Planning and Infrastructure Bill

Debate between Baroness Sater and Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle

Committee stage
Thursday 4th September 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, I will speak to Amendment 100, which is in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Boycott, and to which I and the noble Earl, Lord Caithness, have attached our names. In the interests of time, I will chiefly restrain myself to commenting on that, although I note the fortunate congruence of Amendment 99AA, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Moynihan, appearing right beside it, because they fit together very well in thinking about a one health perspective.

Amendment 100 is about environmental health, but human health is entirely dependent on environmental health. In fitting all those things together, the lack of healthy places is undoubtedly one of our society’s great problems. The noble Baroness, Lady Boycott, has already made a powerful argument for Amendment 100. I commend her on including mycological surveys, because that is all too often left out. That relates to the issue of soil health, which we are starting to recognise is such a crucial issue that we have ignored far too long. It is crucial to our health—human health and environmental health.

The noble Baroness, Lady Boycott, said that we have a real shortage of education in our highly concentrated education system about ecology and biology. That is undoubtedly true, but our understanding of biology and ecology is moving and changing enormously fast. If you were taught biology and ecology 20 or 30 years ago, what we know now will disavow a great deal of what you were taught as statements of fact 20 or 30 years ago.

To illustrate that, and because I know your Lordships’ House loves a good chalk stream, I refer to a very alarming study out this week of the River Itchen, which is a chalk stream that has been found to have alarming levels of microparticle pollution. Microfibres and fibreglass fibres were sampled throughout the chalk stream. This has been found in samples from spring 2025. The researcher who found this says we have got to work out the sources of this pollution and what to do about them. We need to start thinking about how we stop polluting these wonderful environments and make sure that the built environment is not wrecking that. This is ultimately related to a planning question that we have got to understand.

Tying in with that—I am sorry, this is also alarming—is a study just out this week about tyre wear particles in the Rhine River. Where does the road go? The noble Baroness, Lady Boycott, talked about the importance of where roads go in terms of splitting up habitats, but roads also pollute the watercourses. This is a fascinating study that shows that the nature of bacterial biofilms in the river is substantially changed by the presence, absence and nature of these tyre wear particles. Bacterial biofilms are at the base of food chains. They are key parts of aquatic ecosystems. They control nutrient cycles and form the basis of food chains.

All this is news from just the last week. If we are going to ask people to make decisions that are crucial to the biology and health of our environment, I am not saying that everyone has to be spending their time—as I probably spend too much time—focusing on studies such as this, but people need a basic level of understanding of biology or ecology to understand the way in which this knowledge is moving so fast to be able to read these reports and understand them.

My first point was about understanding ecological and biological education. In my second point, I will venture with some tentativeness into the legal side of this, because it is worth noting that the law around biodiversity and the climate emergency is a very fast-changing area. It is crucial that people have at least a basic understanding of these areas if they are going to make planning decisions that, as the noble Baroness said, are both right and will stand up in court.

I point Members to the Law and Climate Atlas, a really useful resource which was developed by the Centre for Climate Engagement in partnership with the Net Zero Lawyers Alliance. It notes that:

“Climate change may be a material consideration in individual planning decisions, and may be a necessarily material consideration, but there is no statutory requirement”,


but it may come up in court. I note that chapter 14 of the National Policy Planning Framework states that the planning system could lead to

“radical reductions in greenhouse gas emissions”.

But how are we going to make sure that happens? This is where the training is crucial.

With some trepidation, I will venture briefly into a specific case: the R v Surrey County Council judgment given on 20 June. This was around the scope 3 emissions from fossil fuel extraction. The final judgment given in this case in the Supreme Court stated:

“The only issue is whether the combustion emissions are effects of the project at all. It seems to me plain that they are”.


These are all issues in a fast-moving area and it is crucial that we provide planners with the training to understand what is happening. That training will have to be updated regularly. If we throw people into decision-making positions without this understanding, which we cannot expect their previous experience to have given them, we are setting them up to fail—to fail themselves, their councils and our communities.

[Baroness Sater (Con)]

My Lords, I will briefly support my noble friend Lord Moynihan’s important Amendment 99AA. The role of training can never be underestimated, and the importance and consistency of knowledge and skills introduced by training is very important. There is no statutory protection for playing fields, parks or playgrounds, and people are extremely concerned about the potential loss of the playing fields and parks in their communities. These open spaces are critical to preserve if we can because, once they are gone, we cannot get them back.

Diminishing any existing levels of scrutiny, especially with Sport England’s role as a consultee potentially being relinquished, could further impact the loss of our sports fields and physical activity spaces and facilities. We have heard from my noble friend Lord Moynihan about the desperate state of our swimming pools and sports centres.

A study by the Fields in Trust charity quantified the well-being value of parks and green spaces at £34 billion per annum. Frequently using these spaces results in better general health and reduced need to go to the GP, quantified as saving the NHS £111 million every year. It certainly goes a long way to help the NHS and it gets people, especially young people, active, playing sport and outdoors.

Work done by other organisations, including Fields in Trust and ukactive, is vital to sport and physical activity in this country. Training all members of local planning authorities and including an emphasis on healthy place-making, which includes planning adequate provision of sport and physical activity spaces and facilities, will help greatly to ensure that we have open spaces for sport and physical activity for future generations.

My noble friend Lord Moynihan said that this is his first of many amendments to several Bills. I will support him and would like to hear from others about these critical issues that will affect us in future. This amendment is important to ensure that planning officers have the skills and knowledge to deliver the planning outcomes that our local communities really need.

National Insurance Contributions (Secondary Class 1 Contributions) Bill

Debate between Baroness Sater and Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle

Committee stage
Wednesday 29th January 2025 Grand Committee

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, I tabled my Amendment 11A after our extensive discussion, on the previous day of Committee, about the impact of the national insurance rise on charities. As I prefaced in my presentation last time, it started with a CEO of a significant charity, who came to me and said, “If we could have one year to sort things out first, we would just about be able to cope with this, but the speed with which this increase in costs is happening is more than we can cope with”.

I apologise that there is no Member’s explanatory statement on this amendment—that is entirely my fault—but I lay out for clarity that it is intended to delay, for charities, the increase in the employers’ national insurance contribution by one year.

It is interesting that, earlier today, I was hosting an event launching a report on debanking in Muslim charities and its impact on charitable activities. There was much discussion at this event about the many difficulties that charities currently face, but the top one that was listed—after the issue under discussion—was the national insurance rise and the speed with which it is hitting charities.

I note some of the figures around this. The sector has said that the cost to charities will be about £1.4 billion. Research from 400 charities by the Charity Finance Group shows that 87% are concerned about being able to afford this increase. Some 27% of organisations running charity shops say that this increase is likely to result in closures of charity shops; those are the Charity Retail Association’s figures. We are often concerned about what is happening on our high streets, and there is perhaps concern about the dominance of charity shops, but if they close, we will just have even more empty shops on our high streets—as well as the loss to charities in terms of the services they provide and the funds raised.

Let me give one example of this, which was reported by ITV. The CEO of the Little Miracles charity, which helps 50,000 families that have children with life-limiting disabilities, said that this measure will cost that charity a minimum of £24,000. It is a small local charity with about 670 volunteers, so finding that sum of money is a really big challenge for that organisation.

It is worth noting that one of the reports from the West Lothian Voluntary Sector Gateway told the local council:

“This wholly unexpected cost will inevitably place additional financial pressures on already stretched Third Sector and social enterprises locally”.


That unexpected, sudden arrival is really the issue there. The National Council for Voluntary Organisations wrote to the Chancellor. In response to its suggestion that charities should be exempted, Rachel Reeves said:

“The government has committed to provide support for … public sector employers”,


given the rising costs, but for no one other than the public sector. It is worth considering that the combination of austerity and ideology has meant that, for many services, the slack in much of the provision that used to be picked up by public services has now been picked up by the charitable sector. It is then being hit again with this cost.

This amendment is quite moderate and small-scale. I do not have the capacity but perhaps the Minister could tell us what the one-year cost would be. I note what the cost will be if charities have to deal with this sudden increase in costs when they are facing so many other pressures. I beg to move.

[Baroness Sater (Con)]

My Lords, I rise to speak to my Amendment 32. I refer your Lordships to my registered interests, in particular my roles with charities. The purpose of my amendment is to deal with the huge concerns we are hearing from across the sector and elsewhere, as the noble Baroness just mentioned, as well as the impact of the increase in employers’ national insurance on both the charity and voluntary sectors and the services that they deliver.

The sector is telling us that these increases will force many to reduce staff, cut salaries, scale back their services and, in some cases, consider closure. The increases will adversely affect the support that they give to people and their communities, which is why my amendment asks for the much-needed impact assessment. Had the Government already prepared the impact assessment—and I do not accept that the impact note to which the Minister has referred provides the evidence needed—they might already have accepted the need to make exceptions to the charitable sector.

Many noble Lords have spoken with passion about the negative effect of the increases in national insurance on the charitable sector. I am very aware that the Government have not been able to move on any of the requests at the moment. At the risk of repetition, up and down the country the voluntary sector is feeling the strain. Its representatives, such as the National Council of Voluntary Organisations, the NCVO, have already voiced concerns in their open letter to the Chancellor, highlighting that this increase will add an additional £1.4 billion in unwelcome and unsustainable costs, as the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett of Manor Castle, said.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

In responding to the noble Lord, I can only applaud the increase in the national minimum wage—indeed, I would encourage it to be significantly higher. None the less, the noble Lord’s point about the situation for charities is entirely accurate.

The noble Lord, Lord Jackson, said something earlier—and the noble Baroness, Lady Lawlor, backed this up—about how many ideas the Government end up delivering actually start with small, campaigning charities. They save the Government having to do the work because, when there is a problem and something really needs to be done about it, they do all the work on what needs to be done about it.

Obviously, I will withdraw my amendment at this stage, but it is clear that we will come back to this issue on Report. I am still quite dedicated to the idea of at least delaying the measure, which would not interfere with the Government’s long-term economic plans but would give charities time to adjust. On the £1.4 billion, the Government could save that much in the extra spending that they will have to make if they insist on collecting that money, so it all balances out.

[Baroness Sater (Con)]

I totally agree, but there will be charities going bust in the next six months. I know that we want to delay it, but there is an urgency in saying, “This is going to be really detrimental, and that knock-on effect is going to be huge”. That is why I cannot quite understand why we have not had a detailed assessment statement—and why I am asking for it—because surely this would come through in that detailed statement.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

I agree with the noble Baroness and support her amendment. I have already reflected on the lack of a proper impact statement in many different areas; I would entirely back the noble Baroness’s approach. We need to understand what is happening, but we have two things here: giving charities time to deal with it, and understanding what we are doing. We may well end up coming back to both of those things on Report, but in the meantime I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.