Planning and Infrastructure Bill

Debate between Baroness Pinnock and Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle

Committee stage
Thursday 17th July 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

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

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

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


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

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

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

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

[Baroness Pinnock (LD)]

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

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

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

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

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

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