Reforms to the planning system that will accelerate improvements to the country’s energy infrastructure – and reduce the chances of the lights going out – will be announced in the Queen’s Speech tomorrow, the Secretary of State for Business has told The Times.

The changes are being proposed during increased concern about Britain’s ability to keep the lights on, as ageing coal-fired and nuclear power stations are being closed and developers are encountering local objections to new energy infrastructure, including gas storage facilities and wind farms.

The Government’s reforms, to be contained in a Planning Reform Bill that will be published imminently, are designed to reduce the time taken to process applications for new power stations, wind farms and clean coal plants.

“The challenge now of climate change is so serious, and the priority of securing our energy supplies is so obvious, that we should make these changes,” John Hutton, the Business Secretary, said. “The evidence has been mounting on the failures of the planning system. If we want to prioritise and accelerate the shift to a low-carbon economy then our planning and regulatory system has got to be geared up to do that job, and, at the moment, it is totally inadequate to do that.”

Speaking at the UK’s oldest gasfield, owned by Centrica, off Morecambe Bay in the Irish Sea, Mr Hutton said that the reforms to the planning system would entail ministers setting out national policy statements of need that would spell out how the Government intended to meet the country’s infrastructure needs.

A new independent commission of experts will take decisions on individual projects, with reference to the national framework, and will be answerable to ministers and Parliament. The requirement to consult with the public at each stage will not be dropped, as has been suggested, although the Bill will pave the way for new “open floor” meetings, at which local residents can have their say, rather than the present courtroom-style inquiry hearings.

“We are trying to get the balance between speeding up the system and appropriate consultation, but we can’t continue with this planning system that sees the same issues debated again and again,” Mr Hutton said.

He noted that the planning system was preventing low-carbon energy solutions being built and was contributing to the difficulties in meeting Britain’s targets on renewable energy. About 75 applications for wind farms have been stuck in planning for more than two years – the equivalent of 5 gigawatts of power, enough to supply energy to three million households.

“If we had got that through the planning system, that would more than double the UK’s output from wind,” Mr Hutton said. The UK is aiming to provide 15 per cent of its energy needs from renewable sources by 2015. At present only 5 per cent of electricity is generated by renewable energy, and the use of renewable energy in other sectors, including transport, is negligible. There is an urgent need to begin constructing energy sources because the number of working power stations in the UK will fall significantly by 2015, by which time many nuclear and dirty coal-fired power stations will have been decommissioned.

The Planning Reform Bill is one of three pieces of legislation to be announced in the Queen’s Speech that are seen as the keys to improving the country’s energy security. An Energy Bill and a Climate Change Bill will also make key regulatory changes that are designed to attract new private sector investment to low-carbon technologies.

However, a decision on whether to build nuclear power stations will not be taken until next year, when the Government has concluded its consultation on the subject. A second consultation had to take place after Greenpeace successfully argued in court that the Government had not followed the proper procedure with its first consultation.

The Government is prepared for further legal challenges. Mr Hutton said: “We expect they will come, but we are determined to show that we have left no stone unturned.”

DANGER - staff shortages ahead

–– The industry is expected to need 1,000 graduates every year for the next 15 years to manage a £65bn decommissioning programme and help to build and operate new nuclear power plants
–– UK nuclear industry employs about 100,000 people
–– Less than 6% of industry employees are under 24 years of age
–– Nearly one third (31%) is 45 years of age or older
–– At British Energy, Britain’s biggest electricity provider, up to 40 per cent of staff set to retire within ten years
–– 23,500 graduates in the nuclear industry

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