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Draft National Policy Statement for Fossil Fuel Electricity Generating Infrastructure (EN-2)

My Lords, I am pleased to open this, our third session on the energy national policy statements. Before we begin the debate, I should like to make a short statement. Several noble Lords have raised the question of whether, if an election should fall before the due parliamentary process envisaged by the Planning Act can be completed, parliamentary scrutiny of the six energy national policy statements and the ports national policy statement would be curtailed. I can assure the Committee that we have no desire to short-circuit the process that has been laid down. It is a crucial part of the validation of the national policy statements. Under the Planning Act procedures, it is open to any noble Lord to table a resolution on one or more of the national policy statements. The Leader of the House has given an undertaking that the usual channels would provide time to debate any such resolution within the scrutiny period, and I am confident that she will seek to meet that undertaking. However, it will not have escaped noble Lords’ attention that an election is on the horizon. If those debates fall in the pre-election wash-up we intend to facilitate an early debate or debates, as appropriate, once the new Parliament resumes. The same would apply to similar proceedings in the other place.