Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill

Baroness Parminter Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 18th April 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Young of Old Scone (Lab)]

My Lords—

[Baroness Parminter (LD)]

My Lords, can I briefly follow my noble friend Lord Teverson? There is no need to replicate what he said, but I have to dash off and meet someone at Peers’ Entrance, which is why I was desperate to get in. I hope that the noble Baroness, Lady Young, does not mind.

I have two points. I put my name to the amendment of the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett of Manor Castle, on hedgehogs. As the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, said, we all love hedgehogs, but I wanted to add two points, because I am sure that the Minister will come back and say why the Government cannot do this very simple thing which would make such a massive difference to our hedgehog population, which is in desperate decline.

The two points are as follows. Many Members may not know that, on an average night, those little fellows travel about two miles and, when it is mating season, even further than that. Having holes in fences makes a massive difference to them getting food and mates to survive. That is a very small thing. Remember that fact: they travel two miles every night and, when it is mating season, even more.

We are not talking about a big amount of space; we are talking about a quarter of a piece of A4 paper, so people do not have to worry that their cats or dogs will get out unnecessarily. Fencing with holes of that size is commercially available now. I am sure that the developers will come back and say to people, “Oh, we can’t do it because it will put up the costs of housing applications”. However, hedgehogs have consistently been voted the favourite animal of people in this country, so developers could market and sell these homes as hedgehog-friendly.

I hope that the Minister will not come back and say that the Government will not do this because it would put up the cost of planning applications. This is a major way to help one of our iconic species, and it would have the full-hearted support of the British public. I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Jones. I will be back.

[Baroness Young of Old Scone (Lab)]

My Lords, speaking in this debate is fraught with danger: you either follow the noble Baroness, Lady Parminter, who spoke about much-loved small animals with pointy noses and whiskers, or you follow the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, who said everything that I was hoping to say. But the tradition in this House is to barrel on regardless. I declare several interests: I am chairman of the Woodland Trust and president or vice-president of a range of environmental and conservation organisations.

This is quite a meaty group but, as the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, said, it is very important. I speak in support of Amendments 201, 214, 226, 270 and 309. I very much support Amendments 201 and 214 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Lansley. They typify the most important theme of this group: the whole business of getting the planning system joined up with climate change objectives and targets and with nature recovery objectives. Noble Lords who were here yesterday will know that the noble Lord, Lord Deben—who is not in his place—from the Climate Change Committee, said that this was absolutely vital.

Amendments 226 and 270 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman of Ullock, talk again about joining up climate change mitigation and adaptation in the plan-making process. It is important that adaptation is brought to the fore—I will talk more about that.

On the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Teverson —on making planning policies and local decisions consistent with the mitigation and adaptation climate change measures—I am afraid I do not agree with the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, that delegating this to an even lower level of individual planning decisions is wrong. This is a crisis, and we need action now, everywhere, in everything, and at the same time. Local planning decisions absolutely have to be joined up with these objectives as well.

For me, there are two main principles here. One is the whole joining-up issue. In this country, we are incredibly bad about operating in siloes—I am sure all Governments are—as far as policies are concerned. We have to learn to walk, talk and chew gum at the same time, and to deliver policy objectives from other siloes, not just those that are in the policy area of the department concerned.

The one I always cite and bang on about endlessly is the land use issue, where we are about to see the publication of a land use framework for England that takes account only of Defra’s issues—agriculture, climate change and biodiversity—and none of the development, infrastructure or energy issues. It is a clear example of where we are failing to join up policy, and that will be the case if we do not get these very important climate and biodiversity objectives into the planning system at every level. Lots of bodies are calling for it, including the Climate Change Committee and the Skidmore report—I want to put a small wager with the House as to how many comments on the Skidmore report can be made in glowing terms in one debate, because, quite frankly, it comes up in every single item we talk about. I am delighted to see the noble Lord, Lord Deben, here, even though I was quoting him in his absence.

The Climate Change Committee, the Skidmore report, the National Audit Office and the House of Commons local government committee, as well as the Blueprint Coalition and UK100, both of which are local government networks, are all calling for climate change and biodiversity recovery objectives to be built into the planning system. The one rogue in all this is the Planning Inspectorate, which appears to have lost the plot. It made two very important individual decisions in west Oxfordshire and Lancaster, referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, which told local authorities that they were going too far if they adopted net-zero policies. That is just tosh, and the Planning Inspectorate must be made to get back into line. It will have a hugely chilling effect on other ambitious local authorities, and we must remember the high number of local authorities now committed to a state of climate emergency and doing audits of their local plans to see what contribution they make to net zero. However, lurking in the background are those two dreadful decisions by the Planning Inspectorate, which will put them off mightily, because planning officers spend a lot of their time watching their backs. We have to do something about the Planning Inspectorate, and legislation to bring together the climate change and nature recovery objectives with the planning system would be a huge move forward.

Before I finish, I will make a point about adaption. If I am conscious when I die, I will utter the immortal words, “I invented the Adaptation Sub-Committee”. When we put together the Adaptation Sub-Committee of the Climate Change Committee, it was not popular—not even with the Labour Government—and it took a lot of standing on tails to get it to happen. It has since graduated and is no longer called a sub-committee, which is great, but a few of the teeth originally in the legislation proposed by that the committee were taken away quite early on, and we see some of the impact of that. The noble Baroness, Lady Brown, who is not in her place but is doing a wonderful job of chairing the committee, has, through repeated reports, indicated how we are not coming up to the mark as a nation in preparing for the undoubted impacts across the board, including not just flooding and heat effects but a whole range of other impacts. The Climate Change Committee’s last stirring words were that adaptation was

“the Cinderella of climate change, still sitting in rags by the stove”—

a fine phrase. Its advice on the UK’s third climate change risk assessment says that

“adaptation policy and implementation is not keeping up with the rate of increase in climate risk”

and that all climate-related risks have increased over the last years and not declined. So we have a real problem with coping with the undoubted impacts that are already happening and will only get worse, as they already have been.

In this respect, it is not enough just to fiddle with adjustments to the National Planning Policy Framework. The last set of fiddling did not deliver; we need clear statutory policies to embed the links between planning policy and plans, local decisions, and climate and nature recovery. They are needed now, and I hope that noble Lords will feel able to support the amendments that enshrine them.

Use of Language to Create a Safe Environment

Baroness Parminter Excerpts

Thursday 26th September 2019 Lords Chamber

[Earl Howe]

My Lords, let me comment very briefly on what the noble Baroness has said. I am quite sure that we are all of one mind that it is important for this House to maintain its custom and practice of debate that is sometimes robust but always polite and respectful of the other person’s point of view. I am at one with her in her wish to see that practice spread more widely. It might be helpful if I refer your Lordships to the words of the Speaker in the other place earlier today:

“This country faces the most challenging political issue that we have grappled with in decades. There are genuine, heartfelt, sincerely subscribed to differences of opinion about that matter. Members must be free to express themselves about it and to display … the courage of their convictions. It ought, however, to be possible to disagree agreeably”.


I think that we would all subscribe to that.

[Baroness Parminter (LD)]

My Lords, from these Benches, I too thank the noble Earl for repeating the Statement. When I left the Chamber last night, I went to my daughter’s sixth form college for a talk on how we can support our young people through the difficult teenage years. The talk was about how there will be strong differences of opinions on challenging issues, how parents need to remain the adults in the room and that poor communication will only make the situation worse.

Yesterday, here in Parliament—particularly down the other end, I am sad to say, with the words of our Prime Minister—we saw that the language and tone on the issue of Brexit can have the potential to make the divisions on our streets much worse. There is a real possibility of consequences for people in our divided communities and homes. As the noble Earl has said, in this House we champion the right of people to express strongly their views, and we value challenging debate so that we can tease out the realities of the world we are facing. But the many people who are now tuning in to watch Parliament—many more so than normal—do not need to see parliamentarians stoking the divisions and fear in our communities today. They need to see parliamentarians who believe that tone, language, respect and common decency still matter. Does the Minister agree that, for all parliamentarians, from the Prime Minister down, now is the time to remain the adults in the room?

[Earl Howe]

Yes, I fully agree with everything that the noble Baroness has said. Again, I think that we can cite a good example from our own House on this very set of issues. Earlier this year, the Government published their response to the report by the Committee on Standards in Public Life—so ably chaired at that time by the noble Lord, Lord Bew, and now by the noble Lord, Lord Evans—and have undertaken to take a number of steps arising from its recommendations. These include issuing a public consultation, Protecting the Debate: Intimidation, Influence, and Information; consulting on our Internet Safety Strategy Green Paper—we will publish a DCMS-Home Office White Paper shortly; writing to local authority chief executives to raise awareness about the sensitive interest provisions in the Localism Act 2011; and a lot more. It is important that those strands of work are kept to the fore, particularly if we are to face a general election in the next few weeks or months.

Air Pollution

Baroness Parminter Excerpts

Tuesday 9th June 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Gardiner of Kimble]

My Lords, my noble friend is right. It is fair to say that all countries in the EU have difficulties with adhering to the limits. The most recent figures show that 17 of the 27 EU countries are in difficulties on their nitrogen dioxide limits. That is why in this country we want to deal with it as swiftly as we can.

[Baroness Parminter (LD)]

My Lords, I welcome the noble Lord to his new parliamentary role. With nitrogen dioxide at such high levels right across the UK, can the Minister say whether the Government accept that measures to achieve legal compliance will have to include a national network of low emission zones?

[Lord Gardiner of Kimble]

My Lords, this is one of the areas that we will be looking at. In London the mayor has been very strong about the zero emission zone and is also considering an ultra-low emission zone. There are a number of other towns and cities in the country which have a low emission zone. They are for buses in particular. Clearly this is part of the package that we need to look at. What the Mayor of London is doing is a very positive first step.

Climate Change

Baroness Parminter Excerpts

Thursday 25th April 2013 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Verma]

My Lords, I could not have put it more eloquently.

[Baroness Parminter]

My Lords—

[Lord Pearson of Rannoch]

My Lords—

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Verma]

My Lords, we know that there is science out there that tells us climate change is taking place and we really need to take that science very seriously.

[Baroness Parminter]

Given the recent defeat of the backloading of the emissions trading scheme, will the Government now support a renewables target post-2020 as a proven way to secure investment and achieve climate change objectives?

[Baroness Verma]

My Lords, the Government are doing a lot towards ensuring that we achieve our renewables targets. Through the processes that we have engaged in, we are making a lot of progress.

Planning: Naseby Wind Farm

Baroness Parminter Excerpts

Tuesday 17th January 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Brooke of Sutton Mandeville]

My Lords—

[Baroness Parminter]

My Lords—

[The Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster (Lord Strathclyde)]

My Lords, I feel we should hear from my noble friend Lady Parminter.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Parminter]

Thank you. My Lords, does the Minister think that the opportunity to make revisions to the national planning policy framework should be used to make clear the importance of the landscape setting of historical assets in contributing to our understanding of a sense of place and who we are from the ideas and events that have shaped our country?

[Baroness Hanham]

My Lords, the national planning policy framework will be coming into existence in the next weeks or months. We are looking to the protection of areas of natural beauty as the noble Baroness has indicated.

Climate Change: IPCC Leadership

Baroness Parminter Excerpts

Monday 25th October 2010 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Parminter]

My Lords—

[Lord Hannay of Chiswick]

My Lords—

[The Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster (Lord Strathclyde)]

My Lords, let us hear next from the noble Baroness, Lady Parminter.

[Baroness Parminter]

My Lords, should not the most important leadership on climate change be from the United States and China? Will my noble friend inform the House what the Government are doing to persuade those two giants of carbon emissions to exercise that leadership at Cancún later this year?

[Lord Marland]

I thank my noble friend for her second question in this House. Both of them have been excellent on this particular subject. The fact is that we have to show leadership. I am glad to say that the Prime Minister will visit China next month. He will lead a UK-China summit on low carbon development, which will be a central pillar of the visit. The Secretary of State, Chris Huhne, will join him.

The USA has made commitments. We may or may not consider them adequate, but it has made a commitment to improve carbon reduction by 17 per cent on 2005 levels by 2020.