Planning and Infrastructure Bill

Baroness Pinnock Excerpts

Report stage
Monday 3rd November 2025 Lords Chamber

The Prime Minister tells us that he wants to follow international treaties and international law. He has said it not once, but a hundred times. Both the treaty and the law are clear: Clause 90 is not needed. Let us see whether his Government are a builder or a blocker, whether they are sincere about streamlining regulations, or whether they will have our economy stuck in the mud.

[Baroness Pinnock (LD)]

My Lords, Amendments 208 and 231A, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Roborough, and other noble Lords, seek to remove Clause 90 and Schedule 6 from the Bill. These Benches are not supportive of these amendments. While we appreciate the arguments that have been made about streamlining and simplifying the legislative framework, it is more important to recognise the significance of Ramsar sites and to treat them in the same category as European sites when it comes to environmental protection.

These wetlands—there are 176 designated sites in the UK—are often of extraordinary ecological value, supporting biodiversity that is not only nationally but internationally important. To remove the relevant provisions at this stage would risk sending the wrong signal about our priorities and would weaken the coherence of the overall environmental protections.

The Government’s goal all along has been to preserve sites that are of environmental importance. The arguments about Part 3 of the Bill have not entirely gone the way we had hoped, but they have gone a long way towards raising the importance of the environment as far as the planning system goes. We are keen to uphold the value of Ramsar sites, alongside other protected areas, and to dismiss the arguments made by those who, on one hand, say that we need more houses on these wetland sites, but, on the other hand, argue for other sites—perhaps in the green belt or designated sites—not to be built on. Let us be clear: the environment comes first, and protecting biodiversity and our precious environmental heritage is of key importance to us.

[Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)]

My Lords, I rise to speak in support of Amendments 208 and 231A, tabled by my noble friend Lord Roborough. These may appear as technical provisions, with Clause 90 dealing with temporary possession of land in connection with compulsory purchase and Schedule 6 making consequential changes to Part 3 of the Bill, but, as we have heard from the speakers so far, their combined efforts risk damaging the very housing and infrastructure goals that this legislation is seeking to advance.

The Bill, as currently drafted, extends the legal obligations of the habitats regulations to Ramsar sites. In practice, this means further restrictions on housing development and a fresh layer of uncertainty for local planning authorities and developers alike. The result, as my noble friend Lord Roborough warned, is that a Bill meant to get Britain building risks doing totally the opposite by tying up housing delivery in yet more red tape and delay. This point cannot be overstated: the country faces a housing crisis—not a crisis of ambition, but a crisis of delivery. By removing Schedule 6, we would avoid further complexity in the already overburdened environmental assessment framework, a system that too often paralyses local authorities and developers in costly uncertainty rather than securing real gains for nature.

The Government’s own target of 1.5 million new homes will not be met if planning reforms continue to tangle it up with excessive regulation and unintended consequences. Of course, environmental protection must remain a central consideration in planning, but, as my noble friend rightly observed, the small nut being cracked by the sledgehammer of Part 3 has now been shown to be even smaller. The recent ruling to which he referred has already resolved many of the issues these provisions sought to address. What remains, therefore, is unnecessary bureaucracy and an additional drag on housing delivery.

However, I reiterate that the outcome of the Supreme Court judgment in the CG Fry case has now shifted the status quo. Following the judgment, Clause 90 and Schedule 6 will have the perverse effect of blocking development rather than facilitating it. This surely cannot be the Government’s intention; we are minded, therefore, to seek to test the opinion of the House when Amendment 208 is called if the Government have nothing further to say on this issue.

These amendments are not anti-environmental. They are proportionate, pro-clarity and, most importantly, pro-housing. They seek to ensure that this Bill does what it says on the tin: to plan and deliver the infrastructure and homes that this country so desperately needs. I urge the Minister to look again at Clause 90 and Schedule 6. Are they truly necessary to achieve the Bill’s goals or are they, as the evidence increasingly suggests, just obstacles in their delivery?

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[Lord Lansley (Con)]

My Lords, Amendment 232 relates to mayoral development corporations. Noble Lords will recall a debate in Committee about this precise point. To remind noble Lords, in the English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill, presently in the other place, the Government have proposed that the powers available to the Mayor of London in relation to the establishment of a mayoral development corporation should be provided to all mayors of established strategic authorities—I think that is correct. Noble Lords will also recall that I previously tabled an amendment to this effect back in July, so I was pleased to see that the Government were proceeding in exactly the same direction, but disappointed that this has been included in the English devolution Bill rather than here in the Planning and Infrastructure Bill, where Part 4, which we have now reached, is devoted to development corporations. It was certainly my understanding and intention that we would debate and, I hope, adopt the measure of giving all the mayors access to the same powers.

As a simple way of bringing that forward, I took Schedule 17 of the English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill and transposed it into what would become a new schedule to this Bill. I anticipate that it is not the Government’s intention to disagree with the content of Amendment 232, since they wrote it; however, they appear to be set on resisting the idea that it should be included in this Bill and, on the basis of our anticipation of Royal Assent being reached only in a matter of weeks rather than months, be brought into force rapidly.

As it happens, since Committee, the English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill Committee has had the opportunity to consider Clause 36 and Schedule 17 of that Bill and has not amended it, so there is no requirement for us to think of it having changed. I suspect, based on the discussion in that Bill Committee, it will not be returned to in substance on Report. I do not anticipate that the English devolution Bill, when we see it, will have any different text from what we see here now.

I put it once more to Ministers, but will not press it because what would be the point? It is their Bill, their language, their schedule that they can have now, in my view—and why would they not? It seems to me that most mayors, certainly the ones I have spoken to or their representatives, would like the powers sooner rather than later.

Quite early in the new year, probably before the English devolution Bill has received Royal Assent, we will be discussing the question of which new towns will be mayoral development corporations as opposed to government development corporations or locally led ones. These are precisely the issues which are the subject of this part of this Bill. I put it to noble Lords that it would be better to take this provision, include it now, and bring it into force at an earlier stage. I beg to move

[Baroness Pinnock (LD)]

My Lords, on these Benches we have much sympathy with the core principle behind this amendment from the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, regarding mayoral development corporations. The purpose of Part 4 of this Bill is to create a more flexible, and perhaps more robust, framework for development corporations. The existing way that development corporations work has limitations with regard to some of the development that all of us seek—transport infrastructure, for example. The noble Lord, Lord Lansley, has helpfully reminded us that this selfsame wording is in the devolution and empowerment Bill, currently going through its stages at the other end of the building, so those of us who will have the joy of debating that Bill, when it comes here, will be coming back to this issue.

The main concern we have, though, is about the decision being vested in the hands of the mayor and the rather narrow representations of the leaders of the constituent authorities—this will not come as a surprise to the Minister. This is an erosion of meaningful local planning influence, reducing local authorities to mere consultees whose considered objections can be dismissed. This amendment could grant substantial planning control over designated areas by placing the decision-making at the mayoral level, with its minimal approach to democratic engagement and consultation. While mechanisms exist for arrangements concerning the discharge of planning functions, this shift inherently concentrates strategic planning functions away from the local level.

Amendment 232 is a way forward in potentially accelerating growth plans, but it is achieved at the expense of local democratic involvement and, crucially, would lose having a strong voice from those residents directly affected. In a nutshell, this is an interesting and important proposal, but it bypasses local democracy.

[Lord Jamieson (Con)]

My Lords, my noble friend Lord Lansley’s expertise on development corporations is, as ever, formidable, and the concerns he raises deserve full and careful consideration. This amendment speaks to the wider question surrounding the Government’s devolution agenda, particularly the potential to give metro mayors the tools they need to deliver housing projects, attract private investment and cut through the bureaucratic fragmentation that so often stifles local ambitions. In many ways, it would build upon the principles set out in the Levelling-up and Regeneration Act, and the work that we have done collectively to champion place-based solutions to the challenges that this country faces. As my noble friend says: equality for mayors.

I am entirely sympathetic to the intention behind this amendment. It is clearly defined and purpose driven. However, to sensibly empower metro mayors or development corporations further, the Government must provide clarity on their plans for local government reorganisation. Without this clarity we risk legislating into a vacuum, creating overlapping authorities and confusion where coherence is needed. On these Benches, we strongly support greater local oversight and a faster route to regeneration, but the real obstacle remains the Government’s opaque approach to LGR. Until there is a clear framework for how local government structures will interact with devolved authorities and combined counties, progress will be piecemeal at best. The Government must work this out, and quickly. We are all waiting for clarity.

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[Lord Cromwell (CB)]

I agree with what the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, has just said. Philanthropists in the past gave areas of green space and there have been scandals where councils have sold them off for money, and we all complain that there are no more playing fields, for example. This smells a bit like that. It is almost land that has been protected by accident by a legal quirk that has prevented it being developed subsequently or sold on for development unwisely.

To my mind, this is surely a case-by-case matter. The noble Lord, Lord O’Donnell, made a very powerful case for Wimbledon. Maybe he is right, but I am sure that plenty of sites around the country are not quite so green and lovely in their eventual outcome. I find it difficult to support an amendment that alters everything across the board. Going back, almost in a time machine, doing a proper consultation and the substitution of what is being lost has to be the approach, rather than what is proposed in this amendment.

[Baroness Pinnock (LD)]

My Lords, this is quite a wide-ranging group of amendments, and fairly disparate at that. I will first briefly focus on the amendments in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Lucas. In Committee he raised those issues about the publication of public notices, with which I had, and continue to have, some sympathy.

The sad demise of the printed local newspaper means that fewer and fewer people will have access to the public notices. This is partly in reference to Amendment 250, because where would people read the notice about Wimbledon Park or any other site of that sort? I am sympathetic to the suggestions that the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, makes in his amendment.

Moving to Amendments 242 and 243 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Roborough, I remember the long debates we had on this very issue during the passage of the levelling-up Bill. I recall that it was the Government of the noble Lord, Lord Roborough, who passed the levelling-up Bill, now Act, and included in it the very issue he now wishes to undo.

We have been listening to arguments about growth and economic development, but for many parts of the country, without access to land at affordable prices for the public good, those sorts of developments, such as community health centres and so on, will never come to fruition. We had those arguments on the levelling-up Bill. For me they are still important issues that we ought to respect, so for the noble Lord, Lord Roborough, I am afraid it is a big cross—I cannot support those amendments.

This leads us on to Amendment 250. It is always worth looking through the other lens of an issue of development, or no development, whether it is for the public good, public well-being and economic development, or the lens of the residents who live in the area. I have used that theme throughout discussions on this Bill. It is very important to those of us on these Benches that the views of local people who are affected by a development, be it a national strategic infrastructure project, a local planning application, mayoral development corporation plans or this issue, should and must be at the heart of those decisions.

What happens on the land affects their lives. It might be that the development is beneficial but, unless you take local people with you, it will not be, because they will constantly oppose it. I hear the legal arguments, but let us listen to people. I have been a local councillor for many years, and one thing I know for certain is that if you try to impose a decision on people—certainly in Yorkshire, anyway; I do not know about the rest of the country—and say, “It’s to do with the law. This is what’s been agreed. It’s bound to be good for you”, they will make their voice heard loud and strong and long. You need to take people with you on these big issues.

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[Baroness Hodgson of Abinger (Con)]

My Lords, I shall also speak to Amendment 241. Amendment 240 is a return to the debate that we had about the issues of transparency and the right of landowners to be fully informed of the potential scale of a project. It would insert a new clause after Clause 106, creating a duty to declare other approaches to purchase or lease land in the vicinity. Proposed new subsection (2) states that that declaration

“must include whether the combined amount of land … will be submitted for application as a nationally significant infrastructure project”,

while proposed new subsection (3) provides a definition of what is meant by “in the vicinity” in this context; namely, anything adjoining or within 10 miles of the land intended to be leased or purchased. The amendment would not prevent land purchasing from occurring but would force better practices, bringing in transparency and accountability to the process for potentially very large projects.

In Committee, the Minister argued that the amendment could inadvertently breach confidentiality agreements, potentially jeopardising progress on development projects. I disagree. I am not asking the developer to provide each potential partner with chapter and verse on other negotiations but simply to indicate that the land in question might form part of a larger project connecting to neighbouring land. That is a simple statement that would not be an onerous burden on developers; it would be a way of ensuring that all of them acted within the spirit of professional behaviour that we would expect, although sadly, as examples given in both Houses during the passage of the Bill have confirmed, that does not take place.

All too often it is the actions of a few that tarnish the reputation of the many, but surely it is only morally right and fair that landowners and the local communities potentially impacted have a true sense of the potential scale of the project being proposed and how it might have a bigger impact beyond the one plot being discussed. Anecdotally, I have heard of a case where the developer failed to notify those selling or leasing their land that they would be part of a big project; when it was discovered, there was considerable anger from the local community, with those who had agreed to lease their land being ostracised. Not only is this therefore the right thing to do, because surely all deals of this kind should be open and transparent, but it is also in the interests of community cohesion. I have since checked this with a land agent, who said that he thought it was eminently sensible.

The Minister referred to the book of reference and how it is available for public view—if indeed anyone knows about it—and that it should list all land and interests in land that may be affected by development. I reiterate a point made by others throughout our discussions: to the general public, development jargon and process is all a bit of a mystery to start with. However, the Minister herself mentioned the problem here: she implied in her Committee response that the book of reference is available for public view only once the application has been submitted and accepted by the Secretary of State. Transparency after the application is too late and not transparent at all.

While some landowners may jump at the chance of being part of a nationally significant project, others may not wish to be. If they do not know what is being proposed, how can they make an informed choice? In this House, surely we should not be enabling corporate underhand behaviour. We need to ensure that consideration is given to those being approached for land with projects and the communities that will all have to live with the consequences.

Amendment 241 requires a similar simple statement, which again has the principles of transparency and good practice at its core. It seeks to prevent land banking, the practice of purchasing undeveloped land and holding it for future development or resale, rather than immediately building on it. Its proposed new subsection (1) would create an obligation on the developer or company to declare whether they held planning permission for similar developments within a 10-mile radius of the new site they were seeking permission to buy or lease. Proposed new subsection (2) would give the power to refuse development if any similar sites identified by proposed new subsection (1) had not been activated for over a year.

I remind the House that we must not conflate housing delivery with granting planning permission. Planning permission will not meet targets if it is not acted on. I will not reiterate all the stats from the debate we had in Committee, but suffice to say that, as another noble Lord highlighted, around four years’ worth of the Government’s current target is sitting in land banks. Better transparency will only help build trust and confidence in what our planning system can deliver.

I was pleased that the Minister expressed that the working paper is looking to see that permissions given are built out as quickly as possible and I suggest that this amendment could only strengthen the incentive for this to happen. It was also mentioned that a form of use it or lose it could be brought about by implementing the provisions in the Levelling-up and Regeneration Act. Why has this not been kick-started already? Can the Minister give us a timetable in which she hopes that this will be implemented? How many other land banks will be approved before this comes into force? I beg to move.

[Baroness Pinnock (LD)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Hodgson, for bringing these amendments, particularly Amendment 241. The noble Baroness raised the issue of land banking in Committee and I am pleased that she is raising it again on Report. As she rightly said, land banking is one of the blockers of development. I will repeat one of the stats I gave in Committee: 1.2 million housing units with full planning permission are waiting to be constructed. Those figures are from the ONS. One of the reasons is that developers want to keep prices high and therefore phase development over a sometimes inordinately long timeframe. Indeed, in my own town there is a development of nearly 300 homes that the developer wishes to develop over 10 years, which explains, I think, as much as anything, why this country is short of the housing that it needs.

There are other consequences of land banking, apart from the crucial one of failing to supply the houses that the country needs in a timely way; it also has an impact on local plans. Where developers have full planning permission for all the allocated housing sites in a local plan, they can, and do, argue that they therefore need more sites, sometimes with preference for sites in the green belt, even though there is no intention of beginning, let alone completing, the sites they currently have with full planning permission. That is a really important issue on which I hope the Minister will give some comfort for those of us in local councils. I look forward to what the Minister has to say on these important issues.

[Lord Jamieson (Con)]

My Lords, I thank my noble friend Lady Hodgson for her constructive engagement throughout the passage of this Bill, her close attention to its detail and her ambition to improve the legislation in a number of important areas. Amendment 240 needs to be considered carefully; I will be interested to hear what the Minister has on it. Where the total land being assembled could ultimately lead to an application for designation as a nationally significant infrastructure project, there is a real need for greater clarity at an early stage. That would only help to build trust between developers, landowners and local communities, and my noble friend’s proposals rightly highlight that need.

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[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab)]

My Lords, I will make a couple of comments. Clearly, my noble friend the Minister will no doubt say that this is outwith the intention and focus of this legislation. I sympathise with that; it is the answer to the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett. However, as a former distinguished chief exec of the National Health Service, the noble Lord, Lord Crisp, is right to pinpoint that there are some gaps between the needs of health and healthcare and the planning system. I hope that my noble friend the Minister will be able to give some reassurance that, as we go forward—we have an NHS Bill coming in the next Session—there will be ways to find that some of the noble Lord’s key points will be embraced in both the planning and the National Health Service system.

[Baroness Pinnock (LD)]

My Lords, I was very pleased to attach my name to the amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Crisp. He raised a wider issue in the debate on what became the levelling-up Act about the need for healthy homes, and he was right to do so. I was saddened that that was not accepted by the Government at the time. He has now brought forward a less demanding amendment.

It is important that, when thinking about development, health and housing, we add the idea of ill-health prevention and the social determinants of health. That is what the noble Lord, Lord Crisp, mentioned and defined, and how right he is.

Some 14% of homes in our country—3.5 million—are not up to decent housing standard. In my own district, which has areas of quite considerable deprivation, where people are living in poor accommodation, a report says:

“Children in bad housing conditions are more likely to have mental health problems, have respiratory problems, experience long-term ill health and disability, experience slow physical growth and have delayed cognitive development”.


The noble Lord, Lord Crisp, has made the case: children deserve better. We ought to support him.

[Lord Jamieson (Con)]

My Lords, these amendments deal with an issue that goes to the very heart of the Bill’s purpose: how we ensure that our planning system promotes not only economic growth and infrastructure delivery but the health and well-being of our communities. This is not just about a healthy home but about a healthy community, which is so much more than just the bricks and mortar. As has been raised many times throughout the passage of the Bill, we all want to create great communities—a home and that sense of place. Great places are healthy places. That includes warm and comfortable homes, spaces that are safe for outdoor recreation, places to socialise and places where work, leisure facilities and open spaces are easily reachable.

Amendment 247 would place a statutory duty on the Secretary of State to have regard to the need to improve health and reduce health inequalities when discharging their planning functions. That is not a radical departure; indeed, it aligns precisely with the language used in the English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill and reflects the Health and Social Care Act 2012 duty on the NHS to reduce health inequalities. It simply asks that the same commitment be applied to planning—one of the most powerful levers for shaping the health of our nation.

Amendment 247A, tabled by my noble friend Lord Moynihan, would add a valuable and practical dimension for allowing Sport England to make representations to the Secretary of State on how this duty is being met. That is a sensible suggestion, recognising the importance of physical activity and access to sport in promoting both physical and mental health.

Amendment 248 would provide clear definitions, ensuring that “health inequalities” and “general health determinants” are well understood and that this duty is not left to vague interpretation. The drafting captures what we all know to be true: the state of health is shaped as much by housing, transport, safety, employment and access to services as by anything that happens in the health service itself.

A modern planning system must support not only economic growth but social resilience and public health. The pandemic reminded us just how closely our built environment is linked to physical and mental well-being. If we want truly sustainable communities, health must be a core planning outcome, not an afterthought. I therefore urge the Minister to look sympathetically at these amendments.

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[Lord Cromwell (CB)]

My Lords, I support this amendment. A code of practice would curb the bad practice that the noble Lord, Lord Cameron of Dillington, has very movingly illustrated to us this evening. It is based on the evidence of lived experience of compulsory purchase as currently enforced by commercial agents. I urge the Government to reflect on its merits as driving a far more humane, more swift and less expensive process than the current guidelines achieve. I hope the Government will not reject it simply because they can.

[Baroness Pinnock (LD)]

My Lords, in Committee, the noble Lord, Lord Cameron of Dillington, made a compelling case for the issue which he has reiterated this evening—the necessity for a code of practice to set rules that can be enforced on compulsory purchase order issues. I said in Committee that I had a lot of sympathy with what the noble Lord had to say. He has made an even stronger case this evening with the real-life examples that he has quoted to us.

I hope that the Minister can respond very positively this time to the genuine issues that are being raised, with a solution being offered. So, as the noble Lord, Lord Cameron, has said, we look forward to what the Minister has to say, but this issue is not going to go away unless the Government grasp it and deal with it.

[Lord Roborough (Con)]

My Lords, I rise briefly to add our support for Amendment 249, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Cameron of Dillington. I would draw a thread through all these debates that we have had on Report on compulsory purchase: this is a necessary tool of government to allow society’s needs to be placed above the individual in a small number of cases where the case is clear-cut.

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[Baroness Rock (Con)]

My Lords, you will be delighted to hear that we are now in the home stretch as we debate just before midnight. I shall speak to the three amendments standing in my name, which, unsurprisingly, deal with matters connected with agricultural tenancies. I am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Grender, and my noble friend Lady Coffey for their support, and for the many sympathetic responses to the amendments I have had from all sides of the House from people who recognise the important role tenant farmers play. I refer to my interests in the register as a tenant farmer and the author of the Rock review into agricultural tenancies.

From time to time, landlords of holdings that are subject to agricultural tenancies may secure planning consent for a change of use from agriculture, either through a planning application considered by a local authority, which may also go to appeal, or as part of a nationally significant infrastructure project. When that occurs, depending on the nature of the agricultural tenancy, the landlord will be able to secure vacant possession of the holding or part of the holding involved, either by statute or by contract. Agricultural tenancies subject to the Agricultural Holdings Act 1986 have a statutory process, set out in Schedule 3 to the Act under what is known as case B, which will allow the landlord to recover possession but paying only a statutory maximum level of compensation, which is just six times the rent being paid by the tenant for the land being removed. That rarely, if ever, comes close to the tenant’s actual commercial loss. For example, if a tenant farmer is paying £65 for an acre of land, compensation for that acre would be just £390. Amendment 253A seeks to redress that by providing a default position, setting out that the compensation will either be a multiple of the rent or the tenant’s actual loss, whichever is the larger.

I take as an example of the problem the case of the tenant arable farmers Rob and Emma Sturdy, who farm on the Fitzwilliam Malton estate in North Yorkshire. The local planning authority rejected a planning application by the solar energy developer Harmony Energy to take away almost half their farm, but that was appealed by Harmony. Before that appeal, Harmony Energy made an offer of compensation that was above the statutory minimum but, as far as Rob and Emma were concerned, below what would have been their actual commercial loss.

On appeal, the refusal of the solar farm by the local planning authority was overturned, but the inspector failed to make it a condition of that consent that the compensation offered by Harmony, and alluded to throughout the entire appeal, should be paid to Rob and Emma. Unfortunately, Harmony Energy has now taken that compensation offer away and reverted to offering only the statutory minimum compensation of six times rent for half the Sturdys’ farm. That is wholly unacceptable.

The case is made doubly worse by the fact that it was called in by the Government and the decision of the inspector was fully supported by the Planning Minister, despite the promise made to tenant farmers by the Prime Minister when, as Leader of the Opposition, he said that solar energy schemes must not be taken forward at the expense of tenant farmers and that tenant farmers needed to know that the soil beneath their feet was secure. Unfortunately, Rob and Emma are now feeling the emptiness of those words. That is why this provision is so ripe for change. Furthermore, in the solar road map that the Government published in June, they said that statutory compensation for tenant farmers must be addressed, so there is no reason why it cannot be addressed for all development that causes dislocation to tenant farmers.

The situation for tenants under farm business tenancies, regulated by the Agricultural Tenancies Act 1995, is arguably worse. There is no statutory fallback position as to compensation when a tenant loses land following a planning application obtained by the landlord for change of use which allows the landlord to use a contractual clause to remove land. Amendment 253 merely seeks to add a legislative fallback position. Again, this will operate to provide tenants with a level of compensation equivalent to their real loss in losing land to a change of use following the granting of planning permission.

Amendment 253B seeks for the compulsory purchase regime to fully recognise the way in which tenant farmers are impacted. Other noble Lords, including the noble Lord, Lord Cameron of Dillington, have spoken expertly on the need for wider reform of the way in which compulsory purchase operates, but this amendment focuses its attention on tenant farmers, who are often left out of discussions and end up with little or indeed no compensation when they see their businesses, homes and livelihoods devastated by a compulsory purchase acquisition.

While the landlord might receive a level of compensation which may or may not be reasonable in the circumstances, we must ensure that tenant farmers are also in receipt of a level of compensation which adequately covers their losses. In the same way that tenant farmers facing loss of land due to change of use being taken forward by their landlords need adequate compensation, the same must be true when the land is removed through compulsory purchase.

I confess I was increasingly dismayed this evening to note that the Minister in early responses on CPOs constantly referred to landowners. Some 64% of England’s land is wholly or partly tenanted, and yet the Minister fails to address the issue of tenant farmers who do not own land but will still be affected by CPOs. I therefore urge noble Lords to support this amendment to level the playing field for tenant farmers.

The Government should, and I believe should with ease, support these amendments, as they sit firmly within their own policy that the compensation payable to a farm tenant should be “adequate and fair” following a change of use to give way to a solar energy scheme as set out in the Government’s own recent solar road map. In already accepting that compensation provisions are not fit for purpose for solar energy schemes, the Government surely must also recognise that they are not acceptable for other types of development where the tenant farmer, through no fault and no decision of their own, loses occupation of land where they pay rent. I beg to move.

[Baroness Pinnock (LD)]

My Lords, my noble friend Lady Grender has cosigned the amendment in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Rock. Unfortunately, she is not well and so is not here tonight. She has asked me to make it clear that she fully supports the amendments.

[Lord Blencathra (Con)]

My Lords, I support the amendments in the name of my noble friend Lady Rock, supported by my noble friend Lady Coffey and the noble Baroness, Lady Grender.

These are very important amendments, not just because the contents are wise and right, but also because of the detailed knowledge my noble friend has of tenant farming—better than anyone else in this House. My noble friend is a non-executive director of Imagination Technologies and First News UK. She is the senior independent director of the Keller Group, a company of 10,000 employees with a revenue of £3 billion. She is also the chair of Costain, another company with revenue of almost £1.5 billion. My noble friend is a top-notch executive with experience of analysing problems and delivering solutions, and has been headhunted by some of the most important companies in the United Kingdom. Therefore, it is no surprise that in 2022, the Defra Secretary of State asked her to chair the Tenancy Working Group, which had two clear objectives.

The first was to look at how the new government financial schemes will be accessible, open and flexible to tenant farmers. The second was to look at longer-term changes that would ensure a robust, vibrant and thriving agricultural tenanted sector for the future. With roughly a third of farmland in England being tenanted, tenant farmers are absolutely vital to the nation’s food production, alongside the delivery of environmental outcomes.

London Boroughs: Financial Support

Baroness Pinnock Excerpts

Monday 3rd November 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

That has to be done at the next fiscal event. The Government remain committed to keeping all taxes and elements of the local government finance system under review.

[Baroness Pinnock (LD)]

My Lords, I have relevant interests as a councillor. The recent statistics published by the Government have pinpointed the areas of the country that suffer from immense deprivation. The current funding formula does not properly recompense those councils with the highest levels of deprivation. Do the Government intend to redistribute in order to help the councils across the country, including in London, that have the highest levels of deprivation?

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

I hope the work we have done so far will illustrate to the noble Baroness and other noble Lords that we are committed to improving how we assess need to make sure that central government funding is distributed fairly to the places that need it the most. Our proposals use the best available evidence so that we can more effectively capture variations in demand for services. A particular bugbear for me over the years—I am sure the noble Baroness will have heard me say this—is that we need to identify in local authorities pockets of high deprivation within generally more affluent areas. We continue to explore and review the new data that comes forward on measures of deprivation, and a final decision on the inclusion of the 2025 index of multiple deprivation will be made in the autumn, when we set out our funding plans for local government.

Town and Country Planning (Crown Development Applications) (Procedure and Written Representations) Order 2025

Baroness Pinnock Excerpts

Thursday 30th October 2025 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Baroness Pinnock]

That this House regrets that under the Town and Country Planning (Crown Development Applications) (Procedure and Written Representations) Order 2025 (SI 2025/409), the new routes for applications for planning permission for Crown developments of national importance will disregard accepted democratic processes and will be determined by the Planning Inspectorate and not local planning authorities.

Relevant document: 23rd Report from the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee.

[Baroness Pinnock (LD)]

My Lords, I tabled a regret Motion on this statutory instrument well before the Planning and Infrastructure Bill, now making its way through your Lordships’ House, had even had its Second Reading. Many of the issues I am still concerned with in this order have been debated during the progress of the Bill.

However, I make no apology for once again making the case for community involvement in developments that affect their locality. The Town and Country Planning (Crown Development Applications) (Procedure and Written Representations) Order 2025 fundamentally alters the planning landscape in England. While this instrument appears to be merely procedural, it is in fact a key mechanism for cementing a significant power grab that threatens local accountability and transparency.

The SI we are debating is one of three other statutory instruments that implement the new routes for Crown development, which, to be fair to the Government, were introduced by the Levelling Up and Regeneration Act. During the debate on the Levelling Up and Regeneration Bill, I argued that there had to be community involvement in planning applications, in particular those on behalf of the Crown. Unfortunately, what this statutory instrument does is put central expediency over local democracy and due process in regard to Crown planning applications.

To give a bit of an example, the central purpose of this route for Crown development is to allow government departments—the “appropriate authority”—to apply directly to the Secretary of State for planning permission, bypassing the local planning authority entirely. The rationale provided by the department is that

“Government departments have faced challenges securing planning permission”

through the local planning authority route. This has resulted in delayed decisions for

“nationally important planned projects such as prisons or defence facilities”.

My argument is simple: challenges are the bedrock of a vibrant democracy and, in particular for planning, a vibrant local democracy. When a local planning authority scrutinises a development, it is ensuring that the project is in line with community needs and environmental standards, as well as the national need. By shifting the power of determination from local authority to the Planning Inspectorate, which acts on behalf of the Secretary of State, the local checks and balances are being sacrificed for the sake of speed of decision.

One of the most startling issues I noticed in the Explanatory Memorandum for this SI is that there has been no public consultation on the instrument. The department claims this is due to the “technical nature” of the SI. Yet this technical instrument results in a major policy shift, affecting potentially every community in England.

While the statutory instrument sets out procedures for standard Crown development, the legislative package also covers urgent Crown development. For this, the department has indicated that the need for community engagement will be assessed on a case by case basis, meaning that the Secretary of State appears to have it almost entirely in their discretion whether local engagement is needed at all. If they have this discretion, obviously it puts in peril the public’s right to engage with nationally important projects that could drastically alter their neighbourhood.

The entire system hinges on the concept of a development being defined as “of national importance”. The statutory instrument uses the words “Crown development”. So can the Minister provide an explanation of what is defined as Crown development? Is it any development, whatever size is applied for, that takes place on Crown land?

Article 5 of the instrument allows for the Secretary of State to direct that information related to an application can also be defined as “sensitive information”. If the Secretary of State deems that information relates to national security or security measures and its public disclosure would be contrary to the national interest, the provisions requiring public disclosure will not apply. I can accept that sometimes this is the case. However, in the modern world, nothing is secret and nothing stays away from the public gaze. While sensitive projects may require limited disclosure, this provision actually provides a broad mechanism for withholding crucial information from the public under the umbrella of national interest.

The Government propose that this package of reforms will bring benefits to the public sector, enabling faster planning decisions and potential cost savings to capital programmes—but at what cost? This statutory instrument and the supporting ones undermine the very principles of local planning. They centralise power, sidestep public consultation, rely on vague criteria and restrict transparency. We are being asked to accept an instrument that accelerates government projects by silencing local voices.

I urge the Minister to consider the long-term impact on local governance and planning democracy, as I have done throughout the passage of the Planning and Infrastructure Bill, and to consider enabling communities to have their voice heard before the process is concluded. You can guarantee that local voices will be raised at some point. How much better that those voices are heard during deliberations on a planning application on Crown land, and not after the deal is done? I beg to move.

[Lord Jamieson (Con)]

My Lords, I declare my interest as a councillor in central Bedfordshire. We on this side of the House believe in local democracy. It is why I proposed an amendment to the Planning and Infrastructure Bill that would ensure local democracy where there are valid planning grounds, and why I was pleased that my noble friend Lord Lansley’s amendment on ensuring affirmative procedures for delegated planning powers was passed.

However, there is a need for balance. Today, we are seeing a government programme for the early release of prisoners. While this is, in large part, due to a failure to manage the prison population and deport foreign-born criminals, the lack of prison capacity is a factor. Importantly, the lack of prison space hampers prison rehabilitation—a matter that I know the Prisons Minister, the noble Lord, Lord Timpson, is much vexed about. As my noble friend Lady Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist raised last night, the huge impact that the delays to and additional costs of the UK nuclear programme is having on the cost of energy is a major issue for struggling families and industry. It is therefore right to have a balanced approach.

Section 109 of the previous Conservative Government’s Levelling-up and Regeneration Act added two new sections to the Town and Country Planning Act, creating new routes for Crown development. These provisions allow for an appropriate authority to apply to the Secretary of State for planning permissions, rather than the local planning authority. The intention behind this change was clear: to prevent delay or obstruction to vital national development, such as prisons.

As I have said, we are sympathetic to the concerns raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, but these powers are proportionate and balanced. It is our understanding that the Town and Country Planning (Crown Development Applications) (Procedure and Written Representations) Order 2025 concerns development applications on Crown land that are deemed to be of national importance. The instrument sets out the procedure for such Crown development applications, including applications for planning permissions and approval for reserved matters. Crown development refers to applications made by the Crown bodies for development of national importance.

As so often in matters like these, the key issue is balance between local voice and national need, and between the principle of localism and the imperative to deliver key national infrastructure efficiently. We stand by the intentions of the Levelling-up and Regeneration Act, which expands local voices in the round, taking them seriously by strengthening the role of local plans, creating new opportunities for communities to shape development in their areas and ensuring that decision-making is rooted closer to the people it affects. The Act sought to make planning more transparent, more accountable and more responsive to local priorities. It was never about sidelining local democracy but about creating a system capable of delivering both local consent and national progress.

The provisions on Crown development sit within that broader context. They are not a retreat from localism but a recognition that, on occasion, public interest requires a more streamlined route for developments of genuine national importance. As ever, the challenge is to strike the right balance, to protect local accountability while ensuring that the machinery of state can deliver where delay would carry a wider national cost. That principle underpins this instrument and the Levelling-up and Regeneration Act itself. It is right that we reaffirm it today.

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These regulations are important to ensure a more timely and proportionate process for dealing with planning applications of national importance for Crown development in England. The Government are taking steps to ensure that these routes are used appropriately and that there is full scrutiny of the use of the powers. I am grateful to the noble Baroness for allowing me to explain the basis of Crown development.

[Baroness Pinnock (LD)]

I thank the Minister very much for her full and detailed response to my concerns. Unfortunately, the fundamentals remain. The Minister is quite right to say that the local planning authority will be involved in all the notifications and that voices and comments and so on can be heard, but in the end, the decision is taken over there and not where it should be, in the locality. That has always been my concern, as the Minister will know.

The balance has tipped too far in favour of government planning applications on Crown land, rather than trying to speed up processes which still engage local people fully. Having said that—–

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

My Lords, the noble Baroness has spent many hours in this Chamber debating what we are doing elsewhere in the planning system to speed up decision-making. While I understand her great championing of community engagement in planning, we are trying to get the balance right here.

[Baroness Pinnock (LD)]

I accept that wholly. The Minister has always responded positively to the queries I have raised; it is just that we disagree on the balance.

I shall continue challenging because I think that is always needed. With those few remarks, I beg leave to withdraw the Motion.

Motion withdrawn.

Planning and Infrastructure Bill

Baroness Pinnock Excerpts

Report stage
Monday 27th October 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Lansley (Con)]

My Lords, Amendment 97A relates to the situation where local government reorganisation leads to changes in the authorities which constitute the strategic planning authority that is making spatial development strategies in the upcoming months or perhaps years. We did not discuss this in Committee, and in my view time does not permit us to have the substantial discussion that is necessary this evening, as we want to make progress towards other important issues. But I just want to say that there is an issue here that I hope the Government will consider, not least between now and Third Reading, although time is short.

We want spatial development strategies to be strategic. They cannot be strategic if they are made one day and replaced the next. We want the strategic planning authorities to be able to establish a spatial development strategy that subsists for a considerable period. Otherwise, people will have no confidence that they will be able to proceed in local plan making that is, necessarily, statutorily consistent with the spatial development strategy, if the spatial development strategy could be changed at a moment’s notice.

This problem emerges essentially from the prospect of the upper-tier authorities which may well be combined to make strategic authorities or, perhaps more often, divided into unitaries. When they become unitaries, the question of who the strategic planning authority is might be taken to a completely different level. For example, Norfolk and Suffolk, close to me, will be a combined authority next year, so they may be able to make a spatial development strategy. However, in Oxfordshire, which I know well, Oxford County Council may proceed with a spatial development strategy next year, but the county council might be divided into two or even three unitaries in the course of local government reorganisation. What the spatial development strategy is, what the strategic planning authority area is, we do not know.

I am presenting to the Government a problem which has emerged. I am grateful to the County Councils Network for highlighting the nature of the potential problem and the necessity of a solution. The solution is to make it very clear that spatial development strategies, having been adopted, should subsist for five years, as we would normally expect local plans to, unless the Secretary of State makes a direction. The Secretary of State could make a direction where there is an expectation of, for example, a change of political control or something of that kind that necessitates a review of the spatial development strategy.

Having presented the nature of the problem, I hope that the Minister will say that the Government recognise the problem and will find means by which the spatial development strategies, once adopted, can remain in place for a period of time, unless there is a compelling reason for them to be altered or replaced. I beg to move.

[Baroness Pinnock (LD)]

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, has raised a very important issue that the Government need to think about, but, as the noble Lord explained, the issue relates not only to the new combined county authorities with a mayor that will be created following reorganisation; it will also affect the metropolitan mayoral authorities, where the mayors will be given the new power for a spatial development strategy but where the constituent local authorities will inevitably have their own local plan, which will not necessarily have any coterminosity in terms of their duration. There is a dual issue for the Government to consider, which is: which has primacy—a constituent authority’s local plan until its term ends, or the spatial development strategy, which might override the local plan, which would then require, presumably, an amended local plan and all the effort that would have to go into that? An important issue has been raised, and I suspect that the Government need to come up with a solution.

[Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)]

My Lords, on these Benches, we are actually engaging with the industry about this to understand its concerns. I do not want to say anything further on it this evening, apart from expressing my full support for my noble friend Lord Lansley. We will return to this issue for a much fuller discussion in a later group of amendments that we have tabled.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Lansley (Con)]

I hope we can be equally quick about Amendment 99. It is grouped with Amendment 127, on which I am looking forward to hearing, I hope, complementary thoughts about the importance of neighbourhood planning. I do not think we need to debate the importance of neighbourhood planning; we did that in Committee. What we need to do is to find out what the Government are going to do.

Since the Government in relation to their White Paper on English devolution made it clear that they want “effective neighbourhood governance” and since we are going to see unitaries creating what might otherwise be regarded as distance between local communities and the plan-making process, it seems to me that that heightens the importance of neighbourhood development planning and what are called neighbourhood priorities statements, which were included in Schedule 7 to the Levelling-up and Regeneration Act inserting new Section 15K into the Planning and Compulsory Purchase Act 2004.

As things stand, the neighbourhood priorities statements have not been brought into force. My first request to the Minister is: will the Government do that? Secondly, can she confirm that the valuable Section 98 of the Levelling-up and Regeneration Act, which clarified what should form part of the contents of a neighbourhood development plan, should also be brought into force? I hope that that is not something that Ministers are neglecting to do but are simply trying to bring into force alongside other planning reform changes before we get to the next iteration of the National Planning Policy Framework.

There is a reference in Amendment 108 to Section 100 of the levelling-up Act, which is about the power to require assistance with plan-making, but it is quite clear from paragraph 4 of Schedule 3 to the Bill that it is the Government’s intention to bring Section 100 of the Levelling-up and Regeneration Act into force, otherwise that part of this Bill would be redundant. So, I have two questions: will the neighbourhood priorities statement be brought into force and when will the neighbourhood development plan be brought into force from the Levelling-up and Regeneration Act? I beg to move.

[Baroness Pinnock (LD)]

My Lords, I have Amendment 127 in this group of amendments about neighbourhood planning. It makes, in a much simpler way, the same detailed and principled point about neighbourhood plans as do the detailed amendments in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Lansley. My amendment seeks that the Secretary of State

“may only … grant a development consent order where the Secretary of State believes that the application for consent gives due consideration to any relevant neighbourhood plan”.

The noble Lord, Lord Lansley, has just pointed to the importance given to neighbourhood governance in the English devolution Bill that has started at the other end of Parliament. He referred also to the debates we had in consideration of the then Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill about the importance of listening to neighbourhood priorities and setting them out, as well as of accepting neighbourhood plans within local plans. I hope that will apply, in a wider way, with development consent orders and strategic plans.

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[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, I rise to follow two of your Lordships’ House’s leaders in the culture and heritage space and I find myself in a position I am quite often—modestly backing up the excellent work of the noble Earl, Lord Clancarty, and the noble Lord, Lord Freyberg.

The noble Earl, Lord Clancarty, has already set out Amendment 102 very clearly. In essence, it fills a gap in terribly important legislation, the Localism Act, in respect of assets of community value. I have gone up and down England and visited many communities where they have saved pubs, they have saved shops, and they have saved places that are terribly important to them, but there is not that explicit recognition of cultural assets, which clearly needs to be there.

Many of the places where this is going to be most important are rural areas, small towns, market towns and coastal towns—places that are really struggling. Those community cultural assets are, as the noble Earl said, of crucial economic value and crucial to quality of life, mental health and the sense of community.

There is a lot of crossover. This is a logical grouping, particularly alongside Amendment 110 from the noble Lord, Lord Parkinson. Often, heritage and cultural assets will be one and the same thing in these kinds of communities—the old theatre, the old cinema and places such as that which will now be used in all kinds of different ways. I want to put on the record a really interesting report from the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, published on 25 September this year, on the impacts of changes to local authority funding on small to medium heritage organisations. As I said, heritage and culture very often will be the same place.

I should declare my position as a vice-president of the Local Government Association at this point. Local authorities, still the main providers of heritage services, have seen a 49% cut in central government grants and we are seeing a massive overall cut in the form of closures, reduced opening hours and scaling down of public programmes. This is where the community can step in when all else fails—when the local authority simply no longer has any money, which is increasingly the case. The amendment would allow the community to step in very clearly in that cultural space. I know the hour is late, but if the noble Earl wishes to test the opinion of House, we will certainly be behind him.

[Baroness Pinnock (LD)]

My Lords, we on these Benches wholeheartedly support Amendment 102 in the name of the noble Earl, Lord Clancarty. It is quite sad, if we reflect, that local government formerly would be in a position to support those assets of community value, including those of cultural value, in the days before, say, 2010. As the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, has reminded us, there were very large cuts in funding for local government, so it is no longer able to be what it used to be.

Local government used to be the governance of a community which enabled and encouraged all aspects of community life, as far as it could, to flourish—economically, socially and in community values. That helped communities to come together and stay together. We would not have some of the problems that are raising their ugly head currently if that had not happened. Therefore, we on these Benches support adding buildings of cultural value in the same section as those of community value.

The noble Lord, Lord Parkinson, is always the torch-bearer for heritage, and I am right behind him in what he proposes. As we have said on other occasions, heritage makes us as a nation and as a community. Currently, I am helping to fight a local battle about a 325 year-old monument to a woman that has been disregarded, taken down and stored in a highways depot—I might speak to the noble Lord, Lord Parkinson, about it. It is important to me, and it matters to that community because it stands for their heritage and history. These things are very important and we support all of them.

[Lord Jamieson (Con)]

My Lords, again, we appear to have quite a lot of consensus across the House on these issues of culture and heritage. There is a theme running through these proposals: how our planning system recognises and safeguards that which makes our places special and gives them their identity—our cultural life, our heritage and our historic environment. These are not peripheral concerns; they are central to the quality and distinctiveness of the communities we build.

On Amendment 102 from the noble Earl, Lord Clancarty, we understand and share the impulse to protect cultural venues and creative spaces, which so often lie at the heart of local cultural economies. These places are cherished by local people, local families and local businesses. Can the Minister advise whether the Government have considered reviewing the existing scheme under the Localism Act to examine how cultural uses can be better supported within it?

The amendments in the name of my noble friend Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay, on the commencement of heritage provisions in the Levelling-up and Regeneration Act and on the role of historic environment records, are sensible and timely. The heritage clauses of the Act were hard won, and it is only right that they should now be brought into effect without delay. Will the Minister assure the House that this will be the case?

We also agree that there must be proper parliamentary scrutiny of listed building consent orders. We again support the view that existing legislation should be progressed, as outlined by my noble friend Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay.

Our planning system must enable growth, investment and the delivery of infrastructure, but it must also safeguard that which makes places worth living in.

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[Baroness Pinnock (LD)]

My Lords, I have now sat through four discussions about the Hillside judgment. I am not sure that I am any the wiser for having done so, except to acknowledge that there is an issue of significant proportions, that it needs to be resolved and that those who have put forward solutions, who know the planning law considerably better than I do, suggest that it needs to be resolved.

The noble Lord, Lord Lansley, talked about a master plan for a big site—I thought that everybody did master plans for big sites, but maybe not—and that that would be part of a solution to this discussion. My plea to the Minister is that we have a final resolution for the Hillside issue, so that those of us who have sat through it four times already do not have to sit through it again.

[Noble Lords]

Hear, hear!

Planning and Infrastructure Bill

Baroness Pinnock Excerpts

Report stage
Monday 27th October 2025 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Baroness Pinnock]

87FD: After Clause 51, insert the following new Clause—
“Planning permission: Responsible Actors Scheme members(1) No member of the Responsible Actors Scheme may be granted planning permission or carry out major development of land in England through any agent or contractor or any other person acting for or on their behalf until the Secretary of State has revised the Scheme to ensure that—(a) all buildings developed by Responsible Actors Scheme members with relevant defects are remediated at no cost to leaseholders or commonhold unit owners, and(b) where a relevant defect arises from a failure to comply with building regulations or relevant approved documents in force at the time of the construction of a building by a Responsible Actors Scheme member, that defect must be corrected by remediating the building to current building regulations.(2) In this section—“building” means a self-contained building, or self-contained part of a building, in England that contains at least two dwellings;“major development” has the meaning given by article 2 of the Town and Country Planning (Development Management Procedure) (England) Order 2015 (S.I. 2015/595);“member of the Responsible Actors Scheme” means a member of the Scheme established under The Building Safety (Responsible Actors Scheme and Prohibitions) Regulations 2023 (S.I. 2023/753);“relevant defect” has the same means as in section 120 of the Building Safety Act 2022.”Member’s explanatory statement
This new clause prevents members of the Responsible Actors Scheme (the UK’s large developers) from applying for or undertaking major development until the Secretary of State has revised the Scheme to ensure that all unsafe blocks of flats are remediated.

[Baroness Pinnock (LD)]

My Lords, the purpose of tabling this amendment is twofold. First, it is to shine a beacon of light on a building scandal that has recently fallen out of the national spotlight. Secondly, it is to urge the Government to use this Bill to exert further pressure on those who caused the Grenfell Tower tragedy, where, I remind the House, 72 people lost their lives.

This amendment is not about pointing the finger of blame at this or past Governments. It is about seeking to put more pressure on those who created the conditions in which people died and which many leaseholders now have to endure, consequent on building safety failure.

What are the facts? The MHCLG estimates—I note that there is no current definitive figure—that between 5,900 and 9,000 buildings over 11 metres have unsafe cladding. This means that over a quarter of a million individual flats and perhaps nearly half a million people are affected, and that is just for those blocks over 11 metres, which are the subject of the Building Safety Act.

According to government figures for August this year, 1,927 blocks have had their remediation completed and a further 750 have started, but that leaves many thousands of leaseholders in limbo. I accept that the Government have attempted to improve this position with the remediation acceleration plan, alongside a promise for a remediation Bill. Can the Minister tell the House when that Bill is likely to be introduced?

The action plan commits to completing all remediation of blocks over 11 metres by 2029. That is a full 12 years after the Grenfell Tower fire. Meanwhile, leaseholders are paying the price for a situation that in no part is of their making. They are paying for it in extortionate insurance bills, in ever-rising service charges, and in knowing that they have no way out as their flats do not sell. For some, this has had very tragic consequences. The mother of one of those who ended their life as a direct result of this enormously stressful situation is sitting in the Gallery today and listening to this debate.

This Bill is an opportunity further to address the building safety scandal by putting more pressure on those who created these dangerous living conditions. Amendment 87FD in my name and co-signed by the noble Earl, Lord Lytton, seeks to require that construction companies that have signed up to the responsible actors scheme agree to the full remediation of all buildings—that includes those under 11 metres—before they are able to proceed with further major developments. This must be achieved at no cost to leaseholders. For those living in blocks of under 11 metres, currently the costs fall on them, despite their not having created the building scandal in any way. The major housebuilders are well able to afford to pay for the crisis they created, with annual operating profits being in the high hundreds of millions of pounds.

The noble Lord Young of Cookham wished to speak in support of this amendment, but, unfortunately, he is currently speaking in Grand Committee. He has asked me to say that he is in complete support of the amendment and will vote in the Lobby in support of it if a vote is called. I look forward to the Minister’s response, but if I am not satisfied that more can be extracted from those who created the crisis that is putting lives at risk, I will test the opinion of the House. I beg to move.

[The Earl of Lytton (CB)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to support the amendment tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, to which I have added my name. We have both spent many years trying to persuade the Government that a clearer and more comprehensive solution is needed to protect everyone affected by the building safety crisis. Noble Lords will know of my professional insights into this matter as a chartered surveyor and of my previous attempts to get fair treatment for innocent homeowners. .

I continue to receive mail from home owners, small investors, property managers and conveyancers who are utterly dismayed at the complexity, uncertainty and capricious nature of the funding under government schemes, which involve matters of building height, cladding combustibility and unseen and previously unknowable compartmentation issues, with funding applying differentially to various classes of ownership or being dependent on the freeholder’s assets, plus identification of the person responsible and whether that person has effective agency in relation to remediation. In addition, there are two parallel standards of remediation at work.

Some noble Lords will recall that during the deliberations on the Building Safety Bill, I convened a briefing for Peers. We were addressed by the late Amanda Walker, to whom the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, was, I think, making reference. She told us how her life and world had been turned upside down. Her experience fits entirely with what others have told me of a living hell of unsellable property, unaffordable interim safety costs, insurance hikes and unknowable liabilities going forward—in short, what they thought was a safe and secure home being turned into a financial prison—and of the stress, ruined lives and total inequality of the exclusions from protection.

I joined Amanda’s mother and brother earlier today in a meeting with Minister Samantha Dixon. She gave the impression of listening very carefully to what we said. Mrs Walker’s recent email, which I paraphrase, says this: “My precious daughter was a very ardent campaigner on behalf of thousands of leaseholders who suffered because of loopholes in the Building Safety Act. This amendment”—she is referring to the amendment before us now—“will not help her but may help many others. The anxiety levels in so many people were painful to watch, and in my view ruined many lives”.

As the Minister knows, around 1.7 million leaseholders do not have full or even, in some cases, partial protection from the costs of remediating unsafe buildings. Those living in buildings below 11 metres have no protection at all, as the noble Baroness pointed out. Enfranchised leaseholders and those owning more than three properties are liable for any non-cladding remediation costs. Other leaseholders may have to contribute up to £15,000 to cover non-cladding costs—depending on the wealth of their freeholder, if you please. All these people are completely innocent of the causes that led to defects in their building, not just cladding but basic disregard of the building regulations in force at the time of construction.

The assumption is that lower rise buildings are safe because it is easier to mitigate risks, to escape from them and for fire and rescue services to attend to emergencies, but we do not actually know that they are safe. The proportionate standard under PAS 9980, which is the remediation standard frequently used, admits that spread of fire may be more rapid given the greater prevalence of combustible materials in the construction, and the capacity of many construction products to generate impenetrable choking smoke when burning, impeding escape. And who pays for any mitigation? Ultimately, it is the leaseholders.

According to the National Fire Chiefs Council, the current Building Safety Act’s three-tier approach—fully protected, partial or capped protection, and totally unprotected— is delaying remediation and leaving leaseholders in limbo. That funding is fragmented, and occupiers are left in unsafe buildings or are among the growing number, currently totalling more than 14,000, of those mandatorily evacuated, sometimes having to leave very modern buildings. The National Audit Office has found that the PAS 9980 risk-based approach to remediation is a cause of delays as different stakeholders argue over what constitutes “proportionate” remediation and “tolerable” risk, both of which terms appear in that document. Some 52 flat developers have signed up to the responsible actors scheme. Their remediation responsibility is to this proportionate standard only—never mind failure to build to the relevant building standards applicable at the time of construction.

Markets need transparency, and the Government need to be upfront about the general quality of buildings and building regulation compliance over past 30 years. It has long been an offence not to comply with building regulations. Market sentiment depends on clarity, but beyond the scope of the Government’s remediation portfolio, it is unclear what the reality actually is. So long as this doubt sloshes around the market, the insurance and lending sectors and, indeed, purchaser keenness, will remain febrile. All these may predispose a wider malaise the longer this persists, particularly in the lending markets, where the impact of new solvency regulations means that such uncertainties will have to be factored into securitisation risks, loan book management and consumer costs.

For evidence of the effects today, I point to flagging new flat construction, rising costs, schemes being mothballed and softening sales markets. Wagging fingers at insurers will not get rid of risk awareness and sentiment. Once you understand that something is a risk, it is there for ever. While I understand why the Government might not want to garner a lot of non-compliance data, if, despite consumers’ and the markets’ need to know, they choose not to do so, what I set out is the inevitable outcome, with implications for urban redevelopment and densification, homebuilding targets and, ultimately, stable communities.

This amendment would sweep up all building types, all tenures, and both cladding and non-cladding defects. It would tighten standards and encompass product manufacturers. Any planning delays under the amendment would be no more than the minimum necessary to process regulations immediately on Royal Assent, and I believe very few projects would be held up in practice. If the Government agree the principle that innocent people should not foot the bill for bad building practices or even for preserving the Government’s own policy objectives, they need at least to indicate to the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, that they propose to take this forward with serious intent. This amendment would give the Secretary of State the tools to do this and to end the two-tier remediation standard, the basic inequity and uncertainty of the current protections, and the market disruption that has accompanied them.

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[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

I am grateful to noble Lords for raising these important issues with their Amendment 87FD on the remediation of buildings by developers and I pay tribute to the noble Earl, Lord Lytton, and the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, for their tireless support for residents since the Grenfell Tower tragedy. I understand that the amendment is intended to protect residents and leaseholders. Unfortunately, its effect would be to slow remediation and risk stopping essential housebuilding.

I can reassure the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, that there has been no relaxing of the Government’s determination to deal with the significant remediation actions outstanding from Grenfell. I spoke to my honourable friend Minister Dixon just last week. She has now picked up the urgent action needed to accelerate remediation. She has already visited the Grenfell site, and I am pleased to hear that she has met Mrs Walker and other members of the Grenfell community. I know she takes her responsibility extremely seriously and she will continue the work of Minister Norris in dealing with this as quickly as possible. There will be a further opportunity in the very near future for this House to debate the issues of building safety and remediation, including their interaction with this Government’s bold ambitions on housing supply.

Amendment 87FD is intended to prevent members of the responsible actors scheme receiving new planning permissions or building new housing developments until the Government make fundamental changes to the scheme to require developers to remediate additional types of defect and apply a different approach to the remediation of external walls. In practice, this would mean that over 40 of the largest housebuilders in England would have to stop building new homes until the Government made changes to an essential remediation scheme that we assess would delay and undermine progress.

This landmark Bill is intended to get Britain building again, unleash economic growth and deliver on the promise of national renewal. It is critical in helping the Government to achieve the ambitious plan for change milestone of building 1.5 million safe and decent homes in England during the current Parliament. It is simply not compatible with the aims of the Bill to include a measure which would stop the largest housebuilders in this country building new homes. It would lead to major market uncertainty and disruption. Nor would the proposed changes to the responsible actors scheme serve the interests of residents and leaseholders, as they would delay remediation of their buildings for years.

Over 50 major developers have signed developer remediation contracts with the Government and committed to fix life-critical fire safety defects in over 2,370 buildings, at a cost of approximately £4.7 billion. This is supported by the statutory responsible actors scheme, which enables the Secretary of State to impose severe commercial consequences on any eligible developer who fails to follow through on their remediation obligations. Since signing the contracts, developers have assessed over 90% of relevant buildings and have started or completed works on 44% of buildings known to require works. This amendment would require fundamental changes in the responsible actors scheme by requiring developers to identify a different set of defects and require remediation to a different standard. Attempting to make those changes to the statutory scheme would undermine the remediation contracts that developers have signed with government. The result would be disastrous for residents and leaseholders, leading to long delays, operational and legal confusion, and uncertainty. Essential works to protect people could be set back by years.

The current approach to remediation under the developer remediation contract is proportionate and appropriate and uses PAS 9980, the same standard for external wall remediation as the Government’s wider remediation programme. The PAS 9980 standard is used for external wall system remediation because we are focused on mitigating risks to life safety, taking an evidence-based and proportionate approach. External wall remediation is assessed based on a fire risk appraisal of external walls which suggests remedial work or mitigation to improve a building’s risk rating through a holistic and fact-based assessment of its construction. Removal of combustible materials is often recommended but is not always necessary, including when other mitigating measures are taken. This proportionate approach to cladding remediation aims to manage fire risks and make sure that residents are safe, while preventing the kind of unnecessary works that can also be incredibly disruptive for residents.

To pick up the points made by the noble Earl, Lord Lytton, about insurance, we are clear that more needs to be done to protect leaseholders from very high insurance premiums. The fire safety reinsurance facility led by the Association of British Insurers and reinsurance broker McGill and Partners launched in April 2024. The facility aims to increase capacity in the market and may reduce high premiums for some of the most affected multi-occupancy buildings with fire safety issues. The facility has been renewed for a second year and is a viable option for building owners trying to find the best deal for their residents. In the first 12 months, over 760 buildings have been supported by the facility and now more buildings may benefit from the cover available, as the claims limit has increased to £75 million. In the remediation acceleration plan announced, we would work with the insurance industry to consider options for possible government support. We are currently engaging with industry and will provide an update on all this in due course.

This amendment has raised important technical issues about the remediation process. We cannot do full justice to them tonight, but there will be further opportunities for this House to debate the remediation of buildings at much greater length during the passage of the upcoming remediation Bill. I look forward to that opportunity. What is already clear, however, is that the amendment we are looking at tonight would undermine the core purpose of the Bill by greatly delaying work to remediate buildings, as well as putting at serious risk critical work to build new homes. Given these very serious concerns, I urge noble Lords to withdraw this amendment.

[Baroness Pinnock (LD)]

I thank the Minister, the noble Earl, Lord Lytton, and the Conservative Front Bench for taking part in this debate, but I am thoroughly disappointed by the remarks of the Minister and the noble Lord, Lord Jamieson. It is not an either/or. How can it be an either/or? According to the Minister’s response, either we enable housebuilders to build more homes or we accelerate even further the remediation of flats that are in a dangerous condition. It should not be either/or; it should be both/and. There is capacity within the housebuilding industry to do that.

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

I think I made it clear that the danger in the amendment is in doing just what the noble Baroness has spoken against. We want to move the remediation acceleration forward as quickly as possible, at the same time as building new homes. The danger with this amendment is that it slows the whole thing down and means that neither the remediation nor the building of new homes gets done quickly.

[Baroness Pinnock (LD)]

Unfortunately, I do not accept the Minister’s argument because, under the Government’s own remediation acceleration scheme, it will take another six or seven years for people to have their homes made safe. How is that right? We heard the compelling arguments from the noble Earl, Lord Lytton, about the 1.7 million leaseholders who will be required to pay many thousands of pounds to make their own homes safe when it is not their fault. It is not acceptable that we are still here, all these years after that awful fire at Grenfell Tower, trying to debate yet again what is going on.

[Lord Gove (Con)]

My Lords, I am hugely in sympathy with the noble Baroness in her aim but, as the author when I was in ministerial office of the responsible actors scheme, which was stoutly resisted by housing developers, I had to strike a balance between putting the squeeze on them—by making it clear that unless they acted to remediate, they would receive no planning permission whatever—and making sure that they could continue to build the houses we need. Have the noble Baroness and the supporters of this amendment looked at what the impact on the balance sheets of individual housebuilders might be, and what impact that would have on our current rate of buildout? Also, is it not the case that many of those who do not qualify at the moment for support for remediation—the so-called non-qualifying leaseholders—are people with extensive property portfolios? A line has to be drawn somewhere to ensure that those with significant wealth do not benefit, while those who do need support receive it.

[Baroness Pinnock (LD)]

I thank the noble Lord, Lord Gove, for his intervention. He is right that when the scheme was established, it was on the basis of squeezing the housebuilders as far as they could go. However, if I remember the figure correctly, one of the major housebuilders has made an operating profit in the last year of £870 million. Call me a curmudgeon if you like, but if some of that could be used to fund making the dangerous flats they built safe for people to live in, I think that is not a bad call.

We have had the argument but I am not content with the answers I have got, so I wish to test the opinion of the House. I hope that those on the Conservative Benches will support those who have spoken strong and hard in favour of remediation schemes, and in favour of leaseholders, through the Lobby.

Planning and Infrastructure Bill

Baroness Pinnock Excerpts

Report stage
Wednesday 22nd October 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Lansley (Con)]

My Lords, I will confine my remarks to Amendment 63 in my name. Noble Lords will recall that in Committee we had quite a substantial discussion about the national scheme of delegation and the extent to which decisions should automatically be delegated to planning officers rather than going to a committee.

I do not really want to dwell on all that, other than to say that we are continuing to wait—in my case, with optimism—to hear about a national scheme of delegation and how it might assist in the delivery of our planning and housing targets. In my view—and I will just reiterate it because presumably Ministers are still considering how to proceed with the scheme—it was a mistake that the Government’s proposal for the scheme for consultation did not follow through on the original plan, which would have meant that where decisions could be made wholly in accordance with the existing local plan, they should be delegated to planning officers, since the democratic input of the planning committee, as my noble friend Lady Coffey just said, is and should be primarily in establishing the local plan and then we should be guided by that, rather than revisiting every decision under the local plan through the planning committee.

We also continue to wait on the Government consulting on national development management policies. I know it is their intention to do so. But, again, once we have national development management policies, by their nature, if they include policies which would determine how an application for permission should be treated—for example, in relation to planning applications in greenbelt and grey-belt land—those should necessarily go to planning officers because the planning committee would have no discretion not to make a decision in line with the national development management policies.

I say that to reiterate those points I feel strongly about, but also because it illustrates that when the scheme is first brought in, it will make substantial decisions about the framework within which the delegation of planning decisions is to be made. When we debated this in Committee, it was on my amendment which would have meant that such regulations were always to be by an affirmative resolution. I completely understand the Minister’s response that there may be quite detailed aspects of these regulations and that as a consequence there may be regular iterations—almost every time, probably, there is a change in the guidance, particularly the National Planning Policy Framework; we tend to have those as a little present just before Christmas every year—so we are probably going to get new regulations on a frequent basis and they may be quite detailed.

However, the first regulations set up the principles and the framework for how this scheme of delegation will work in the longer term. It is not acceptable for that to be subject to a negative resolution. This House should have the opportunity to see, approve and, as my noble friend says, debate the framework for the national scheme of delegation the first time those regulations are made. That is the purpose of Amendment 63: to provide that when the regulations are made for the first time, it is on an affirmative basis, and subsequently on a negative basis. When the time comes, I hope to have the opportunity to move the amendment and, if it secures support in this debate, I may well look to test the opinion of the House.

[Baroness Pinnock (LD)]

My Lords, we on the Liberal Democrat Benches are firm and constant supporters of the right of locally elected councillors to make decisions in their area based on clear national policies. The proposals in the Bill for a national diktat of delegation are the backdrop to this group of amendments. The Government are ostensibly in favour of devolution of decision-making. However, there is a tendency within the Bill to centralise decisions on planning by making it virtually impossible for local decisions to reflect local need and nuance.

Amendment 62A, tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Coffey, is interesting but could be problematic—actually, I thought it less problematic when I heard the noble Baroness’s explanation of the first part of the amendment. Although there are occasions during the life of a plan when unforeseen events arise which mean the local plan is not sacrosanct, on the whole it ought to be, otherwise it will be nibbled away at during its lifetime through precedent.

I have some sympathy with the second part of the noble Baroness’s amendment. Too often, housing sites are assessed as being able to accommodate a large number of units, then along comes the developer—with his eyes on the profit line—who applies for a different balance of houses in which larger, more expensive and more profitable units are to be built. The consequence is that the balance that we need, which is somewhere in between, is not met. The result of allowing developers to determine the density of a site is that more land then has to be allocated for development. I will give one example from my own area. A housing site was allocated in the local plan, under the national rules, for 402 homes. Currently, just over 200 are being built, because of the need—apparently—for five-bed exec homes. The local assessment of housing need shows that what are required are start-up homes and smaller homes with two or three beds. I have a lot of sympathy with that part of the amendment.

Amendment 63, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, is right to seek to put safeguards in place in the rush to take the local out of local democracy. As the noble Lord explained, the amendment is to ensure that the affirmative resolution would be required for the initial changes to the national scheme of delegation. That has got to be right, because it will set the tone for the future of what is accepted as being part of a national scheme of delegation and what is okay for local decision-makers. That is fundamental, and the noble Lord is right to raise it in the amendment. If he wishes to take it to a vote, we on these Benches will support him.

The noble Baroness, Lady Scott of Bybrook, has not yet had the opportunity to speak to her Amendment 76, so I hope she does not mind if I comment on it. We on these Benches will support the noble Baroness if she wishes to take it to a vote. This amendment would be another move towards empowering local decision-makers with the right to take planning applications to committee where there is a volume of valid objections to an application, and then to have the debate in a public setting.

Amendment 87F, tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Coffey, seeks a sensible change to help understand where the real problems lie in the failure to build the houses the country needs. As the noble Baroness hinted, it is not with local planning committees or authorities, otherwise there would not be 1.2 million units with full planning permission waiting for construction. Those figures are from the ONS, and I am not going to quarrel with the ONS. If the Government could get the housing developers to start building those 1.2 million units, we would be well on the way to the 1.5 million that the Government reckon they need during the lifetime of this Parliament.

This is an important group because it is about getting the balance between national need and local decision-making, and between a national view of what is acceptable and local elected councillors being able to reflect local need, nuance and requirements in their local setting. I hope that at least the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, will put his amendment to the vote. It is fundamental to the democratic process to have local decisions on planning.

[Lord Fuller (Con)]

My Lords, I strongly support Amendment 76 in the name of my noble friends on the Front Bench. As I have reminded noble Lords before, I have sat on a planning committee many times, I have appointed such a committee as a leader of a council and chosen the chairman, and I know it is a very important quasi-judicial position. Planning exists to arbitrate between the public good and the private interest. I use the word arbitrate purposely because people who sit on the planning committee have a difficult job. They have to weigh up so much conflicting information. It is an adversarial system, because, ultimately, either the proposer wins or the objector wins. There is no grey purpose in the middle.

Much of the Bill is established under the false premise that local planning committees are the blockers of development and it is only with the ranks of officials that we can get things going. Of course, this is rubbish. Evidence for that assertion was given by the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom, which this morning ruled that it was wrong that Governments and quangos had asserted that Ramsar sites had an equivalence to European sites and thus had to have a full environmental assessment, and overturned it on that narrow point. Within an hour, we had officials and Treasury solicitors boasting how this Bill is going to turn that around and reinstall that unnecessary gold-plating—gold-plating that, after four years, the Court of Appeal ruled should not have happened.

The Government’s suggestion that Ministers should usurp planning committees and instead form a national planning committee among themselves in Marsham Street is as fanciful as it is risible. It is a recipe for hurry up and slow down, and it is not fooling anybody that that is going to speed up development.

The premise is that officialdom brings none of its own particular personal or institutional prejudices to bear, but each quango brings its own vetoes. We have Natural England, with a track record of leaving no stone unturned in blocking or delaying development. We have the railways, which ballast every proposal for a new footbridge with £5 million-worth of cost and preposterous delays. We have the highways authorities, which tie themselves in knots over overly precious technical guidance and misdirect themselves that the private motorcar is intrinsically bad, when it is not. And that is before we get to the other bad actors, which time does not permit me to list.

I do not deny the importance of these quango representations, but the problem is that they all claim a veto, and it is from this that we have the £100 million bat bridge or that mitigating trade in great crested newts, which are rare in Europe but commonplace in every pond in my electoral ward in Norfolk. It is the way that planning works: it takes only one of these proverbial blackballs or vetoes from one of the statutory consultees to stymie a proposal.

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I particularly note that the clause extends the powers of the Secretary of State to issue directions to restrict the ability of local planning authorities to refuse planning permission, either for particular applications, which we have mostly talked about, or more worryingly, as I understand it—I stand to be corrected by the noble Baroness if this is not correct—for whole categories of development. For example, it could remove the ability to refuse, as a class, data centres, whose environmental impact your Lordships’ House has become very concerned about, or any C3 dwellings in an area of low housing delivery. Taken in combination with the proposed national scheme of delegation introduced by Clause 51, about which we have just had a letter, which seeks to ensure that certain development types are determined solely by officers rather than a planning committee, there is a massively significant undermining of local decision-making. The Green group will oppose government Amendment 64 in the strongest terms and will express that at every opportunity.

[Baroness Pinnock (LD)]

My Lords, once more, the Government have chosen to add a new clause, through Amendment 64, at this very late stage in the Bill’s progress, as other noble Lords have pointed out. It really is not acceptable practice, for the reason the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, gave, which is that we have not been able to give this new clause proper and appropriate depth of scrutiny. The new clause has only four lines, and that includes its title. The other two and a half lines, if enacted, will have, as other noble Lords have said, a significant and maybe serious impact on local planning decision-making.

When I first saw the amendment, I was concerned and thought that I had perhaps got it wrong. However, we have now heard from across the House, including from the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, and we have heard the noble Lord, Lord Banner, our expert in this House on planning matters, questioning the Minister on the meaning of what is proposed. The noble Lord, Lord Fuller, and the noble Baronesses, Lady Coffey and Lady Young, have all raised considerable concerns about the extent of what this brief clause will actually achieve. In her own inimitable way, the Minister has been able to underplay the clause by saying, “It is just an anomaly. It’s not going to make any difference really”. If it is not going to make any difference really, do not bring it in at this late stage. If it were so important, I am sure the Government would have noticed it, either in the discussions at the other end of the Parliament or at least in Committee here, so I have a feeling that it may not be as unimportant a clause as the Minister has been making out.

Where does that leave us? All noble Lords who have had experience, as many of us have, of the process of planning applications will know that planning committees are rightly required to make their decisions in accordance with planning legislation, the National Planning Policy Framework, all relevant national policies and their local plan, which includes local planning policies.

If a planning committee wishes to refuse a planning application, it has to do so, as others have said, with valid planning reasons. Failure to do so means that the applicant, rightly, takes that to the Planning Inspectorate for an appeal against that decision. If the planning committee has made a foolish decision, not giving valid reasons for refusal, the Planning Inspectorate, rightly, awards costs against the council, which is why there are not many planning appeals where costs are awarded against councils because planning officers in a local planning authority will advise their members accordingly.

Then you ask yourself: if that is the case and a refusal could go to inquiry or a written resolution of it, why is it necessary to call it in before a refusal has been given? The only reason I can come up with is that the Government wish to push through applications that are not relevant or appropriate to a local plan. The noble Baroness, Lady Young, hit the nail on the head: it substantially changes the tone and direction of planning, so that it becomes more of a national rather than a local decision-making process.

For somebody who is a cheerleader for local decision-making, who wants proper devolution, who thinks that making decisions locally is the right thing to do —as do many other parts of western Europe, which have successful governance as a consequence—to bring things back to the centre all the time is simply not acceptable. We on these Benches will strongly oppose government Amendment 64. I have explained to the Minister, out of due courtesy, that we will be doing so. This is overreach and will not do.

I turn to Amendment 87D. The noble Baroness, Lady Coffey, and others have referred to it. The noble Baroness and I had a brief discussion the other day. She knows that I support Amendment 87D. If she wishes to take it to a decision of the House, we will support her. But, fundamentally, the balance between local and national decision-making is being tipped too far in the direction of national decision-making on policies, and that is not acceptable. As I have said, we will oppose Amendment 64.

[Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)]

My Lords, I rise to speak to Government Amendment 64 in this group. As we have heard, this amendment would allow a development order to enable the Secretary of State to give directions restricting the refusal of planning permission in principle by a local planning authority in England. Under Section 77(5) of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990, the Secretary of State already possesses powers to intervene by calling in an application for their own determination. Therefore, I ask the Minister, what has changed? Will the existing guardrails and provisions governing the call-in process remain intact? Will the mechanisms by which call-in operates continue as they do now? How will the Secretary of State ensure that this power is not overused, thereby overriding local decision-making?

The Government should explain precisely what this amendment achieves that cannot already be done under existing law. If it represents a fundamental change to the call-in power, the Government should set that out clearly today, including the proposed changes, the safeguards and how the new power is intended to operate. If the Minister cannot provide that assurance, we will be inclined to test the opinion of the House on whether this amendment should proceed. Instead of tinkering with this power, the Government’s real focus should have been elsewhere: on proportionality and addressing the implications of the Hillside judgment. Energy should be directed towards tackling the real blockages in the planning system.

I turn to Amendment 65—which I hope will not be required—tabled by my noble friend Lord Lansley. This amendment would provide an incentive for local planning authorities to adopt up-to-date local plans and, in doing so, regain control over the granting of planning permissions in accordance with those plans. This raises an important point: the absence of up-to-date local plans across much of England remains one of the central causes of delay, inconsistency and local frustration with the planning system. The Government must therefore give the issues this amendment raises due regard and set out in clear detail how they intend to address the concerns it raises.

Finally, I am not quite sure why my noble friend Lady Coffey’s Amendment 87D is in this group, but we have heard the feeling of the House on this. I know it is an issue my noble friend is rightly passionate about, and it is important. On the one hand, the Government have given communities their assets or enabled them to take them over; on the other, they are not protected from being lost. This is an important issue for the Minister, and I look forward to a very positive response to this especially important amendment.

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[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, briefly, I have a simple question about government Amendment 67, which would allow an extension of time to implement a planning permission or a listed building consent where there has been a legal challenge. This returns to the ecological surveys which got such a discussion in the group before lunch. Ecological surveys are taken at a particular point in time, and, particularly in this era of the climate emergency, species are moving and appear and disappear. How are the Government planning to deal with the fact that the ecological survey may become profoundly out of date and so, if this goes on for a long period, the grounds on which the decision was made initially may need to be redone? Is there some plan to deal with that issue?

[Baroness Pinnock (LD)]

My Lords, I point out that this is yet another late-in-the-day government amendment. However, the Minister will be pleased to know that this time I am in agreement with Amendment 67.

To extend the time limits from implementing a planning consent where there has been a legal challenge seems right and fair. I did not quite catch whether the Minister explained the full extent of it, but I assume that it means that for general applications that are subject to a judicial or statutory review it will be a one-year extension, a further year if it goes to the Court of Appeal, and then a further two years if it goes to the Supreme Court. The noble Baroness nods. So that is right and fair. That is a balanced approach, which is one of my ways of judging things: “Is it right, fair and balanced?” I think that is fair to the applicants. So, with the nod that I had from the Minister, I agree with Amendment 67 and with Amendment 104, in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Banner, which is very similar.

The other amendments in this group, Amendments 77, 78 and 79, in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, introduced by the noble Viscount, Lord Hanworth, would make serious changes to the ability of citizens to go to law where they feel that due process has failed them. Restricting those rights does not feel to me acceptable without further and full consideration by those who are expert in these matters—which is not me. With those comments, I look forward to what the Minister has to say.

[Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)]

My Lords, I will speak to Amendment 104, tabled by my noble friend Lord Banner, and to government Amendment 261. We are grateful for the Government’s engagement with my noble friend on this issue.

These amendments would prevent planning permission from timing out as a result of protracted legal challenge and remove the perverse incentive for meritless claims designed simply to run down the clock. At present, judicial reviews, as we have heard, often outlast the three-year planning deadline, leaving permissions to time out, wasting money on repeat or dummy applications and discouraging serious investment. Stopping the clock during a judicial review would protect legitimate permissions, reduce waste and deter vexatious claims. It carries no real downside for the Government.

The Government say that they agree with the policy intention. We welcome the Government’s move to address the concerns held on these Benches and their work with my noble friend Lord Banner on these issues. This is a question of proportionality and fairness in the planning system. If time is lost to litigation, that time should not count against the permission. Properly granted permissions should not be undone by process; it should be done by merit. Far from slowing down planning, this change would help to speed it up by reducing wasteful repeat applications, giving confidence to investors and allowing us to get on with building in the right places.

Finally, I speak to the amendments tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Hunt. The ideas, the intentions and the thoughts processed behind these amendments are good ones, built on a sound principle. However, we do not believe that these amendments are practical. The proposed process would involve going straight to a hearing. In our view, the court would simply not have the necessary bandwidth. Nevertheless, we are sympathetic to the purpose of his amendments.

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

My Lords, I am grateful for the support from across the House for the Government’s amendment. I am sorry that the noble Lord, Lord Banner, has had to rush off to the Supreme Court, apparently, but I am grateful for his support for our amendment.

I point out to the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, that this amendment has been developed in response to a discussion that we had in Committee and with extensive engagement with fellow Peers to improve the process of judicial review, which has been an ongoing issue. I hope that this reassures her.

[Baroness Pinnock (LD)]

I withdraw my criticisms.

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

I thank the noble Baroness.

Although the noble Lord, Lord Banner, is not here, I shall put on the record that there is work ongoing on the Hillside issue, as he is very aware. We continue to engage with him on that issue.

I cannot answer the question asked by the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, off the top of my head, but I will provide a written answer. I appreciate that two years is quite a long time. If surveys have been done, they may need to be done again. I will come back to her on that issue.

I thank my noble friend Lord Hunt for tabling Amendments 77, 78 and 79, introduced by my noble friend Lord Hanworth. These seek to remove the right of appeal for certain planning judicial reviews if they are deemed as totally without merit at the oral permission hearing in the High Court. The effect of these amendments largely reflects the intention of Clause 12, which makes provisions specifically for legal challenges concerning nationally significant infrastructure projects under the Planning Act 2008. The measures being taken forward in Clause 12 follow a robust independent review by the noble Lord, Lord Banner, and a subsequent government call for evidence, which made clear the case for change in relation to major infrastructure projects. We do not currently have any evidence of an issue with legal challenges concerning other types of planning decision. Therefore, we will need to consider this matter further to determine whether the extension of changes made in Clause 12 would be necessary or desirable in other planning regimes.

Amendment 77 seeks to clarify that legal challenges are to be made to the High Court. As mentioned in Committee, this is not necessary as it is already clearly set out in the existing relevant rules, practice directions and guidance documents. In light of these points, while I agree with the intent behind the amendments, I kindly ask that my noble friend does not move them.

Planning and Infrastructure Bill

Baroness Pinnock Excerpts

Report stage
Wednesday 22nd October 2025 Lords Chamber

These issues are not trivial and deserve proper scrutiny if this new power is to be created. I move my amendment in the hope of clarifying some of these things but reserve the right to test the opinion of the House on whether the removal of “possession” from the clause would make a material difference. I look forward to the debate and to hearing what the Government have to say. I beg to move.

[Baroness Pinnock (LD)]

My Lords, that is a good start to today’s debate. It is a rather arcane topic with which to start the day. I wondered, when I listened carefully to the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, whether he had actually read the original section in the Highways Act 1980, which the Government intend to—

[Lord Moylan (Con)]

I assure the noble Baroness that I have done so.

[Baroness Pinnock (LD)]

Excellent. I am pleased that he has, though I wonder whether he has, therefore, understood it. It is surprising that he has chosen to create legal uncertainty, which is what would happen with his amendment. Its consequence appears to be that developers needing a temporary use of land have in the past had to use compulsory acquisition powers if the landowner was not prepared to provide a temporary use. The Bill provides more assurance for both landowners and those improving or constructing new roads. For us on these Benches, the amendment makes no sense except as a tool to frustrate road improvements, and we will not support it.

[The Minister of State, Department for Transport (Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill) (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, for the amendment, which seeks to remove the Secretary of State’s ability to grant powers to an acquiring authority to compulsorily possess land necessary to facilitate delivery of highway schemes. The purpose of the measure is to allow acquiring authorities to temporarily possess land when needed for highway works to the exclusion of others without resorting to permanent acquisition.

Permanent acquisition of land or acquiring the freehold or long leasehold title of the land would mean that the acquiring authority would own the land outright and permanently. This is unnecessary and disproportionate when the land is needed only temporarily. In the event that agreement cannot be reached, this clause would enable an acquiring authority to compulsorily acquire the right to temporarily possess and occupy the land needed to facilitate the delivery of a highway scheme.

The rights of an applicant to temporarily possess or occupy land are routinely granted in development consent orders and Transport and Works Act orders. Furthermore, the power would use the same land compensation provisions as apply to compulsory purchase, adapting them as necessary to effect the temporary nature of the interest being acquired.

The noble Lord, Lord Moylan, quoted the National Farmers’ Union. It is not a new power; it is an implied right to take land temporarily that already exists and is already used, but the Government’s Bill makes it explicit.

Temporary possession is a well-established legal concept. It provides certainty and practical powers essential for the safe, efficient delivery of infrastructure works. Temporary possession would offer an acquiring authority—being a local highway authority or National Highways—a safe and proportionate route to exclude others from the land temporarily. This is critical when the land is needed for highways works. It could involve storing equipment and construction materials or manoeuvring large construction vehicles, as well as creating temporary routes to keep works traffic off the highway.

Temporary occupation, on the other hand, as the sole remaining power under the amended clause, would not confer the right to exclude others. This would pose serious safety risks and could undermine project delivery. Without clear powers, authorities would be unlikely to use the amended provision. It would risk introducing legal uncertainty, prolonging negotiations, leading to an increase in objections and public inquiries, all of which would increase costs and could delay delivery.

The Highways Act 1980 already contains powers covering the compulsory acquisition of land and rights in and over land. Clause 33, as I have said, would make it explicit that those powers can also authorise temporary possession. Clause 33, as currently drafted, provides the legal certainty, operational clarity and safeguards necessary for the safe and timely delivery of infrastructure projects. It does not create a new power; it is about ensuring that highways infrastructure can be delivered safely and proportionately.

Having, I hope, clearly defined the difference between possession and occupation, I also say to the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, that this is not an attempt to own the land. In fact, it is clearly designed not to own the land, so that the title to the land would not change; it would be a right to occupy the land.

Finally, the noble Lord raised the question of how long it would be after works finish that the land can be possessed and whether there would be a need for guidance. That clearly is a subsidiary matter; I will take that subject away and write to him on it afterwards. I therefore kindly ask the noble Lord to withdraw his amendment.

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Moved by

[Baroness Pinnock]

48: Clause 41, page 54, line 22, at end insert—
“(1A) Any disapplication of heritage protections under this section must be exercised in a manner that—(a) recognises the value of the United Kingdom’s archaeological and architectural heritage to the nation and to local communities;(b) respects the principle that structures and sites are designated for protection only where they are of special or particular historic or cultural significance; and(c) ensures that development under this Act gives due regard to the importance of conserving the historic environment alongside the need for future infra- structure.”Member's explanatory statement
This amendment imposes considerations for any disapplication of heritage protections.

[Baroness Pinnock (LD)]

My Lords, this is one area in the Bill where the Government have listened and made significant concessions in the light of the debate in Committee. In Committee, the amendment in my name and that of the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett of Manor Castle, challenged the Government to think again about the removal of heritage protections currently provided in the Transport and Works Act. I have retabled the amendment debated in Committee to press the Minister to reconsider.

In Committee also, the noble Lord, Lord Parkinson, proposed that Clause 41 stand part as the only route to provide important protection for our nation’s heritage. Government Amendment 49 is the answer to those strong arguments: the original Clause 41 is deleted along with the schedule, and a replacement Clause 41 tabled by the Minister.

At the core of the new Clause 41 is the notion of deemed consent; the deemed consent route does not ensure that key heritage duties, such as the duty to have special regard to listed buildings and conservation areas, are included. The Secretary of State therefore makes decisions on whether work to a listed building, scheduled monument or in a conservation area can be given permission, with the provisos of having due regard to. That route enables decisions on those issues to be made more quickly, but it fails the public engagement test that we on these Benches believe is important. However, given the changes proposed by the Minister, we are satisfied that there are protections for heritage sites and trust that all Secretaries of State will use their power with a special and high regard for our heritage. I beg to move.

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As a result of these amendments, and following their indications that they would do so, I hope that noble Lords will withdraw or not move amendments that seek to achieve the same outcome as the government amendments.

[Baroness Pinnock (LD)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for the long discussion that we had on this issue during recess and her commitment then to introduce a new clause. In my view, she has responded appropriately and fully to the concerns expressed. With those safeguards for our heritage, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 48 withdrawn.

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[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

Before the noble Lord sits down, I want to point out, since he addressed me directly, that mushrooms are a tiny fraction of the mycological ecosphere and that what we are talking about here are the fungi that are essential for plants to be able to attract nutrients. I would be very happy to discuss all this with him later.

[Baroness Pinnock (LD)]

My Lords, I hope that in two minutes we will adjourn. Right from the outset of the debate on this Bill, the Liberal Democrats have supported the idea of mandatory training for councillors who serve on planning committees, and I am pleased that this amendment does not challenge that principle, which is a good one.

Planning and Infrastructure Bill

Baroness Pinnock Excerpts

Report stage
Wednesday 22nd October 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Freyberg (CB)]

My Lords, I strongly support Amendment 71 in the names of the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh of Pickering, and my noble friend Lord Clancarty. As has been said, this is a long-standing issue and it lies at the heart of how new development coexists with existing businesses and community facilities. It concerns fairness and foresight in the planning system, ensuring that when new homes are built near established venues and facilities, the newcomers, not those already there, bear the responsibility for mitigating any resulting conflicts.

The crisis facing grass-roots music venues is now acute. As the noble Lord, Lord Parkinson, said, according to the Music Venue Trust, the UK lost one grass-roots music venue every fortnight in 2024 and almost half of them—43.8%—now operate at a loss, with a quarter facing imminent closure. This follows the loss of 16% of all such venues in 2023, with 125 spaces for live music gone in a single year. The pattern is sadly familiar. A venue thrives for decades, new flats are built nearby, residents complain, and the venue faces crippling restrictions or closure. The iconic Night & Day Cafe in Manchester and the Ministry of Sound in London have fought costly, protracted battles simply to continue existing.

The agent of change principle is meant to prevent exactly this. After years of campaigning led by the Music Venue Trust and supported, as my noble friend said, by Sir Paul McCartney, Brian Eno, and many others, it was finally incorporated into the national policy framework in 2018, yet seven years on, that policy has fallen short. Why is that? It is because guidance alone cannot override statutory duties under environmental health law. Local authorities must still investigate noise complaints and issue abatement notices, even when the source of that noise long predates the new development. The principle exists in spirit but lacks legal force.

This amendment would put that right. It establishes a statutory duty spanning both planning and licensing functions. It requires developers to submit proper noise impact assessments to mitigate the impact of the schemes on existing venues and, crucially, requires decision-makers to consider chronology. Who was there first must matter in law, not just in principle. This is not only about nightclubs or music venues; the same logic protects churches from complaints about bells, pubs from garden noise and sports clubs from cheering crowds. Indeed, it protects any established community use threatened by incompatible new development. This is a modest but essential reform that will help stem the loss of venues that make our towns and cities vibrant and give local authorities the clarity they need to balance growth with cultural sustainability. I urge the Government to support it.

[Baroness Pinnock (LD)]

My Lords, I am going to be extraordinarily brief, because the noble Lord, Lord Freyberg, has explained explicitly what this is about and why it is desperately needed. I add my name to all those who have spoken so passionately in favour of it and look forward to the Minister, with equal passion, agreeing to it.

[Lord Jamieson (Con)]

I am going to try to be brief, but I am afraid I am going to be beaten by the Liberal Democrats—just occasionally one has to accept this. I offer our support for Amendments 71 and 82, tabled by my noble friend Lady McIntosh of Pickering. As other noble Lords have said, it is a principle of fairness. If you are the one bringing change, you should be responsible for managing its impact. Yet, time and again, we have seen valued businesses, particularly in the live music, hospitality and cultural sectors, threatened or closed down due to new developments that arrive without sufficient mitigation and proper regard to the context within which they are being introduced. If you build a house on the edge of a cricket pitch, do not be surprised to see the occasional cricket ball flying into your garden.

The reality is that guidance, however well intentioned, is inconsistently applied. Local authorities are left without a clear statutory duty to uphold the agent of change principle. Amendment 82 extends this principle to a licensing regime we would also support. We see this as a constructive and proportionate improvement to the Bill that balances the need for new development with the equally important need to protect existing cultural, social and economic structures. We on these Benches are pleased to support this principle and hope that the Government will recognise the value of giving it a clear statutory footing. I ask the Minister for an assurance that existing businesses and community facilities will not be put at risk from subsequent developments.

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[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, I apologise for gazumping the noble Lord, Lord Young of Cookham. For the record, I am always happy to take my name off amendments in a case where we can demonstrate political breadth, but I was very happy to sign Amendment 72 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Best.

I will give one example. In July this year, Rother District Council received an application from Brookworth Homes to amend its permission for a 20-residence project in Battle, East Sussex, to, of course, zero homes for social rent. That is just one example of a place that desperately needs social housing. I will stop there, because I want to get to a vote if the Government do not give way.

[Baroness Pinnock (LD)]

My Lords, my Amendment 85 in this group concerns an issue that I first raised in Committee. At the national level, there is much talk of the urgent need to build 1.5 million new homes. They are even promoted with rather empty, Trump-like slogans. Mere numbers of new units will not provide a solution to many families and individuals in our country. What is urgently required is a national debate about the type of housing unit that is most needed, and how these will be provided. The noble Lord, Lord Best, has rightly focused on one area of desperate need: homes for social rent. Amendment 85 throws a beam of light —maybe even hope, if the Minister responds as I hope she will—on those families, and especially the children, living in temporary accommodation.

The numbers should shame us all. Over 170,000 children in our country—one of the wealthiest in the world—are living in temporary accommodation. Some 50% of all those experiencing homelessness are children. This could be a result of domestic violence, family breakdowns, debt or receiving a Section 25 eviction notice—at least, and at last, the Government have outlawed Section 21 evictions.

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[Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)]

My Lords, Amendments 73, 74, 75, 263 and 264, in my name and that of my noble friend Lord Jamieson, and Amendment 87E tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, are about fairness, transparency and democratic consent in how planning decisions are made, particularly when it comes to the provision of asylum accommodation.

Too often, decisions to convert hotels into asylum accommodation have been imposed on towns and cities without consultation, leaving residents feeling powerless and ignored. Asylum hotels have dominated the news this summer, sparking protests and dividing communities—divisions that could have been avoided if people had just been given a voice.

The principle is straightforward: changing the use of a hotel or a house in multiple occupation—HMO—to accommodate asylum seekers should be recognised as a material change of use under planning law. That would mean that planning permission is required, ensuring proper consultation and clarity for councils, residents and local businesses. At present, the law is uncertain and councils are left to fight retrospective battles in the courts. This is not about the approach of the current or the previous Government; it is about what is right for the British people.

Protecting local voices has been a priority and an issue we have fought for consistently throughout the Bill. It is a terrible shame that, when the same principle arises in relation to asylum, an issue that is dominating our local communities, people such as the Liberal Democrats have chosen not to support our plan to give local people a voice on this issue. We had hoped that all noble Lords would have been consistent with their commitment to protecting the voices of local people. These amendments are not a question of asylum policy; this is simply a question of giving communities a voice. The country is watching, and it is vital that we act. I beg to move.

[Baroness Pinnock (LD)]

My Lords, this is an important group of amendments, given that its focus is on the planning issues surrounding the use of hotels for asylum seekers, pending assessment of their applications. Amendment 87E in my name offers a different solution to those challenging issues. On these Benches, we recognise the importance of reducing the backlog of asylum applications and we are committed to constructively ending the use of hotels to house asylum seekers. I note that the Government have also committed to doing so by the end of this Parliament.

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[Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)]

My Lords, going back to the debate, it is quite extraordinary that the Minister has chosen to use her reply once again to dwell on the Government’s record on asylum hotels. This debate is not about asylum policy; it is not even directly about those who arrive in this country. It is about the rights of local people: the rights of communities to have a say when there is a change of use in their area, just as they would for any other form of development or planning decision.

[Baroness Pinnock (LD)]

Will the noble Baroness, Lady Scott, explain to the House why it has taken five years for her party to come to the conclusion that planning permission for a change of use is needed?

[Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)]

When we were in government, we had a plan—

Planning and Infrastructure Bill

Baroness Pinnock Excerpts

Report stage
Monday 20th October 2025 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Baroness Pinnock]

1: Before Clause 1, insert the following new Clause—
“PurposeThe purpose of this Act is to—(a) accelerate the delivery of new homes and critical infrastructure,(b) improve the planning and consenting processes,(c) support nature recovery through more effective development and restoration, and(d) increase community acceptability of infrastructure and development.”Member's explanatory statement
This amendment sets out the purpose of the Act.

[Baroness Pinnock (LD)]

My Lords, at the beginning of Report on this important Bill, I move my Amendment 1, which is to insert a new purpose clause at the beginning of the Bill to define what it is about. While this Bill aims to deliver significant change, without a clear guiding statement of intent we risk losing sight of the balanced objectives necessary to truly sustainable development. Amendment 1 sets out the core purposes of this Bill:

“to … accelerate the delivery of new homes and critical infrastructure … improve the planning and consenting processes … support nature recovery through more effective development and restoration, and … increase community acceptability of infrastructure and development”.

This is not merely a statement of aspiration. It is an important mechanism for accountability and clarity that directs the interpretation and implementation of every subsequent clause.

In Committee, there was support from across the Committee for a similar amendment. The benefit of adding a purpose clause to the Bill is that it will enshrine in law the tension between the need for construction and the requirement for robust environmental and democratic safeguards. The necessity of explicitly stating the duty to support nature recovery, for instance, directly addresses those profound concerns debated in Committee on Part 3 of the Bill.

Equally, many have voiced concerns about the negative impact of these reforms on local democracy and community voices. The CPRE, for instance, has concerns regarding the “dangerous erosion of democracy” inherent in measures that increase ministerial powers, such as the ability to issue holding directions to stop councils refusing planning permission when they do not accede to the law. To prevent them by issuing holding directions is a huge step in denuding local voices and local democratic councils from making the decisions about issues that affect their areas and communities. The inclusion of, for instance, the need to

“increase community acceptability of infrastructure and development”

directly mandates that the Government and implementing authorities address these democratic deficits. It would transform community engagement from a burdensome hoop to jump through—a problem noted by the previous regime in the Planning Act 2008, which led to proposals removing pre-application consultation requirements—into a stated core objective of the entire legislative framework.

The Government’s stated objective for this Bill remains the right one: we must

“speed up and streamline the delivery of new homes and critical infrastructure”;

however, acceleration without clear direction risks unintended long-term consequences that undermine the very public good that the Government seek to achieve. By accepting Amendment 1, we would embed clarity, provide a crucial framework for legal interpretation and establish legislative accountability for all stakeholders, ensuring that this major infrastructure Bill delivers not just efficiency but genuine sustainable development and broad public confidence. I beg to move.

[Lord Fuller (Con)]

My Lords, so here we are again. I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, for focusing our minds at the outset on what this Bill is about. It is a welcome amendment because the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, has at least attempted to bring some thematic coherence to a ragbag of proposals from a dozen departments, none of which appears to be talking to each other.

I have read the press notices and compared them to the Bill’s text—never has a Bill been more oversold by a Government. Belatedly, it now seems that the Government’s purpose for this Bill is to persuade the OBR that it will speed up the process of development so that its economic forecasts can help the Chancellor balance her books. But most of the proposals of this Bill will prove that Newtonian notion that, for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. It hands development veto powers to a self-serving quango and it talks about empowerment and streamlining processes, but it emasculates those with the local knowledge and mandate to unblock officialdom. Instead, it proposes a system whereby the Secretary of State is to become a one-person planning committee—good luck keeping to the 12-week determination deadlines on that one. It could have ironed out Hillside or introduced a proportionality test so that at least the little boys could get on, but there is boneheaded resistance there.

One talking head on the “Today” programme this morning bemoaned the lack of planning permissions, the number of which seems to be falling like autumn leaves, but failed to realise that it is the building safety regulator that has put the black spot on building in London, with a response rate of at least 44 weeks. On that, the Bill is silent. So, instead of unblocking the blockers, it creates an EDP process that is so ponderous that it is unlikely to unlock any stalled homes within this Parliament. It is three and a half years since we started the neutrality madness, and it will be at least another three and a half years before we can rip off that scab. So much for speeding up building; all it is doing is putting speed bumps in the way.

Of course, I welcome the important and critical proposals to free up the placement of roadside power poles to improve the electricity grid. But even this Government recognise that the potential of development corporations is something for the next Parliament—just at the moment that those structures and powers to unleash them are being thrown up in the air. For all the bluster and press notices, this Bill will slow development, not speed it up. By any measure, the Government’s purpose will be frustrated by their own legislation.

I come to the amendment of the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, which would

“accelerate the delivery of new homes … improve the planning and consenting processes … support nature … and … increase community acceptability”.

This is what we will debate over four long days. But what the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, has done is laid out the functions of the Bill; they are not its purpose. The reason that this Bill is in such a muddle is that it has not been framed through the purpose lens that dates back to the Labour Government of the post-war period, when the planning system was established in the first place.

Quite simply, the purpose of planning is to arbitrate between private interests and the public good; everything flows from there, and that balance between private and public is what makes the system work. It makes the economy flourish and enhances the environment. This Bill gets that balance all wrong, with too much state interference and not enough private initiative, so I am sorry to say that it is bound to fail. That is a shame, because we need to get those homes built and those rivers cleaned up, that clean power flowing and those new towns going—but little will be achieved, because in this Bill all roads flow to Marsham Street, back home to the dead hand of the state.

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[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (Baroness Taylor of Stevenage) (Lab)]

Well, well, my Lords, that was a wide-ranging debate for an opening debate on a purpose clause. Nevertheless, I thank those who contributed to the debate on the amendment in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock. I thank her for her extensive engagement between Committee and Report.

This is indeed an ambitious piece of legislation. It is our next step to fix the foundations of the economy, rebuild Britain and make every part of our country better off. The Bill will support delivery of the Government’s hugely ambitious plan for change milestones of building 1.5 million homes in England and fast-tracking 150 planning decisions on major economic infrastructure projects by the end of this Parliament. I say to the noble Lord, Lord Fuller, that his Government had 14 years to fix the sclerotic planning system that has hobbled growth in this country for over a decade, yet they failed to do so. Our Government are working across departments—yes, and I welcome that—to deliver what the last Government failed to do, which is to build the homes we need and the infrastructure that will support those homes, and to get our economy moving again.

I say to the noble Baroness, Lady Scott, that I am afraid she cannot have it both ways on the amendments that the Government have tabled. She has accused me in this Chamber of not listening. Well, we did listen in Committee and some of the amendments are in response to issues that were raised then. A number of those amendments relate to the devolved Administrations and we rightfully had consultations with those Administrations between Committee and Report. There are some truly pro-growth measures that we feel are rightly pressing and need to be done to improve the delivery of infrastructure, and there are a number of technical, minor amendments.

The Bill is not the only step towards improving the economy and delivering against our plan for change. The noble Baroness will know that we have reissued the National Planning Policy Framework; we have provided funding and training for planners; and we have provided a huge packet of support for SMEs. I met the APPG for SME House Builders the other day and it was pleased with the package that is being delivered. There is more to be done in working with the APPG, and I will be happy to do that. We have also carried out a fundamental review of the building safety regulator. All these things will contribute to the growth we all want to see.

I outlined the core objectives of the Bill at Second Reading, and we also discussed these at length in Committee. I do not suggest that I do so a third time. I recognise that planning law can be a complex part of the statute book to negotiate and interpret, whether you are a developer, a local authority, the courts or even a member of the public. I also appreciate that where a Bill has one sole objective, a purpose clause could clearly articulate this, assist people with understanding the Bill and affect the interpretation of its provisions. This Bill has a number of different objectives, with much of it amending existing law. A purpose clause is not helpful in these circumstances and could create unintended consequences. It is simply not possible or prudent for all these objectives to apply equally to each provision.

I believe we are all united by a shared objective today. On whichever side of the House we sit, we all agree that this House plays an important role in scrutinising legislation to ensure it achieves the intended objectives and to maximise the Bill’s benefit. I firmly believe that the intention behind this amendment is noble. I understand that it is tabled to aid interpretation of the Bill. My issues with purpose clauses, and the reasons I cannot accept this amendment, boil down to two things: their necessity and the potential for unintended consequences. Well-written legislation provides a clear articulation of what changes are proposed by the Government to deliver their objectives. It is for the Government to set out in debate why they are bringing forward a Bill during parliamentary passage. By the time it reaches Royal Assent, the intended changes to the law should speak for themselves.

The Government’s objectives are clear. They are also woven into this legislation through reference to a number of different targeted documents that set out the Government’s strategic intent in specific areas of policy. It is right that these objectives vary according to the topic—some of these objectives will be more important for one issue than another. If this was not the case, the Bill would lose its strategic vision.

The Government strongly support a strategic approach to planning. The word “strategic” is mentioned 196 times in the Bill, as amended in Committee. The Bill inserts a part specifically called “Strategic plan-making”, intended to ensure that planning decisions are undertaken at a more strategic level. Large parts of the Bill are drafted to take a more strategic, targeted approach to achieving the Government’s objectives. For example, this legislation gives regard to other strategic documents, such as the clean power action plan. This is all done with the intention of making clear how this legislation seeks to deliver the Government’s objectives.

Adding a purpose clause to the Bill is not the answer to addressing the complexity of the statute book, or even this legislation. In practice, it would do the opposite; it would add additional room for interpretation to a Bill intending to accelerate delivery and simplify a system. It risks creating additional complexity in interpretation, gumming up the planning system further. It risks reinserting the gold-plating behaviour we are seeking to remove. Developers and local authorities, for example, would feel obligated to show how they have considered priorities that are much more relevant to other parts of the Bill for fear of legal action. A purpose clause would provide a hook for those looking to judicially review or appeal decisions in order to slow them down.

The measures in the Bill should be allowed to speak for themselves. They have been carefully drafted to be interpreted without a purpose clause. The courts should be left to interpret the law without having to navigate their way through a maze of different purposes sitting on top of strategic objectives. A purpose clause would create ambiguity rather than clarity.

It does not appear to me, from the debate I have heard, that the House is confused by why the Government are seeking to bring this Bill forward. I think we all know that we seek to achieve the growth and the homes that this country deserves. We should therefore move forward to further debate how best to achieve them. For those reasons, I ask the noble Baroness to withdraw her amendment.

[Baroness Pinnock (LD)]

My Lords, I thank everyone involved in this short but important debate and those who have supported, in word at least, the objective of Amendment 1, which is to set out strategic purposes for the Bill. From time to time, parliamentary procedures have been considered and purpose clauses proposed, so I think the debate will continue on whether it is right and helpful to have purpose clauses at the outset of a Bill, as they do set out strategy. I understand what the Minister is saying about the strategy being throughout the Bill, but if you have it right at the outset it provides clarity on what the Bill is supposed to be trying to achieve.

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[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, having attached my name to the amendment so ably introduced by the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh of Pickering, I will speak very briefly to explain why this is something the Government need to address and respond to.

We know that the Government tend to operate in silos and look at one project at a time, without taking a comprehensive view of the overall impact on the country. New paragraph (a) proposed in the amendment focuses on the environment. In the past 10 years or so, we have seen real progress in understanding that we need to think about the landscape on a landscape scale, rather than just going, “We’ve got a nice little protected bit here and a nice little area there”. This amendment starts to get to the issue of thinking on a landscape scale in terms of the environment.

It is not impossible to imagine. Recently, we have become very aware of the importance of corridors through which different populations of wildlife can be linked up. There could be projects where one on its own does not look like it will have a serious impact, but two together would effectively cut off and separate two populations of animals that might already be lacking in genetic diversity and not be able to afford that separation.

Then there are the humans: the “residents living in areas” where the “projects are being developed”, as the proposed new paragraph says. Over the recess, I was speaking to a couple of people very much affected by the Sevington customs facility and the impact of light pollution. This is the sort of thing that we do not think about nearly enough, but where we may see effects on people’s lives build up and up.

The other obvious area where the impacts may be cumulative is traffic. If there are projects for growing and linking together, the impacts of traffic could be absolutely disastrous on the lives of residents in those communities.

So I think this amendment is modest: it just asks the Government to think on a broader scale than I am afraid Governments—very typically—generally do.

[Baroness Pinnock (LD)]

My Lords, I believe this amendment has merit. As the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, has just said, it is important that there is a comprehensive overview of the cumulative impact of a national strategic infrastructure project on a wider area than just the single project that is being considered.

In response to the first group, the Minister was very clear in stating that the Government wanted a more strategic approach to planning. I have issues with a more strategic approach, because it is often the details that matter most. But, if there is to be a more strategic approach, surely that must imply that it is not just on a single project but on the whole range of infrastructure projects—150—that the Government have in mind for the remainder of this Parliament.

For instance, there will be a cumulative effect of road infrastructure, and of the move to net zero, which we on these Benches totally support, and therefore more green infrastructure for energy creation. All of that requires an oversight of the totality of those projects, because it is important to understand the overall impact on local communities, rather than considering the impact project by project, as the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh of Pickering, explained, in terms of wind farms or solar farms, for instance. I support all of these, but we need to understand their cumulative impact on communities, the landscape and the environment.

So these issues are important and I am glad they have been brought up. I hope the Minister in her response will be able to satisfy those of us who have these concerns that the Government are not going to run roughshod over the needs of communities and the environment while making their rush for growth.

[Lord Jamieson (Con)]

First, I declare my interest as a councillor in central Bedfordshire.

I thank my noble friend Lady McIntosh of Pickering for tabling her amendment and raising the issue of cumulative impacts. Under the Planning Act 2008, which governs nationally significant infrastructure projects such as major energy, transport and water developments, environmental and social assessments are already in place at various stages. However, my noble friend raises a very important issue: we should not look at developments just in isolation, whether or not they are nationally significant infrastructure projects, but consider their cumulative impact in an area.

My noble friend also raised what I refer to as consequential developments. If one were to build an offshore wind farm, by implication one would also have the consequential development of an electrical connection. Should this not also be considered as part of the planning process?

While we do not believe that this is the most appropriate mechanism—the Minister raised the issue of strategic and spatial planning, which is probably a more appropriate way to address this—we believe that it is an important issue. Depending on the Minister’s response, we may return to this at a later stage.

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[Lord Blencathra (Con)]

My Lords, I rise briefly to support my noble friend. When I was chair of the Delegated Powers Committee under the last Government, we published a report regretting the trend that over the last 30 years, more and more regulations have bypassed Parliament—not just by using the negative procedure rather than the affirmative, but through departments issuing guidance after guidance, none of which came before Parliament.

The point I want to make is a simple one of principle. We see in legislation Parliament being bypassed, in that case and in far too many cases. Parliament should not be bypassed, and necessarily so. My noble friend’s amendment simply makes the point that the Government should consider Motions by Parliament and what Select Committees say. They do not have to accept it, but at least we should have a chance to give that input. Otherwise, as I also see in cases, we will depend on various stakeholders to comment.

On the number of consultations issued by departments, there is a huge list of stakeholders, some of them great and grand organisations, royal colleges and organisations such as the RSPB with goodness knows how many million members. However, often the local MP is not listed, parliamentarians are not considered—and possibly not even the Select Committee which might have relevant views on it.

I believe my noble friend is on the right lines here, and I hope the Government will accept her amendment or at least give us assurances that Parliament will not be bypassed in the way she has suggested.

[Baroness Pinnock (LD)]

My Lords, we now have before us Amendment 3 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Coffey—which I thought was coming in the previous group—and there is much to agree with in what she said. The national policy statements set the tone and the content for the NPPF and then the further guidance on planning legislation, so they are the fundamental base of all further changes to planning law. They are very important.

For the Government to try to take out the opportunity for democratic oversight and scrutiny is not just regrettable but a centralising process which we should not support. Planning affects everybody’s life one way or another, be it major infrastructure projects or small housing developments. Planning affects people, and if it affects people, people’s voices should be heard, and so people’s democratically elected representatives ought to be heard. It is our role in this House to scrutinise legislation. That is what is happening now, and we are saying, “This will not do”. We cannot have more centralising of planning processes and removing democratic oversight in so doing. If the noble Baroness, Lady Coffey, wishes to test the opinion of the House on this issue, as she has intimated, we on these Benches will support her.

[Lord Jamieson (Con)]

In Committee, I described this amendment, tabled by my noble friend Lady Coffey, as vital because it preserves parliamentary accountability, ensuring that government must respond to resolutions and recommendations from Select Committees. The safeguard strengthens transparency, clarifies policy direction at an early stage, and reduces uncertainty for those affected by these statements. Robust scrutiny helps to catch potential issues before they escalate later. I appreciate that the Minister has sought to reassure us with a new, streamlined process for updating national policy statements, and of course efficiency is welcome, but scrutiny must not become the casualty of speed. This amendment strikes the right balance. It enables timely updates while ensuring that Parliament remains meaningfully engaged.

Clause 2 concerns the parliamentary scrutiny of national policy statements. While I accept that certain elements of the process could be accelerated, key aspects of the clause diminish accountability to Parliament in favour of the Executive. I struggle to understand why, given the enormous impact of national policy statements, the Government are proposing to remove such an important element of parliamentary oversight. We continue to support parliamentary scrutiny and as such, we will support this amendment.

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[Lord Blencathra (Con)]

My Lords, I speak on these amendments not with any great authority on them but because I had some experience of a heritage village being destroyed to create a reservoir when I was Member of Parliament for Penrith and The Border, a huge constituency in the north of Cumbria including the beautiful lake of Ullswater.

South of Ullswater, there is a reservoir called Haweswater, which was created in the Haweswater valley. In 1929, the Manchester Corporation took possession of the village. It moved out all the villagers, exhumed 97 graves and moved the bodies to Shap, and demolished the church and the pub. Then it flooded the village and created Haweswater Reservoir. That village in the Lake District National Park was called Mardale. We have no idea how beautiful it was—we have no photographs—but if it was in keeping with all the other villages nearby, we know that it was a superb heritage Lake District village bang-smack in the middle of a national park. We would hope that that would not happen these days, but that is why we need Amendment 7A to guarantee it. Wainwright said:

“Gone for ever are the quiet wooded bays and shingly shores that nature had fashioned so sweetly in the Haweswater of old; how aggressively ugly is the tidemark of the new Haweswater”.


I think the 1980s was the first time that, in a severe drought, the level of Haweswater dropped down to the bottom and we could see what remained. One reason that was interesting is that it destroyed the wonderful myth we had for about 100 years that on quiet, cold, still nights you could still hear the church bells clanging beneath the water level. When the village was revealed, the church tower was only about 10 feet high; it had all been removed and there was nothing left. How many houses were destroyed? We know how many bodies were exhumed, but we have no record of the number of people moved out. However, the ruins would suggest a village of more than 30 houses, including a wonderful church and pub.

Wainwright mentioned the ugly tide-mark. My constituency had Ullswater, the most beautiful lake of all in the Lake District, if I may say so. On occasions of drought in this country, the level of Ullswater is lowered by two enormous pipes, one 12 feet in diameter and the other eight feet, which pump all the water down to Manchester. I do not want Mancunians to die of thirst—the answer is to build more reservoirs there—but the damage it does to the landscape in the Lake District is extraordinary. We have these wonderful images of the Lake District and its lakes, but when you see the level in Ullswater 10 feet below normal, there is an appalling scar around the whole lake. The important point about the Lake District National Park is the landscape and the visual value of what you see. Lowering severely the level of Ullswater, with Haweswater pumping into it, causes enormous environmental damage, which is about not just oils, gases and pollutants but destroying the visual quality of some of our lakes.

On the other hand, my noble friend Lord Parkinson mentioned Kielder, which is superb. It is great for tourism and fish and really improves the quality of the landscape. I disagree with him on the tree planting. They planted millions of Sitka spruce around the lake but put them right down at the water’s edge, so you got acidic run-off. Now, as the forestry departments are cutting down those trees, they are replanting those nearer the lake with proper mixed English landscape trees which do not cause that damage. There is only one thing wrong with Kielder: it is in completely the wrong place in terms of where water is required.

Over my time as a Member for a constituency in Cumbria, every few years various schemes came up to build some huge pipes and pump Kielder down south. The cost was astronomical, not to mention the huge engines that would be required to do it. Then there were other wonderfully clever schemes to pump some of it into the Tyne, let it flow down, intercept it before it got to Newcastle, then pump it into the River Wear and intercept it before it got to Bishop Auckland—and goodness knows where it would go then. There were also ideas to pump it into canals and force them to be rivers. All these schemes have been reviewed and considered; they do not work and would not work even at enormous cost. The answer must be to build appropriate reservoirs where they are needed.

Reservoirs are needed in the south, and the problem with finding them “down south”—as we up in Cumbria would say— is that they will be in areas with wonderful villages and lots of people, and they are very difficult to construct because of the damage that may be done to those local environments. They may be in places with lovely villages and AONBs, or on the edge of a national nature reserve, or even taking in one of those nature reserves. I accept that destroying a village may be necessary, but in that case, the villagers must be consulted, and they must have a right to be properly compensated. It cannot be taken for granted that a national infrastructure project can overrule those requirements.

Turning to compensation, I will be very brief because it is not in the amendment. We can come up with compensation for people living in these places, but how do you compensate for the destruction of a wonderful 1,000-year-old Norman church or the local post office—buildings which, in some ways, are not owned by people, and involve no right to compensation?

In future, to create a reservoir it may be necessary to destroy villages, even heritage villages. In that case, we should have a protection, as my noble friends have suggested in Amendments 7A and 7B. I am happy to support them.

[Baroness Pinnock (LD)]

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Parkinson, said that it was regrettable that these amendments were brought at this late stage. I have a feeling that it is unacceptable that the Government should, in the final throes of the Bill, introduce very significant amendments that will have a profound effect on our communities and the environment surrounding them. This is why we are having a long debate on this group of amendments.

The Government wish to find a different route for agreeing the construction of new reservoirs. While that is a laudable aim, the methods proposed in the Bill represent a huge backward step for environmental protection and democratic accountability, without considering perhaps more straightforward solutions such as water conservation. The Government’s proposals seek to shift the decision-making process from the local to the national. As a result, and in light of their amendments on removing pre-application—which we will come to in the next group—local residents, as the Minister has said, would have to register in order to speak against the decision or to make their comments heard. It is quite an ask for people to appear before the equivalent of a planning inspectorate examination, which can be quite daunting for residents to take part in. That is regrettable.

The other issue I have a problem with is that the Government intend that where a region has a water shortage and, as a consequence, housing is turned down because there is not enough water to feed the new estates, they will issue “holding directions” to stop councils refusing planning permissions and will consider call-ins to try to overturn those. How those people will get water is yet to be understood. We on these Benches believe that the Government, alongside pursuing some new reservoirs, ought to put greater emphasis on the solution to water scarcity, which should be about addressing demand inefficiency.

This includes getting water companies to reduce the scale of the leaks from their water pipes—which is approximately 20% of the totality—to 10%. That is achievable and, on its own, would solve the immediate issue of water scarcity. The use of grey water and black water—I hate those terms—within new developments also needs to be addressed by not requiring all water that is used in this country to be of drinking water quality, which is what happens now. When you get your car washed, the car wash uses water of drinking quality to clean your car, because all water produced is to that standard. There ought to be changes in that direction as well.

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Moved by

[Baroness Pinnock]

9: Clause 4, page 8, line 22, leave out paragraph (a)
Member's explanatory statement
This amendment removes the provisions in the bill which remove the requirements for pre-application requirements for development consent.

[Baroness Pinnock (LD)]

My Lords, the amendments in this group relate to the importance of pre-application as a formal part of the process in determining NSIP applications. They are all much of a muchness. Amendments 9 and 10 seek to retain the current statutory pre-application consultation; Amendments 11 and 12 are similar. Amendment 12, in my name and that of my noble friend Lord Russell and the noble Baroness, Lady Willis of Summertown, seeks to put an emphasis on the importance of pre-application to the NSIP and setting out the purpose of it. The emphasis we have had from our Benches and the Conservative Benches today is on the importance of hearing the voices of communities and protecting heritage and the environment.

The noble Baroness, Lady Scott of Bybrook, in the last group of amendments, talked about the importance of engagement of communities in these very important national infrastructure projects. That is where pre-application is very important, because although we accept and support the Government’s aim to speed up decisions on national infrastructure projects, it is equally important that a consensus be built with the community from the outset, which you do not achieve if you eliminate upfront engagement. The key to building consensus is maintaining a statutory pre-application process. The cost of giving up short-term speedy decisions could be long-term stability and success. Amendment 12 seeks to have issues resolved early. Community influence is built into the process so that people have their say at the outset, before a planning application is submitted for examination, to ensure that the applications are technically sound and that mitigation is embedded at the beginning, rather than added in later.

All those issues are vital if communities are to feel that their voice has been heard, even if in the end a contrary decision is made through the NSIP process. Throughout my long experience as a councillor, it always struck me that if people have had their say, they are more likely to accept the consequences of a view to which they are opposed. In response to arguments in Committee on this issue, the Minister argued that it was a tick-box exercise and that others took a more constructive view in building consensus and did it well. The answer should be not to throw the baby out with the bathwater but to ensure that all construction is done with a meaningful pre-app process.

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In conclusion, while we support the principle behind the amendment, we do not believe that it is necessary or appropriate to include it in the Bill. I therefore respectfully ask my noble friend not to press Amendment 83.

[Baroness Pinnock (LD)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for the careful consideration that she gave to my amendments during the Conference Recess. I have again listened carefully to what she had to say today and it appears that there is agreement across the House that pre-application engagement with affected communities is vital, but we disagree on how it should be achieved. The proposal in the Bill is to remove the statutory requirement for pre-application engagement. That leaves us with the good constructions engaging effectively and the poor constructions avoiding doing it well. The contention on our Benches is that all projects and constructions should engage well. The only way to achieve that is by making it a statutory requirement.

The other point about removing a statutory requirement and having a set of principles by which it should be undertaken is that, if the amendment is not accepted, we will be left with engagement that is designed by the developers and often for the developers—not for the community, as it should be. As these issues are important for those of us who care deeply about hearing the voice of people and being able to engage early in a big application, while I shall not press my Amendments 9 to 11, I wish to test the opinion of the House on Amendment 12.

Amendment 9 withdrawn.

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Moved by

[Baroness Pinnock]

12: Clause 5, page 10, line 24, at end insert—
“(7A) In issuing guidance under this section the Secretary of State must have regard to the need to ensure pre-application consultation is meaningful, including, but not limited to, adherence to the following principles—(a) pre-application consultation should be open and transparent with information and evidence provided in a timely and straightforward fashion to provide affected or interested parties with objective and relevant information to enable them to make an informed response;(b) applicants should demonstrate a responsive approach to queries and challenges raised;(c) applicants should ensure consultation and engagement activities are inclusive and enable affected or interested parties to have a reasonable opportunity to participate;(d) applicants’ interpretation and representation of results should be fair and objective;(e) all pre-application consultation should be undertaken through meaningful engagement with communities and stakeholders, offering genuine opportunities to influence proposals;(f) pre-application engagement should be proportionate, with applicants providing the right level of information to enable positive outcomes to be delivered.”Member's explanatory statement
This amendment provides principles which the Secretary of State’s guidance required by new section 50(2) of the Planning Act 2008 must have regard to, to ensure that pre-application consultation is meaningful.

[Baroness Pinnock (LD)]

I beg to move.

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[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

My Lords, I will speak first to Amendments 13 to 16, 18 and 20, which revise Clause 6. They are essential to ensuring that the Bill delivers on its core objective: to speed up the delivery of infrastructure by removing unnecessary complexity and delay from the nationally significant infrastructure projects regime.

As noble Lords will know, Clause 6 was originally introduced to provide flexibility at the acceptance stage by allowing the Planning Inspectorate—PINS—on behalf of the Secretary of State to request minor changes to applications. It also introduced a new form of words at the acceptance test, requiring PINS, on behalf of the Secretary of State, to determine that an application was

“suitable to proceed to examination”

before it could be accepted. This would have replaced the existing test, which is for the application to be of a “satisfactory standard”.

Although a decision not to accept an application at the acceptance stage is rare, the uncertainty that this may occur has contributed towards the growing delays at the pre-application stage. Clause 6 intended to address this in two ways: first, by reducing the risk of a decision not to accept an application by PINS, on behalf of the Secretary of State, by inserting a discretionary power for PINS to delay a final decision while applicants remedied minor issues; and secondly, by making it clear that the acceptance test should focus on whether an application is suitable to be examined.

Since that time, the Government have proposed more radical steps to streamline the system. In future, guidance for applicants will support them in their approach to engagement and consultation on national infrastructure projects. The Government also published a consultation on changes to consultation guidance over the summer.

Although Clause 6 was intended to speed up the system and provide greater certainty, feedback from the sector throughout the Bill’s passage has made it clear that these changes risk doing the opposite. There are concerns that the change of language on the acceptance test is unclear and subjective. One concern is that it may require PINS to routinely interrogate whether there has been sufficient agreement on key issues. There are also concerns that the acceptance test will be too vague and open to interpretation. There are justified concerns that this could lead to inconsistent decisions or even higher barriers to entry of the system. Equally, there are concerns that the new process whereby PINS could request minor changes to applications before they were accepted may be routinely used by PINS to delay applications, rather than being used on rare occasions to assist applications that would otherwise fall.

That is why I am moving amendments that listen to and seek to address those concerns. They restore the original, clear test for acceptance, requiring applications to be of a “satisfactory standard”. They remove the power to delay acceptance decisions through requests for further information and they strip out the consequential provisions that would otherwise support or reference these now removed powers. These changes are simple, targeted and effective. They preserve clarity, reduce uncertainty and ensure that the acceptance stage remains focused on what it should be: assessing whether an application is complete, clear and ready to move forward in statutory timeframes, not interrogating whether every issue related to the project has been resolved.

Although we want applications to be well developed at the acceptance stage, it is not right or realistic to aim for consensus or agreement between all parties at this stage of the process. At the acceptance stage, we want application documents to meet the required standards and we want applicants to be well prepared for the upcoming examination. This means having an awareness of the issues likely to arise and using pre-application to develop a high-quality application, but it does not mean that PINS needs to see that all issues have been resolved.

I can be very clear and say that we remain absolutely committed to high-quality applications being accepted into the NSIP regime. However, in the light of feedback, we no longer think that these select provisions in Clause 6 support achieving that.

PINS will still have tools available to request that applicants address clear gaps, correct deficiencies or provide additional information early on in the process, through either Section 51 advice prior to submission or making procedural decisions during the pre-examination stage. These mechanisms allow for clarification and improvements to documentation, but without creating uncertainty or additional process for applications which meet the acceptance criteria.

These technical amendments are pro-growth, pro-delivery and pro-certainty. They reflect what we have heard from noble Lords and the sector, and they align with the broader reforms we have already made. I hope noble Lords will join me in supporting them.

Government Amendments 17 and 19 introduce a statutory requirement for the Secretary of State to publish reasons for deciding not to accept a development consent order application at the acceptance stage and clarify the point in the process when a legal challenge against such a decision can be brought. These amendments respond directly to concerns raised in Committee by noble Lords from across the House, including the noble Baronesses, Lady Scott and Lady Pinnock, who rightly highlighted the importance of and need for transparency and accountability in the early stages of the nationally significant project regime. A transparent process holds everyone to account, and applicants should be reassured that this amendment removes the risk of arbitrary or opaque decision-making.

While I disagree with the position that our pre-application consultation changes will create greater uncertainty in the system or allow poorer-quality applications to progress further, I am in favour of shining a light on the decision-making process and ensuring that the system is as transparent as possible. In other words, we are putting our money where our mouths are. The Planning Act 2008 requires the Secretary of State to notify the applicant of their reasons when they decide not to accept a DCO application. At present, and in line with its openness policy, PINS, acting on behalf of the Secretary of State, already publishes reasons for its decisions not to accept a DCO application. However, as noble Lords noted, there is no statutory obligation to do so. These amendments aim to improve the legislation to address this gap.

The amendments align the acceptance stage with the principles already embedded in Section 116 of the Planning Act 2008, which requires the Secretary of State to publish reasons when refusing development consent. The amendments ensure that applicants, stakeholders and the wider public can understand why and on what basis a decision has been made not to accept an application, supporting the integrity of the NSIP system. This is a principled response to concerns raised in Committee, and I hope it shows that we are listening carefully to noble Lords’ concerns about how our changes impact the system as a whole. I therefore commend this amendment to the House and urge noble Lords to support its inclusion in the Bill. I beg to move.

[Baroness Pinnock (LD)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for having listened in Committee to the concerns that were raised about the acceptance process. I am pleased that there has been a rethink. The changes proposed in the amendments are not opposed by these Benches.

[Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)]

My Lords, we have before us the Government’s latest set of amendments to Clause 6—or should I say what used to be Clause 6 before the Government took a pair of legislative shears to it? This clause as originally drafted, as we have heard from the Minister, would have changed the test for when an application for a development consent order is accepted by the Planning Inspectorate. The Government now appear to have decided that their proposal was, in fact, unnecessary, perhaps even unworkable, so we are back to the status quo: the clear, objective test that ensures that applications are accepted only when they meet the proper standards of completeness and adequacy. Thank goodness for that. The test protects everyone: developers, communities and the integrity of the process. It ensures clarity at the gateway stage, not confusion. I thank the Minister for making these changes to the Bill.

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As a consequence, I am conscious that we will get properly into EDPs in Part 3, and I do not anticipate that we will do that until sometime on Wednesday or next week. So the timing may not be right but, if I am not satisfied, although I might not press it today, I may consider other mechanisms for this to be considered before the Bill gets Royal Assent. I beg to move.

[Baroness Pinnock (LD)]

My Lords, the noble Baroness, Lady Coffey, is right to raise this as an issue of importance. Equally, she pointed to the fact that the impact and effect of EDPs will be discussed at more length when we discuss Part 3. Although EDPs do have a significant part to play in any NSIP consenting regime, the essence of this is about EDPs. Therefore, I hope we can look to a further debate on the whole issue of EDPs when we come to Part 3 later on Report.

[Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)]

My Lords, I thank my noble friend Lady Coffey for bringing forward Amendment 21. Ensuring that planning consent adequately considers environmental protections is vital and must not be overlooked. However, we are clear, and indeed passionate in our conviction, that the implementation of environmental delivery plans in their current form is deeply problematic. As drafted, the policy risks riding roughshod over our current environmental regime. We must also not forget the interests of farmers and land managers, who are, after all, the principal stewards of our natural environment. My noble friend Lord Roborough will speak in more detail on this topic and develop our position further from Committee in the coming days. My noble friend Lady Coffey is right to highlight how a local environmental delivery plan will interact with a nationally significant infrastructure project. The Government must be clear on how this will work in practice and what they intend to consider when reviewing the impact of these projects.

Planning and Infrastructure Bill

Baroness Pinnock Excerpts

Report stage
Monday 20th October 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

My Lords, the amendments in my name seek to ensure that all regulations relating to the bill discount scheme set out in Clause 26 are subject to the affirmative parliamentary procedure.

The Government welcome the recommendation of the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee and, through these amendments, we accept its suggestion. We understand and recognise the importance of parliamentary scrutiny and agree that the regulations discussed in Clause 26 are matters of substance. These amendments will help ensure that the regulations implementing the bill discount scheme are appropriately reviewed by Parliament, aiding their workability and ensuring a smooth implementation of the scheme. I cannot guarantee to the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, that there will be a Halifax clause, but I hope that the House will support the amendment. I beg to move.

[Baroness Pinnock (LD)]

I cannot react to the Halifax clause, since I do not live in Halifax.

I welcome the move to the affirmative procedure but remind the Minister that there are already 22,000 high-voltage carrying pylons in this country, over 250 of which are in Doncaster and over 700 of which are in North Yorkshire, including in the Yorkshire Dales National Park.

That leads me to the argument I made in Committee: if the Government are minded to provide compensation for those residents and customers who live adjacent to new plants, either transmitting or creating electrical energy, then, as the Minister confirmed in Committee and in a conversation we had during recess, that payment—that compensation—will be a burden added to every electricity customer. That does not seem right to me. If those folk who are going to have a new imposition of electrical infrastructure are to have compensation, surely it should be funded by that electricity region and not by those that have, for instance, had pylons for many decades because regions knew it was in the national interest to do so.

I am pleased that we are going to the affirmative measure in consideration of compensation, because it will enable me to make arguments in favour of not the Halifax amendment but the Huddersfield amendment—let us call it that, as it is a bit nearer home. It is important, because to me this is about fairness. Those of us in the north—the very far north—and the Midlands should have fair treatment compared to those who have the infrastructure now. I am sure that the Minister will enjoy having that debate with me when we get around to doing the SIs.