House of Commons Transport Committee The proposal for a National Policy Statement on Ports Fifth Report of Session 2009–10 Report, together with formal minutes, oral and written evidence Ordered by the House of Commons to be printed 10 March 2010 HC 217 Published on 17 March 2010 by authority of the House of Commons London: The Stationery Office Limited £0.00 The Transport Committee The Transport Committee is appointed by the House of Commons to examine the expenditure, administration and policy of the Department for Transport and its associated public bodies. Current membership Mrs Louise Ellman MP (Labour/Co-operative, Liverpool Riverside) (Chair) Mr David Clelland MP (Labour, Tyne Bridge) Rt Hon Jeffrey M Donaldson MP (Democratic Unionist, Lagan Valley) Mr Philip Hollobone MP (Conservative, Kettering) Mr John Leech MP (Liberal Democrat, Manchester, Withington) Mr Eric Martlew MP (Labour, Carlisle) Mark Pritchard MP (Conservative, The Wrekin) Ms Angela C Smith MP (Labour, Sheffield, Hillsborough) Sir Peter Soulsby MP (Labour, Leicester South) Graham Stringer MP (Labour, Manchester Blackley) Mr David Wilshire MP (Conservative, Spelthorne) Powers The Committee is one of the departmental select committees, the powers of which are set out in House of Commons Standing Orders, principally in SO No 152. These are available on the Internet via www.parliament.uk. Publications The Reports and evidence of the Committee are published by The Stationery Office by Order of the House. All publications of the Committee (including press notices) are on the Internet at www.parliament.uk/transcom. Committee staff The current staff of the Committee are Annette Toft (Clerk), Adrian Jenner (Second Clerk), David G Davies (Committee Specialist), Marek Kubala (Inquiry Manager), Alison Mara (Senior Committee Assistant), Jacqueline Cooksey (Committee Assistant), Stewart McIlvenna (Committee Support Assistant) and Hannah Pearce (Media Officer). Contacts All correspondence should be addressed to the Clerk of the Transport Committee, House of Commons, 7 Millbank, London SW1P 3JA. The telephone number for general enquiries is 020 7219 6263; the Committee’s email address is [email protected] 1 Contents Report Page 1 Introduction 3 2 Port development within the new planning framework 5 National Policy Statements 6 Ports NPS—overview 7 3 The adequacy of the Ports NPS as a basis for decision-making 9 Existing ports policy 9 The need for further port development 11 Clarity and the weighting of different factors 12 Greater certainty for applicants and stakeholders? 14 4 Integration of ports planning with other plans 15 Integration with other spatial and economic policies 15 Integration with other major transport developments 17 5 Environmental aspects 18 Impacts 19 Appraisal of Sustainability 20 Climate Change 20 Design guidance 21 6 Consultation and scrutiny procedures 21 Department for Transport’s consultation 21 Parliamentary scrutiny 23 7 Conclusion 25 Conclusions and recommendations 27 Formal Minutes 31 Witnesses 32 List of written evidence 33 List of Reports from the Committee during the current Parliament 35 3 1 Introduction 1. National Policy Statements (NPS) are a key component of the new planning system for nationally significant infrastructure projects, introduced by the Planning Act 2008. The Act stipulates that a proposal for a National Policy Statement will be subject to public consultation and allows for parliamentary scrutiny before designation as national policy by the Secretary of State. Parliament has decided that scrutiny will be undertaken by a departmental Select Committee or an ad hoc Select Committee.1 If a Select Committee recommends that an NPS be the subject of a debate in the House, the Government has undertaken to allow time for such a debate.2 2. On 9 November 2009, the proposal for a National Policy Statement for Ports was laid before Parliament.3 Along with a suite of six National Policy Statements for energy, laid the same day, the Ports NPS was the first NPS to be published. The Liaison Committee accepted our proposal to undertake the scrutiny of the Ports NPS. Under section 9 of the Act, the process of scrutiny must be completed within the ‘relevant period’ as specified by the Secretary of State. 4 The Government has said that “In practice the relevant period will usually be about six months”.5 In reality, our Committee has had barely four months to complete its work. 3. This timeframe was the result of the Department for Transport issuing the draft Ports NPS later than planned and also due to the impending General Election.6 We are disappointed that the Department failed to issue the draft NPS in sufficient time to allow the six months for scrutiny promised by the Government. 4. Once an NPS is designated by the Government, it becomes the primary guidance on which the Infrastructure Planning Commission (IPC) must base its decisions regarding applications for major developments—in this case, for ports—and key guidance for other decision-makers. An NPS will, as the title implies, state the Government’s policy on development and decision-makers will be required to take this policy into account when determining a planning application. 1 The Liaison Committee of the House of Commons (the Committee of Select Committee Chairmen) can allocate a National Policy Statement (NPS) to one of five Select Committees for scrutiny. The Committees are: Communities and Local Government; Energy and Climate Change; Environment, Food and Rural Affairs; Transport; and Welsh Affairs. Alternatively, the Liaison Committee can recommend the appointment of an ad hoc National Policy Statement Committee, specifically to scrutinise a particular NPS. See Standing Order 152H of the House of Commons, December 2009 Edition. 2 Liaison Committee, Fourth Special Report of Session 2007–08, Planning Bill: Parliamentary Scrutiny of National Policy statements, HC 1109, Appendix, p 4 3 Department for Transport, Draft National Policy Statement for Ports, November 2009 4 In his written ministerial statement National Policy Statement for Ports, 9 November 2010 (col 10WS), the Secretary of State for Transport stated that the relevant period began on 9 November 2009 and ends on 6 May 2010. The Planning Act 2008 requires the Secretary of State to respond within the relevant period. Standing Order 152H of the House of Commons, December 2009 Edition states that the designated date by which the committee shall report in relation to any proposal for a national policy statement is the thirty-ninth day before the expiry of the relevant period. The Transport Committee must, therefore, report by 28 March 2010. 5 Ian Wright MP, Under-Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, HC Deb, 20 May 2009, col 1532 6 The Department for Communities & Local Government, Infrastructure Planning Commission: Implementation route map, December 2009, para 30 states “The first tranche—the NPSs on Non-Nuclear Energy and Ports—are currently scheduled for publication and consultation in the summer [2009] and designation in early 2010.” 4 5. As soon as the proposal for the Ports NPS was published, we announced our inquiry and invited written evidence. We said that we would consider four main areas: a) How did interested parties respond to the questions in the Department's consultation? b) Do the general planning principles set out in the proposal for a Ports NPS form a coherent, appropriate, proportionate and practical framework within which the IPC can assess future port planning applications? c) Are the sustainability and environmental criteria outlined in the draft Ports NPS appropriate, proportionate and practical? d) Have issues or principles which should have been included in the draft Ports NPS been left out? 6. In addition to evidence sent to us directly, we arranged for responses sent to the Department for Transport to be forwarded to us. We received 59 written submissions from a wide range of organisations: • Port operators and businesses; • Roads, rail and freight organisations; • Planning bodies; • Local government and economic development bodies; • Government-sponsored environmental bodies; • Wildlife and environmental campaign groups; • Organisations and individuals opposed to port development in Dibden Bay, and • Others. 7. We took oral evidence from many of these groups, concluding with questions to the IPC and the Minister for Ports at the Department for Transport, Paul Clark MP. We are grateful to all who contributed to our inquiry. We are particularly grateful to our specialist 7 adviser on planning, Kelvin MacDonald, who assisted us in our inquiry. 7 Kelvin MacDonald was also the Specialist Adviser to the Energy and Climate Change Committee for its inquiry into the energy National Policy Statements. He declared the following interests—Senior Visiting Fellow: Department of Land Economy, Cambridge University, and Member of the Board of Trustees of Shelter. 5 2 Port development within the new planning framework 8. For many years, there have been calls from business interests and others for reforms to the way applications for major infrastructure projects are handled. Proposals for large-scale projects sometimes resulted in lengthy and expensive public inquiries at which matters of national policy were debated alongside the local impacts of an individual scheme. Further delay could arise if, following the recommendation of the inspector, the final decision from the Secretary of State was not delivered promptly. 9. The inquiries into Heathrow Terminal 5 and Sizewell B nuclear power station are high- profile examples of long and costly inquiries.8 The proposal for a new port at Dibden Bay, Southampton, took almost four years to determine and cost the applicant £45 million, only to be turned down by the inspector and the Secretary of State.9 Sir Rod Eddington, in his Transport Study,10 and Kate Barker, in her review of the land use planning system,11 recognised these problems and recommended changes to the planning system. 10. The Government set out its proposals for modifying the planning system in the 2007 Planning White Paper,12 subsequently enacted by the Planning Act 2008.