Source · Select Committees · Business and Trade Committee
Recommendation 7
7
Paragraph: 37
We acknowledge the Government’s view that the NPS should not be overly prescriptive to avoid...
Recommendation
We acknowledge the Government’s view that the NPS should not be overly prescriptive to avoid discouraging the development of new technologies. We recognise that the NPS should also facilitate the development of new technologies in this fast-moving sector. We therefore recommend the clear alignment of the NPS with specific technology roadmaps. The Government should develop technology roadmaps with industry where they don’t yet exist. Explicit and clear cross-references would help to provide clarity both in terms of policy and planning required to encourage innovation and promote the scaling-up of new technologies.
Paragraph Reference:
37
Government Response
Acknowledged
HM Government
Acknowledged
At present, the government has no plans to create a single NPS for Infrastructure as part of its reforms of the NSIP process. Our strategies for infrastructure investment and performance are set out in the National Infrastructure Strategy (NIS)14 and Transforming Infrastructure Performance: Roadmap to 2030.15 The NIS includes ambitious reforms to the planning system for NSIPs. Proposed infrastructure investments during the next decade are set out in the National Infrastructure and Construction Pipeline 2021 (the Pipeline), which identifies a pipeline of projects with a value of over £600 billion. The Pipeline is updated on a regular basis. The government considers that the higher priority in the short term, and to support the delivery of its NSIP reforms, is to make sure that the policy framework for those infrastructure fields covered by the Planning Act 2008 is kept up-to-date and reflects wider government priorities, and that future changes and potential reviews to NPSs can be done quickly and efficiently by the relevant departments. This will provide a relevant and robust policy framework for the pipeline of projects forecasted to enter the NSIP system in the coming years. DLUHC, working with the Planning Inspectorate and other relevant departments, will however consider the merits and possibility of consolidating NPSs over the longer term. DLUHC want to make them more agile and seek to reduce the burden on departments of producing policy which is cross-cutting across all NPSs and sectors.