National Infrastructure Projects: Devolution

Wednesday 9th September 2026 Lords Chamber

Question

15:17

Tabled by

[Lord Bailey of Paddington]

To ask His Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the impact of the devolution of powers on the delivery of national infrastructure projects.

[Lord Fuller (Con)]

My Lords, in the absence of my noble friend Lord Bailey of Paddington, I beg leave to ask the Question standing in his name on the Order Paper.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (Baroness Taylor of Stevenage) (Lab)]

My Lords, nationally significant infrastructure projects do what they say on the tin: they are national. No devolved powers have altered the consenting of the decision-making route for NSIPs, so no assessment of impacts has been made. Decisions on nationally significant infrastructure projects remain nationally accountable, with the relevant Secretary of State taking decisions, of course following examination and recommendation by the Planning Inspectorate. Devolution supports infrastructure delivery by giving local leaders stronger tools to align housing, transport growth and supporting infrastructure.

[Lord Fuller (Con)]

My Lords, water companies have warned that there is enough water supply to handle only another 420,000 new homes—far fewer than the 1.5 million planned by the Government. How will the Government ensure that sufficient water infrastructure is built to keep pace with the building of new homes—homes our nation needs?

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

This Government have instigated the building of a whole new set of reservoirs, when the party opposite did nothing on that for 14 years. We are very cognisant of the issues around water. I know that the noble Lord lives in the same part of the country that I do, where there is a water shortage. The way to tackle this is through the delivery of the infrastructure that will support the housing delivery, which is exactly what we are setting about to do, making sure that, where decisions are taken nationally, they have local input so that the national decision-maker can take account of local circumstances.

[Lord Wigley (PC)]

Will the Minister raise with her Treasury colleagues the perverse way in which the funding of infrastructure projects in England that should generate Barnett consequential payments to Wales fails to do so? For example, the Oxford to Cambridge rail project was designated as being directly beneficial to Wales and so avoided any appropriate Barnett payment. Please can this system be reviewed to avoid such ludicrous situations?

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

I do not want to comment specifically on the issues around the Oxford-Cambridge rail link, but that part of the country generates wealth that benefits not only England but the devolved Administrations. So, if the wealth that is generated is shared across the United Kingdom, that would be the case. However, I will respond in more detail to the question on the Barnett formula.

[Baroness Pinnock (LD)]

My Lords, when the Minister responded to the noble Lord, Lord Fuller, she referred to local leaders. Can she confirm that the reference to “local leaders” is to city and county mayors? If so, where do local councils and local people fit into the decision-making on what could be very disruptive and important infrastructure in their areas?

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

Devolution and infrastructure reform definitely do not remove the role of local communities. For NSIPs, communities and local authorities continue to have opportunities to engage with projects and participate in the examination process. The Government continue to expect applicants for NSIPs, as well as local planning, to undertake meaningful and proportionate engagement. The reforms are about making engagement more effective, not removing it. The aim is to focus consultation on the issues that matter, avoid unnecessary process, and support better quality applications and decisions.

[Lord Sahota (Lab)]

My Lords, West Mercia has a police commissioner but no mayor. That area of Shropshire, Telford and Wrekin—where I used to be the leader—Herefordshire and Worcestershire is known as a devolution desert. What is the Government’s plan for that particular area? Will we get a mayor or are we to carry on as we have for years?

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

I am always very keen to hear the enthusiasm of friends in Shropshire for the devolution programme, which is moving ahead at pace. Achieving good growth in this country requires a fundamental rewiring of the way the country works and making sure that power that has been held in Westminster and Whitehall is returned to the people and the places where they live, work and invest. This Government’s ambition is to ensure that every area in England, including Shropshire, has or is in the process of establishing a strategic authority by the end of 2027, with strategic authorities in place everywhere by the end of 2028.

[Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con)]

My Lords, the Minister will be aware that Anglian Water has raised objections to a planning application in a specific area of water stress. As matters currently stand, water companies are not statutory consultees and are deemed to have to make the connection even if the connection is unsafe. Would the Minister look favourably on water companies becoming statutory consultees to prevent this situation happening, where there could be a sewage spill in these circumstances that could be avoided were they statutory consultees?

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

We have tried to avoid increasing the list of statutory consultees because it affects the process. However, any authority can contribute to the planning process; I know that the noble Baroness is aware of that. We would expect local water authorities, where they consider that there will be a problem, to contribute both to an NSIP application or to a local planning authority application.

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab)]

My Lords, there is hard evidence—we have just had a Conservative speaker.

[Baroness O’Neill of Bexley (Con)]

I did not get up quickly enough then, but I did this time.

[Captain of the King’s Bodyguard of the Yeomen of the Guard and Deputy Chief Whip (Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent) (Lab)]

My Lords, there is plenty of time for both noble Lords. We have just heard a Conservative Member, so we will have Labour and then the Front Bench.

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab)]

Thank you. As I was saying, we know that infrastructure development in this country is more expensive than in many other developed countries and takes longer, mainly due to our planning system and the way that regulators in this country are risk-averse and often work in silos. Can my noble friend explain what the Government are doing further to the Planning and Infrastructure Act to improve this?

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

We now have the Planning and Infrastructure Act, which removes some of the obstacles that were causing delays in the planning system, but we have also recently republished the National Planning Policy Framework. It is now a much more straightforward, rules-based system of planning which we hope will make the planning system run more smoothly while removing some of the jeopardy around JRs and so on in the planning system. That, alongside investment in planning officers and the planning system, will make a real difference.

[Baroness O’Neill of Bexley (Con)]

My Lords, in January, the Government announced plans to allow data centres to opt in to the nationally significant infrastructure projects scheme. What are the Government doing to promote innovation in this area to increase their reliance on grey water rather than drinking water and the use of closed-loop cooling systems?

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

Data centres are a useful example of why the planning system needs flexibility. Some data centres will go through the local planning routes and some will be NSIPs because of their scale, power requirements, economic role or resilience applications. The noble Baroness makes a very valid point around how we use grey water and so on, and how we can use the heat output from data centres for use in residential or commercial applications.

[Lord Birt (CB)]

My Lords, I worked at No. 10 some 20 years ago, when the decision was made in principle to build a national high-speed rail network in the UK. As we know, that network now goes just from Birmingham to Euston, is not yet open and is 140 miles long. At exactly the same time that that decision was made, the Chinese started building their high-speed rail network. Twenty years later, it is 31,000 miles long. What conclusion does the Minister draw from that?

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

I will not make any points about the nature of Governments that can move without fear of having to be re-elected, but we have to get better at this. That is why all this work has been done since our Government came into power to make sure that we improve both infrastructure planning and the process for delivering infrastructure. We need not only to get the planning system working more smoothly but to have far better ways of making sure that the project management of these schemes is working effectively and smoothly. The first step is to get these things through planning without having years and years of hold-ups in the courts and elsewhere.

[Lord Bellingham (Con)]

My Lords, further to the question asked by the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh, are we any closer in this country to setting up a national water grid? Obviously, every reservoir that is in the planning process will be a national infrastructure project and they all give rise to a huge amount of opposition, understandably. Can we look again at the idea of a national grid?

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

I know that my colleagues in Defra are working extremely hard on the whole issue of water provision: how do we save water when we have floods and lots of rain; how do we make sure that we have the means to do that; and how do we distribute that water better around the country? I know that the water taskforce will look at this and making sure that we work together across the planning system and the water delivery system to make this work better in the future.