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Wendy Morton (Aldridge-Brownhills) (Con)
I beg to move,
That this House has considered the National Scheme of Delegation of Planning Functions.
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Ms Lewell. From Saturday, councillors across England will lose powers—powers to bring planning applications before elected committees. For communities like mine in Aldridge-Brownhills, which are already facing huge speculative development, this is a serious loss of accountability. My residents have faced an onslaught of applications in relation to green-belt sites, including York’s Bridge for 330 houses, Queslett Road East for 850, Barns Lane for 77, Longwood Lane for 78 and Bosty Lane for 550. Those are just some of them. These applications have brought the debate about the future of our countryside very close to people’s doors. These green spaces help to give our communities their identity. Residents want to know what development will mean for their already busy roads, school places and GP access. They are right to expect those questions to be properly considered before Ministers introduce sweeping changes, yet here we are, just days before the new rules take effect, still looking for answers.
It seems that of the outstanding applications for 2,350 homes across my constituency, 80% will be determined under the new rules and behind closed doors. Residents and councillors will not easily be able to ask questions of the developers or raise issues in open committee. Of course, we agree on the need for homes that local people can afford. I want brownfield sites brought back into use, with supporting infrastructure. As I have said time and again in this place and will probably keep saying, once agricultural land is built on, it is gone, and it is gone forever. I want to see planning consents built, not banked. That brings me to the current consultation on Walsall borough’s local plan.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
I commend the right hon. Lady. I spoke to her beforehand, and I always look to be helpful by talking about what we do back home. In Northern Ireland, under section 31 of the Planning Act (Northern Ireland) 2011, each of our 11 district councils is legally mandated to operate its own bespoke scheme of delegation. Although that gives local authorities excellent democratic autonomy over local developments, it has at times led to the exact regional inconsistencies in application processing times that the new English model explicitly seeks to correct. Does the right hon. Lady agree that the learnings from Northern Ireland’s process should be shared to achieve best practice in planning and hopefully address some of the very issues that she is highlighting?
Wendy Morton
I am always grateful to the hon. Gentleman, because he always makes useful contributions in Westminster Hall that allow us to reflect on and share our different experiences. To me, the fundamental thing is making sure that our communities feel that their councillors have a voice, rather than the democratic deficit that we are faced with. I thank him for his intervention.
Our local plan consultation closes on Monday, and over the last six weeks I have been encouraging residents to respond. I have been holding public meetings, helping with objections and making it clear to them that their views, whatever they are, matter, including when the plan goes before an independent inspector. But what message are the new regulations sending? Residents take the time to go through the documents, attend the meetings and help shape their area’s future, while the Government restrict their councillors’ ability to secure full and public scrutiny when an application arrives. That is not democracy in action—it is neither scrutiny nor accountability—so what is the point of asking communities to invest their time in a local plan if contentious decisions about its application are then to be taken behind closed doors?
Chris Hinchliff (North East Hertfordshire) (Lab)
I suspect I am doing neither the right hon. Lady nor myself any favours by saying I absolutely agree with her. It is our duty as MPs to robustly defend local democracy. Does she agree that, when the communities we represent and their directly elected councillors oppose speculative development, the answer is not to silence their voices but to secure genuine public consent with a higher standard of development that meets local needs and hopes for the future?
Wendy Morton
I can assure the hon. Gentleman that he is not upsetting me with those comments—far from it. His point, that local democracy and local accountability matter, is exactly the one I am making. It is so important that we include local voices, because it is local voices that have local knowledge that can help to shape the community. If we want truly cohesive communities that work together, we need to make sure that their voices are heard—and that they do not have targets and housing imposed upon them.
Several hon. Members rose—
Helen Whately (Faversham and Mid Kent) (Con)
I thank my right hon. Friend for her important speech. Recently, a development in my constituency for 8,500 homes that was due to go to the local planning committee was suddenly taken away from it, having been called in by my constituency neighbour, the hon. Member for Sittingbourne and Sheppey (Kevin McKenna). The decision now sits with the Secretary of State, taking this important decision, which will have a huge impact on the area, out of local hands.
This is clearly denying local democracy, given that we have locally elected councillors who know the impact this development will have on my constituency. Does my right hon. Friend agree that it is completely wrong to take those powers to influence local planning decisions away from local councillors, and that it is absurd that a Government who talk about increasing devolution are the ones taking these powers away from local councillors?
Paul Holmes (Hamble Valley) (Con)
I congratulate my right hon. Friend on securing this debate. She mentioned accountability and democracy. As she knows, the Government are currently taking the Representation of the People Bill through Parliament. The Bill rightly tries to encourage increased participation and accountability in our electoral system. Does she share my concern that the role of councillors is undermined by these planning changes, that local people will lose confidence in the democratic checks and balances of local government, and that we therefore may see turnout and participation go down?
Wendy Morton
My hon. Friend is right. For a long time, it has concerned me that turnout at elections, particularly local elections, has been falling, and I do not believe the answer is simply to lower the voting age. Rather, we should be seeking to engage with people and communities on a cross-party basis. What we are seeing now is a Government who impose top-down targets, say it is all about devolution and go through the mayors, but when it comes to accountability and scrutiny, I cannot scrutinise the Mayor of the West Midlands. He does not even reply to my letters, yet he is getting more powers.
These planning measures come down to local councils, and once again, local councillors are losing their voice—our communities are losing their voices. How can we say that we want to engage with communities? How do we shape the future of our country and our communities if we are taking away transparency and accountability, which are the very foundations of good, strong democracy?
Delegation is a familiar concept. In fact, the Government’s own paper said that officers made 96% of planning decisions in the second quarter of 2024, but that cannot become how every application is determined. Where is the evidence about delays as a result of planning committee call-ins? How much delay arises from waiting for the committee, and how much from staffing shortages, outstanding technical advice or the complexity of the process?
Under the new rules, ordinary applications for up to nine houses on sites smaller than half a hectare must be decided by officers. Larger applications are not guaranteed a hearing either. Referral requires that the nominated officer and the chair of the planning committee agree and that a test of significance is met; if they disagree, the decision stays with officers.
Even reserved matters for a purely residential scheme of several hundred homes can be subject to mandatory delegation, so why exclude councillors from details that materially change the make-up of their own community? A ward councillor will know exactly why a proposal matters locally, but under the new rules they cannot make sure it is heard at committee. It would be helpful if the Minister could outline how the Government will ensure that the significance test is applied consistently. What can a councillor do when a well-founded referral request is rejected? How can it be that an application concerning a protected tree can still be eligible for committee consideration while an application for nine houses can be excluded? What principle explains that distinction? Why should councils be able to consider the future of a single tree—I am not saying that trees are not important—but not the circumstances of a housing development?
We then come to the issue of transparency. Will reasons for refusing to refer an application to committee be published before the application is decided, allowing time to raise an error? Reporting afterwards will give no comfort to concerned residents if permission has already been granted. As the Minister is undoubtedly aware—and I appreciate this topic is not entirely in her brief—some councils are seeking to preserve democratic oversight through informal councillor panels advising on planning applications. What assessment has the Department made of the risk of developers alleging predetermination when councillors express a view through those panels and subsequently participate in the gateway decision or determine the application at committee? Could the resulting legal challenges and delays undermine the very house building targets that the regulations are intended to support? I would be grateful if the Department published clear guidance so that councils can retain meaningful elected involvement without creating further uncertainty.
There is also the question of neighbourhood plans. One council leader told me their council has called for applications that conflict with an adopted neighbourhood plan policy to be eligible for committee consideration. Communities spend years and thousands of pounds preparing these plans before residents endorse them in a referendum. They deserve a route to elected scrutiny when an application conflicts with those policies. Will the Minister provide that safeguard, including for applications otherwise subject to mandatory delegation?
There is a similar concern about houses in multiple occupation, which are used all too often to house those decanted from asylum hotels. Councils introduced article 4 directions because they identified a need for greater control over conversions in particular neighbourhoods, yet applications brought into the planning system by those directions can fall within schedule 1 to the Town and Country Planning (Discharge of Local Planning Authority Functions) (England) Regulations 2026, preventing elected members from determining them. Will the Minister clarify exactly which HMO applications must be delegated, and explain why an article 4 direction provides no exception? Where an application raises significant concerns about the concentration of HMOs, such as about parking or the loss of family housing, will the Government allow councillors to secure a committee hearing?
Let us not forget planning officers. They also deserve protection. They undertake difficult professional work, often with very limited resources. Moving contentious decisions away from committees has a real risk of leaving officers personally exposed. Councils are rightly asking what safeguards will protect officers from undue influence or pressure from developers, applicants and other interested parties. Will there be requirements to record substantive discussions, declare conflicts of interest and obtain a second opinion in contentious cases? What independent route will officers have to report improper pressure? Officers must act impartially, so how will the Minister prevent them from becoming a lightning rod for political criticism when elected council members have lost their decision-making role? The Royal Town Planning Institute has warned of the risk of increased abuse and public pressure. What support will be funded to protect staff and to help councils retain those important experienced planners?
Transparency protects officers and residents alike. People should be able to follow the evidence and understand who decided and why. Accessibility matters, too. Developers often have a planning consultant and a legal team, whereas residents concerned about an application only have the option to open the planning portal for the very first time. They should not need professional help to find out whether an application will reach committee, how to ask for scrutiny or whether their concerns have been considered. Will Ministers engage in a publicity campaign to update people on those changes and ensure that each authority has an easily understandable explanation of the new process on its website, including how residents can put their case where there is no committee meeting?
The Planning Inspectorate also has an important role. An inspector will examine whether the proposed local plan in my constituency meets legal requirements and is sound. Separately, inspectors determine many planning appeals, but how will local evidence about infrastructure and cumulative green-belt loss be considered through these processes? On another point of fairness, or rather the lack of it, applicants can appeal refusals, but objecting residents have no equivalent appeal on planning merits. Given that imbalance, why weaken scrutiny before the decision? What affordable option will residents realistically have if an application is wrongly kept away from the committee?
A separate part of this new scheme requires councils to consult the Secretary of State before refusing applications for 150 or more homes. How will that operate transparently? How can residents make representations? Ministers are creating an additional opportunity for Whitehall interference and involvement while restricting elected local councillors. That undoubtedly creates a democratic deficit. How does that sit with the Prime Minister’s promises on devolution and community empowerment? I do not see how it does. The Local Government Association’s Conservative group has organised a letter from more than 1,500 Conservative councillors calling for this scheme of delegation to be repealed; I put on record my thanks to them for that. Let us hope that the Prime Minister gives it his urgent attention when it is delivered to him at No. 10 tomorrow.
We all know that councils must comply with the law, but we must remember that agreeing to update their constitutions does not mean that they consent to these regulations or believe that they serve their communities. A Government talking about devolution should trust local representatives and communities. I hope that the Minister will reconsider these regulations. At the very least, the Government should restore an effective route to committee for contentious applications to protect neighbourhood plans and article 4 directions and provide clear safeguards for officers.
Before the scheme takes effect on Saturday, will the Minister commit to those changes and to publishing an assessment of the scheme’s impact ahead of the statutory review in 2028? My constituents are being asked to engage with their local plan by Monday. I want to be able to tell them that doing so will make a difference and that their elected councillors will still have a meaningful role when decisions are taken. That is the assurance that I am seeking.
Olly Glover (Didcot and Wantage) (LD)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Ms Lewell. I thank the right hon. Member for Aldridge-Brownhills (Wendy Morton) for setting out her case so well. As their starting point, the Government need to be clear about what problem and which causes of that problem they are trying to solve. The vast majority of this House would agree that we need more house building, ideally with a particular focus on affordable and social housing, but there are many reasons why we are not hitting the Government’s housing targets, and they should not be lazily reduced to blaming the planning system or planning committees. The solutions that the Government seek to deal with that house building shortage should be based on evidence, not ideology. I fear that sometimes ideology dominates.
Removing local scrutiny in the way that has been described will not address the underlying causes of delay, which include capacity constraints in planning departments and the wider construction supply chain. We need a planning system that is simpler, more effective and capable of delivering homes that are well built, warm and cheap to heat, and that is accountable to local people and their representatives.
In South Oxfordshire and Vale of White Horse district councils, the two district councils that cover my Oxfordshire constituency, the planning committees work well and there is no evidence that they are slowing development down. Some 95% of planning applications are decided by officers already. The majority of applications debated by the planning committees are also passed, but having complex and more contentious planning decisions made in public aids transparency and scrutiny over how planning policies are being applied. Vale of White Horse council has an excellent record on planning appeals: only 4.3% of appeals were allowed over the past two years, demonstrating that the decisions being made under the existing system are working well and are of a high quality.
In my constituency, we have seen huge rates of housing growth over the past 15 years. The key frustration for local people is that the infrastructure has not kept pace. A lot of the time, the local councils are not the ones able to dictate what we need in respect of housing, new railway stations or health infrastructure. Significant infrastructure is not something over which they have direct control.
Reducing the input of local communities and removing the ability of local ward councillors to call planning decisions to a committee could reduce the opportunity for those who understand our communities best to influence the infrastructure that developers provide alongside new homes. Over the past few years, there have been signs that house building is slowing down—the build rate of homes on some of the larger developments in my part of Oxfordshire has slowed—but the Government have misdiagnosed the cause of slower build rates. Planning committees are not the cause; there are wider economic causes and wider system causes. Developers will only build the homes that they are confident of selling. More expensive mortgages and potential buyers not feeling confident about investing in buying a home are significant factors.
I had the pleasure of serving on the Planning and Infrastructure Bill Committee, alongside the hon. Member for Hamble Valley (Paul Holmes), who is in this Chamber. We both have very fond memories of it—a very rewarding and fulfilling experience it was. Indeed, the Conservative spokesperson, the hon. Member for Broxbourne (Lewis Cocking), also served on the Committee. It was on topics such as the one we are debating where there were common amendments among Conservatives, Liberal Democrats and Green party Members. How often does that happen? If I were the Government, I would be very worried about uniting three such different parties.
The wider philosophical problem that we are failing to address as a Parliament and as a country is the tension between national need versus local concern. We need to start approaching that question intelligently. It is yet another debate that has become polarised, with two tribes shouting at each other and not really engaging in dialogue. Maybe we need more Ministers coming to areas affected by significant planning issues—I am not talking about a little cul-de-sac of new houses, but maybe significant infrastructure projects. If Ministers were more willing to come to our constituencies, they could make their case directly and debate and could challenge local opponents.
Wendy Morton
I would be delighted if the Minister came to Aldridge-Brownhills to see the impact that 20,000 homes will have across the borough, where we have a lack of infrastructure. I am still waiting for the funding for Aldridge railway station.
Olly Glover
I was amazed that the right hon. Lady did not mention that station campaign in her opening speech, but she has now rectified that omission. Ministers coming and engaging directly in that way could be part of a campaign of national persuasion to tackle the causes for resentment of development in a given area, but too often that is left to large corporate interests to do, which fuels mistrust. Indeed, in my constituency, the main advocate of what would be the second-biggest reservoir in the country is Thames Water, and of course that really does not help to persuade people of the case. It is one of the major reasons why there is significant local opposition.
As a result, I agree with the right hon. Member for Aldridge-Brownhills and the hon. Member for Hamble Valley that these changes being made by the Government run the risk of further eroding trust in local politics and local democracy. That is in none of our interests.
Paul Holmes (Hamble Valley) (Con)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Lewell. I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Member for Aldridge-Brownhills (Wendy Morton) on securing this debate, and I welcome the Minister to her position.
I have serious concerns about this policy and agenda, and specifically about the future ability of residents to have a meaningful say in the development of their own communities. Now that I am no longer the shadow Housing Minister, I am happy that I can speak about these things in a much freer way than I possibly could at the Dispatch Box, although I know that my hon. Friend the Member for Broxbourne (Lewis Cocking) will be absolutely excellent in his winding up. Like the hon. Member for Didcot and Wantage (Olly Glover)—he is my hon. Friend, actually—I have very fond memories of the Planning and Infrastructure Bill Committee. I often found myself going home in the evening and thinking, “How could I have agreed so much with the Liberal Democrats?”, but I looked myself in the mirror, had a wash and got over it the next morning.
Planning decisions shape our towns and villages for generations to come. They determine where new homes are built, how much pressure is placed on roads, schools and healthcare services, and whether the character of our neighbourhoods is preserved. These decisions have real consequences for the people who live with them every day. It is therefore essential that local residents have a meaningful opportunity to influence them.
I say to the Minister that my big concern, which we warned about on the Bill Committee, is that the Government seem ardent on taking those decisions and that influence away from local people. The Government’s proposed approach risks weakening the democratic safeguards that allow communities to have their voices heard. This policy represents a significant shift in the balance between professional planning officers and elected local representatives. One of the most concerning aspects of these reforms is the removal of existing arrangements that allow ward councillors to request committee consideration or that enable an application to be referred automatically when a specified number of objections has been received. Under the new scheme, the volume of objections cannot in itself justify referral to committee. Instead, applications must meet the national criteria, and the nominated officer and nominated councillor must agree that they should be referred.
Let us consider what that means for residents who have legitimate concerns about a development in their neighbourhood. They may organise a petition, write detailed objections and encourage their neighbours to participate in the consultation process, yet the strength of their opposition will not in itself guarantee that elected councillors will debate the application in public. Residents retain the right to submit representations, but their ability to secure community scrutiny is restricted.
That raises a question: what is the point of encouraging people to participate in local planning consultations if the system provides fewer opportunities for their elected representatives to consider their concerns publicly? If we allow this proposal to go ahead on Saturday, as I suspect it will, many people will ask why they should bother voting for their parish, borough or county councillor.
Planning decisions are one of the most public-facing decisions that a councillor makes. Councillors live in their communities. If a housing development is being built round the corner, or if a pub is being closed so that it can be converted into something else, they know what should be referred to their planning committee. That local knowledge is being taken away, so that a faceless officer can make that decision instead. That is not accountable.
Sarah Green (Chesham and Amersham) (LD)
In Buckinghamshire, we do not yet have a local plan. Right now, we are seeing speculative application after speculative application going in. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that removing ward councillors’ right to call those applications in not only undermines accountability, but makes our green belt even more vulnerable?
Paul Holmes
I absolutely agree. Councils are going through a process to develop a local plan. Alongside officers, they will know which applications should be capable of being called in if a local plan is ratified. If there is no local plan and there are small speculative developments happening across a whole constituency, that soon adds up. If the hon. Lady’s councillors are unable to play a massive part in shaping those developments and crafting those developments, it prompts the question: “What do they serve for?” That will be the question resounding across local government this afternoon.
A national framework cannot be expected to capture every local nuance. Although the Government argue that the scheme will create greater consistency and allow committees to focus on significant applications, there is a risk that standardisation will come at the expense of local discretion. The desire for consistency should not prevent councils from responding to the particular needs and concerns of their residents.
Minor delegations do not mean that planning decisions are any less important. Let me give the Minister an example from my constituency. The Pear Tree inn in Boorley Green is owned by a brewery that wanted to sell off a huge amount of the local play area and car park so that six houses could be built. Local councillors were dead against it. It is the only local pub in the area and is a very valued asset to the local community. Under this scheme, that proposal could not be referred by a ward councillor and could not be debated by ward councillors who represent the community. As the Member of Parliament, I could make a written representation but would not be able to go to a planning committee led by councillors to make that decision. That is fundamentally wrong. Under the current legislation, a parish councillor can submit the pub for consideration as an asset of community value. If an officer had been making that decision without a referral by a ward member, they would not have come to the same decision. Eastleigh borough council’s excellent decision to refuse planning permission was made by its ward councillors, who are elected by the people who live there.
I am not against building new homes and nor am I arguing against the expertise of planning officers; I am arguing for development to take place alongside transparency, public participation and democratic accountability. If the Government want communities to support development, they must recognise that people are more likely to have confidence in decisions when they feel their voices have genuinely been heard.
Finally, the Government have spoken hugely, including in today’s Budget, about devolution and empowering local people. The Minister will hear no argument against that from me—I hope her Department brings the mayoral elections for Hampshire forward to 2027. However, she cannot have it both ways; she cannot devolve to local people, while taking away some of the most retail decisions that councils and locally elected people make on behalf of those people—giving with one hand while taking with the other.
That is a topsy-turvy world that will cause the Government huge issues, prompting resentment from local people about the public participation processes they are expected to undertake, particularly with mayoral elections. I appreciate that this is not all in the Minister’s brief, but I seriously ask her to report to the Department the strength of feeling that the Government are creating among locally elected councillors. They are not happy, and nor are we or, more importantly, the people we serve.
Emma Lewell (in the Chair)
If possible, could our final two Back-Bench contributors keep to five minutes each, so that we can hear from the Front Benchers?
Victoria Collins (Harpenden and Berkhamsted) (LD)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Lewell. I congratulate the right hon. Member for Aldridge-Brownhills (Wendy Morton) on securing this important debate.
Moira from Tring asked me:
“How we can take back our democracy which is being eroded at a shocking rate?”—
and, yes, she is talking about planning and about this change. She had read that these planning decisions are being taken from the councillors she has elected. She is absolutely right. First, we had the Conservative Government with their top-down targets, and now we have this Labour Government, who just keep taking power away from local councils and therefore communities.
There have been continual changes to the national planning policy framework, with more than 3,000 drafting changes, all taking power away. The introduction of grey belt has effectively opened our green belt to developers. Ever higher top-down targets mean that, after St Albans had adopted a housing plan, the Government are adding 9,000 more houses. For Dacorum, on the other side of my constituency, there are another 6,000, again after a local plan had just been secured. That is all while we are facing Luton airport expansion and Bedford Universal Studios, which impact infrastructure for local people. And now, from Saturday, this latest regulation means officers must decide householder applications and schemes of up to nine homes. Ward, town and parish councillors will lose the right to call those applications in, as has been reiterated across the Chamber today.
The hon. Member for Hamble Valley (Paul Holmes) eloquently highlighted that the scale and nature of planning applications does not necessarily imply they are not controversial or important; even small things have a massive impact on our communities. Just because they are within scope, that does not mean they do not deserve to be looked at more closely by a committee of democratically elected councillors.
Lib Dem councillors from Dacorum and St Albans are horrified and share Moira’s concerns that their hands will be tied by this regulation and legal challenge, thanks to the Government. In the light of that, Liberal Democrat Dacorum borough council has voted to hold an extra meeting of its development management committee, so that as many called-in applications as possible can be heard before the changes take effect. However, that is no way to run our country or local councils.
What is really needed are long-term changes to planning law that support the voices of local communities, whether Tring, Redbourn, Berkhamsted or Sandridge. All that communities want is to get planning right for the places where they live and to raise legitimate concerns about their everyday lives. They know that we need to build, and they want a say in the homes, buildings and infrastructure that will impact their lives.
As my hon. Friend the Member for Didcot and Wantage (Olly Glover) highlighted—the right hon. Member for Aldridge-Brownhills raised this too—Ministers have given the excuse that this change will speed up house building. In fact, a survey of 62 councils found that more than 200,000 homes with planning permission still have not started, so committees are not the bottleneck. If the Government truly believe in power in every postcode, and if they are going to walk the walk instead of just talk the talk, people will feel it in their planning. That is so vital.
Will the Minister and the Government therefore stop taking powers from local communities and give them back the powers to get their homes and infrastructure right? Will they restore call-in powers for ward, town and parish councillors, and tackle the real problem of unbuilt homes with “use it or lose it” planning permission? Will they also look at wider reforms to bring our communities with us?
Vikki Slade (Mid Dorset and North Poole) (LD)
It is a pleasure to serve with you in the Chair, Ms Lewell. I thank the right hon. Member for Aldridge-Brownhills (Wendy Morton) for securing the debate, which will be so important to people in my constituency.
I have spoken at length about large-scale developments being proposed with insufficient infrastructure and with new homes sitting empty, and I hope the Minister can pass back to the Secretary of State the message that I am still waiting for the meeting she promised me in the Chamber. However, today I want to focus on schedule 1 in the scheme of delegation.
I accept that the vast majority of planning applications are rightly determined by professional officers, but when applications are controversial, when communities have legitimate concerns or when residents simply need confidence that their voices have been heard, planning committees play a vital role. They are there not to frustrate development, but to improve it. They bring together the three important sides of professional advice, local knowledge and public scrutiny, allowing elected representatives to listen to applicants, officers and residents and identify solutions to make development more acceptable to everyone. They are often the best of democracy, and they can be the closest that many of our constituents get to influencing the places where they live.
Recent examples from my area, shared by Lib Dem councillors today, demonstrate that value. One application, which councillors considered today, was refused based on height, density and design, but they were able to debate how the proposal could better fit with the character of the area. In a case last month, members considered the impact on neighbours of three bungalows being squeezed on to a plot for one, and discussed the conditions that might make a future application more acceptable. Both applications were rejected today, and members expect them to come back—but better. That ability to shape development, rather than just approve or reject it, is a crucial part of the process.
Supporters of the changes argue that community engagement should take place through local plans. I understand that, but local plans and planning committees serve different purposes and work to different timelines. As explained by my hon. Friend the Member for Chesham and Amersham (Sarah Green), local plans are often out of date, and when they are rewritten they create a bird’s eye view of a community; they do not see inside the window of a neighbour’s poorly placed extension.
Local plans can allocate land, but they cannot say whether a particular design respects the character of a street, or whether a historic feature, such as the wall in my ward built by Italian prisoners of war, should be retained. That is something that only local councillors and local residents know. With the funding slashed for neighbourhood plans, which the hon. Member for Hamble Valley (Paul Holmes) and I discussed when we were on the English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill Committee, communities do not even have the opportunity to create new neighbourhood plans to get that much closer position.
I will give another example that was shared with me today. A recommendation for an HMO in Poole was going to be approved. Had there not been local concern, it would not have gone to committee, where a mistake was discovered. The planning officer thought that nine additional properties were going to be created and therefore that housing capacity would be affected, when in fact an HMO does not create nine additional properties. If the case had not gone to a planning committee, that mistake would not have been able to be fixed, because the decision would have been published too late and the community would not have had its say. These people are not blockers; they are trying to make their communities better. While they recognise that a planning officer makes recommendations based on law and policy, they contextualise cases.
Another issue that has not been covered is that many planning applications are now determined from afar. Since covid, we have had planning officers working from Northern Ireland and seeing the sites only on Google Maps. The councillors are the ones who can tell us the context of whether a site is overhanging another, not somebody who has been shipped in on a contract from afar. The Government frequently speak about devolution and empowering communities, but devolution should mean trusting local people and their elected representatives, not reducing their involvement in decisions that affect the places where they live.
One Dorset resident today put it to me far better than I could:
“If a community is going to feel that it’s been completely shafted by a decision, there should at least be a meaningful opportunity to secure measures that address its concerns and help rebuild trust in the process.”
That is ultimately what planning committees provide: trust, transparency and democratic legitimacy. By removing that layer of local decision making, we may make some decisions faster, but we risk weakening public confidence in the planning system itself.
John Milne (Horsham) (LD)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Ms Lewell. I congratulate the right hon. Member for Aldridge-Brownhills (Wendy Morton) on securing the debate.
The Liberal Democrats are deeply concerned by the introduction of a national scheme of delegation, which gives the Secretary of State sweeping powers and allows planning decisions to bypass local planning committees. We opposed this approach throughout the passage of the Planning and Infrastructure Act 2025 and sought to protect the existing powers of committees. Faster planning decisions should come from having properly resourced planning departments and giving councils the freedom to set planning fees that truly reflect the cost of their job—not by shutting communities out of decisions about their local areas.
On Saturday, a national scheme of delegation will come into force. Every council in England must rewrite its constitution to match it, and none has been given a say on whether to do so. As many Members have said, planning is where most people first meet democracy, and it is one of the most important reasons why they vote for a councillor in the first place.
Household applications, minor commercial applications, schemes of up to nine homes and a range of technical decisions must now go to officers. For other applications, a committee can step in only where it raises a significant issue and an officer and nominated member agree; a councillor cannot refer an application alone. The ward member’s call-in has gone, and so has the route by which enough objections would bring an application to committee. Nine houses next to someone’s home are not a minor matter, and councillors will still be blamed for it. When something is built that nobody wants, residents will ask their councillor why, and the honest answer will be that they had no control over it whatever.
The Government’s case is that committees slow things down, but the reality is that this country does not have a big permissions problem in the first place; councillors already approve nine in 10 applications.
Paul Holmes
The hon. Member will know, as the hon. Member for Didcot and Wantage (Olly Glover) said, that a cross-party delegation of Liberal Democrats, Conservatives and Greens on the Planning and Infrastructure Bill Committee came up with sensible amendments to try to make sure there was a balance between efficiency in the planning system and the criteria under which officers could make more decisions, and still involving local councillors. Can the hon. Member elaborate on where the balance should be between councillors and planning officers?
John Milne
I very much agree, and I will come on to that.
Removing local scrutiny, as this scheme does, touches none of the problems I have mentioned. Where delay is real, it lies in planning departments running with about 80% of the staff they need, one in five major applications being decided on time, and fees that the Government accept do not cover the cost of the work. The Liberal Democrats made that point throughout the passage of the Planning and Infrastructure Act. My hon. Friend the Member for Taunton and Wellington (Gideon Amos) tabled 78 amendments in Committee and more than 50 on Report, including some to try to protect planning committees. Unfortunately, the Government accepted none of those amendments.
The Government have decided that residents are just a nuisance to be overcome. Through these measures, which come on top of years of reduced neighbourhood control, they have killed one bird with a thousand stones. It is not as if local people had much say over things beforehand. The Liberal Democrats regret the lack of any attempt to build consent. This is just storing up problems and resentment for the future, as Members have said.
I ask the Minister: will the Government let a ward member bring an application to committee on behalf of residents as the locally elected official? Will they look again at the standard method—the flawed formula—that sets local targets? Will they commit to telling us in plain terms whether this change is doing what it is supposed to by 2028 at the latest? Finally, national fees are planned at an estimated 90% cost recovery. Will the Government commit to full cost recovery so that planning departments are properly resourced? We need to rediscover the principle of consent.
Lewis Cocking (Broxbourne) (Con)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Lewell, and to take part in this debate about the national scheme of delegation. I thank my right hon. Friend the Member for Aldridge-Brownhills (Wendy Morton) for securing this important debate. I know that my right hon. Friend always fights to protect the green belt in her constituency.
I was sitting here reflecting on what Members have said, and I do not think that there is much that I disagree with. I know that a number of Members from across the Chamber were on the Planning and Infrastructure Bill Committee, and it took me back to some of the arguments we thrashed out during those debates.
When I speak to constituents right across Broxbourne, planning is one of the biggest issues that comes up, door after door, election after election. We know from hearing the accounts from Members from across the House today that that is also the case elsewhere across the United Kingdom—right from Aldridge-Brownhills to Hamble Valley, to name a few. The Government would love for everyone to think that local councillors are the main barrier to house building. They want to move to a system where new applications all over the green belt are rubber-stamped by officials instead. The truth of the matter, as has already been said, is that the vast majority of planning decisions are already made by officers—as many as 96%, according to the Government’s own figures.
The national scheme of delegation will not magically fix the Secretary of State’s failure to build the 1.5 million new homes that she promised. What these measures will do is undermine local government and expand the state even more. Unfortunately, we see it time and time again. The same developer comes along with a plan that is entirely inappropriate for the local area. Perhaps there are vague promises for a school or a park that we know will never get built. The local community then makes its view very clear that it does not want to see the plans happen. Even when the council’s planning committee votes against them, it gets overruled by the Planning Inspectorate as it decides that some bit of land is grey rather than green belt—often, as has already been said, without even visiting the site. That is just not right.
The Labour Government are forcing massive new housing developments on areas such as Goffs Oak in my constituency, while reducing targets in London to cover up Sadiq Khan’s failings. This is at the same time that we have a Prime Minister going on and on about devolution and how local leaders are the ones best placed to make local decisions. That is so inconsistent.
Wendy Morton
On that point about local leaders making decisions and showing leadership, does my hon. Friend agree that it is important that we actually see that? In areas such as Walsall, what we do not see from the new leadership there—the Reform council—is strong leadership on this. One area that needs more pushback is the duty to co-operate with other areas. In our area, Birmingham’s housing target has gone down and ours has gone up. There are some towns and cities in neighbouring counties that actually want more housing and have more brownfield sites.
Lewis Cocking
I completely agree with my right hon. Friend. She is right to mention the duty to co-operate. Local leaders must step up to the plate. That is what they are elected to do, and that is what their residents expect.
Residents expect their local councillors to represent them, not to hide behind the duty to co-operate. They must co-operate across borders. They do not need powers taken away from them and given to unaccountable bureaucrats in distant council headquarters. Under the national scheme of delegation, proposals for under 10 properties will only be looked at by planning officers. This means that only in very limited circumstances will there be a way for local councillors to bring those decisions before a planning committee. Planning officers are not elected and are not accountable to voters.
Everyone knows that sometimes planning officers get things wrong and the decisions need to be overturned. I have seen it. I have served on a planning committee and the trouble is that, once a planning application gets approval and gets built, it is there for a very long time. It is very difficult to rectify it once it goes wrong. Do the Government really think that unelected officials are better placed to make decisions on local issues than elected councillors? People vote for their councillors to represent them on planning issues and can hold their councillors accountable at the ballot box. However, it is not just planning that is at stake, but trust in politics as a whole. Removing powers from elected representatives is an attack on British democracy, and the British people can see right through it.
Local action groups such as Goffs Oak Community Association are already fighting tooth and nail to stop their towns and villages being wrecked by inappropriate developments, which are often proposed without any sort of adequate infrastructure. The Government clearly do not care about their views, otherwise they would not be bringing in this national scheme of delegation. These changes also ignore the fact that planning committees are not just there to approve or deny applications. Councillors talk with local people and can address their concerns by putting conditions on development.
Paul Holmes
My hon. Friend makes a good point. Another concern of mine is that, when looking at infrastructure such as healthcare facilities or larger-scale road networks, local councillors and MPs quite often work together to secure the funding from central Government and maybe a county council. Does he share my concern that in some of the larger schemes that will be decided by planning officers, the ability to get that multi-layered approach to funding will not be there, because there will not be the political will to do it?
Lewis Cocking
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. If local people—including local councillors with input from the local community and MPs—do not have a say over planning applications, development will not come forward with the appropriate infrastructure. That is what our constituents right across the country expect. I am pleased to say that my party has firmly stood against these proposals from the start. If the Minister really wants to deliver on the Government’s promise to devolve power to every postcode across the United Kingdom, she will stop this attack on local democracy and bin this scheme once and for all.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government (Sally Jameson)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Ms Lewell. As hon. Members have identified, I am not the Minister for Housing. He is in another Committee as we speak, but I am pleased to respond on behalf of the Government and I will make sure that the strength of feeling and the questions that have been raised today are fed back.
Wendy Morton
I can assure the Minister that I will not persistently intervene. But on her last point, can she reassure me that if she is unable to answer questions that were asked today—I appreciate that this is not in her portfolio—she will ensure that the Minister for Housing and Planning responds to Members in this Chamber and the public in writing before the regulations come into force on Saturday? It is absolutely critical that Members here, and councillors across the country, fully understand their implications.
Sally Jameson
I will ensure that that request is fed back to the Minister for Housing, as well as the strength of feeling behind it. I thank the right hon. Member for Aldridge-Brownhills (Wendy Morton) for securing today’s important debate, as well as hon. Members for their contributions on the subject.
The modernisation of planning committees, as many will know, is a big part of the housing and infrastructure delivery that the Government intend. Our reforms are about creating a level playing field across the country to give certainty to communities and developers about the process their applications will follow. We recognise the vital role that planning committees play in providing local democratic oversight for important development decisions in their area. Our reforms were a key measure in the Planning and Infrastructure Act 2025 and are intended to support planning committees in this crucial role so that they can be effective as possible.
Paul Holmes
I thank the Minister for giving way and I will not intervene on her any further. She talks about giving people certainty, but this Government could have created certainty by standardising the planning system in favour of councillors making the decisions that they were sent to local councils to make. Does she agree that the reason the Government have not done that is because they have made a political decision to take that power away?
Sally Jameson
I do not agree with that. Extensive consultation was done around this policy before it was brought in—in fact, I believe there were three rounds of consultation.
The national scheme of delegation, which will come into force this Sunday, will allow committees to focus on the larger and more complex development proposals that really require member input. The applications that matter most to communities are those that will deliver the kind of development that local people desperately want to see. We also want to ensure that skilled planning officers in councils are trusted and empowered to make decisions on more applications more quickly to ensure that development is brought forward in the right place at the right time.
The national scheme of delegation will mean that officers will spend less time and resource preparing for committee meetings for smaller applications, speeding up decision-making processes more broadly and freeing up time to focus on larger and more complex applications. It will also provide greater clarity and consistency across the country about who in a local planning authority will determine applications. Irrespective of whether a decision is made by an officer or a planning committee, the important thing is that both are working to serve the interests of their community.
I want to thank the hon. Member for Didcot and Wantage (Olly Glover), who praised his council’s record on planning, and I hear the concerns he has raised. As I have said, I will make sure that they are fed back.
Lewis Cocking
I did not want to interrupt the Minister’s flow, but she said that planning officers are there to serve their community. Could she explain what the community can do if it is not happy with the decisions that the planning officer makes?
Sally Jameson
I will come to that later in my speech, but I will canter through, as I am conscious of time. During the many consultations and parliamentary debates on the planning committee reforms, the Government have been clear that they are not in any way intended to be an attack on local democracy. We recognise that councillors and communities are central to deciding what development is right for their area, but the Government believe that the best way for them to do that is at the beginning of the process, when the local plan is being developed.
The national scheme of delegation will support the plan-led system. It will allow planning committees to operate as effectively as possible. For example, they will not need to revisit the same decisions that have already been considered through the local plan process; instead, they will be able to focus on those applications that really require member input. I must also stress that decision makers, whether they are members or officers, must determine applications in accordance with the local plan unless other material considerations indicate otherwise. Having an up-to-date local plan will have the biggest bearing on the outcome of a robust decision.
Importantly, we are not changing the consultation rules on planning applications. Local residents and elected councillors will still be able to make their views known on individual applications. Regardless of who the decision maker is, where those representations relate to the planning merits of the development, they will continue to be taken into account in reaching decisions.
On transparency and reporting, it is clearly important that local communities know about decisions that are being made on their behalf. That includes decisions on the referral of schedule 2 applications to the committee. We have set out requirements for that in the statutory guidance to which local authorities must have regard. As a minimum, we expect local authorities to keep a record of the cases that the nominated officer and nominated member have considered for referral to committee, the outcome of their consideration and the reasons for their decision. That should be reported to the planning committee on a regular basis and made available on the authority’s website.
A couple of points were made on HMOs. A strong local plan, particularly featuring HMOs, should be able to guide planning officers, but I will ask the Minister for Housing and Planning to write to hon. Members who raised that and provide further information. I will also feed back about websites and the council advertising campaign.
On devolution and powers of strategic authorities, I am, as it happens, the Minister responsible for the devolution strategy and the rewiring the state plan. We will set that out later this year as part of the Government’s 10-year plan. Hon. Members will see that this Government are serious about putting power back in communities. Part of that is having a strengthened local government system. I can give an example: in my own strategic authority, we announced this week that we will reopen Doncaster Sheffield airport, which will have a massive impact on the local community for jobs and growth. That is a prime example of how rewiring the state can bring the power and prosperity mentioned by Members today.
On mandatory training for members, the Government’s priority has been getting the national scheme of delegation in place. Now that that is complete, we will resume work on member training. Further stakeholder engagement is needed on how we will make that a credible and cost-effective system. I know that the Minister for Housing and Planning will work with local government and hon. Members to ensure that that is robust.
On the approach to the size of the committees, planning committees need to be the right size to inform decision making. There have been examples of sprawling committees having unruly debates and not getting anywhere. The intention behind introducing the cap was to ensure that they are more focused and of better quality. I think that initially, the planning committees were going to have 11 members, but that has been increased to 13, as a number of political parties are represented in some councils. That changed as a direct feedback from consultation.
On the national scheme of delegation, it is something new. We recognise the need to ensure that it works on the ground as intended. That is why, following the consultation on the draft regulations earlier this year, we inserted a further provision into the regulations to require that they are reviewed within two years of coming into force. That will give an opportunity to monitor the implementation of the regulations. I will feed back the request that that be looked at before the two-year mark to the Minister for Housing and Planning and ask him to come back on that, even if it is with some kind of interim or informal assessment of how that has been going.
Once again, I am grateful to the right hon. Member for Aldridge-Brownhills for securing this debate and for the contributions from other colleagues on this important issue. I recognise that not all questions may have been answered, but I will ensure that the Minister for Housing and Planning comes back to hon. Members where I have not had the time to do so. I close by reiterating that the reforms to planning committees, including the national scheme of delegation, are intended to support, not undermine, committees. We want them to be as effective as they possibly can be, so that they serve the best interests of our communities.
Emma Lewell (in the Chair)
I call Wendy Morton to sum up, if you can do it in a few seconds.
Wendy Morton
I thank all Members across the House for their contributions. It is clear that there is a lot of cross-party support, but it is noticeable that some of those who protesteth about saving the green belt—namely, our Reform colleagues—are nowhere to be seen in Westminster Hall. I know who is fighting for residents and standing up to protect the green belt.