Source · Select Committees · Business and Trade Committee
Recommendation 9
9
Deferred
We recommend that the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy work with the Department...
Recommendation
We recommend that the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy work with the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities to consider the potential merits of implementing a single National Policy Statement across sectors with sub-sector statements linked to different technology developments. Consideration of this change should be assessed in the light of flexibility and the ability to review parts of the NPS more frequently. The Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy should write to this Committee no later than February 2023 with the conclusions of this review. (Paragraph 46) Energy Infrastructure EN-2 to EN-5
Government response summary AI-generated
While agreeing on the importance of onshore wind, the government confirmed local councils will remain responsible for onshore wind applications and committed to consult on proposed changes to the National Planning Policy Framework.
Summary of the government's response below — read the verbatim text to verify.
Government Response
Deferred
HM Government · verbatim extract
Deferred
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.
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