The government has released its response to the Parliamentary scrutiny of its draft National Policy Statement for Hazardous Waste (NPSHW).

In July 2011, the government published its draft NPSHW. A public consultation on the statement was held from 11 July to 20 October 2011, with a parliamentary debate being held on the 12 October 2011.

Following the debate, the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (EFRA) Committee published its response on 14 December 2011. This report contained 15 recommendations, to which the government has now responded in full.

Some of the key recommendations from the EFRA report included:

• streamlining the ‘interaction between applications for environmental permits and development consent’, preferably through reducing bureaucracy and sharing information between Infrastructure Planning Commission (IPC) and the Environment Agency (EA) (recommendation 3);
• allowing the IPC to refuse development consent where the EA advises against a development on flood risk grounds (recommendation 6);
• recommending that the Department for Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) ‘improve public awareness and perceptions’ of hazardous waste facilities (recommendation 9);
• requiring developers to invite local communities to comment on how the proposed development would affect their local area (recommendation 12);
• decisions on Nationally Significant Infrastructure Projects (NSIPs) should be made jointly by the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government and the Secretary of State for Defra (recommendation 15).

The government has now responded to each of the 15 recommendations. Whilst it accepted some of the EFRA suggestions and made changes to the draft NPSHW accordingly, it rejected others, arguing that they were either unnecessary or inappropriate.

The government response to the five recommendations listed above are summarised as follows:

• the Prime Minister has taken steps to ‘extend the principle of the ‘one stop shop’’ for planning consents, for example by setting up the Consent Service Unit and improving communication between the Planning Inspectorate, the applicant and other consenting bodies (recommendation 3);
• the government rejected recommendation 6, claiming that it would effectively grant the EA a veto over development. It said that it is appropriate for the Secretary of State to be able to retain ‘the ability to weigh all material considerations when making a decision’;
• the government agreed that the public should be made more aware of hazardous waste facilities (recommendation 9);
• the government responded to recommendation 12 by stating that the Planning Inspectorate’s Advice Notes already encourage local communities to suggest how development may affect them; and
• the government rejected the proposal for DCLG and Defra to take decision on hazardous waste NSIPs together, saying that the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government alone should have this power (recommendation 15).

Public consultation

The public consultation into the NPSHW received 28 responses from a variety of groups, including trade associations, local authorities and hazardous waste management organisations.

Respondents seemed broadly content with actions the government was taking, although there were several issues raised. For example, although many respondents felt that the NPSHW adequately outlined government policy on adaption to climate change, they did not feel that it was clear enough on how mitigation of climate change should be taken into account.

However, the government rejected this concern, stating that the language used was consistent with other ‘NPS regimes’ and that ‘there appears to be no justification for saying more in relation to mitigation of climate change for hazardous waste infrastructure than for other types of Nationally Significant Infrastructure Projects’.

Other concerns raised by respondents included the use of obsolete data (which Defra has now updated), that the NPSHW failed to ‘recognise the volatility of the hazardous waste market’ by being too prescriptive (which Defra has sought to mitigate) and that the NPSHW was overly concerned with environmental impacts at the expense of social and economic impacts (which the government denied).

Having considered the responses to the draft NPSHW, the government presented the legislation to Parliament for approval today (6 June).

Read the consultation response and the government response to the EFRA report.