, Climate Change, Environment, and Infrastructure Committee
Infrastructure (Wales) Bill - Evidence session with the Minister for Climate Change
That's a very different problem. So, this is enforcement of the consent, so this is where somebody develops something that they don't have consent for, strictly speaking, so that's much more obvious than trying to figure out who's pumping stuff into a river…
, Climate Change, Environment, and Infrastructure Committee
Infrastructure (Wales) Bill - Evidence session with the Minister for Climate Change
So, actually, we had quite a long conversation, didn't we, during the prep for the Act. We obviously want to have a unified enforcement system that's simpler and easier to understand. So, we have based the enforcement provisions on the development consent…
, Climate Change, Environment, and Infrastructure Committee
Infrastructure (Wales) Bill - Evidence session with the Minister for Climate Change
Yes. So, obviously, there would be a little lag in that system, so nobody can really quite guess where we are. But we have got lots of historic data about what's coming forward, and in terms of the big renewable agenda, we have got a pretty good idea, from…
, Climate Change, Environment, and Infrastructure Committee
Infrastructure (Wales) Bill - Evidence session with the Minister for Climate Change
So, the current regimes are really, really complicated. So, we have got things like the Harbours Act 1964 and the Electricity Act 1989 and various other—. Goodness, they have all got a headache, listing out all of these ridiculous, archaic regimes, and they…
, Climate Change, Environment, and Infrastructure Committee
Infrastructure (Wales) Bill - Evidence session with the Minister for Climate Change
No, it's really small, isn't it?
, Climate Change, Environment, and Infrastructure Committee
Infrastructure (Wales) Bill - Evidence session with the Minister for Climate Change
I suspect, actually, that they might well limit it and come into ours rather than shove an extra five in and go into—
, Climate Change, Environment, and Infrastructure Committee
Infrastructure (Wales) Bill - Evidence session with the Minister for Climate Change
There's also the UK and our regime, of course, remember. So, that's the one that we think is more likely to be gamed.
, Climate Change, Environment, and Infrastructure Committee
Infrastructure (Wales) Bill - Evidence session with the Minister for Climate Change
Yes, but this is 10 MW to 49 MW. It's tiny.
, Climate Change, Environment, and Infrastructure Committee
Infrastructure (Wales) Bill - Evidence session with the Minister for Climate Change
But these are little projects, remember. These are little community energy project-type things. And again, because of the topography of Wales, some places will see more than others, won't they? So, we'll keep an eye on that.
, Climate Change, Environment, and Infrastructure Committee
Infrastructure (Wales) Bill - Evidence session with the Minister for Climate Change
Actually, just because of the distribution of these things, some local authorities have hardly any, and some have one or two more, and they tend to develop the expertise. We do encourage the local authorities to share expertise, and there are some examples of…
, Climate Change, Environment, and Infrastructure Committee
Infrastructure (Wales) Bill - Evidence session with the Minister for Climate Change
We just think that they're best placed to understand the benefit of a small energy production. So, the community energy example I gave earlier, for example, Jenny, that’s not a development of national significance even in the current system, has been our…
, Climate Change, Environment, and Infrastructure Committee
Infrastructure (Wales) Bill - Evidence session with the Minister for Climate Change
Yes. Yes, exactly.
, Climate Change, Environment, and Infrastructure Committee
Infrastructure (Wales) Bill - Evidence session with the Minister for Climate Change
Yes. Well, I think that's fairly obvious, isn't it, really? If it's not that complicated but it comes over the threshold, then it'll be done by written representations; if it's incredibly complex, has multiple issues and has excited an enormous amount of…
, Climate Change, Environment, and Infrastructure Committee
Infrastructure (Wales) Bill - Evidence session with the Minister for Climate Change
We'd be looking to have a flex for that, though, that we could—if every single application in five years is done in 40 weeks, we might well reduce it; if every single application is done in 54 weeks, then, you know. What you'd like is to have exception…
, Climate Change, Environment, and Infrastructure Committee
Infrastructure (Wales) Bill - Evidence session with the Minister for Climate Change
Do you want to go through that, Neil?
, Climate Change, Environment, and Infrastructure Committee
Infrastructure (Wales) Bill - Evidence session with the Minister for Climate Change
Yes.
, Climate Change, Environment, and Infrastructure Committee
Infrastructure (Wales) Bill - Evidence session with the Minister for Climate Change
—we could call it into the normal planning system.
, Climate Change, Environment, and Infrastructure Committee
Infrastructure (Wales) Bill - Evidence session with the Minister for Climate Change
Just to be clear, there are two routes. We could call it into this system if we think it is a significant infrastructure project, which is what I was saying, but if we thought it wasn't a significant infrastructure project but we still thought the local…
, Climate Change, Environment, and Infrastructure Committee
Infrastructure (Wales) Bill - Evidence session with the Minister for Climate Change
It's the same thing, Huw. Basically, if it's a small local pilot production, it won't fall into this; it will fall into the local planning arrangements if planning consent is required. If it's a much bigger issue, then we could take a view that it is a…
, Climate Change, Environment, and Infrastructure Committee
Infrastructure (Wales) Bill - Evidence session with the Minister for Climate Change
That's why I used the radioactive waste example. This is not about the policy. If there was a Government in place that had a policy that opencast coal was a great idea, then this process would be the same. The applicant would still have to go through this…
, Climate Change, Environment, and Infrastructure Committee
Infrastructure (Wales) Bill - Evidence session with the Minister for Climate Change
As I said earlier, I think there will be a number of ways that people who like the project could get involved. You have to make that as easy as possible; it's just human nature to go along with something if you think it's okay. What we do, Joyce, is just try…
, Climate Change, Environment, and Infrastructure Committee
Infrastructure (Wales) Bill - Evidence session with the Minister for Climate Change
We're trying to direct development in Wales to particular areas for particular things for obvious reasons. We're trying to make sure that we have fast-growth zones, or protected zones. We want our designated landscapes to be protected in particular ways…
, Climate Change, Environment, and Infrastructure Committee
Infrastructure (Wales) Bill - Evidence session with the Minister for Climate Change
The one I just talked about, the flood defence, is obviously one of them, but another might be a medium-sized windfarm somewhere that doesn't engage the threshold for this, but, for whatever reason, because of the complexity of where it is or the grid…
, Climate Change, Environment, and Infrastructure Committee
Infrastructure (Wales) Bill - Evidence session with the Minister for Climate Change
Well, because most of them aren't of national significance. But, actually, the one I'm thinking of, we would almost certainly have pulled it in. So, it depends. It depends how complicated it is. I'm using an example of a particularly complicated one with…
, Climate Change, Environment, and Infrastructure Committee
Infrastructure (Wales) Bill - Evidence session with the Minister for Climate Change
I think as well, Joyce, it's worth saying that there are thresholds for size and so on. There are a couple of things, like a large retail development, for example, that were not included here, even thought they might be very large, because we thought that the…
