Planning and Infrastructure Bill

Baroness Pitkeathley Excerpts

Report stage
Wednesday 22nd October 2025 Lords Chamber

49: Leave out Clause 41 and insert the following new Clause—
“Deemed grant of listed building consent etc(1) In the Transport and Works Act 1992, for section 17 (listed buildings and conservation areas) substitute—“17 Listed buildings: England(1) On making an order under section 1 or 3 that authorises controlled listed building works in England, the Secretary of State may direct that listed building consent for the works is deemed to be granted, subject to such conditions (if any) as may be specified in the direction.(2) Section 16(2) of the Listed Buildings Act (duty of special regard to listed buildings) applies to the making of a direction under this section as it would apply to the grant of listed building consent in relation to the building concerned.(3) Section 72(1) of the Listed Buildings Act (duty of special attention to conservation areas) applies to the making of a direction under this section in relation to a building in a conservation area as it would apply to the grant of listed building consent in relation to that building.(4) The provisions of the Listed Buildings Act apply in relation to any listed building consent deemed to be granted by virtue of a direction of the Secretary of State under this section as if the consent had been granted by the Secretary of State on an application referred under section 12 of that Act.(5) But that does not bring the decision to make the direction within section 62(2)(a) of that Act (decisions of Secretary of State that may only be challenged by way of statutory review).(6) In this section—“conservation area” has the same meaning as in the Listed Buildings Act (see section 91(1) of that Act);“controlled listed building works in England” means works to which section 7(1) of the Listed Buildings Act (demolition or alteration in character of a listed building in England) applies;“listed building consent” means consent under section 8 of the Listed Buildings Act (listed building consent in England);“the Listed Buildings Act” means the Planning (Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas) Act 1990.17A Listed buildings and conservation areas: Wales(1) On making an order under section 1 or 3 that authorises controlled listed building works in Wales, the Welsh Ministers may direct that listed building consent for the works is deemed to be granted, subject to such conditions (if any) as may be specified in the direction.(2) On making an order under section 1 or 3 that authorises controlled conservation area works in Wales, the Welsh Ministers may direct that conservation area consent for the works is deemed to be granted, subject to such conditions (if any) as may be specified in the direction.(3) Section 96(2) of HEWA 2023 (duty of special regard to listed buildings) applies to the making of a direction under subsection (1) as it would apply to the grant of listed building consent in relation to the building concerned.(4) Section 160(1) of HEWA 2023 (duty of special regard to conservation areas) applies—(a) to the making of a direction under subsection (1) in relation to a building in a conservation area, as it would apply to the grant of listed building consent in relation to that building, and(b) to the making of a direction under subsection (2), as it would apply to the grant of conservation area consent in relation to the building concerned.(5) The provisions of HEWA 2023 apply in relation to any consent deemed to be granted by virtue of a direction of the Welsh Ministers under this section as if the consent had been granted by the Welsh Ministers on an application referred under section 94 of that Act.(6) But that does not bring the decision to make the direction within section 182(2)(b) of that Act (decisions of Welsh Ministers that may only be challenged by way of statutory review).(7) In this section—“conservation area” has the same meaning as in HEWA 2023 (see section 210 of that Act);“conservation area consent” means consent under section 162 of HEWA 2023 (conservation area consent in Wales); “controlled conservation area works in Wales” means works to which section 161 of HEWA 2023 (demolition of building in conservation area in Wales) applies;“controlled listed building works in Wales” means works to which section 88 of HEWA 2023 (demolition or alteration in character of a listed building in Wales) applies;“HEWA 2023” means the Historic Environment (Wales) Act 2023;“listed building consent” means consent under section 89 of HEWA 2023 (listed building consent in Wales).”(2) In section 22 of that Act (validity of orders)—(a) in the heading, for “under section 1 or 3” substitute “and directions”;(b) after subsection (3) insert—“(4) This section applies to a direction under—(a) section 90(2A) of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 (deemed planning permission),(b) section 17 or 17A of this Act (deemed listed building or conservation area consent), or(c) section 12(2A) of the Planning (Hazardous Substances) Act 1990 (deemed hazardous substances consent),as it applies to an order under section 1 or 3.”(3) In section 12 of the Planning (Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas) Act 1990 (reference of applications for listed building consent to Secretary of State), omit subsection (3A).(4) In section 94(4) of the Historic Environment (Wales) Act 2023 (reference to Welsh Ministers of application for listed building consent associated with Transport and Works Act application), after “application” in the second place it occurs insert “to the Secretary of State”.”Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment would replace the proposed power to remove the need for various heritage-related consents for a Transport and Works Act project with a power to put in place deemed listed building consent or (in Wales) conservation area consent for such a project.

[The Deputy Speaker (Baroness Pitkeathley) (Lab)]

I inform your Lordships that, if Amendment 49 is agreed, I am unable to call Amendment 50 for reasons of pre-emption.

Amendment 49 agreed.

Older People’s Housing Taskforce

Baroness Pitkeathley Excerpts

Monday 16th December 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Khan of Burnley (Lab)]

My Lords, the noble Baroness makes an important point. As I said, the task force report was published two weeks ago, and we are looking at each of its 44 recommendations to make sure that our housing needs are diverse for the country. It is in the national interest that the Government ensure that we have housing that reflects the country and that we take into account the needs of people of all backgrounds and all ages.

[Baroness Pitkeathley (Lab)]

My Lords, in considering the housing needs of older people, is the Minister mindful that many older people are also caring? It is not at all uncommon for people in their 70s to be caring for people in their 90s, or for people in their 80s to be caring for older adult children with special needs. Will these responsibilities of older people also be considered when looking at housing needs?

[Lord Khan of Burnley (Lab)]

My Lords, my noble friend makes a very important point. On carers, the Government are committed to ensuring that families have the support that they need. I want to ensure that people who care for family and friends are better able to look after their own health and well-being. The Department for Work and Pensions announced its intention to bring forward an independent review of the issue of overpayment of carer’s allowance in cases where earnings have exceeded the entitlement threshold. The Government are committed to reviewing the implementation of carer’s leave and examining the benefits of introducing paid carer’s leave.

Social Care Strategy

Baroness Pitkeathley Excerpts

Thursday 10th October 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Pitkeathley (Lab)]

My Lords, it is a great pleasure and honour to welcome my noble friend Lady Keeley to your Lordships’ House and to be the first to congratulate her on her marvellous maiden speech. As your Lordships have heard, we have worked together on these issues for some years and I thank her for her kind tribute.

Time does not permit me to do justice to the great experience, expertise and wisdom that she brings to your Lordships’ House. As noble Lords have heard, she was first elected to the House of Commons in 2005, as the first ever woman MP for the Worsley constituency, which later changed its name to Worsley and Eccles South. She served as chair of the Women’s Parliamentary Labour Party and held government jobs in the Treasury and as deputy leader of the Commons. In opposition, she has held an impressive variety of shadow Minister posts. Her last, as your Lordships heard, was as shadow Minister of Culture, Media and Sport, where she championed music and tourism, and worked closely with the voluntary sector as shadow Minister for Civil Society. She combined all this with close attention to her constituency and an active role in local issues, much admired by all her constituents. She begins another phase of her public service today in this House, where I know she will be a valued and valuable Member.

I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Tyler—whom I always want to call my noble friend—for her very welcome debate. I hope that she and other noble Lords will forgive me for a little trip down memory lane. I remember the many social care debates in which I have taken part in your Lordships’ House when it was very difficult to assemble a reasonable speakers list—far from the distinguished gathering that we have today. So few were those noble Lords interested in or concerned about the subject that I used to refer to them, as I have been reminded, as “the usual suspects”. Happily, the number of suspects has greatly increased today. In those days, it was also difficult to get detailed briefings; we have come a long way, with the raft of excellent material that we have from many sources today.

Your Lordships will not be surprised to know that I am especially grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Tyler, for including unpaid carers in her Motion. Going again down memory lane, I remind your Lordships that, when I became involved in the carers movement in the 1980s, the word “carer” was not in the Oxford English Dictionary and spell-check always changed it to “career”. When I went to collect my gong at the palace in 1993, my citation was announced as “for services to careers”. We have come a long way since then.

Carers are central to legislation now and some individual bits of legislation are aimed at them specifically. Even spell-check has caught up. However, I met a carer at a drop-in this week who told me that she feels completely rubbed out by a system that makes her fight for the slightest assessment of her own needs, despite that being enshrined in legislation since 1995, as we have heard, and strengthened in the Care Act 2014. Another told me of her struggles with mental health as a direct result of all the caring stress.

Your Lordships all know what needs to be done. We cannot fix the NHS without fixing social care. We must shift resources from hospital to the community. We must focus on prevention and early intervention. We must find a way to share the risk so that catastrophic care costs do not fall in an unfair way. We have known all this for years but, above all, we must understand that you cannot fix social care without supporting the main providers of social care: not staff, care homes or care workers but the unpaid carers, who are there all the time, providing £162 billion a year, as the value of their care, to individuals in need—often at terrible cost to their own mental and physical health, not to mention their finances. If they withdrew their labour or worked to rule, they would get more attention, but they are not going to do that because they are motivated by love, duty or a combination of both.

As the All-Party Group on Carers, which I had the honour to chair, so forcefully said, carers’ problems can be addressed by developing a new national carers strategy, which would set a clear direction of travel and a long-term vision for how carers can be supported, look at the interaction between different policies and departments and ensure that their needs are recognised and responded to at the highest levels of government.

It is 16 years since the last national strategy was developed, led by Prime Minister Gordon Brown. Surely it is time for another. If not now, when? The problem is going to get only more acute as our population ages and lives with increasing comorbidities. As the increased interest in this once-neglected subject shows, this is not someone else’s problem. We are all—every one of us—a hair’s breadth, a fall, or an accident away from being cared for or being a carer. As we have heard, there is a strong economic case for supporting carers. The Government need the will and determination to do it, but the rewards will be ample, for not only 6 million carers but every one of us.