Official Report search · Parliament Workbench

Committee

Transport, Infrastructure and Climate Change Committee, 09 Jun 2009

09 Jun 2009 · S3 · Transport, Infrastructure and Climate Change Committee

Item of business

Climate Change (Scotland) Bill: Stage 2

Stevenson, Stewart SNP Banff and Buchan Watch on SPTV

I will consider all the amendments in the group, starting with amendment 271. I will then speak to amendment 272, after which I will come to amendment 251. It may be useful to indicate at the outset that, although I will speak to some of the difficulties in amendment 251, we are willing to address them through a stage 3 amendment. I will discuss that further.Amendments 271 and 272 aim to introduce new legislative requirements to increase the role of development plans and the planning system generally in securing the installation of low and zero-carbon technologies in all new buildings. That is a perfectly reasonable objective, but we have difficulties with the structure of the amendments. I will run through some of those difficulties in relation to amendment 271. I understand the intention of the amendment's first lines. Strategic development plans are expected to operate at a broad-brush level in the four main city regions, which cover 20 of our 32 councils, and would be an inappropriate place for the level of detail that the amendment seeks on specific requirements for new buildings. If anything, the local development plans within those areas would have a role to play. However, section 3E of the Town and Country Planning (Scotland) Act 1997—inserted by the Planning (Scotland) Act 2006—already places a statutory duty on planning authorities to exercise their functions under that act "with the objective of contributing to sustainable development."The Scottish ministers' intention is to supplement that legislative requirement with planning guidance to ensure that development plans facilitate sustainable economic growth.Amendment 271 is not clear about what "relevant developments" means. The meaning of"specified and rising proportion of … emissions"also remains unclear and raises many questions that would require to be clarified for planning authorities. Moreover, I am advised that it is not possible to predict a building's "operational greenhouse gas emissions". Once they are occupied, buildings are subject to the behaviour of residents and domestic or commercial tenants, and the condition of the building will vary hugely. We have already introduced permitted development rights for many forms of low and zero-carbon generating technologies. Development plans should certainly support the provision of on-site low-carbon and renewable sources of energy in new developments, but seeking to prescribe in legislation how that should be done risks stifling initiative and innovation. In addition, a legislative requirement would become progressively unnecessary as we ramped up efforts to decarbonise electricity and heat. Our approach is proportionate. Planning is undergoing significant change at the moment; we want to ensure that the system is simplified and quicker and that it truly focuses on supporting increasing sustainable economic growth. The amendments would not add to the mix; rather, they would simply add further layers of unnecessary and overprescriptive bureaucracy to a planning system that we are trying to streamline so that we can get things moving faster. However, I assure Miss Boyack that the Scottish Government will take the issue seriously in dealing with the new development planning arrangements. For all of those reasons, the reporting arrangements that are proposed in amendment 272 are unnecessary.Amendment 251 would require that the energy efficiency action plan"must include details of how the Scottish Ministers intend to update planning and building regulations to ensure that all new buildings"demonstrate how"their projected operational greenhouse gas emissions"could be reduced"through the installation and operation of low and zero-carbon generating technologies."Again, there is a lack of clarity in expression in the amendment, which would create difficulties. It is important for local authorities to develop opportunities for renewable energy and low-energy delivery, including heat, of course. However, as I have explained, I expect the planning system to play a full yet proportionate role in that field. We support what is proposed in amendment 251 but think that it will be necessary for us to consider lodging an amendment at stage 3 that is cast in a different way to deliver the objectives that Ms Boyack seeks.

Search Hansard contributions

Transport, Infrastructure and Climate Change Committee, 09 Jun 2009

In the same item of business