Planning and Infrastructure Bill

Debate between Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle and Lord Fuller

Report stage
Wednesday 22nd October 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Hampton, who so ably introduced Amendment 62 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Boycott. I do not need to say very much, but I will just add a couple of extra perspectives. This amendment would ensure that there is training for members of planning committees and planning officers on climate and biodiversity and an enhanced ecological literacy. I particularly applaud the appearance of mycological surveying here as someone who is very passionate about soil science, but I will not go further down that road at this moment, given the hour. What I will say is that this ties very well with our extensive discussion in Committee on the plans and ideas put forward by the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, about overall strengthening of the planning process—the idea of a chief planning officer and of strengthening planning committees—namely, that we need to strengthen public and political trust.

I declare here my position as vice-president of the Local Government Association. The noble Lord, Lord Hampton, noted the lack of resources that local authorities have. If something is not statutory, it is very likely that it will not get done—that is all that local councils have the money to do. We have a huge problem with lack of trust in politics, lack of faith in politics, concern about the planning system and concern that local voices and concerns are not being heard in the system. This is a way of both strengthening the system itself in technical and scientific terms and helping to strengthen trust in the system, which is so crucial in terms of restoring trust in our overall political system and local government system.

I do not know what the noble Lord, Lord Hampton, is planning, but I think that this is something on which we should think about testing the opinion of the House. I look forward to hearing the Minister perhaps tell us that the Government will follow along these lines, in which case a vote would not be necessary. It is really important that we put these principles in the Bill and make them statutory. Then we can ensure that they will get done; otherwise, it is very likely that they will not.

[Lord Fuller (Con)]

My Lords, nobody, I believe, would want to disagree with members of planning committees, those decision-makers at all levels, being trained. Noble Lords will remember that I tabled an amendment in Committee on Ministers and the Secretary of State having the equivalent training as that expected of councillors. I have not pressed that on Report.

However, I am concerned because, if we are going to start enumerating all the essential skills that the committee must take into account when weighing all the evidence in the balance, and if we are going to cherry pick climate, quadrats and field trips on mycorrhizal fungi and everything else, how will they rank against the impact on residents, business, the economy and the socioeconomic impacts of development? They are all sort of subjective, but then we get the objective ones: space standards, design, viability and so on. It would be invidious to single out just climate change and mycorrhizal fungi in the Bill. Regulations will come forward and we will have an opportunity to influence those, potentially, at a later date in the Moses Room when we can have this debate all over again.

I have sat on a planning committee, and I have appointed a planning committee. We take our obligations and our own authority for training very seriously and it is right that we do. It costs tens of thousands of pounds—hundreds of thousands in some cases, as we heard in the previous debate—to bring a planning application forward. Members of the planning committee should have the widest experience and training.

That training should be not necessarily in the issues themselves but in the ability to work out, critically, whether what they are being told by officials and quangos is valid scientifically. There are different types of science.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

Oh!

[Lord Fuller (Con)]

I was not making a suggestion about whether climate science is there. There are different levels of science in all manner of different disciplines in planning. Some of it is contested and others are not so. That is why we have planning officials, quangos and scientists. I cannot support this amendment, and I rise because the noble Baroness indicated that she may want to press it to a vote, so I place my objection on the record.

Planning and Infrastructure Bill

Debate between Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle and Lord Fuller

Committee stage
Thursday 11th September 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Fuller (Con)]

I thank the noble Baroness for her comments and congratulate her on taking through the legislation. At the outset, when she was taking the legislation through your Lordships’ House, she would have contemplated that CIL was going to carry the lion’s share of the cost of infrastructure. Sadly, that never turned out to be the case. To a certain extent, the areas that have had CIL have ended up in a worst-of-all-worlds situation, where they have some CIL but they also have Section 106. That is a disappointment. It has not reached the promise that we all wanted for it, because everything has become so much more expensive. As I alluded to earlier, the developers give up with CIL and just want to build the school themselves. In fact, they are probably best placed to build the school while they are onsite, mobilised and with the construction equipment all around them. With the benefit of hindsight, perhaps forcing the council to build the school when they do not have some of that brownfield risk would have been an improvement.

I am getting off the point. In short, I support the amendment, but it needs to be embellished on Report.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Banner, described Amendment 184 as compelling, and I entirely agree with him. In the interests of time, that is all I will say on that amendment.

I will briefly speak to Amendment 218, taking us back some time to the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, who has already introduced the idea of a review of land value capture. I am going to brandish a historical figure in defence of this suggestion. It may surprise the Benches to my right, because I am going to start by saying that I agree with Winston Churchill. That is not a phrase that I bring out very often, but I do in this context. In 1909, he said that

“the landlord who happens to own a plot of land on the outskirts or at the centre of one of our great cities … sits still and does nothing. Roads are made, streets are made, railway services are improved, electric light turns night into day, electric trams glide swiftly to and fro, water is brought from reservoirs a hundred miles off in the mountains—and all while the landlord sits still … To not one of those improvements does the land monopolist, as a land monopolist, contribute, and yet by every one of them the value of his land is sensibly enhanced”.

That was identified more than a century ago, but it exactly addresses the issue that still exists and that we have not come to deal with.

Planning and Infrastructure Bill

Debate between Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle and Lord Fuller

Committee stage
Thursday 4th September 2025 Lords Chamber

[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.