Planning and Infrastructure Bill

Debate between Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle and Lord Berkeley of Knighton

Committee stage
Monday 15th September 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, I give the Green group’s strongest possible support for all the amendments in this group. I am pleased to say that my noble friend Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb is recovering well from her operation last week.

If there is one amendment that my noble friend will regret not being here for, it is Amendment 212 on swift bricks. She is very passionate about swifts, and is it any wonder? These amazing creatures, with their top speed of 110 kilometres per hour, travelling 5,500 kilometres each way for their migrations, are long-distance athletes. They are making that journey, and then finding nowhere to raise their young. That is the reality of what we, by our actions, have created. Of course, they are now red-listed.

The noble Lord, Lord Randall, has already set this out very clearly and carefully, and the other noble Baronesses have already said a lot. I just note that, when we debated a very similar amendment to what is now the Levelling-up and Regeneration Act, the noble Baroness, Lady Taylor of Stevenage, then on the Opposition Benches, said that she was “delighted” to see the amendment from the noble Lord, Lord Goldsmith, that it was

“justified because of the unique nature of these precious birds’ nesting habits ”.—[Official Report, 6/9/23; col. 541.]

and that it had the Labour Party’s full support. Can we get to there, please? This is such a small measure. Why not? It is such a tiny action and a small cost. Yet, if you are a swift, this is not a small thing. This is a matter of life or extinction.

The other amendments are on other things we need to do, but there is a lot of discussion that the situation of swifts is unique. I fully back the hedgehog highways, the gaps in fences and other simple things, but swift bricks are just so simple.

Amendment 225, which was clearly introduced by the noble Baroness, is on bird-safe buildings. The British Trust for Ornithology has done a great deal of work on this, estimating that 100 million birds crash into the windows of buildings in the UK each year. One-third die as a result. That is a huge toll that is almost invisible. Back in 2022, the BTO did some research looking at local planning rules and essentially, there is no protection in any of our major cities and communities.

I will take noble Lords back to a case study that illustrates what happens on a day-to-day basis. It happened in a single day, so it really made an impact. Back in 2023 in Chicago, as a result of citizen science efforts, all the sad carcasses of more than 1,000 birds that had flown into one building in the US were collected. You may recall the pictures; a huge array of bird bodies was laid out. As was set out then, some very simple measures would have stopped that happening—the measures this amendment calls for.

Amendment 227GA is in my name and has considerable similarities to the amendment introduced by the noble Baroness, Lady Parminter, but perhaps goes a little further. It says that, within 18 months of this Act coming into force—I am allowing more time because this is much broader than what we need for swifts—regulations under the Building Act should be brought in to protect, and to ensure

“opportunities for living and feeding space for nature, mammals, birds, reptiles and insects”.

I also talk about the need for resources for plants.

The inspiration for this is probably not unique, but fairly unusual. It comes from an exhibition now on—I urge noble Lords to go and see it—at the Design Museum. It is called “More than Human” and is the first major exhibition of a growing movement of more than human design: a new generation of designers who understand that humans can flourish only alongside other activities and systems. It is part of the future observatory, the Design Museum’s national research programme for the green transition.

Let me give one example. There is a piece of artwork by Andres Jaque, “Transspecies Rosette”. It is a piece of a façade of a building made of cork, which is ideal for mosses, grasses, bacteria and mould. Normally, the façade of a building is designed to be impermeable—to stop anything growing and to keep everything out. What if we turned that around, and started to think about what a different kind of society would look like? I will very briefly mention “Sculpture for Octopuses” by Shimabuku, who experimented to see what colours octopuses liked and made artwork as a result.

I will conclude with a recollection from my youth. In 1988 I was a young journalist, and some Australians were marking the bicentenary of the start of the genocide of the Aboriginal people and the massive destruction of the environment of Australia that followed. The Australian parliament building was opened, but it was bogong moth migration season, and almost immediately the building filled up with bogong moths. No one had thought about this. They had brought in British western design traditions, plonked them down in Australia, and that was the result. So many decades later, the bogong moth, which the Aboriginal communities had feasted on over centuries—they had eaten them but also protected them—is now on the IUCN red list. It is gravely endangered. Something that, only decades ago, existed in great numbers is now threatened with extinction. We have to stop making buildings that have that kind of impact.

[Lord Berkeley of Knighton (CB)]

My Lords, I will be even swifter than the noble Lord, Lord Randall. There are some good ideas in these amendments. If we can protect bats in the belfry and great crested newts in the pond, why can we not do the same for swifts? They are such wonderful birds.

I am also interested in Amendment 225, because I have witnessed, very distressingly, quite a few birds smashing into windows and glass on my small farm in mid-Wales. To see these beautiful creatures lying on the ground, either stunned or dead, is very upsetting. Any efforts we could make to protect our dwindling bird population from crashing into buildings is to be supported.