My right honourable friend the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State has made the following Written Ministerial Statement.

I have today issued a consultation document on The application of the Environmental Impact Assessment Directive to ‘stalled’ reviews of old mineral permissions and periodic reviews of mineral permissions in England. This seeks comments on proposals for amending regulations relating to England to deal, first, with initial reviews of old mineral planning permissions which are undetermined and so “stalled” for want of environmental information. Secondly, comments are sought on proposals to apply sanctions to make the application of the environmental impact assessment Directive to all reviews of mineral planning permissions as effective as possible. Similar amending regulations are being proposed in relation to Wales.

The proposed regulations would put beyond doubt that the Town and Country Planning (Environmental Impact Assessment) (England and Wales) Regulations 1999, as amended by the Town and Country Planning (Environmental Impact Assessment) (England and Wales) (Amendment) Regulations 2000 (the 2000 regulations)—which include a sanction of suspension of operations for failing to provide the necessary environmental information—apply to stalled applications for initial reviews of old mineral permissions. These applications were submitted before the 2000 regulations came into force, and some have not been determined because necessary environmental information has not been provided.

Many mineral sites are operating under permissions granted many years ago which contained few, if any, conditions to mitigate the impact of mineral extraction. Uniquely within the planning system, legislation was introduced in the 1990s to review and update to modern environmental standards these old permissions which can last for many decades and to regularly review all mineral permissions. At that time, it was assumed that, because the reviews did not grant consent but merely updated mineral operating conditions, there was no need to apply the environmental impact assessment directive. However, subsequent court judgments established that conditions reviews did constitute “development consent” as defined in the directive, which had not, therefore, been fully transposed. Consequently, the 2000 regulations were introduced to apply the environmental impact assessment directive to these reviews.

Guidance issued with the regulations advised that they applied only to applications for review made after the 2000 regulations came into force on 15 November 2000. Operators of sites with applications for initial review which had not been determined by that date were asked to submit any necessary environmental information voluntarily. Most did so. But there are around 40 such applications in England which are “stalled” for a variety of reasons, including some where operators are refusing to provide environmental information when requested to do so by mineral planning authorities. There is currently no sanction to encourage them to do so and at active sites operations can continue under the terms of the original permissions with little or no mitigation of the environmental impacts.

Subject to consultation comments, the proposed amending regulations would apply the sanction of suspension for continuing failure to provide the necessary environmental information and so help to conclude these reviews and bring operations up to modern standards.

The consultation paper also proposes further sanctions to apply to all reviews of mineral permissions for failure to provide necessary environmental information. These are:

automatic suspension of operations if additional environmental information required to enable a determination of whether a review requires an environmental impact assessment is not provided;

a requirement for mineral planning authorities to consider making suspension orders to secure environmental remediation where operations have been automatically suspended for a period of 12 months without provision of outstanding environmental information; and

a requirement for mineral planning authorities to make orders prohibiting resumption of mineral working where operations have been automatically suspended for two years without provision of outstanding environmental information.

Copies of the consultation paper have been placed in the Libraries of both Houses. The paper is also available on the Communities and Local Government website at http://www.communities.gov.uk/index. asp?id=1505253. The consultation period ends on 12 March 2007.