Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)

My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, for bringing back these amendments, which we debated extensively in Committee. Amendments 9 and 10 seek to reinstate the statutory duty for applicants to consult during the pre-application stage of a development consent order application. While we absolutely recognise the value of early and meaningful engagement, we have been clear that the existing statutory requirements have become overly rigid and are now contributing to delays and risk-averse behaviours. Removing the statutory duty instead allows developers to tailor their engagement to the scale and nature of their projects, supported by guidance. I repeat: the Government still expect high-quality consultation to take place. We have listened carefully to the industry and the message has been consistent. The current statutory framework is slowing things down, encouraging excessive documentation and making developers reluctant to adapt proposals for fear of triggering further rounds of required statutory consultation. We are confident that developers will continue to consult meaningfully and that communities will still have further opportunities to engage through the examination process. We are so confident, in fact, that this will not undermine the quality of applications brought forward that we are amending the Bill to make reasons for rejection more transparent, a point which I will come to later. Guidance will be published to ensure that applications remain robust and responsive to local issues. The Government are currently consulting on proposals associated with this guidance and will take into account responses when it is developed. If these amendments were accepted, we risk reverting to the status quo and failing to address the very issues we are trying to fix: delays, complexity and confusion. For these reasons, I respectfully ask that the noble Baroness withdraw her amendment. Amendments 11 and 12 seek to impose statutory obligations around guidance for pre-application consultation, despite the statutory requirement to consult being removed from the Planning Act 2008 through this Bill. The decision to remove the statutory requirement for pre-application consultation was not made lightly. It was introduced to tackle the growing delays and procedural burdens that have crept into the NSIP regime over time. We are trying to fix a system that has become too slow, too risk averse and too complex. As we have discussed and recognised throughout the passage of the Bill, the current Planning Act requirements have led to rigid approaches, which are designed with the need to meet legislative prescription in mind, rather than the need to develop high-quality infrastructure schemes which are capable of improving the lives of local communities and delivering positive environmental impacts. I suppose my frustration here is that we all agree that we need to speed the system up but whatever we propose to do that, Members object to. Over the last few months we have had the opportunity to meet a wide range of stakeholders and discuss the removal of pre-application requirements, including a number of bodies and individuals with valuable insight and experience of the NSIP regime since its inception back in 2008. We have seen a positive reaction to our proposals from those stakeholders. Speaking to local authorities and statutory consultees, it is clear that the existing requirements are not successfully driving constructive engagement and consultation. Our discussions have reaffirmed our conviction that the existing approach is not working; changes are needed for the Government to meet the UK’s national infrastructure needs. These reforms will save time and money, benefiting everyone. This does not mean worse outcomes or poorer quality applications. Instead, it means resources can be focused on the main issues at the heart of the planning decision. It means there will be greater flexibility for applicants to innovate in how engagement is done when working through the iterative stages of an application during pre-application. It opens the door to more bespoke, targeted and effective engagement and consultation practices. Requiring applicants to have regard to guidance about consultation and engagement, where the underlying legal duty to consult has been removed, would, we feel, be confusing. Moreover, the noble Baroness’s proposed amendment goes further by attempting to bind the content for future guidance to a fixed set of principles. While I understand these principles are well-intentioned, we do not believe it is right to legislate for them. The Government have already launched a public consultation on what the content of the guidance should be, and we want it to be shaped by the views of those who use guidance, not constrained by prescriptive legislative language developed before that process has even concluded. All sides of the House agree on the importance of meaningful engagement and consultation; it is essential if we want to deliver infrastructure which is well designed and delivers positive outcomes for neighbouring communities and the environment. We expect developers to engage and consult proportionately and constructively, but we also believe that flexibility, not statutory rigidity, is the best way to achieve that. While I appreciate the spirit behind the amendments, they would undermine the very reforms we are trying to deliver, so I hope the noble Baroness will not press them. Amendment 80 was a proposal previously raised in Committee. As the House will recall, the clause seeks to require the Secretary of State to consider how community consultation has been carried out when deciding whether a nationally significant infrastructure project application should be accepted for examination. It sets out a number of criteria, including whether the applicant has sought to resolve issues, enabled interested parties to influence the project during early phases, obtained relevant local information and enabled appropriate mitigation through consultation with the affected communities. As we discussed at length in Committee, the Government recognise the value of community engagement. Since 2013, the pre-application stage has nearly doubled in length. Our proposals could save businesses up to £1 billion over the lifetime of this Parliament by reducing delays across projects. I say this to remind noble Lords of the reasoning behind these changes, including the “adequacy of consultation” test in Section 55 of the Planning Act 2008. We had a system where applicants focus on defensibility rather than dialogue, and where consultation is treated as a hurdle to clear and not a tool to improve proposals. The reformed acceptance test allows the Secretary of State to make a balanced judgment about the quality of the application, recognising that the NSIP process is a continuum from pre-application through to decision. It incentivises applicants to engage with the objective of producing good-quality applications, as opposed to meeting prescriptive statutory requirements.