Parliament Will Take Six Months to Approve National Policy Statements
The Planning Act 2008 introduced a new procedure for obtaining planning permission for nationally significant infrastructure. In future, consent for nationally significant infrastructure is to be granted by the Infrastructure Planning Commission. The Infrastructure Planning Commission will take into account the policies set out in National Policy Statements in reaching their decision on whether to grant consent for a particular project.
In a recent debate in the House of Commons on National Policy Statements, the Government confirmed that it anticipates that Parliamentary scrutiny of each National Policy Statement is likely to take around six months to complete. Each National Policy Statement will be examined by either a Parliamentary Select Committee or a bespoke Select Committee and the testing of the proposed National Policy Statement will involve submissions, oral evidence and, where necessary, site visits.
The Government intends the Parliamentary scrutiny process to take place at the same time as the Government’s consultation on each draft National Policy Statement. The Parliamentary process will involve not only a Parliamentary debate on each National Policy Statement but also a Parliamentary vote. The Secretary of State will revise the draft National Policy Statement taking into consideration the outcome of the public consultation, the Select Committee’s report and any resolutions of the House of Commons or the House of Lords and will then designate the final form National Policy Statement.
Given that the Infrastructure Planning Commission is intended to be receiving the first wave of applications for nationally significant infrastructure from the first half of 2010 it is vital that the process to formulate the National Policy Statements which will guide its decision making is both fair and inclusive yet also efficient and timely in order to ensure that they will be ready in time.
