The Anglican Bishop of Liverpool has failed in an attempt to make the Government give greater weight to climate change in all national planning policies.His amendment to the UK Government’s Planning Bill - which sets up the Planning and Infrastructure Commission to rule on major planning applications such as power plants - was defeated by peers in the House of Lords.
Bishop James Jones argued that national policy statements should “contribute to the mitigation of, and adaptation to, climate change and to the achievement of sustainable development”.
He said he assumed that the Government believed that the practice would be “more rigorous than the language of the Bill implies”.
But he told peers: “My concern is for future administrations, who will be called on to operate the legislation in 2010, 2020 and 2030. The Government have clearly understood the need to place a clear duty on the process locally and regionally, so the question is: why not nationally?
“At a national level, all we have is the provision ‘to take account’, ‘to have regard’, ‘to have in mind’, not ‘contribute’, which is the responsibility laid on people locally and regionally.”
He said that “as we move towards a low-carbon economy, we need to transform the planning process” and that this made is necessary for national policy decisions to contribute to tackling climate change.
Climate change minister Lord Hunt of Kings Heath, arguing against Bishop Jones’ amendment, said: “A basic principle of our climate change policy, as emerges in the Climate Change Bill, is that some individual policies may not necessarily contribute to meeting the targets. We have to accept that.
“As long as our national effort balances and the overall targets, taken together, are met, that is perfectly acceptable. The problem is not philosophical but practical. We do not want to undermine this prospect by requiring each national policy statement to contribute directly to the mitigation of climate change. We think that that would restrict our freedom of manoeuvre.”
The vote on Bishop Jones’ amendment was defeated by 96 votes to 65.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Disclaimer
No responsibility or liability shall attach itself to either myself or to the blogspot ‘Clerical Whispers’ for any or all of the articles placed here.
The placing of an article hereupon does not necessarily imply that I agree or accept the contents of the article as being necessarily factual in theology, dogma or otherwise.
Sotto Voce
(Source: RI)