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Environmental Permitting (England and Wales) Regulations 2010

My Lords, I am grateful to both noble Lords, who also spoke with great strength during the deliberations on the regulations in Committee. At that stage I undertook to write further on this issue, and it was quite clear that the response which I gave at the time was not entirely satisfactory to the noble Baroness or the noble Lord, nor indeed to the noble Earl, Lord Selborne, who also raised the issue in Committee. I had in process a draft of a letter to respond to all noble Lords who participated in the Committee; but when it became clear that the noble Baroness was going to raise this issue in the House on the regulations—an unusual initiative, but one which is perfectly proper—I looked again at the letter and felt that we needed more work on it in an area in which all noble Lords recognise is both very important and very difficult. We have to balance the obvious rights of the industry with regard to how it complies with the regulation and the timetable. At the same time, we may be dealing with an emergency position in which the actual process is a threat to public health in some respects. Because of that difficulty there is a real issue, as far as the Government are concerned, in balancing these two points. I thought I had given, in Committee, the assurance that the Government were engaged upon substantial work in this area. I will write to the noble Baroness—I was going to say "almost immediately", but the delay of just a few days that we have had is a reflection of the difficulty of the issue. I assure her and the noble Lord, Lord Teverson—and the House, of course—that this intervention today has merely emphasised the importance of that reply, and I will ensure that it is in the hands of noble Lords who participated in the Committee as quickly as I possibly can. Motion agreed.