: I, too, join the debate on location and site specificity at the start of the Bill. I take the point about the distinction between a site and a location. Nevertheless, appealing to tidy minds as it is to provide the possibility in every NPS of specific locations, that raises the question of the powers of the Infrastructure Planning Commission. That is where I have problems.
The noble and learned Lord, Lord Boyd, mentioned transport in connection with development of an airport. I declare an interest now, as we will come on to airports in more detail later: I live not far from Heathrow, under one of its flight paths, and am affected by ground traffic to the airport, both rail and road. The number of times that the level crossing near my home is down because of the amount of rail transport is extremely frustrating. These things have a knock-on effect a long way down the line.
I still find it almost impossible to understand how the Infrastructure Planning Commission, faced with a national policy statement that says that there will be expansion of an airport—not necessarily Heathrow—and properly going into the implications at ground level, will be able to say no to that application in the real world. Perhaps, however, the problems come at least as much in the powers of the IPC as they do in describing the scope of the NPS.
Baroness Andrews: I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Dixon-Smith, for giving us an opportunity to have this debate. It is an extremely important issue. I am also grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Jenkin, for flagging up our Front Bench’s concerns that we make progress. He did so beautifully; far better than I could have done by wagging my finger.
Discussing the two amendments in this group is important to clarify the nature of the debate on the degree of specificity needed within the NPS. Amendment No. 41 of the noble Lord, Lord Dixon-Smith, and the noble Earl, Lord Cathcart, and their Amendment No. 45 with the noble Lord, Lord Jenkin, would alter Clause 5 to remove the discretion of the Secretary of State to identify a particular location or site as suitable, potentially suitable, or unsuitable. They would also remove the discretion to identify an individual statutory undertaker as appropriate to carry out a specified description of development.
I understand that these are probing amendments and hope that I can address all the questions that have been raised. I am conscious that we are bedevilled by terminology and debating a rather elusive concept. We were helped greatly by the panel discussion we had last week, with different promoters and the CBI, about the interpretation of locations in terms of different demands
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NPSs are locationally specific and will indicate, as appropriate to the particular infrastructure they are concerned with, places which are suitable or potentially suitable locations for development. However, they will not identify specific sites. It will be for the developer to bring forward the site application, and for the IPC to determine whether that site meets the criteria. It will be left to the IPC to consider the detail of specific sites, layout, access and, of course, to weigh up the adverse impacts of the proposed project. I shall come to the important question of the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, on this a little later.
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