| Energy Bill [Lords]
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Mr. Bob Blizzard (Waveney) (Lab): On a point of order, I seek your guidance, Mr. O'Brien. Will you be allowing a stand part debate on clause 94 after we have debated the amendments and stand part debates on clauses 100 and 101? The Chairman: We will follow the procedure. If someone wants to raise a question on clause 94 in a stand part debate, that will be permitted.
4.15 pmNorman Baker: This is a significant and serious amendment, to which I hope the Minister will respond accordingly. It would require the Secretary of State to hold a public inquiry into proposed offshore renewable energy installation development, if the relevant statutory nature conservation organisation requested such an inquiry. The reason for tabling the amendment is that under the Bill as drafted, if the development of an offshore renewable energy installation is proposed outside an area in which a local authority has jurisdiction, the ability of a objecting body to request a public inquiry into that proposal is weakened or lost. Whether a public inquiry is held becomes a matter for the discretion of the Secretary of State. Normally with planning matters, we assume that there is a role for local authorities, which are democratically elected and reflect their local area. In some respects that is a safeguard in planning towns. There is no such safeguard in the Bill because it gives the Secretary of State much more discretion to decide whether public inquiries into proposed developments are held than would be the case on land. Therefore, it seems sensible, right and wise to build in a counterbalancing mechanism. The Secretary of State will, to some extent, be judge and jury in these matters. He will, rightly, be promoting offshore energy electricity generation and he or she may not wish to listen carefully to objections, no matter how well founded they are. A counterbalance between the powers of one part of the constitution and those that are exercised elsewhere is needed. That balance, by and large, exists at local level in respect of planning matters, but not in the Bill because local authorities are excluded, as matters are outside their jurisdiction. The amendments would require a public inquiry or hearing to be held into any proposed offshore renewable energy installation if the statutory nature conservation agencies requested such an inquiry. As presently constructed, those agencies are English Nature, the Countryside Council for Wales, Scottish Natural Heritage and the Environment and Heritage Column Number: 308 Service in Northern Ireland, if the proposed installation is within territorial waters, or the Joint Nature Conservation Committee if it is beyond those territorial waters. If that provision were included, it would encourage developers to think carefully about nature conservation interests when deciding where to establish installations. It would also encourage Ministers to scrutinise applications carefully and to ensure that the marine environment was properly considered, something to which all members of the Committee are sympathetic. The amendments go no further than similar amendments to the Harbours Bill.The Minister may argue that the amendments are unnecessary because if the relevant statutory nature conservation agencies had serious objections to a proposed application, it is inconceivable that the application would not be subject to a public inquiry or a hearing. But that rather depends on the good will of the Secretary of State at the time. If he argues that it is inconceivable that such representations will be ignored, nothing will be lost by including the provision in the Bill. It will save the Secretary of State from having to take an embarrassing decision on whether to heed the objections. Equally, I am sure that if a public inquiry or hearing were triggered by the objection of a statutory body, such bodies would be more careful about what they objected to. They will not use that power lightly. If, however, they cannot trigger a public inquiry or a hearing automatically, but simply use it as a pressure point on the Secretary of State of the day, they may be inclined to call for a public inquiry more often, knowing that they cannot require it. They will use it as a weapon with which to beat the Secretary of State over the head and to state that he has not listened to their views. It would make sense to include the amendment, or a similar provision, in the Bill. Mr. Blizzard: I accept that the proposal would limit the ability to call for a public inquiry to certain bodies, but if such a public inquiry were held, would it then be open to all and sundry to present evidence? Would that not risk having public inquiries that went on and on, as has been the case with various energy developments in this country for many years? Norman Baker: I would argue that the public inquiry system should be the same—as much as we can make it, given that local authorities are not involved—as for public inquiries triggered on land. There is a separate issue about how public inquiries are handled, and whether they go on too long; that is a matter for all public inquiries. Perhaps the Government think that the system should be streamlined as they are currently trying to do through the Planning and Compulsory Purchase Bill. Brian White (Milton Keynes, North-East) (Lab): The hon. Gentleman may know that the Public Administration Committee is currently considering that matter. There are proposals about how planning inquiries are different from public inquiries, and how they are dealt with. Column Number: 309 Norman Baker: I am always grateful for an intervention from the hon. Member for Milton Keynes, North-East, who is usually helpful to the points that I make, although not invariably so. This is a safeguard that is good for the environment and an important balance in the constitutional arrangements. I think that it is good for the Government and for the Minister, who I hope will look favourably on the idea. Miss McIntosh: I listened with some sympathy to the hon. Member for Lewes moving his amendments, and was mindful of the fact that probably the single most unpopular policy decision made by the present Government in the Vale of York was to give permission to construct a line of pylons from Stockton to the southern flanks of the vale, passing through some of the most hitherto unspoilt parts of the countryside. Are the Government minded to have a public inquiry about offshore installations, bearing in mind that their commitment to renewable energy is almost totally obsessive, with the concentration on wind farms? Most of those currently tend to be located in the south-east of England or parts of Scotland, but increasingly they are offshore. If the Minister were to agree to such a round of public inquiries, the Government would overcome some of the difficulties that they have encountered with the shipping industry, such as the round 1 consultations. The Transport Committee heard that none of the expert witnesses from the shipping industry had been consulted at that stage. There was a singular lack of consultation, which is highly regrettable. If the Government consented to a public inquiry into offshore oil installations, that would help. It need not necessarily be long and protracted but there are, as my hon. Friend the Member for South-West Hertfordshire mentioned earlier, much greater technical problems. The elements are certainly a much bigger factor offshore in connection with installations in renewable energy zones than I would argue is the case onshore. I am not sure that the hon. Member for Lewes referred to the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, but I imagine that the Department would not necessarily think of consulting it on each application. I certainly hope that it will. There are avid twitchers among us, including my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Rushcliffe (Mr. Clarke), and my hon. Friend the Member for Uxbridge (Mr. Randall), who are members of the RSPB. The Minister will be all too aware that offshore wind farms have as devastating consequences for the bird population as onshore wind farms. We have not seen that so much in this country at this stage, but the vulture population in Spain was decimated. Vultures are perhaps not the most popular birds and I agree with the Minister. I do not want to argue the case for vultures, least of all those in Spain, but there are elections on Thursday and we would like to persuade a number of people who live there to support our view. The vulture plays an important role in the food chain in Spain, maintaining the balance of wildlife, but the Column Number: 310 population has been decimated as a result of putting a wind farm on a mountain, in a flight path. The consequences have been devastating.If the Minister is not minded to support the amendment that the hon. Member for Lewes moved, I hope that he will put our minds at rest about the bird population. As the Minister will be aware, the RSPB has more than 1 million members. The four parties in the Committee would be hard pressed to claim that, between them, they represented as many members. I make that point humbly to the Minister. If he is not minded to have a public inquiry, how will such interests be represented when each applications is made? I repeat; offshore installations will cover much bigger areas than offshore oil rigs. The potential environmental consequences will be that much greater. Mr. Blizzard: It was said this morning—by the hon. Member for South-West Hertfordshire, I think—that everyone on the Committee was committed to renewable energy. I hope that we are. The technology for wind energy is ready to run, which is why the Government are rightly putting so much emphasis on wind energy in delivering the renewable energy target. However, it has been difficult to make sufficient progress onshore because of the various objections of people who live quite close to the sites. I thought that we were going to have a much clearer run in going offshore with wind energy. It is difficult to stand up in a democratic society and say that there should not be public inquiries, but we hold so many public inquiries that the country runs the risk of grinding to a halt under their weight. As I said in my intervention on the hon. Member for Lewes, I am worried that provisions for public inquiries into offshore wind energy will cause us to get bogged down and prevent us from making progress. I should have thought that if the statutory conservation bodies had a valid point that they made openly and powerfully to the Government, the Government would find that evidence-based point difficult to ignore. I am worried that if we open up the possibility of such public inquiries, we will end up with Uncle Tom Cobley going along.
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