Baroness Pinnock (LD)

My Lords, the amendments in this group relate to the importance of pre-application as a formal part of the process in determining NSIP applications. They are all much of a muchness. Amendments 9 and 10 seek to retain the current statutory pre-application consultation; Amendments 11 and 12 are similar. Amendment 12, in my name and that of my noble friend Lord Russell and the noble Baroness, Lady Willis of Summertown, seeks to put an emphasis on the importance of pre-application to the NSIP and setting out the purpose of it. The emphasis we have had from our Benches and the Conservative Benches today is on the importance of hearing the voices of communities and protecting heritage and the environment. The noble Baroness, Lady Scott of Bybrook, in the last group of amendments, talked about the importance of engagement of communities in these very important national infrastructure projects. That is where pre-application is very important, because although we accept and support the Government’s aim to speed up decisions on national infrastructure projects, it is equally important that a consensus be built with the community from the outset, which you do not achieve if you eliminate upfront engagement. The key to building consensus is maintaining a statutory pre-application process. The cost of giving up short-term speedy decisions could be long-term stability and success. Amendment 12 seeks to have issues resolved early. Community influence is built into the process so that people have their say at the outset, before a planning application is submitted for examination, to ensure that the applications are technically sound and that mitigation is embedded at the beginning, rather than added in later. All those issues are vital if communities are to feel that their voice has been heard, even if in the end a contrary decision is made through the NSIP process. Throughout my long experience as a councillor, it always struck me that if people have had their say, they are more likely to accept the consequences of a view to which they are opposed. In response to arguments in Committee on this issue, the Minister argued that it was a tick-box exercise and that others took a more constructive view in building consensus and did it well. The answer should be not to throw the baby out with the bathwater but to ensure that all construction is done with a meaningful pre-app process.