Planning and Infrastructure Bill

Debate between Baroness Pinnock and Lord Cromwell

Committee stage
Monday 15th September 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Cromwell (CB)]

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Cameron of Dillington, and the noble Earl, Lord Lytton, have added their names to my amendment; they both apologise for being unable to be present in the Committee today.

This amendment would introduce a code of practice for compulsory purchase. It is widely accepted that, provided it is carried out appropriately, the state should have the right to acquire people’s homes and businesses in the interests of the nation. Noble Lords will be relieved to know that this amendment will not reopen the whole debate around that issue—I hope that buys me a few extra minutes.

Compulsory purchase was established on three assumptions: that it would be a quicker way to acquire land in the public interest; that it would make it possible to do that at a cost below market rates; and, importantly, that it would be a last resort if a voluntary sale could not be agreed—or so the theory went. However, anyone who is familiar with the process and practical realities of compulsory purchase will know that it is not at all quick or cost effective, with timelines running into years and with the costs of public inquiries, surveyors, lawyers and other actors on both sides.

It is widely acknowledged by professional agents—regardless of which side they work for—that, contrary to the original theory of compulsory purchase, the costs are always considerably higher if the party is being forced to sell rather than doing so on a voluntary basis. A consensus is often achievable, but only if the acquirer’s agent works with the seller rather than acting, frankly, as a bully boy for the Government.

The related issue of hope value was addressed in an earlier group. I will not cover it again beyond saying that the ability to compel property to be given up—I will not use the word “sold”—at well below its market value is, of course, attractive to those with the compulsory power but brutally costly and disruptive to those on the receiving end.

So how does this work in practice? The actual exercise of compulsory purchase powers has been devolved by the Government to a growing number of agents. These powers enable the agents to force people to leave their homes, to give up their businesses and their land, and to do so below market prices. Agents receiving these aggressive powers are commercial entities governed by financial and time-related performance targets.

Perhaps inevitably, these incentives and the imbalance of power between government-backed agents and ordinary citizens have created a real, growing problem around the behaviour of agents acting for the acquiring government authorities. Agents’ ability to compel a sale means all too often that they ignore normal conveyancing practices and refuse to recognise the justifiable concerns and interests of those whom they are forcing to sell, who are all but powerless and cannot realistically afford to challenge them. Noble Lords should be under no illusion: the lack of proper constraints means that a culture has widely grown up of the strong-arming and intimidation of those who are forced to sell by government-appointed agents.

There is also the profiteering practice that agents and authorities are sometimes shy of talking about, some of which has been referred to by others, of the acquiring authority then selling on the land for commercial purposes as a whole or in parts at full market value and pocketing the profits—with the agents, of course, paid to arrange the disposals.

To make the situation more real to anyone struggling to believe what I am saying or who is not involved in compulsory purchase, here are three quick live cases that I am aware of and, for clarity, in which I have no interests to declare. In the first case, both sides of a transaction had already agreed voluntarily to sell one field and give a right of access over an adjacent one. But at exchange the agent for the acquirer presented out of the blue a plan that included further land that was not part of the agreement. When this was pointed out, the acquirer’s agent immediately cut off communication and went to use compulsory purchase on all the land.

In the second case, a farmer was approached by an infrastructure provider for initial surveys. As the land was designated ecologically sensitive, he instructed an agent to prepare a bespoke licence agreement to give access to the provider. The infrastructure provider abruptly cut communications partway through the drafting process with no reason given and served a compulsory notice for access. The notice, and the developer’s subsequent trespass, then went on the wrong property and was not subject to discussion. Legal proceedings followed, which were inevitably costly for both sides and created substantial delays.

Case 3 is a simple quote from one forced seller:

“The bypass went straight through the middle of our farm taking 36 acres and all the buildings. Eight years after the bulldozers went in, we are still owed £136,000. When that is eventually paid, we will have to pay capital gains tax (at the new increased rate) on that compensation. How can it be fair that the government can destroy our farm and pay us in return a fraction of what it’s worth? … capital projects need to be built for the benefit of the nation, but surely in a decent, fair country, those concerned should be compensated with 100% of the value of the asset taken and paid before the land is occupied”.


I remind noble Lords that they were still waiting eight years later. I underline that there are many similar stories across this country.

Finally, I cannot resist mentioning HS2. Even on the northern section, which was cancelled two years ago, farmers still have barren strips of land through the middle of their farms, commandeered by HS2 but still not yet handed back. Matters are made worse with HS2 by the splitting of responsibilities between the Treasury and Department for Transport, with neither taking responsibility for the poor behaviour of agents. There are cases where farmers are not being paid for years and householders, having been given three months’ notice to get out, then not being paid for up to nine months. As one affected party put it—this is a different case—

“7 years after they unilaterally took our land we are still waiting for payment at just 70% of the value of the land and the matter is now being dragged through the courts”.


So what rules are there? The Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors has published baseline standards that it considers should apply to people acting for the acquiring authorities and the claimants. While I urge the Minister to look at and publicly endorse these standards, RICS has jurisdiction over its members only—not, for instance, over a non-member profession or a project management team.

Furthermore, crucially, these and other existing guidance rules do not cover two things that loom large in practical compulsory purchase experience: defining and preventing bullying tactics, and failure by agents or the acquiring bodies themselves to make prompt payment when due. We cannot go on in denial of this problem. That is why this amendment proposes the introduction of a proper code of practice for compulsory purchase: to negotiate and agree values et cetera in good faith, with the possibility of compulsion genuinely as the last resort rather than the starting point, and to pay full value in advance of taking possession, as is systematically the case in the commercial world.

I pose two questions to the Minister. First, does she share my belief that no one should be expected to give up their house, land or business only to find themself with no money to buy another house due to non-payment by the acquirer, or to have part or all of their business forcibly removed from them before payment? Secondly, does she agree with me that the Government’s announcement that they will issue financial penalties to persistently late-paying businesses should include penalties on late-paying agents and other authorities when exercising the powers of compulsory purchase on behalf of the Government?

This amendment, by making the conduct of compulsory sequestration of land subject to an agreed code of practice, would provide a check on the current abuses and the practical problems that I have outlined. As noble Lords will know, I am always concerned not just about our making laws that make us feel happy but with enforcement, and it will therefore come as no surprise that part two of the amendment addresses this squarely.

I look forward to the Minister’s reply to my two questions, and I ask the Government to accept this simple but urgently needed and positive amendment, particularly before handing out additional compulsory purchase powers to Natural England. Finally, I should mention that this is very likely to come back on Report. I beg to move.

[Baroness Pinnock (LD)]

My Lords, before I introduce my amendment in this group, I say that the noble Lord, Lord Cromwell, has raised some very challenging aspects of compulsory purchase, particularly that of late payment. I will wait for the Minister to respond to that. There is no purpose in having this balancing act, which the noble Lord explained, between individuals and the state if the state does not play fairly by the rules.

Amendment 219 in my name and cosigned by the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb, is on the face of it quite radical. In fact, however, all it would do is put pressure on housebuilders to fulfil the planning permissions they have obtained. Planning consents already have a standard three-year period in which to begin construction. Where development is seen to be more challenging, a longer period of five years is sometimes available. Those time periods are not unreasonable. If a housebuilder is seeking to develop a plot of land, they have three years in which to implement or at least to start construction.

Members on all sides know that there is a desperate need for more housing. All political parties have made the case for more housing, in different numbers per annum, but this is not about the numbers game; it is the building of them that is important. The ONS has estimated that there are already 1.2 million outstanding permissions for housing units, as yet unbuilt. I will not use the term “land banking” because there are plenty of arguments out there, and investigations have been made by public lobby groups to point out that land banking is too broad a term for what is going on. Obviously, the reasons are quite varied. Some depend on national and local economic outlooks; nevertheless, 1.2 million units have not been built when we need new homes.