Planning and Infrastructure Bill

Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 9th September 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Parminter (LD)]

My Lords, I support all three amendments that the noble Baroness, Lady Hodgson of Abinger, has brought forward. But for brevity, I am going to address my remarks to only one of them. The Private Member’s Bill she referred to when talking about her Amendment 117 was brought to the House by a Liberal Democrat Member, Max Wilkinson.

I particularly want to address the issue of rainwater harvesting. As the noble Baroness rightly said, there is an ecological issue already with us; there is insufficient water because of the changes in our weather patterns from climate change. But if the Government are not prepared to listen to those reasons, then surely from an economic point of view this amendment makes perfect sense.

First, we are already facing housing developments not being built because of water shortages, and secondly, if the Government want to get the large number of new data centres introduced, they are going to need a heck of a lot more water. It has been estimated that the large data centres use the equivalent of 50,000 homes- worth of water a day. Unless we use every single means at our disposal to utilise water properly, we are not going to be able to build the homes or the data centres that we want, so we need to look at measures such as this right now.

Some noble Lords might say that the public would not like the idea of using rainwater harvesting in their own homes. However, a recent survey by Public First asked 4,000 UK residents that question, and there was overwhelming support for the use of rainwater harvesting, both outside in people’s gardens and inside their homes for flushing the loo or using the washing machine—as the noble Baroness has said.

It is not just the noble Baroness, me and others who are making the case for rainwater harvesting. In Jon Cunliffe’s recent independent review of the future of the water industry, he made a specific recommendation about the need for rainwater harvesting to be addressed urgently. During the repeat of the Statement on the Independent Water Commission in this House on 23 July, I asked the Minister—the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman of Ullock—whether the Government would not wait for the proposed water Bill to pick up Jon Cunliffe’s recommendation but rather look at opportunities like the Planning and Infrastructure Bill to bring forward changes to building regulations so that rainwater harvesting could be mandated on new homes.

The Minister, somewhat surprisingly, immediately thought that this was a good idea—I do not often get such positive responses from the Front Bench opposite—and promised to take the matter forward and discuss it with the Minister for Water. I hope that, when the Minister responds to these amendments, she can show the House that those discussions have taken place, that the Government are taking the issue of rainwater harvesting seriously and that there will be a mandate to change building regulations.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, it is a great pleasure to follow the noble Baronesses, Lady Hodgson and Lady Parminter, and to offer support for Amendment 115, to which I attach my name, and for the general intention of Amendments 116 and 117. In the interests of time, I will restrict myself to Amendment 115.

I do not often take your Lordships’ House back to my Australian origins, but as this amendment has come up, I really have to. I am going back about 35 years to a place called Quirindi in north-west New South Wales. Somewhere out on the internet there is a photo of me sitting on a horse in a field, or paddock as we would say, that is dead flat and dead dry, without a blade of grass on it—that is Quirindi.

As an agricultural science student, I remember the farmer explaining how to live there. He took me out the back to the water tank, which was a very large tank that caught the water off the farmhouse roof. There was no town water in Australian farming, so that entire operation and household depended on the water that they caught off the roof. I still remember the farmer rapping on the side of the tin tank and saying, “That’s where the water is; we’re in trouble”.

Noble Lords might think, “Oh, that’s Australia—that’s far away; that’s a very distant place”. Quirindi has an annual average rainfall of 684 millimetres a year. There are parts of south-east England that have an annual rainfall of 700 millimetres a year, which is essentially the same amount. There is also the impact of the climate emergency and the fact that we are seeing more weather extremes and more drying out.

There is something Britain can learn from the Australian practices that have been enforced over history and that can be imported here for a win-win benefit. No one loses from the proposal in Amendment 115. As I think has already been mentioned, we in the UK use about 150 litres of water a day per capita. That compares with France, which uses 128; Germany, which uses 122; and Spain, which uses 120. This is expensively treated drinking water that we are using for all kinds of practices that we do not need to use drinking water for.

I am going to quote Mark Lloyd, the chief executive of the Rivers Trust:

“We also need to finally implement the use of rainwater rather than drinking water where we can, such as car washing, gardening, washing pets, filling paddling pools, and flushing the loo. Other water-stressed countries have used this approach for decades and we need to join that party.”


I really stress the “party” element. I do not think we have mentioned the issue of flooding yet. Many of us have been speaking about the need for land management to slow the flow. What could be a better way to slow the flow than to catch that water so that it is not flooding out into our drains, water treatment plants, rivers and seas and so that we can have it available for use?

Often, when we talk about water use, there is a lot of finger-waving: “People should switch the tap off when they’re brushing their teeth and people should have shorter showers”. But what we really need is a system change that makes doing the right thing the easiest, cheapest, simplest and most natural thing to do. That is exactly what this proposal is putting forward. So this is a win-win all round: for householders, cutting their bills; for preventing flooding; for protecting the environment; and for saving energy—we do not think about this much, but moving water around and treating water uses a great deal of energy. I looked up the stats, and we do not seem to have any good stats in the UK, but globally, the United Nations says that 8% of energy use goes towards treating and moving water. That is such a waste when you have water falling on your roof that you can use right there in place. Pumping it out to a reservoir, treating it and pumping it back in—all that uses energy. This is a common-sense measure; why on earth not?

[Lord Cromwell (CB)]

My Lords, I assure the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, that many good things come from Australia, and she is one of them. The tapping on the tank she describes is exactly what I have been doing in Leicestershire in recent weeks. I have some experience of water harvesting, both from domestic roofs and from commercial buildings, and actually it is not very difficult, because roofs are all designed to channel water into pipes, and it is simply a matter of intercepting that water and using it.

I do have a couple of practical concerns. The first is that, as anybody who has done this will know, even a modest rain shower will give you an awful lot of water. As a result, any housing development or business premises is going to find itself with a very large need for water storage somewhere on that site, either underground or above ground. My second concern is how that water is recycled. I am not squeamish about drinking or using non-mains water. I raised a family on water drawn from an underground stream, not on the mains at all. But water left standing in a tank will grow bad and grow algae very quickly. If that is the solution, we need to find out how to treat it.

Furthermore, there is a real issue that I run into: the water companies and Ofwat will not even contemplate the danger of mingling water collected by a third party with mains water—in a header tank, in your pipes or anywhere else—because they are liable for the quality of that water. So, if you mingle it with rainwater, they will not allow you to draw mains water. The golden thread here is to find a system where rainwater is the norm and the mains is the back-up, but we are a long way from that at the moment and will be until the regulatory and practical storage issues are solved. To be clear, I thoroughly support this amendment—the spirit of it—but the practicalities of it need to be worked out effectively into the design of water systems supplying domestic and commercial premises.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Earl of Lytton (CB)]

My Lords, I declare an interest, as I have nine water butts all collecting rainwater when it rains. However, further to what the noble Lord, Lord Cromwell, said, there are some issues. For instance, what falls on roofs does not necessarily arrive in a clean form; particularly in some urban areas and in others, it may be contaminated by things such as bird droppings, which would be quite a serious issue.

The noble Lord, Lord Cromwell, refers rightly to the problem of having dual plumbing systems in houses. There is a serious issue to do with potential cross-contamination and, therefore, who is responsible. But on the generality of what the noble Baroness, Lady Hodgson of Abinger, has put forward, supported by the noble Baronesses, Lady Bennett and Lady Parminter, it is right that we need to conserve water, so we do not use expensively treated water from the mains supply. It is absolutely daft to be using that for washing the car or watering the roses. The roses do not care how much bacteriological contamination there is in it—they love it. From that point of view, the more the merrier. The vehicle does not mind what you wash it with either, most of the time.

I learned a great deal from my late sister, the elder of my two sisters, who died earlier this year, that I did not learn from being a chartered surveyor. She was a very senior hydrogeologist, and her point about rainwater harvesting is that you have to be careful about the infiltration that is necessary and naturally occurring. When rainwater falls on a hard surface, it runs off to a drain. What then? Does it disappear off down through some massive Thames pipeline to somewhere beyond Barking, or does it go into the soil and replenish an aquifer? If it has all been put into the loo and is going off as foul water, you lose that to the infiltration process. The more that we build, the more hard surfaces that we have and the more we pipe it away, the more we have to be concerned about infiltration.

Previously in Committee, noble Baronesses raised the point about flooding. Of course, infiltration is part and parcel of that. If you have all the run-off arriving at the same point down a modern piping system that conveys water away very quickly, you will end up with trouble. If you can detain water in some way by storage and infiltration, you stand a better chance, little by little, of dealing with some of those problems. But it is a fine balance as to what is happening, and it certainly requires a lot of further investigation.

The other amendment that attracted my attention was the one on ground source heat pump installation. I absolutely take the point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Hodgson. All I would say is that, if a heat pump requires three-fifths of what you might call the energy demand to provide heating, that means that three-fifths of whatever the alternative will be—oil or gas—is put on to the grid.

The chief problem with the grid is that it does not have the distribution capacity—I am not sure that it has the generation capacity in total, but other noble Lords are much more knowledgeable about that than I am. This raises a particular problem with housing development. I recall not so long ago going to visit a small housing development in north Dorset. The developer there had to provide energy for cooking and heating via an LPG bulk storage tank, which noble Lords will know is a very expensive way of funding your energy. That was done because the tank was provided free of charge, provided that the LPG was purchased from the particular supplier, and the reason for that was because there was not sufficient capacity in the local grid to power these things from an electrical standpoint.

That ties in, to some extent, with the other point that the noble Baroness raised, about solar power. Yes, I agree that that ought to be part and parcel of it, but maybe there is a link to be made between solar power and the efficiency thereof and the ground source heat pump. Now, I know nothing about the wattage that is needed for a ground heat source pump, but again I say that there is a trade-off, a balance between that 60% of what would otherwise be the carbon load being transferred on to either the grid or a solar panel system.

I know that in places such as Austria, there are now things that they refer to as balcony panels or balcony sheets. These are flexible sheets of material composed entirely of solar PV material. People put them up and they can power small appliances. Other people tell me that solar panels in certain configurations have become so cheap that they can now be used as a fencing panel, because it is a cheaper way of doing it. Now, I do not know what the rate of deterioration and attrition is of these panels, and that is obviously a fairly important consideration, because they contain things which are not readily recyclable and therefore there is that problem of end-of-life disposal, but I think that perhaps the noble Baroness could encourage the Minister to think about and work on getting this balance right, so that at least we cut some of the consumption—maybe not all of it, but some of it—of these expensively produced and increasingly scarce resources. To that extent, I very much support these amendments.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

I ask the noble Earl, and indeed the noble Lord, Lord Cromwell, perhaps rhetorically, whether they are aware of the One Million Cisterns project in Brazil, which aimed to deliver what it said on the tin and indeed has done so and was expanded subsequently. This is in the semi-arid area of Brazil, home to 18 million people. Brazil, of course, has a lot less infrastructure and is much economically poorer than the UK, yet it has been able to deliver a programme that has won United Nations awards and had all sorts of impacts. I hope the noble Lords will acknowledge that since other countries have achieved this, maybe it is not an unreasonable expectation for us to achieve it too.

[Lord Cromwell (CB)]

I should just quickly say that we can learn a lot from Brazil as well as Australia. I am in favour of the amendment; I would just add that I did not realise that water butts were a declarable interest, and if they are, I had better declare that I too have some.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Pinnock (LD)]

My Lords, I too will miss the noble Lord, Lord Khan, on the Government Front Bench. He always managed to respond to any questions I had with a smile. I even forgave him for living in Lancashire. We wish him well from these Benches and I hope the Minister will pass those messages on for us. We look forward to the noble Lord, Lord Wilson, also responding with a smile.

Amendment 120 in my name seeks to ensure transparency in decision-making in the planning process. The integrity of the process is vital. From my own experience, I know that objectors to a planning application can readily feel that, if they do not get their way, it is because shady deals have been done. Transparency helps to cure any such allegations.

Unfortunately, there is a recent example of a senior national politician who became far too closely involved with a developer and made hasty decisions based on pressure from the developer regarding funding and costs. The example that I have in mind is that, in 2020, the Housing Secretary, at that time Robert Jenrick MP, accepted that he approved a £1 billion housing development in the east of London unlawfully. The 1,500-home development on the Isle of Dogs was approved on 14 January, the day before the community infrastructure levy charges placed on the developments were increased. The timing of the decision

“meant Conservative Party donor Richard Desmond avoided paying around £40m”.

Mr Jenrick eventually accepted that his decision was indeed unlawful after the Government’s own planning inspector

“advised against the scheme saying it needed to deliver more affordable housing in what is London’s poorest borough”.

The inspector described the 44-storey high buildings as harming the character of the area, but, despite the clear direction from the planning inspector,

“Mr Jenrick rejected that advice and approved planning permission for the project”.


Obviously, planning permission was later rescinded following the legal challenge made by the local council. I have quoted largely from the BBC report of that event.

It is clear from this example alone that safeguards are needed. Amendment 120 in my name and that of the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, would require local planning authorities to maintain and publish a register of planning applications where the applicant has donated to the relevant Secretary of State within the preceding 10 years. This proposal aims to increase transparency regarding potential conflicts of interest in the planning process.

The amendment will mandate local planning authorities to create and publish a public register. The register will list planning applications that have been determined by the Secretary of State for Housing and Planning—or whatever the name is at any point—and the applications included would be those from applicants who have made donations to that Secretary of State within the past 10 years. That is not much of an ask, but it is yet another safeguard in the planning process. Whenever applications reach the Secretary of State, it means that they are very controversial and have been called in following referral to the planning inspector.

The planning system absolutely depends on public trust if people are to believe that the process is a fair one. Given that, I look forward to the Minister welcoming greater transparency and a very simple process to throw light on some of these more controversial decisions. I beg to move.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, and to commend the noble Baroness for introducing a practical, sensible and necessary amendment to the Bill. Before I get to that, I want to join the chorus and give my very sincere thanks to the noble Lord, Lord Khan, who, like others, we in the Green group have found was very approachable and extremely hard-working, and he will certainly be very much missed—I want to put that on the record.

This amendment aims to ensure that a planning authority maintains a register of applications in its area where the Secretary of State has made a determination over it and where a political donation has been associated with it. As the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, said, this might be called the Jenrick amendment. I will just leave that there—I will not go back over that ground.

I will make a very serious point. The noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, spoke about this as safeguarding the planning process. I think this is about something more important and central than that. This is about safe- guarding, or at least making a step towards restoring, trust in the political process. That is far more important and crucial. I do not think there is anyone in this Chamber who would disagree that we have a huge problem with trust in politics.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Young of Old Scone (Lab)]

My Lords, I am really privileged to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Fookes, who I admire greatly from afar—and she is absolutely spot on on this occasion as well. Several noble Lords have laid out the benefits and value of nature-rich green spaces close to where people live, so I will not go through those.

I want to focus particularly on Amendments 138B and 206 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Willis. I commend her erudite book on green spaces and health, which is an excellent evidence-based exposition of the whole case for green spaces and health—including mental health—improvement. In the interests of transparency, I particularly commend it since she sent me a free copy.

Apart from all the evidence the noble Baroness’s work provides on health and mental health benefits, I will also give an example from the work of the Woodland Trust, which I was privileged to chair until very recently, on what it is calling “tree equity”. The trust has mapped the prevalence of woods and trees and discovered, in line with other relationships between green open space and deprivation, that the poorest communities have the least wood and tree cover. That means that deprived populations are deprived in not only a socioeconomic but an environmental sense. The Woodland Trust is now engaging with local authorities, developers and others in those most tree-deprived areas to focus on the creation of green wooded spaces to enhance health, mental health and well-being and improve the environment for these deprived communities.

The model comes from an American example that covers the whole of the United States and was developed by the Woodland Trust’s equivalent in the States—good things do come out of the United States. Chicago, an early example of where this was promoted with some vengeance, showed unexpected benefits beyond mental health and well-being. There were reduced crime rates and enhanced community engagement, and the whole project of creating more green open spaces also created community leaders of the future, who learned their skills as community leaders in tree-planting schemes and community green space and then, strangely enough, went on to champion other community action on a whole range of issues. This is about community cohesion and the development of leadership, as well creating these very important green open spaces. I commend to noble Lords the Woodland Trust’s website on “tree equity”—although I hate the term as it is very clinical for something that is very important.

Although it is a bit better than it was, at the moment the creation of green spaces associated with developments depends wholly on the commitment of local authorities and developers. Some developers and local authorities are good at doing this and some are not. Guidance and the NPPF only encourage this, and as the noble Baroness, Lady Miller of Chilthorne Domer, pointed out, the NPPF is very vague in defining what standards are to be achieved, both on proximity to where people live and the quality of the green open spaces. I have seen development proposals where planting a few trees along avenues is the best they can muster.

As has already been pointed out, we need a much more fundamental approach. Master planning needs to be the space in which it happens, but encouragement and requirement needs to be built into spatial strategies, local plans and the responsibility of development corporations through statute, not simply by exhortation, as happens in the NPPF. The Minister will probably tell me—she told me this morning she was going to say this—that the NPPF is a requirement laid on local authorities and developers, but if you look at the terms of the NPPF, the reality is that it is an exhortation rather than anything that can be measured in performance.

I hope the Minister can tell us whether the Government are satisfied with developer and local authority performance on green space delivery, and, if they are not, whether she will seriously consider accepting these amendments so that a statutory requirement is included in the Bill.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, it is a great pleasure to join this rich debate, in which the House is blooming with eloquence as we focus on the value of green and blue to all our futures, to our health and well-being and of course to the planet. I particularly commend the noble Baroness, Lady Willis, for adding blue spaces, which are what we need to focus on. I want to cross-reference Amendment 115, which we started with. We are used to the 20th-century approach: “There’s some water: we’ve got to flush it away, get rid of it, manage it”, as though water is a problem. Of course, water is crucial to our life and well-being, and we need to treasure it, value it and hold it around us, rather than treat it as a waste product, as far too often happens.

--- Later in debate ---

I hope that these are compelling arguments for why these amendments should be considered by the Committee. I hope that they gain a fair wind and advance to be included in the Bill.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Lords, Lord Best and Lord Moynihan, who have very much set out the case for other amendments in this group. It is worth focusing on how we need to debate, consider and act on the parlous state of health in the UK and the significant contribution and terrible impact on people’s health that the built environment, the state of our housing and streets, and the way in which people are forced to live, is having. It is not the way that I would do it but, if nothing else, we should consider the economic impacts of that ill health.

I will focus on the three amendments in this group that I have tabled. They are fairly diverse; two of them are specific and one is a much more general purpose on adverts, as the noble Lord, Lord Best, previewed. Amendment 124 is about the display of advertisements. It would amend Section 220(1) of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990. Currently, it allows the regulation of public advertisements for amenity or public safety reasons. The amendment would add environmental impact and public health as reasons for which advertising can be regulated. Noble Lords should think about how, when they were coming into the House today or when they are going home tonight, they are bombarded with advertisements for gambling companies, junk food and polluting substances. The odds are that there are a lot of them, and this is having a negative impact on public health. Many Members of your Lordships’ House are focusing on how out-of-control gambling is a public health issue in our country.

I pay tribute to the campaign group Adfree Cities, the inspiration for the amendment, which wants a complete ban on all outdoor corporate advertising. As one of its campaigners said, these ads are in a public space without any consultation about what is being shown on them. They cause light pollution—often these days they are digital—and they are for things that people cannot afford or do not need. The fact is that advertising is designed to make you miserable and suggests that you should spend some money to fix that misery.

This is not just the dreaming up of some new idea. To go back to 2006, São Paulo, the largest city in the southern hemisphere, banned all outdoor advertising. Under its clean city law, more than 15,000 billboards were removed, along with 300,000 store signs considered too large. Grenoble in 2014 said that it was not going to have digital advertising and that it would take advertising off its streets altogether. Amsterdam banned adverts for petrol and diesel cars and air travel, something that we have seen happen increasingly with local governments—with Bristol City Council, and Norwich is exploring it, as well as Sheffield and Edinburgh. That is protecting people and the public spaces that they have to be in.

In thinking about the public health impacts of this, Dr Nathan Critchlow from the Institute for Social Marketing and Health at the University of Stirling said:

“There is consistent evidence that exposure to marketing for unhealthy commodities—for example advertising for alcohol or food and drinks high in fat, salt, or sugar—is associated with consumption, including among … young people”.


This is being pushed to people and their health is suffering as a result. Many people will be familiar with the ban from Transport for London on unhealthy food advertising, which a study found prevented almost 100,000 obesity cases.

We can think of the positives instead of just the negatives. What if, in those spaces, we had community arts. One thing that our cities, towns and villages lack is more community arts, such as murals and local projects —or indeed, let us have some more trees. Would not that be nice?

It is worth saying that this is very much a public health issue. Adfree Cities found that four in five outdoor billboard advertisements are in the poorest half of England and Wales. They are actually increasing inequality, so we need something different there.

Amendment 132 deals with something very different. Noble Lords are used to debating purpose clauses. Very often, when we start to debate a Bill, someone puts an amendment down for a purpose clause. This amendment is about all planning functions. What is the purpose of planning? What are we trying to achieve? We have a lot of piecemeal provision in different legislation and different places, but why not say, as an overarching principle, what planning is for?

This is an amendment that I picked up from my honourable friend Ellie Chowns in the other place, and it was backed by the other Green MPs there. This is our attempt at suggesting a way of saying what planning is for. I am very happy to debate the detail, but it is to

“manage the development and use of land in the long-term public interest”.

To spell that out a bit more, it

“addresses the long-term common good and wellbeing of current and future generations”.

The phrase “future generations” is one that many noble Lords will possibly recall from a Private Member’s Bill that the noble Lord, Lord Bird, brought forward some Sessions back—I have forgotten how many—copying the model of the future generations Act in Wales, which says that we cannot just govern for the moment. We know that our democratic system has a real problem with short-term thinking, and this would be a way of introducing the idea that we have to think about our impacts on future generations. It ultimately draws on the very well-known law of seven generations. That comes from the great law of the Iroquois, also known as the Haudenosaunee, which says that you should make every decision on the basis of what impact it will have in seven generations’ time. It is about thinking about the future and leaving this place better than we found it.

The amendment refers to the Climate Change Act and the Environment Act 2021. I can predict that the Minister will say that the Government are bound by these Acts, but the amendment explicitly lays down that planning considerations have to take account of those Acts. It also says that the processes have to be “open, accessible and efficient”.

Finally, I come to Amendment 227, which brings me to ground on which noble Lords will have heard me speak many times. I will cross-reference amendments that I, the noble Baroness, Lady Boycott, and others brought to the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill addressing concerns about the poisons and threats to health contained in school uniforms. This is an amendment to look explicitly at the threats to health from new buildings.

Noble Lords are probably aware that PFAS, the forever chemicals, are in many substances that are part of the fabric of buildings. There is an increasing understanding that there is a build-up of these chemicals—there is a reason why they are called “forever chemicals”—because we are all being exposed to them from our clothing and in our buildings and food. They are building up and up, and our bodies cannot get rid of them and our environment cannot get rid of them.

Again, this is a very simple review amendment. I cannot write an amendment that deals with all these issues for the Government now, but we are on a poisoned planet and we are living in poisoned buildings and this identifies some of the issues—the PFAS, the plastics—and it also very explicitly draws attention to something that many campaigners reach out to me regularly about: artificial turf. We were talking in an earlier group about how we need more green spaces, more natural environments, healthy soils. The absolute opposite of that is taking a piece of ground and covering it in plastic, because that is what artificial turf is.

--- Later in debate ---

The Government are committed to protecting human health and the environment. We are not complacent. Nevertheless, the regulations, risk assessment and control frameworks that we have in place offer safeguards from toxic chemicals in buildings. For all these reasons, I hope that noble Lords are reassured and will not press their amendments.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

I specifically address the issue of artificial turf, about which there is rising public concern. Perhaps the Minister could write to me later about whether the Government are taking a look at that, given the level of public concern.

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

I will.

Planning and Infrastructure Bill

Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 9th September 2025 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle]

125: After Clause 51, insert the following new Clause—
“Access to data on overheating risk(1) For the purposes of supporting the making of local plans, spatial development strategies and planning decisions, the Secretary of State must make provision for local planning authorities to have access to relevant data relating to overheating risk.(2) The Secretary of State must ensure that data on overheating risk made available to local planning authorities is updated at intervals not exceeding five years.”Member's explanatory statement
This new clause would require the Secretary of State to ensure that local planning authorities have access to up-to-date data on overheating risk, to support the making of local plans, spatial development strategies, and planning decisions.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, I rise to speak to several amendments in this group, Amendments 125, 126 and 181, all of which address the issues of overheating.

I shall constrain myself to commenting on the amendments in my name, but this is the direction of the overall travel of the group. I do not have any particular attachment to the different means by which this issue is addressed here. What is very clear from the level of engagement is that there is a serious issue of overheating, as reflected by this group of amendments.

I shall start with a statistic that is quite shocking. Since 2016, about 570,000 new homes have been built without adequate adaptations to respond to increased temperatures. We have heard from Members of your Lordships’ House who are members of the Committee on Climate Change, and many of us in this debate will have heard from the reports about the inadequacy of climate adaptation. We were speaking in an earlier group about the inadequacy of dealing with flooding. This is overheating, which brings huge financial costs. We have had heatwaves this year but, if we go back to 2022, we saw temperatures over 40 degrees centigrade for the first time, which resulted in more than 3,000 heat-related deaths, the highest level of mortality since the first heatwave plan was written in 2023. We know that, with the climate emergency, this is going to happen more and more often at greater and greater levels. It is particularly the young and old who are most vulnerable to this, but we are increasingly in a situation where everybody is vulnerable.

To go back to a point that I raised on an earlier group about ventilation and so on, we are also going to see, sadly, an increasing number of fires, in natural environments and probably, as we saw in London in 2022, in urban environments as well. That is where we also have to think about wildfire smoke and its impact on human health.

I want to go to the issue that we keep raising again and again in amendments—that this is very much a social justice and inequality issue. It is broadly the more economically disadvantaged households that are at greatest risks from these overheating issues, although it is not just those households. Almost 5.5 million children, over half of those in England, are living in homes at risk of overheating; according to the English Housing Survey 2022 analysis by the Resolution Foundation, more than 1 million of those children are living in London, mostly in social housing.

These amendments look at allowing local authorities, where the local climatic data indicates elevated risk—which, in essence, now means everywhere in the UK—to take specific action under the Town and Country Planning Act. Also—and this is important, and it is crucial that we discuss it under my Amendment 181 about cooling hierarchy guidance—we heard during the recent heatwaves that we have experienced in the UK a great deal of discussion about air conditioning: “Why do we not have air conditioning? Why don’t we install air conditioning?” Of course, the problem with air conditioning is that it is innately counterproductive: you are cooling the home and heating the outside, whether that is through the electricity used or even very directly, with urban heat islands, and so on. Air conditioning is not the answer—and then there are the inequality issues that arise from that as well.

Amendment 181 talks about the Secretary of State providing guidance to local planning authorities to outline a cooling hierarchy and provide guidance on how it is applied. This is where again—it is the problem with green politics of everything being related to everything else—I have to cross-reference back to our discussion about nature. One of the best ways to provide cooling in environments is to have trees and greenery; it is much better than concrete, as it reflects back the heat heating up the area around it. It is about having a structured approach and looking at greenery and at passive and sustainable design elements.

Let us think, for example, of the people of Yemen, who have a traditional architecture, in the hottest temperatures that humans can just about stand, that is cool and comfortable, based on centuries of knowledge of how to build in ways that encourage breezes and bring the air coming over. We come back to the noble Baroness, Lady Willis of Summertown, not currently in her place, and the value of water as a key cooling element—a breeze coming across water, circulating through a house and cooling it down; shades in the right directions and in the right places; and, obviously, the thermal mass of a house so that it does not heat up too quickly but also ensures that it can cool itself down.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Wilson of Sedgefield (Lab)]

To the first part of the noble Lord’s question, there has been an energy follow-up survey, which said that energy-efficiency measures that have been taken over recent years have not significantly increased the risk of overheating. On his second point, I will write to the noble Lord and give him the specific answer to his question.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, this has been another rich and full debate, and I thank the Minister for his answers and everyone who has taken part in this debate. It will, I am sure, please the Whips to know that I am not going to run through the whole lot, but I want to pick out a couple of highlights.

The cri de coeur from the noble Lord, Lord Krebs, was “nobody listened”. I cannot help feeling that—we are here rather late in the evening, talking about what are truly matters of life and death, and this is perhaps not the ideal way to do it, but we are doing the best that we possibly can. I apologise to the noble Lord, Lord Ravensdale, for failing to acknowledge his signing—I think I lost a page somewhere in the general pile of a very long evening. I thank the noble Earl, Lord Russell, particularly for picking up the embodied carbon point, which is so crucial, as we have just been discussing. I particularly want to highlight, too, what the noble Baroness, Lady Young of Old Scone, said in reminding us how close we got to net zero-carbon homes—

[Lord Wilson of Sedgefield (Lab)]

May I revert to being the Whip and ask the noble Baroness to move the decision? It is not about rehearsing the whole of the debate, which is what is happening, but about getting to the point of what she needs to be saying.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

I am going to point to what the noble Baroness, Lady Young of Old Scone, said—how close we got, and a really bad decision was made. How do we make good decisions really quickly?

Okay, I will come to what the Minister said. It relied on building regulations and compliance with those, but we know what is being built now is not complying even with the inadequate regulations we have now, and that issue needs to be discussed. The final point I want to make is this: the noble Lord, Lord Jamieson, said that we cannot do anything to interfere with much-needed housing delivery. We have to build houses that people can safely live in. That has to be an absolute prerequisite. But, in the meantime, I—

[Lord Jamieson (Con)]

I do not think I said that we cannot do anything. It is all about having a balance.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

I accept the point made by the noble Lord, and I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 125 withdrawn.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Thornhill (LD)]

It would certainly put more pressure on the council to allow that, which I think they should.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

The noble Baroness talked about people who would not dream of participating. It is also worth stressing that certain people would not be able to participate because of disabilities, caring responsibilities and other reasons. In fact, given the responsibilities the Government have in terms of protected characteristics, surely that would make the argument for this amendment.

Planning and Infrastructure Bill

Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle Excerpts

Committee stage
Thursday 4th September 2025 Lords Chamber

The amendment would ensure that the individual assuming the designated chief planner role has proper qualifications and proper experience. As the noble Lord, Lord Shipley, mentioned, it follows the success of the arrangement in Scotland, where, alongside having a chief planning officer—a chief planner—there is guidance on the duties, responsibilities, qualifications, skills and experience required for the status of that postholder as a chief officer. That guidance feeds into job descriptions for the post in Scottish authorities, emphasising the significance of the position of the head of their planning services, who reports—this is important—directly to the local authority’s chief executive. Councils may decide to combine this chief officer role with other duties—for example, as deputy chief executive—but, whether the job stands alone or is part of a wider brief, it will be vital that one fully qualified person holds the position of chief planner in taking on the significant new delegation duties that will be introduced by the Government, which we will discuss with the next group of amendments. I am very pleased to support Amendment 162.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, I will speak to Amendment 100, which is in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Boycott, and to which I and the noble Earl, Lord Caithness, have attached our names. In the interests of time, I will chiefly restrain myself to commenting on that, although I note the fortunate congruence of Amendment 99AA, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Moynihan, appearing right beside it, because they fit together very well in thinking about a one health perspective.

Amendment 100 is about environmental health, but human health is entirely dependent on environmental health. In fitting all those things together, the lack of healthy places is undoubtedly one of our society’s great problems. The noble Baroness, Lady Boycott, has already made a powerful argument for Amendment 100. I commend her on including mycological surveys, because that is all too often left out. That relates to the issue of soil health, which we are starting to recognise is such a crucial issue that we have ignored far too long. It is crucial to our health—human health and environmental health.

The noble Baroness, Lady Boycott, said that we have a real shortage of education in our highly concentrated education system about ecology and biology. That is undoubtedly true, but our understanding of biology and ecology is moving and changing enormously fast. If you were taught biology and ecology 20 or 30 years ago, what we know now will disavow a great deal of what you were taught as statements of fact 20 or 30 years ago.

To illustrate that, and because I know your Lordships’ House loves a good chalk stream, I refer to a very alarming study out this week of the River Itchen, which is a chalk stream that has been found to have alarming levels of microparticle pollution. Microfibres and fibreglass fibres were sampled throughout the chalk stream. This has been found in samples from spring 2025. The researcher who found this says we have got to work out the sources of this pollution and what to do about them. We need to start thinking about how we stop polluting these wonderful environments and make sure that the built environment is not wrecking that. This is ultimately related to a planning question that we have got to understand.

Tying in with that—I am sorry, this is also alarming—is a study just out this week about tyre wear particles in the Rhine River. Where does the road go? The noble Baroness, Lady Boycott, talked about the importance of where roads go in terms of splitting up habitats, but roads also pollute the watercourses. This is a fascinating study that shows that the nature of bacterial biofilms in the river is substantially changed by the presence, absence and nature of these tyre wear particles. Bacterial biofilms are at the base of food chains. They are key parts of aquatic ecosystems. They control nutrient cycles and form the basis of food chains.

All this is news from just the last week. If we are going to ask people to make decisions that are crucial to the biology and health of our environment, I am not saying that everyone has to be spending their time—as I probably spend too much time—focusing on studies such as this, but people need a basic level of understanding of biology or ecology to understand the way in which this knowledge is moving so fast to be able to read these reports and understand them.

My first point was about understanding ecological and biological education. In my second point, I will venture with some tentativeness into the legal side of this, because it is worth noting that the law around biodiversity and the climate emergency is a very fast-changing area. It is crucial that people have at least a basic understanding of these areas if they are going to make planning decisions that, as the noble Baroness said, are both right and will stand up in court.

I point Members to the Law and Climate Atlas, a really useful resource which was developed by the Centre for Climate Engagement in partnership with the Net Zero Lawyers Alliance. It notes that:

“Climate change may be a material consideration in individual planning decisions, and may be a necessarily material consideration, but there is no statutory requirement”,


but it may come up in court. I note that chapter 14 of the National Policy Planning Framework states that the planning system could lead to

“radical reductions in greenhouse gas emissions”.

But how are we going to make sure that happens? This is where the training is crucial.

With some trepidation, I will venture briefly into a specific case: the R v Surrey County Council judgment given on 20 June. This was around the scope 3 emissions from fossil fuel extraction. The final judgment given in this case in the Supreme Court stated:

“The only issue is whether the combustion emissions are effects of the project at all. It seems to me plain that they are”.


These are all issues in a fast-moving area and it is crucial that we provide planners with the training to understand what is happening. That training will have to be updated regularly. If we throw people into decision-making positions without this understanding, which we cannot expect their previous experience to have given them, we are setting them up to fail—to fail themselves, their councils and our communities.

[Baroness Sater (Con)]

My Lords, I will briefly support my noble friend Lord Moynihan’s important Amendment 99AA. The role of training can never be underestimated, and the importance and consistency of knowledge and skills introduced by training is very important. There is no statutory protection for playing fields, parks or playgrounds, and people are extremely concerned about the potential loss of the playing fields and parks in their communities. These open spaces are critical to preserve if we can because, once they are gone, we cannot get them back.

Diminishing any existing levels of scrutiny, especially with Sport England’s role as a consultee potentially being relinquished, could further impact the loss of our sports fields and physical activity spaces and facilities. We have heard from my noble friend Lord Moynihan about the desperate state of our swimming pools and sports centres.

A study by the Fields in Trust charity quantified the well-being value of parks and green spaces at £34 billion per annum. Frequently using these spaces results in better general health and reduced need to go to the GP, quantified as saving the NHS £111 million every year. It certainly goes a long way to help the NHS and it gets people, especially young people, active, playing sport and outdoors.

Work done by other organisations, including Fields in Trust and ukactive, is vital to sport and physical activity in this country. Training all members of local planning authorities and including an emphasis on healthy place-making, which includes planning adequate provision of sport and physical activity spaces and facilities, will help greatly to ensure that we have open spaces for sport and physical activity for future generations.

My noble friend Lord Moynihan said that this is his first of many amendments to several Bills. I will support him and would like to hear from others about these critical issues that will affect us in future. This amendment is important to ensure that planning officers have the skills and knowledge to deliver the planning outcomes that our local communities really need.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Fuller (Con)]

The noble Baroness will know that I was interrupted on more than one occasion. I am on my last 50 words, so we are going to get there. Normally, interventions from other parties do not count against the time. I will take advice from the clerks if necessary.

This problem is created by national politicians, but local people need to be heard and to be part of the solution. We need to recognise that, in this infrastructure Bill above all, we should be building economic infrastructure and community spirit. We do not do that by removing hotels from circulation.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, I rise briefly to offer the strongest possible Green group opposition to all these amendments. I do that to make sure that the breadth of opposition across your Lordships’ Committee is demonstrated. I hope that we are going to hear very strong opposition from the Government Front Bench too, but I cannot be sure of that, so I want to put this on the record.

I will start with the rather oddly grouped amendment from the noble Lord, Lord Howard of Rising, about bats. The noble Lord characterised bats as a minority interest, but I hope that I am going demonstrate why they are not. I begin with a study published in Science journal on 6 September last year about what has happened in the United States of America in certain areas where all the bats have been wiped out by white nose disease. In those areas—it is a natural experiment—the rate of infant mortality has increased significantly. This looks very strange. How can it be? How is the health of newborn babies and bats related? Well, with the bats gone, insect populations have risen enormously. Then, farmers have sprayed 30% more pesticide, and that pesticide is linked to infant deaths. When I talk about this study, I am usually focusing on pesticide use, but in this case, there is an important illustration of a point we were discussing in an earlier group of amendments about one health—human, environmental and animal health are intimately interrelated.

I say with the greatest of respect that, from the noble Lord’s own Benches, there was a suggestion that there should be education about ecosystems for members of the Government and civil servants—maybe we need that right across the House, because ecosystems, including bats, are crucial to the health of all of us. We are one of the most nature-depleted countries on this planet and that is bad for human health.

I come now to the other set of amendments in this group, in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Scott. I was talking, on that last amendment, about the health of our society. My reaction to these amendments is about the nature of our society. What kind of country are we? Changing our planning law by creating a special use category for asylum seekers is entirely inappropriate and dangerous. The noble Baroness, Lady Scott, said that these amendments are “targeted”—absolutely too right they are. That is very evident and disturbing.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, it is a great pleasure to follow the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh of Pickering, who provided a detailed, comprehensive introduction to the amendments in this group in her name, a number of which I have attached my name to. I also look forward to hearing from the noble Baroness, Lady Willis, on this topic.

I will try to be fairly brief as I am very aware of the hour. I am going to start with Amendment 227A in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Grender. In researching this, I found the most perfect case study to follow the recommendations—which I am sure we will hear from the noble Baroness shortly—of the need to build to allow for the practical reality of the world we live in today. This study comes from flooding in York in 2015. The noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Sentamu, who is not currently in his place, was then the Archbishop of York. He was resident in Bishopthorpe Palace and tweeted:

“We are fortunate … that back in the 13th Century they built with flooding in mind, such that when the water subsides it soon washes through the original flood drains made for the purpose”.


We have tended over the past century to think that we can just ignore nature and natural forces. We will build a wall—we will just put things down and assume that nature is going to adapt to us. Amendment 227A in particular, but all these amendments, are an acknowledgment of the fact that we now live in a climate emergency world. Many of these issues are much larger than they were previously, but we cannot ignore them anymore—we should not have ignored them previously, but we certainly cannot ignore them now.

Amendment 108 is about not building on flood plains. Many years ago I was chairing a session at the Green Party conference on flooding and heard a phrase that I have repeated many times since, and I make no apologies for that. It was that the flood plain is not beside the river; the flood plain is part of the river. If we think about that lovely little green patch that might be called Meadow Flat, or Wetland, or something—it is just beside the river, with a beautiful view over the river, and we have put housing on it. That is exactly the same as putting the house in the middle of the river. We cannot afford to keep doing that, and that is why I make no apologies for this amendment. If that is the only place where we can put housing, we should not be building new housing in the river.

The noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh, went through a great many of the things that I had in my pile, so I am going to avoid repeating them. Just to note that, as the noble Baroness said, there is a government review on measures that we should be taking on flooding. I also note that the Environmental Audit Committee is conducting an inquiry right now in the other place on flood resilience. The concern is obvious, but we really cannot wait for all of these to report many of the measures here in terms of taking action to protect people, their lives and their property from flooding. We already know what to do; we do not need further inquiries.

I will just point out to noble Lords who are interested that there was an excellent report out on 26 June called the UK Climate Resilience Roadmap from the Green Building Council and a number of other largely commercial organisations. To highlight a couple of things from it, it found that flooding would make Peterborough—and I note the noble Lord who would be particularly interested in that is not currently in his place—and the Welsh village of Fairbourne likely uninhabitable by the end of this century, which is not very far away at all. I do not know about Fairbourne, but I know that we are still building new housing, probably in very vulnerable places, in Peterborough.

I suspect we are going to hear lots more, so I will just point very briefly to the Committee on Climate Change pointing out how far we are from tackling the climate adaptation measures that we need to take. To pick out just one of its most recent recommendations, we need to integrate adaptation into all relevant policies. For policies, also, of course, read law. I hope we are going to hear positive words from the Minister on these amendments.

[Baroness Willis of Summertown (CB)]

My Lords, I declare an interest as noted in the register, as chair for Peers for the Planet. I am delighted to add my name in support of Amendments 108 and 109, tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh. I also support the other amendments in this group, all of which come together on a core purpose to strengthen our resilience to flooding through the planning system. I particularly support Amendment 135B, which seems really sensible.

It is hard to believe we are having this discussion as we have just come through a summer of heatwaves. However, as we all know, and as we have already heard from the noble Baronesses, Lady McIntosh and Lady Bennett, flooding is becoming increasingly common and all the predictions on it are very scary when you look at them. We see this year in and year out, and it is increasingly costly to the UK. We have heard about the cost involved, but it is not only housing that is impacted. The increased flood risk has an impact on all aspects of urban infrastructure. Some 38% of all roads in England are currently at risk of flooding, as are 37% of all railways, 34% of all water pumping stations and sewage treatment plants, and 59% of grade 1 agricultural land. This is not just a housebuilding issue; it is an issue for the whole urban infrastructure.

To flag up another issue that has not been mentioned, it has not only economic risks and risks to lives and livelihoods, but risks to health. There is now a lot of research that shows that flooding can cause long-lasting mental health conditions such as anxiety, depression and PTSD, and all these add a burden to the health budget, as well as everything else.

We have heard from many—and we have even heard from the Climate Change Committee—that it is critical that we build mitigation strategies into our land management policies. This is where the issue comes in. We have natural capital assets in this country that are perfectly adapted for fulfilling this role, and it is in the name: flood plains—they have been here for hundreds, if not thousands, of years to do this role. It was highlighted in the Government’s own 2024 State Of Natural Capital Report, in which they made the point that they recognize them as crucial natural capital assets for flood management by storing and slowing water flows. The Office for National Statistics natural capital accounts in 2024 also recognised their value. For example, the total asset value of natural capital in England was estimated at £1.4 trillion. It did not disaggregate the flood plains, but it explicitly noted that wetlands and flood plains are a significant part of these natural capital assets, contributing to this cost through regulating services and risk reduction. Not only does housebuilding impact hugely on the people whose houses are flooded, but by building on the flood plains we are taking away our one natural way of maintaining and enhancing our resilience to flooding.

What is wrong with the planning system? I keep hearing about the National Planning Policy Framework, and I keep being told, “It’s all right, it’s covered in the NPPF”. This time, I went back through it in detail to see what it is in the NPPF that is going to allow us to stop building on flood plains. Of course, the problem is that it is guidance; it is not mandatory. It does not stop people from going ahead and building. As we heard from the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh, the report by Localis showed in 2024 that over 7,000 dwellings are currently in the planning pipeline for areas with an existing very high risk of flooding—that is over 7,000 houses. When they flood, should we be surprised? Over 1,600 dwellings have already been given planning permission in the first half of 2024.

Despite the precautions and people saying, “It’s fine, they’re covered in the NPPF”, there is no existing law against granting planning permission for and the construction of homes on the flood plain. Even the Environment Agency advice has been ignored in the building of these houses.

There is a big problem here. I do not think the legislation or guidance we currently have is being adhered to, and the problem is going to get only worse. If we are going to build on the flood plain, we absolutely have to put in some of these mitigation measures so eloquently described in this amendment by the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh. I support these amendments wholeheartedly.

As one last point, I welcome—as I am sure we all do—the increased government investment of £2.65 billion to protect communities from flooding, which was announced earlier this year. That is fantastic, but it does not make sense to have that being pulled in the opposite direction of the legislation we have for housebuilding on flood plains.

To conclude, we need much firmer legislation to prevent the building of houses on flood plains. If there really are no alternatives, we also must have legislation which means that the houses built are able to withstand the flooding that will happen. Let us be honest about it—it is not if, it is when.

Planning and Infrastructure Bill

Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle Excerpts

Committee stage
Monday 1st September 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Young of Old Scone (Lab)]

My Lords, I will speak to Amendment 93 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Krebs, who, alas, cannot be with us today. I declare my interest as chair the Labour Climate and Environment Forum. The noble Lord’s amendment would insert into the Bill a new duty for the Forestry Commission to take all reasonable steps to contribute to the Government’s statutory climate and nature targets under the Climate Change Act 2008 and the Environment Act 2021 in exercising its functions related to planning, development and infrastructure.

The Forestry Commission is a really important player in the delivery of these statutory targets and, for that reason, was listed as one of the public authorities in the original Bill from the noble Lord, Lord Krebs. His Private Member’s Bill sought to apply these duties to a whole range of public authorities. During the debate on that Bill, the Government said that they were sympathetic to its aims. This would be a real opportunity for the Government to put that sympathy into legislation.

The Forestry Commission is really important to the achievement of the Government’s targets for three reasons. First, it is the single largest landowner and manager of land in the country, with 750,000 hectares under its control. Secondly, it impacts, to a much bigger extent, on other woodland and associated land in its permitting and regulatory role for other landowners. That covers in excess of 3 million hectares of land. So we are talking about an organisation that, if it does the right thing, can have a huge impact and, if it does the wrong thing, can have a huge impact. Thirdly, this amendment would simply be a natural evolution of the development of the Forestry Commission’s role.

The Forestry Commission was invented in 1919, originally with a sole focus on producing timber and encouraging the replanting of Britain’s depleted timber-producing land. This depletion had become incredibly apparent during the First World War. In 1968—we do not move very quickly when it comes to dealing with forestry—the Countryside Act extended its role to include the provision of public amenities, such as footpaths and open spaces. In 1985, the Wildlife and Countryside (Amendment) Act extended the Forestry Commission’s role to include conservation. This amendment is simply another step on that road. It would complete the extension and modernising of the Forestry Commission’s duties to include the delivery of the climate and nature targets that have been invented over the last 15 years.

I am sure the Minister will say that the Forestry Commission has already got conservation duties and is already asked to deliver for climate change. Indeed, the biomass issue that has just been mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, raises some considerable questions about the way in which that extension is happening. It is messy and piecemeal. The amendment would provide an unambiguous and up-to-date duty, without which the Government will very likely not deliver their statutory nature and climate targets. We cannot simply depend on some very piecemeal roles for the Forestry Commission to deliver the right thing on that extent of land.

Noble Lords will understand from this introduction that I do not support Amendments 87A and 87B in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Coffey. The spirit of the land use framework, which is under preparation by government at the moment, is that our scarce land supply has to work in a multifunctional way, delivering multiple benefits. Timber production is important because we are a massive net importer of timber, but so are climate change, biodiversity, flood risk management and access for health and well-being. They are also things that the Forestry Commission needs to deliver in the way it manages land and encourages other landowners to deal with their land. The Forestry Commission is absolutely fundamental in that as the biggest landowner in the country.

To revert to the primary purpose of the Forestry Commission being timber production risks going back to the bad old days of regular ranks of subsidised Sitka spruce—I caricature—marching across the countryside on inappropriate sites with poor outcomes for biodiversity and much subsidised by taxpayers. We simply cannot go back there. We need a modern Forestry Commission that delivers those multiple outcomes that the land use framework requires.

I also express agreement with some of Amendment 88 in the name of the noble Earl, Lord Russell. I am not sure if the percentage ceilings that he gives for land to be used for energy infrastructure are the right ones in percentage terms, but there certainly needs to be an appropriate balance between the requirements of timber production, biodiversity, access, recreation and energy infrastructure. His proposed new paragraphs (c) and (d), which would protect against the adverse effects on sites protected for nature conservation and irreplaceable habitats such as ancient woodland, are absolutely spot on.

I also look forward to the Minister’s response to the very real and important inquiry from the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, into what is intended in the Government’s mind for the Forestry Commission and its role in biomass. I am concerned already at some of the species that the Forestry Commission is permitting at the moment—novel species, very fast growing, with as yet untested uses. I would be concerned if we lost sight of the fact that the vast majority of Forestry Commission land, particularly in England, is in fact moving towards being a mixed woodland mix that can do all these other duties like biodiversity, access and public health, rather than simply being species that are aimed at commercial return.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow all the noble Lords who have spoken in this group, and as has already been said, I attach my name to Amendment 87 in the names of the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, and the noble Baroness, Lady Boycott, and to Amendment 93.

I will seek to add to, rather than repeat, what has already been said, but I just follow the noble Baroness, Lady Young of Old Scone, in addressing Amendment 88 and agree that I am also not sure about the percentages. I would particularly highlight the ancient woodland, how terribly important and terribly rare that is, and so, as per paragraph (d) in that amendment, there is no way we should be doing anything to damage ancient woodland for energy—it is such a precious resource. Noble Lords have heard me go on before about looking at the trees, but let us also see how incredibly precious the biodiversity in soil in ancient woodland is.

On Amendment 87, I think biomass is now a very dirty word, and the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, rhetorically asked, “What could possibly go wrong?”. Of course, that has already been answered with the single word, “Drax”. The energy think tank Ember said Drax is “the UK’s largest emitter” and that the power

“is more expensive than … gas, it’s more polluting than coal, and more dependent on imports than oil”.

There should be no future biomass at Drax; that is my position and the Green Party’s position. It really is a tragedy that we did not get to that point when we recently had the opportunity.

The noble Baroness, Lady Boycott, picked this point up. I signed this amendment, but I am almost tempted towards saying simply that there should be no biomass from forests, because as the noble Baroness asked, what does “waste material” really mean? We are thinking about biodiversity and about organic material that is a resource. If you leave it on the forest floor, it contributes to the generation of soil and provides habitat for a huge variety of organisms. Is that really waste at all? Is there any such thing in a forest? That really is the question. We need to be thinking about having a war on tidiness and the idea that for any sort of planting, we want these nice, neat rows with clean bare soil in between—we need to think about what kind of damage that does.

Particularly in addressing Amendment 93, I want to draw the Minister’s attention to a study that was out last year funded by the Forestry Commission. It was entitled Rapid review of evidence on biodiversity in Great Britain’s commercial forests. It found that there is in fact a huge shortage of data and information about what is happening in the biodiversity, specifically in commercial high forests. The noble Baroness, Lady Young, raised the issue of the land use strategy. How can we be making the plans within this Bill, or indeed for the land use strategy, if we do not have the data about the biodiversity, which this study, funded by the Forestry Commission, identified? I also point to another Forestry Commission study from late 2023, which warned of the risk of catastrophic ecosystem collapse in our forests. This was signed—the work of 42 experts—and pointed out all the risks that our forests face from wind, fire, pests and diseases, and it said there are already forests in continental Europe and North America where we have seen this kind of biological collapse. We need to be thinking about making sure that the Forestry Commission is given the statutory duty, which Amendment 93 would give it, to ensure that it looks after biodiversity as well as, of course, the crucial issue of the climate emergency.

It is worth repeating again that we are incredibly forest and woodland-deprived in the UK by international comparisons. We have to look after what is there for human health, for well-being, for the climate and for nature.

[Baroness Coffey (Con)]

My Lords, I speak particularly to the amendments that I have tabled in this group. It is fair to say that the Forestry Commission is quite an unusual organisation—it is a non-ministerial department for a start. I was the Minister and then the Secretary of State with the relationship with the Forestry Commission and my experience was that, frankly, I used to get somewhat frustrated, thinking that it should get on and plant some trees. It almost seemed very reluctant to just get on and plant trees. The reason it matters—the clue is in the name, but perhaps the organisation literally cannot see the wood for the trees—is that trying to give the extra targets is important for the Forestry Commission to make sure it is on track in doing what it is supposed to do.

One of those aims is to help achieve the 16% woodland cover target by 2050, which we are at risk of missing. The Forestry Commission should have at the forefront of its mind that its role is about trees, woodland and forests. I am conscious that the noble Baroness, Lady Young of Old Scone, was concerned about single species, or perhaps only certain species being granted in commercial estates. It is vital that we have mixed forests. One of my concerns was that it seemed like, for any tree that was not a broadleaf, it was almost like it was automatically bad and we should not be touching it. Actually, we need that mix for a combination of factors. There is no question that a broadleaf tree will bring absolutely better biodiversity overall, but so do the pines and, critically, the pines will grow a lot more quickly and contribute far more quickly to issues involving climate and emissions. That is why having a combination tree estate under the UK forestry guidance really matters.

Planning and Infrastructure Bill

Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle Excerpts

Committee stage
Monday 1st September 2025 Lords Chamber

To finish, local area energy plans are crucial to a joined-up systems view of the energy transition, ensuring that we have the view from the ground to inform the national plan, and to have a properly joined-up view of energy systems governance—from local plans through to regional plans, right up to the strategic spatial energy plan to govern the system at a national level. In accepting this amendment, the Government would demonstrate their buy-in to the process and take a critical first step. By providing guidance, they could start to ensure that a coherent set of plans are being developed by local authorities. A funded programme and a technical adviser to ensure consistency and join-up could follow. This is a great opportunity for the Government to get energy planning moving at a local level and ensure coherence and systems join-up. I look forward to working with the Minister and the noble Earl on this.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, I offer my strongest possible support for Amendment 90 in the name of the noble Earl, Lord Russell, to which I have attached my name, and some slightly qualified support for Amendment 177, which we have just heard about from the noble Lord, Lord Ravensdale.

Coincidentally, and entirely without prompting from me, I started the day—rather a long time ago now—speaking to a senior civil servant. They said to me that they thought the great malaise of the UK was people’s lack of a sense of agency—a lack of ability to step up, take control and change what is around them and the direction of the country. This amendment, starting with the local and saying, “Here in your community you can democratically work through your council, local authority and combined authority to decide how to deliver your energy” is the perfect way to start to address those issues.

We are the most centralised polity in western Europe: power and resources are overwhelmingly concentrated here in Westminster. We have almost universal agreement that we have to have an energy transition. This is a major infrastructure element in all our lives, as we have been discussing this evening. We also must have a just transition, so that no community is left behind. Every community needs the opportunity to make plans for its energy future, and that is exactly what Amendment 90 seeks to achieve.

I note that a great deal of work and resources have been put into this over a long period of time. The Centre for Climate Engagement at the University of Cambridge, funded by Innovate UK under the Net Zero Living programme, is building on the work of the Skidmore review—we are talking about cross-party approaches across all Benches—which emphasised the importance of local government, leadership and place-based actions in dealing with the climate emergency.

This goes back a very long way. Green councillor Andrew Cooper, who was working through the European Committee of the Regions, got the UN COP process to acknowledge locally determined contributions. Everyone has heard of nationally determined contributions, but that was about locally determined contributions. Of course, the energy system is only part of this, but it is a very crucial part that impacts people’s lives and communities and on what they look like.

Your Lordships’ House has, in a very long wrestle with two successive Governments, finally got an acknowledgement of the importance of community energy. What I think we would see going forward is local authorities and combined authorities being very keen to encourage and support community energy. That of course is where we can see public support and financial returns growing. This is not about some giant multinational company coming and landing on your community, but about your community saying, “Right, how do we want to generate our energy?” That has to be the foundation.

I am broadly in favour of Amendment 177, but my question is around the weight and shape of the word “guidance”. We are talking about local energy plans, and anything provided from the centre should be support and not—as we see, for example, in planning and with housing allocations—direction. If it is indeed guidance, Amendment 177 is pointing us in the right direction. Together, these two amendments are crucial and I can see no reason for the Government not to accept them.

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab)]

My Lords, I support the amendment from the noble Lord, Lord Ravensdale, to which I have added my name. I am also very sympathetic to the amendment tabled by the noble Earl, Lord Russell.

The noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, raised a very interesting question about the centralisation of this country. In one sense, this Bill is about further centralisation when it comes to major infrastructure projects, which are so crucial to our growth. In essence, in the housing agenda, as well as with a lot of energy infrastructure projects, local government has not been very helpful and has been obstructive. If we believe that growth is a strategic aim of government, as I believe it to be, stronger central direction is vital. The question, however, is whether it can be complemented by local initiatives, which do indeed give local people ownership. That is where I agree with noble Baroness, Lady Bennett: community energy schemes are a fantastic way to leverage support from local people for the kinds of changes that we want to make to our energy infrastructure.

The noble Lord, Lord Ravensdale, obviously speaks with great authority as an energy expert, but he has also played a hugely important leading role in the Midlands Engine. He chaired the Midlands Energy Security Taskforce, which of course strongly supports local area energy plans.

When I was a Minister at DESNZ, I became very much aware of the potential of local community-based energy projects. I remember one visit to my own city of Birmingham, under the auspices of Footsteps: Faiths for a Low Carbon Future, when I met a number of local groups that were dedicated to community green energy projects but were seeking support from agencies at the centre to deliver something tangible. Interestingly, the MECC Trust, based in Balsall Heath, is hosting the launch by the Lord Mayor of Birmingham, in a couple of weeks’ time, of Birmingham’s first net-zero retrofit demonstrator community hub. The potential of hundreds of projects such as this, up and down the country, is very clear.

The amendment that the Government brought to the then Great British Energy Bill, which added projects involving or benefiting local communities to the crucial objective section, was very important. Great British Energy has made it clear that it will work with local energy groups, councils and mayors to fund and support community-led energy projects.

Noble Lords will be aware of recent decisions by some local authorities to roll back commitments in relation to net zero. Ironically, this is taking place as the scientific evidence of the impact of climate change becomes ever clearer. I do not think we can let this go by default. In essence, the noble Baroness asked: what does guidance mean? I think you really have to put the two together. I take the amendment of the noble Earl, Lord Russell, to be a statutory requirement on local authorities to encourage and develop local energy plans. I think that is really important now, in the light of some decisions being made by local authorities. Then, it seems to me, the guidance that we are suggesting fits into that structure.

I hope that the Government will be sympathetic to the need to make sure that local authorities do not pass up the opportunity to support local community energy groups.

Voting at 16

Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle Excerpts

Thursday 24th July 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Khan of Burnley (Lab)]

My Lords, I am just going to repeat the fact that there are places, both across the United Kingdom—Scotland and Wales, the Isle of Man, Jersey and Guernsey—and other places such as Austria, where they have successfully lowered the voting age to 16. Let me repeat this very important point to the noble Lord: evidence from these places shows that those who vote at a younger age are more likely to continue voting as they get older. We have 16 year-olds serving in the British Army. Regardless of the difference in ages that the noble Lord cited, we want to make sure that we get long-term habits enabled and established with young people, since the evidence shows that, later in life, they will be more focused on taking part.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, earlier this month, there was an absolutely inspiring event in the House, with lots of 16 and 17 year-olds and, indeed, younger students who were very keen, engaged and interested in voting. This was run by the Democracy Classroom network, the Politics Project and others, and it set out a road map to votes at 16. We need lots more political education right across our society. Most of the 16 year-olds I meet are as well prepared to vote as the 60 year-olds are, which is not to say that both cohorts do not need much more education. One point that was made at this event that I thought was really useful was about the importance of youth clubs and other informal organisations. We often talk about education in schools, but are the Government planning to ensure that resources are available also to youth clubs and other more informal organisations?

[Lord Khan of Burnley (Lab)]

My Lords, more widely, a programme of work, including engagement with the Electoral Commission, local authorities, think tanks, academic and civil society organisations, is being done to identify the barriers to participation, along with potential interventions to tackle those barriers. This programme of work addresses issues around participation in our democracy, including participation in elections both by those not on the register and those registered but not voting. I am happy to speak to various stakeholders and listen to the views of young people, who are the most important in this aspect.

Planning and Infrastructure Bill

Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle Excerpts

Committee stage
Thursday 17th July 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Miller of Chilthorne Domer (LD)]

My Lords, I support my noble friend Lady Pinnock’s amendment. Pre-application consultation, as she correctly said, not only gives communities a chance to shape proposals but can speed up things further down the line. It is not necessarily a delaying factor.

The noble Baroness, Lady Neville-Rolfe, just raised an interesting issue in that we do not know what the delaying factor is. Is it the statutory consultees, far more than the communities, for example, that are part of the delaying factor? Given the scale of the Government’s ambition, quite rightly, to develop housing and the accompanying infrastructure, and to make master plans to do that, it is much better to take the community along with you. If the community already feels left behind because it is cut out at the very first stage, which is what the Bill does, then however many nice words may be said later by the development corporations or so on, that is not really going to cut much ice. Therefore, the amendments tabled by my noble friend are particularly important.

I also really do not like the fact that, even if communities and the public have made some responses, there is no requirement for the people doing the development to take that into account. Again, that is a very disempowering issue, which undermines the whole democratic basis of our planning system.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, I offer my strong support for the entire presentation from the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, and her amendments. I cannot top her example of unknown mines underground, but the example that I was thinking of is on a much smaller scale, and it addresses the point raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Neville-Rolfe. She said that those mines, et cetera—the physical infrastructure—should be on the record; I think we all know that very often they are not.

However, there is also the question of the local community and how it works, which is never going to be written down. The example that I was thinking of comes from central London, from Camden borough. I was at a meeting where the council came along very excitedly with the idea that it was going to knock down a community centre, build housing, and build a new community centre on what most people from the outside thought were some pretty unpleasant, small, raggedy corner shops—a little row of shops which you get typically in suburban areas. The council officers and the local councillors were visibly astonished when local people, mostly elderly, were up in arms and horrified about the idea of those shops being demolished. They said, “We’re not mobile enough to get to Camden High Street and we’re scared of the traffic on Camden High Street and the speed at which it goes. Even though these shops are probably both very expensive and don’t have a great range of goods, et cetera, we hugely value them”. That is just a small-scale example of how only communities themselves know the way in which they work. If they had had input earlier on, there would not have been lots of very angry pensioners at that meeting, as we saw.

Amendment 107 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Miller, is really important and picks up the use of technology, and potentially its positive use, and sets out rules for it. Again, I am afraid that my next example is also from Camden, because that is where lots of my planning stories come from. The Crick centre was imposed on the local community—I declare a retrospective interest in that I was the chair of the St Pancras and Somers Town Planning Action committee that opposed it, a long time ago. When it was finally built, people said, “But that doesn’t look anything like what the pictures looked like”. I think that is something that we are all extremely familiar with. The idea of creating some standards and rules—they already exist, but we should put them into statute—seems an extremely good one.

[Lord Jamieson (Con)]

My Lords, first, my apologies: I should have mentioned my interest as a councillor in central Bedfordshire earlier in the debate.

I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, for her leadership on this important group of amendments. Clause 4 systematically removes several pre-application requirements. I will focus first on Amendment 25, tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock. This amendment seeks to retain Section 47 of the Planning Act: the duty to consult the local community. Can the Minister clarify the Government’s position? Ministers have previously stated that the Bill does not in any way reduce local democratic input. If that is the case, can the Minister explain why the duty to consult communities is being removed? How did the Government arrive at the decision to remove Section 47 of the Planning Act, as my noble friend Lady Neville-Rolfe raised, and what are the specific problems they are trying to resolve in doing so?

We know from experience that when local communities are given genuine influence over planning through mechanisms such as neighbourhood plans, they are often more supportive of new housing and infrastructure—we have heard cases from the noble Baronesses, Lady Pinnock and Lady Bennett, where the local input added significant value—especially when it reflects local needs such as affordable housing, safeguards green space or comes with vital local infrastructure improvements. Indeed, neighbourhood plans introduced under the Localism Act 2011 have in many cases led to more housing being approved rather than less. This suggests that working with communities delivers better outcomes.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab)]

My Lords, I support the noble Lord, Lord Ravensdale, on his Amendment 46. On Amendment 46A, I would be very surprised if the Secretary of State did not take account of EDPs. From the provision that the noble Baroness, Lady Coffey, read out, the Secretary of State clearly has the power to do so.

On Amendment 46, we partly return to the role of regulators. There is a perverse output of regulators making it difficult to achieve net-zero targets, which I find very difficult. Some regulators find it difficult to go wider than the very narrow remit that they seem to work under. One of the questions to the Government is: do they really think it will make a difference? It is easy to make fun of bats or acoustic fish deterrents, but it is fair to ask whether, as a result of this legislation, we will see an end to the ludicrous behaviour of regulators, which has cost so much money, delayed projects by so much time and, as we know, achieved absolutely zilch for conservation or nature preservation. Ultimately, that is the test.

It seems that the regulators do not come under enough challenge on their performance. Somehow, we need to put some mechanisms in the Bill to ensure that the regulators come under the microscope much more on how they behave and that they are held accountable. That is why the amendment is very well judged.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, I will chiefly offer support to Amendment 46A from the noble Baroness, Lady Coffey.

In response to the challenge from the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, who said that of course the Government would not do this, I am afraid that we hear that very often in your Lordships’ House. The noble Lord may be speaking for his own Government, but we are making law for potential future Governments, and we cannot know how they will behave. That is a reason to put Amendment 46A in the Bill.

I respond to the speeches of the noble Lords, Lord Ravensdale and Lord Hunt, with a little reminder that we are one of the most nature-depleted corners of this battered planet. If our regulators have not succeeded in doing the job they should have done in protecting nature, the answer is not to take away more power from the regulators. By all means, make them work better. As the noble Baroness, Lady Coffey, said, we will undoubtedly discuss this at great length in relation to Part 3, but the Bill currently takes away an enormous amount of protection for nature, which is a huge problem.

In talking about Amendments 46 and 46A, I will refer to Defra’s own words from a blog post in 2025 that, we can assume, represents the Government’s view. It starts with a statement with which I can only agree:

“Nature is the bedrock of our entire way of life”.


As I often put it, the economy is a complete subset of the environment; none of the economy exists without a healthy environment. That blog seeks to defend the nature restoration fund, the environment delivery plans and all the other steps that this Government are introducing. You might say that the blog post is a little too vehement for its own good and that its tone sounds extremely defensive. None the less, we can all think of examples of where the Government have, on the one hand, done something for nature, but, on the other, done enormous damage with other policies.

One of the obvious examples that comes to mind here is peat. Peatland is terribly important for nature and for climate. Large amounts of money are spent on restoring peatlands. We also have continued use of the land for driven grouse shooting and the burning of large amounts of peat causing great damage—and continual horticultural use of peat. So we have the Government trying to expensively restore something while continuing to allow the destruction of it. That is why this needs to be in the Bill. I could give many more examples, but given the hour I will not, of where the Government are, in essence, facing in two directions at once and nature is torn down the middle as a result.

[Lord Berkeley (Lab)]

My Lords, the amendment from the noble Lord, Lord Ravensdale, is a very good amendment, but it refers only to low-carbon energy infrastructure. Of course, he is an expert in that, and that is fine. The comments made by him, my noble friend Lord Hunt and the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, referred to a much wider subject: are regulators a good thing or not and are we controlling them? To say that we want to make changes to the regulations on low-carbon energy infrastructure without looking at others means we are missing something. We have big problems with many regulators, but it should be a consistent policy. It needs to be done on a much more scientific and level playing field rather than it being just something which relates to whether we think what they are doing is a good thing or a bad thing. I do not think that is the right way to look forward. Maybe when the noble Lord comes to wind up, he can explain why the amendment refers just to low-carbon energy infrastructure.

--- Later in debate ---

For what it is worth, I am generally supportive of my noble friend Lord Banner’s proposals. I have to say that, if Amendment 52 were ever put to a Division, I would be in a different Lobby from the good former Minister, the noble Lord, Lord Hunt.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, briefly, I feel that the discussion of this potentially extraordinarily far-reaching group of amendments has a different perspective from that of those I often work with—the environmental groups, human rights groups and groups representing disadvantaged communities that are bringing judicial reviews. The perspective I approach this from is how incredibly expensive and difficult judicial reviews are and how often they fail, even when, according to measures of common sense at least, they should have succeeded. That is very much where I come from.

The Committee does not just have to listen to me on this. We saw, particularly after the judicial review over the Prorogation of Parliament, a great deal of debate about judicial review. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Reed of Allermuir, the President of the Supreme Court, was quoted in the Law Society Gazette of March 2020:

“Judges are very well aware of the risk of challenges being brought in what are political rather than legal grounds. They are repelling them and are careful to avoid straying into what are genuine political matters. When this is a matter that is to be considered it should not start from the premise that judges are eager to pronounce on political issues. The true position is actually quite the opposite”.


We have a system of judicial review that very often does not work to defend the powerless in our society, and that of course includes nature as well as people. Yet it is there as a final backstop, and sometimes it works—sometimes it does protect those people—and so it is crucial that we maintain it.

I commend the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, for his ingenuity. This single amendment has possibly the largest legal consequences I have ever seen, as I think the noble Lord, Lord Banner, set out for us very clearly and with vastly more expertise than I can offer.

I say to the noble Lord, Lord Banner, that if we are thinking about trying to speed up judicial review, which in principle is not something that I have any problem with, one thing that undoubtedly slows it down is inequality of arms. Small community groups and environmental groups face a massive inequality of arms; it is very hard for them to go fast, because they just do not have the resources. They have to wait until the crowdfunder has raised some more money before they can keep going. Perhaps dealing with that inequality of arms would be good for the efficiency of decision-making in our society.

None the less, it is fairly self-evident, but, for the avoidance of doubt, I will say that I am strongly opposed to the approach being taken in this group of amendments.

[Baroness Pinnock (LD)]

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, has brought before us his own Bill. It is worthy to stand alone and provoke a significant discussion about how different procedures could deal with large-scale infrastructure applications. I am not in a position to know whether it would work or not. It is an attempt to provide an alternative, and I am looking forward to the Minister, with all the civil servants behind her, being able to explain why it will or will not work.

I always start from a different starting point, which is that, first, we are a small island. Comparing us with Canada and its vast expanse, or even with France, which is significantly geographically larger than the United Kingdom with a similar population, makes for poor comparisons.

That is the first of the challenges anyone in this country has with large-scale infrastructure. The second is this. No case was made to people about the benefits to them from either of the large-scale infrastructure projects that have been mentioned, HS2 and the A303. HS2 was never about shaving 10 minutes off a journey between London and Birmingham or 20 minutes off a journey to Leeds—though it will never get there. It was never about that. It was about congestion on the railways, but that case was never made. So it is no surprise when the public do not respond to the project in that way. Why are we going through the destruction of our villages and favoured landscapes for the sake of 20 minutes? That was the argument. You have to make the case and the case is not being made. It was the same with the A303 and various other major projects. That seems to me to be a difficulty.

I take issue with the noble Lord, Lord Ravensdale, using the word “radical”. That word is always used by developers when they want something that the rest of us do not want. We might want its outcome, but we do not like what it is going to do to our environment. I think we have to try harder.

As for the noble Viscount, Lord Hanworth, calling planning “sclerotic”, this element of infrastructure planning is very difficult, but let us not label the whole of the planning process as sclerotic. Local planning authorities do not hold up development; the statistics demonstrate that. The issue is with infrastructure planning. That is why the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, has brought forward his alternative procedure for it. Whether or not that would work, I will leave to others with more detailed backing from the civil servants to decide.

The issue with planning applications, big or small, is always that if you do not involve the public and tell them what it is for, what it will do and what the downsides are, you set yourself up for a big fight, and that is what happens. As for the judicial review, what do I know about it except that it seems to go on for ever and achieve nothing—and costs a lot of money as well. If you resort to the legal process to resolve applications which should be decided between elected people and the community, you are never going to get an answer. I look forward to the reply and a judgment on this one.

Planning and Infrastructure Bill

Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle Excerpts

2nd reading
Wednesday 25th June 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Earl, Lord Caithness. I have a sense of déjà vu, thinking back to when the noble Earl and I were working to get a focus on soil health in the Environment Bill, now Act, when the noble Earl was acting to push his own Government in the right direction.

I declare my position as a vice-president of the Local Government Association. I am the first member of the Green group in your Lordships’ House to speak, so I note that in the other place the Green MPs voted against the Bill at Third Reading. That was not because they did not think there were good elements in it, but there is so much damage being done to nature—and hence, as many noble Lords have said, to human health and well-being and to the state of the nation—that they could not support the progress of the Bill. I thought it was important to set out the position that we start from.

In the Minister’s introductory speech, we heard a couple of the central misconceptions that underpin the reasons why the Government’s approach more generally in the Bill will simply not work. It will be counterproductive. The noble Lord spoke with some glee about new roads. Well, we know that new roads simply create new traffic. You cannot build your way out of a traffic jam; all you do is create more traffic jams. The noble Lord spoke about the safe and decent homes the Bill is supposed to deliver. As the noble Lord, Lord Crisp, just said—and many others have said—what our large handful of mass housebuilders are building is anything but that. If people have not seen it, I point them to the article in the New Statesman this month about some of the absolutely awful and incredibly expensive homes that have been built in the Prime Minister’s own constituency that the owners are not able to get sorted out.

To pick up the points made by the noble Baroness, Lady Willis of Summertown, and many others, the health of nature is the health of human beings—we human animals living on this fragile planet in this terribly nature-depleted country. Speaking up for nature is speaking up for humans. As the noble Lord, Lord Crisp, just said, if we are going to have a healthy economy, we need healthy humans. We are speaking up for the economy, ultimately.

The Bill is disastrous for nature. I go to the briefing of the Wildlife and Countryside Link, but there are many briefings pointing out how the Bill undermines vital legal protections for nature. It is environmentally regressive and reduces the level of environmental protection provided by existing law.

I could take the rest of my time going through a very long list of the issues I want to address, but that would be a little dull. I will focus on a couple of points that help illustrate my general point that nature and human well-being are tied together.

We need to take a One Health approach to the Bill. I point to a briefing from the Sustainable Nitrogen Alliance, which says that the proposed environmental delivery plans will be insufficient to tackle nitrogen overloading. We need an integrated approach to nitrogen pollution that addresses, in addition to development, the impacts of intensive agriculture and wastewater and the risk of pollution swapping.

Coming back to my point about health, I go to UNEP, which notes that ammonia emissions, as well as contributing to climate change, are an important driver of fine particulate matter pollution, which reduces air quality and has increasing adverse effects on human health. I spent last weekend, in my leisure time, on a two-day course: the Field Studies Council’s introduction to lichens. I can highly recommend that to noble Lords. Any noble Lords who stand still too long in the Dining Room may find themselves bailed up by me to talk about that more. It was striking how much the tutor kept saying, “Well, you won’t find this or that wonderful species here. Everything is covered in nitrogen”. That is what our country is like. It is a human health issue as well as an issue for lichens.

In the other place, Sarah Champion MP talked about the right to grow. That is really crucial for human health; allotments and similar spaces are great for nature as well. I will mention the issue of landfill—historic and current—and the human health impacts of that; and Zane’s law is something noble Lords will be hearing more from me on. But I want to mention something that might be able to be cleaned up now before we get to that point. The Badger Trust points out that in Schedule 6, there are amendments that significantly undermine protections for badgers without improving the situation in any way for housebuilders. I hope we might be able to clean that up before Committee, so we will not have to dig through that detail.

Renters’ Rights Bill

Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle Excerpts

Wednesday 14th May 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, it is a great pleasure and privilege to follow the noble Baronesses. They are clearly very powerful advocates for private rental tenants, who very much need them.

I will speak specifically to Amendment 257, to which my noble friend Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb attached her name; it having passed the lark hour, we are now into the Green owl hour of the evening. Before I do that, I want to mention that the noble Baroness, Lady Kennedy, made a hugely powerful argument on the inequality of arms in the rental tribunal. The judgment level the noble Baroness suggested is clearly the right one.

I will mostly speak to Amendment 257 which, as the noble Baroness, Lady Thornhill, clearly outlined, would enable the tribunal to make a rental repayment order where a landlord has failed to join a landlord redress scheme or have active entries in the private rented sector database. This is a simple and clear process in which the tenant can get what they are owed when the landlord has failed.

In preparing for this, I had a look at the Citizens Advice website and the advice it provides for tenants. It is telling that there has been real progress on some issues—for example, recovering rental deposits—in the past decade or so, but there are still far too many cases where renters are left stranded. People are in situations where they are left homeless or desperately trying to find a new rental property. Do they have the time, energy or resources to chase, go through the courts and take all of the procedures that they need to? This approach has worked well for tenancy deposit schemes. Renters get their money back from the landlord and all landlords know they need to register deposits or else pay the price. This is a proven system; it is a case of extending a proven system to deliver justice. Both the non-government amendments in this group are terribly important.

--- Later in debate ---

Moved by

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle]

259: Clause 134, Page 155, line 27, at end insert—
“Energy Act 2011”Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment gives authorities the power to use this data to enforce minimum energy efficiency standards.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, on behalf of my noble friend Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb, I will move Amendment 259, a three-word amendment that provides argument for the value of explanatory statements. As this explanatory statement says, the addition of “Energy Act 2011” would give local authorities

“the power to use this data”—

about home energy efficiency—

“to enforce minimum energy efficiency standards”.

As we have discussed often on this Bill, many renters are stuck in cold, damp, leaky homes. Sometimes there are very simple and cheap fixes, such as adding or topping-up loft insulation. Sometimes they are more complicated and challenging fixes, such as insulating solid wall properties. This amendment gives local authorities the power to obtain and use energy efficiency information to help private renters. This could allow housing officers to support tenants in the most poorly insulated homes or, importantly, it could support councils to develop the street-by-street insulation programmes that can bring economies of scale and support widespread installation of insulation.

The case study is quite an old but lovely one. In Kirklees, a Green councillor, Andrew Cooper, was one of the driving forces behind a street-by-street insulation programme. The noble Lord, Lord Cameron of Chipping Norton, claimed credit for it, which may be the first time that we have seen a Green achievement being so claimed. I saw reports on how that worked out afterwards. One of the things that really came through was how much people are concerned about cowboy builders, which might be true of landlords as well as tenants, but that they trust their local authorities. That street-by-street process works well, but to make that happen you need the data. That is what this modest amendment is designed to achieve. It builds on the positive Clause 134, which will give local authorities more data to support tenants and take enforcement action against failing landlords.

Given the hour, I will leave the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, to explain Amendment 274, which is related to this. I hope that the Minister can set out—briefly, given the hour—how the Government plan to ramp up support for domestic energy efficiency, especially for private renters. As we have just heard, so many are in vulnerable situations. Given the cost of living crisis, this is often seen as an environmental measure, but it is a crucial anti-poverty measure. We need to make this as easy and simple for local authorities to achieve as possible. I beg to move.

[Baroness Hayman (CB)]

My Lords, I declare my interests as a previous chair of Peers for the Planet and a director of that organisation. I will speak to my Amendment 274, which is supported by the noble Baroness, Lady Penn, who cannot be in the Chamber this evening. It continues the theme of energy efficiency that the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, has just spoken about on her Amendment 259. She dealt specifically with the issue of data on energy efficiency. I wish to contribute particularly on the issue of financing energy-efficiency measures. This is the first time that I have spoken in Committee on this Bill, mainly because of my interaction with the Minister and her officials in the run-up to it, during which several issues were clarified very helpfully.

The issue of improving energy efficiency in the private rented sector has been discussed at length and on multiple occasions in this House. I hope that the current consultation will go some way to address the lack of coherent and consistent long-term policy certainty in this area, because it has suffered from stop-go and from changes of administrations and forms of assistance that have been incoherent and stopped us making progress. Of course, one of the main issues preventing progress in this area is funding, so my amendment seeks to break through some of the barriers to progress by requiring the Government to publish a road map on how private finance initiatives could be scaled up to support the funding of energy-efficiency measures.

Other speakers in the Committee have pointed out the problems that exist because of the quality of the stock in the private rented sector. As the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Manchester pointed out, nearly half the housing stock in the private rented sector has an EPC rating below C. Although fuel poverty has fallen 35% among owner-occupiers and 54% among council tenants since 2010, it has fallen only 4% for private renters. Their homes are still disproportionately damp and cold, causing both short- and long-term health issues, with higher bills adding insult to injury. Of course, this is an issue where we should take action not only because of the need to help people in this situation but because of the detrimental effects this has on our achievement of net zero and improving our energy security.

However, while there has been widespread agreement about the value of improving energy efficiency, finance has always been an obstacle to progress. The costs of improving the quality of housing will be substantial, as others have said, given where we are starting from, and it is not realistic to expect the Government to foot the bill in its entirety, nor to put intolerable burdens on landlords. We need to find a way to finance these improvements that will work for tenants, landlords and the public purse. I recognise that the Government are doing some work on this and looking at how barriers can be overcome. The green home finance accelerator fund, due to end in June, has a number of projects looking specifically at rented properties and a number of pilot schemes. I would like to hear from the Minister what steps the Government plan to take in response to what they are learning from the experience of the fund and to what timetable they will be working.

There is also a growing number of innovative private sector finance mechanisms that deserve serious attention. As the UK Sustainable Investment and Finance Association recently reported, the high upfront costs of installing energy-efficient technologies remain the biggest challenge for landlords, and ensuring that there is private capital to support this process, and investment to help drive down the costs of energy efficiency, is paramount. To meet this challenge, a number of policy proposals have been made that my amendment would prompt the Government to consider. The UK Green Building Council, for example, has proposed a warm home stamp duty incentive, where stamp duty would be adjusted up or down depending on the EPC of a property and a rebate would be triggered within two years of purchase if the energy efficiency of the home had been improved.

The Local Government Association has recently recommended that the Government should incentivise landlords through tax rebates. France has added energy efficiency improvements to the list of deductible costs of managing a property, such as legal fees or insurance. Within the UK, Scotland has introduced low-interest loans for landlords. Such loans could be linked to the property, rather than the individual, for which there is the precedent of the interest-free loans that were available to install renewables.

Property-linked finance has been deployed in several other countries, and these are all measures that deserve serious consideration by the Government. They could cut through the Gordian knot of all agreeing that a great deal needs to be done but no one being able to see how it could be financed.

I hope that when the Minister responds, she will provide a little more detail on the Government’s thinking in this area, particularly on ways of incentivising landlords and how the Government intend to make progress in an area about which much has been said but too little has been done.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Baronesses, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb and Lady Hayman, for their amendments relating to minimum energy efficiency standards, and the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett—who I think described herself as the Green night owl—the noble Baroness Lady Grender and the noble Lord, Lord Jamieson, for contributing to the debate.

I turn first to Amendment 259 in the name of noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb. This amendment would allow information given to local authorities by tenancy deposit scheme administrators to be used by local authorities for a purpose connected with their functions under the Energy Act 2011, including enforcement against breaches of minimum energy efficiency standards under the Energy Efficiency (Private Rented Property) (England and Wales) Regulations 2015. I reassure the Committee that local authorities are already equipped to enforce the private rented sector minimum energy efficiency standard of an EPC rating of E.

In February, a consultation was published to amend regulations and raise energy efficiency standards in the private rented sector, addressing fuel poverty and carbon emissions. The consultation proposes that local authorities will be empowered to issue fines of up to £30,000 for non-compliance with the new minimum energy efficiency standards in the private rented sector. To respond to the point from the noble Baroness, Lady Grender, officials from the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero are exploring support for enforcement in collaboration with stakeholders, including local authorities.

Local authorities often identify non-compliance during other property engagements and can take appropriate action. A local authority may issue a compliance notice to a landlord suspected of breaching the energy standard. If the landlord fails to comply, the authority has the power to issue a penalty notice. Of course, I recognise the value that data plays in aiding enforcement, which is why we have widened access to information for other enforcement purposes through the Bill. For these reasons, I ask the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, on behalf of the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb, to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 274, from the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, would require the Secretary of State to publish a road map for scaling up private finance initiatives to support the funding of energy-efficiency improvements in privately rented homes within six months of the passage of the Bill. I strongly support improvements to energy efficiency in privately rented homes. The Government have pledged to take action to stand with tenants and deliver the safety and security of warmer, cheaper homes. In February, we published our consultation on improving energy-efficiency standards in the private rented sector in England and Wales. The consultation closed on 2 May. We are analysing the responses and expect to publish a government response later this year.

I appreciate the intention behind the amendment, as we recognise the important role that private finance will play in supporting the private rented sector to meet the proposed energy-efficiency standards. We are currently considering the consultation feedback and options to further support landlords to make the necessary improvements to their property. I believe that the amendment is not necessary as the information on support, including private finance to fund energy-efficiency improvements in privately rented homes, will be available shortly.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for her response and everyone who has taken part in this short debate, which was marked by a remarkably strong degree of agreement. Everyone agrees that home energy efficiency is something on which we really need to take vital action. I was reminded of a stat, which I learned probably a dozen years ago, that British homes were, in terms of energy efficiency, the second worst in Europe, behind Lithuania. I am not quite sure how Lithuania has done in those 12 years since then, but I know that we have made very little progress.

I will briefly pick up a couple of technical points. The noble Lord, Lord Jamieson, and the Minister both talked about local authorities having enforcement powers or, indeed, enhanced enforcement powers. But you can take enforcement only when you have the information—the data—that enables you to know when to take action. Just guessing which might be the homes that are not great is not a really effective way to proceed.

I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Grender, for the Lib Dem support for this amendment and also for embracing Kirklees. Everyone wants to embrace Kirklees, and really where we want to get to is a situation where we can embrace every town and city in the country with the same kind of project, particularly with those street to street-type arrangements.

I have one final comment. The noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, spoke about long-term policy certainty, which reminded me of going—I think it was in 2012—to the Insulate UK presentation. It was the insulation industry’s annual expo, and the whole industry was shutting down because the funding had disappeared. That boom-bust, boom-bust has been an enormous problem. We have not mentioned this yet, but, of course, we are talking also about huge numbers of opportunities, particularly for small independent businesses in every town and city up and down the land, if we find the funding and if we find the data and the push to make it happen.

I reserve the right to come back to this to look technically at the details, but in the meantime, of course, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 259 withdrawn.

Renters’ Rights Bill

Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle Excerpts

Monday 12th May 2025 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle]

206: After Clause 63, insert the following new Clause—
“Mediated rent pauses (housing conditions)(1) This section applies where—(a) there is a tenancy to which section 9A of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1985 applies;(b) it appears to the tenant that the landlord has breached the covenant implied by that section; and(c) it appears to the tenant that the landlord has failed to carry out works necessary to remedy any such breaches within the timeframes set out in regulations made by the Secretary of State under section 10A(3) of that Act.(2) A tenant is entitled to make arrangements to pay rent to an independent individual, rather than to the relevant landlord.(3) The independent individual must not pass any rent paid under subsection (2) to the landlord until there has been a determination or agreement between the landlord and tenant as to the landlord’s liability for any breach of the covenant implied by section 9A of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1985.(4) Where a determination or agreement under subsection (3) sets a time by which works are to be completed, the independent individual will—(a) release any rent paid under subsection (2) to the landlord if the works are completed by that time;(b) release any rent paid under subsection (2) back to the tenant if the works have not been completed by that time.(5) In this section an “independent individual” means the independent individual responsible for investigating complaints made against members of a landlord redress scheme under section 65.”

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, all the bright-eyed and bushy-tailed Members of the House who are still here at 12.47 am will note that I am not the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb. My noble friend is the Green lark, and I am the Green owl, so you get me after midnight.

I agree with the comments of the noble Baroness, Lady Williams of Trafford. The hashtag I often use is #Nowaytorunacountry. I take the systematic approach to this and suggest that your Lordships’ House urgently needs to think about a reset of our sitting hours.

I rise to move Amendment 206 in the name of my noble friend. This is a very straightforward, positive, friendly amendment aiming to assist the Government to ensure that this legislation can be enforced and can make a real difference. We know that so many renters are trapped in mouldy homes with leaking roofs and heating and hot water systems that are not working. When renters find themselves in those kinds of situations, this amendment would give them the right to pay the rent to a third-party body. My noble friend Lady Jones has suggested the new ombudsman, but we are very open to other suggestions as well. There are other ways of doing it. The amendment is written in a neutral way.

This is to deal with the situation where a landlord refuses to carry out essential repairs, yet the tenant is in a situation where they still have to keep paying for this utterly inadequate accommodation. The arrangements under this amendment would be that, if a landlord carries out the works and ameliorates the problems, the independent third-party would send them the full amount of rent due. If not, the tenant could get a full or partial refund, which they might well otherwise have to go to court to try to recover.

This is both a fair and an effective provision. It punishes the bad landlords and does not impact on the good ones. From the Government’s point of view, this is a constructive suggestion to help make sure that this legislation delivers on its stated aims. With those brief remarks, I beg to move.

[Baroness Coffey (Con)]

My Lords, this in effect creates a formal escrow process. One of my proudest achievements was to organise a student rent strike, admittedly some time ago, as noble Lords may recognise. At the time, the university accommodation was due to be dismantled at the end of the year and as a consequence it felt like the university was not taking various matters very seriously.

I happened not to be a paying student at the time; I was a vice-warden in a hall of residence. So I did help them, but I insisted that, if I was to help them, they would have to pay over their rent to avoid being evicted. We did that by handing the money to the student union, to effectively act in escrow. As a consequence, repairs were made and everyone ended up happy—apart from the university, which did not like my role in that at all.

The reason I tell that story is that it matters that tenants should be able to withhold cash going directly to a landlord when the landlord is, frankly, taking the mickey. Awaab’s law has already been mentioned and Clause 63, which we did not specifically address, is already extending that to the private sector, and I welcome that. We need to work out a much easier way for people to effectively deploy this escrow approach. That is why I am supporting the amendment.

It is fair to say that we need to make sure that any such processes are easy to administer. Going a little bit further, there is a regularly read out statistic that something like 15% to 20% of housing benefit—or housing support, whether as direct housing benefit or through universal credit—is thought to go to properties not deemed fit for rent. I went into a reasonable amount of detail on this with officials.

The philosophy explained to me by the Permanent Secretary and other officials was that the state thus far should not determine on behalf of the renter where they are going to live; it is an important right for the renter to make that choice—even though it felt repulsive to me that taxpayers’ money was being spent in, frankly, some pretty ropey places. From my visits to some different housing, I have to say it was quite extraordinary what was going on. Sometimes, I am afraid, the dilapidation was the consequence of the tenant not allowing repairs to be undertaken—but that is a minor aside. The point is that—whether it is private money, your own money or the state’s money going to a private landlord—it matters that we have habitable accommodation. Therefore, I strongly support the amendment from the noble Baroness.

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb, for tabling Amendment 206, ably supported by the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, who moved it, and I thank the noble Baronesses, Lady Coffey and Lady Scott, for taking part in the debate.

Amendment 206 would allow a tenant to pay rent to the ombudsman rather than their landlord if the landlord had failed to meet legal requirements on housing quality. I strongly agree with the desire of the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, to ensure that landlords remedy hazards in good time—we all know the outcome when that does not happen—but I feel that the Bill’s existing provisions are the best way to achieve that. The Bill will allow private rented sector tenants to challenge their landlord through the courts if they fail to comply with the Awaab’s law requirements, such as timescales for remedying hazards. Alongside that, it will allow us to apply the decent homes standard to the private rented sector, which is an important move.

The PRS landlord ombudsman will provide a new route of redress for tenants and will be able to investigate complaints about standards and repairs. The Bill will also strengthen rent repayment orders, including by increasing from 12 months to two years the amount of rent that a tribunal will be able to award a tenant. Tenants can seek rent to be repaid where a relevant offence has been committed, including offences related to housing standards, such as failing to comply with an improvement notice.

The amendment has the potential to be administratively complex and risks unintended consequences that might lead inadvertently to worse outcomes for tenants. For example, rent being held by the ombudsman could delay repairs in some cases if it made it more difficult for landlords to fund the required works, a point that I believe the noble Baroness, Lady Scott, referred to. Existing measures in the Bill place legal expectations on landlords about the quality of their properties and give tenants access to compensation if their landlords have not met obligations in relation to standards, as well as providing mechanisms through which landlords can be required to carry out repairs. I therefore ask the noble Baroness to withdraw the amendment.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for her response, and those who have taken part in this short but perfectly formed debate. I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Coffey, in particular for her support for the amendment. It is something we might come back to and look at the working of down the track. I also thank her for the fascinating tale of student days which, I think, took many of us back to our own student days. I think there was an expression of support from the noble Baroness, Lady Scott, for the intention if not the exact drafting of the amendment. I would stress that we are not wedded to the precise drafting, as we are in Committee; we would be delighted to work on the detail of the drafting as we go forward.

In response to the Minister’s response, I am afraid there is a phrase that I am sure is in the Civil Service handbook: “inadvertent consequences”. That seems to be the response that every Minister gives. More substantively, what the Minister said is that tenants can challenge through the courts and appeal to the ombudsman, and orders for action can be done. Those are all things that have differential levels of access depending on people’s capacity, people’s awareness, people’s ability to access those things—their time and energy and costs. The action proposed by this Amendment 206, however, is a really straightforward and simple way to give tenants the power to have control and agency for themselves, not relying on other bodies.

Having said all that, this is of course Committee, and I beg leave to withdraw the amendment while reserving the ability to come back on Report.

Amendment 206 withdrawn.