Planning and Infrastructure Bill

Debate between Baroness Taylor of Stevenage and Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts

Report stage
Monday 20th October 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts (Con)]

The Minister talked about the monitoring procedures. Her remarks indicated they were going to be only when the projects were in their early stages. The worry is what happens maybe three, four or five years later, when the people who start owning it pass it on to someone who may be less attractive to the future of this country. Will the monitoring be a continuous process throughout the life of each project?

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

I believe I said—I hope I did—that all stages would be monitored, from application to operation. I hope that is reassuring to the noble Lord.

In relation to the comments made by the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, on China—it is important to pick them up—the Government are committed to tackling the issue of Uyghur forced labour in supply chains, including the mining of polysilicon used in the manufacture of solar panels. We expect UK businesses and solar developers to do everything in their power to remove any instances of forced labour from their supply chains. The Procurement Act 2023, which came into force on 24 February, enables public sector contracting authorities to reject bids from and terminate contracts with suppliers that are known to use forced labour themselves or anywhere in their supply chain.

The Government are considering how to strengthen Section 54 of the Modern Slavery Act 2015, which places a requirement on businesses with a turnover of £36 million or more to publish an annual modern slavery statement, including possible penalties for non-compliance, as well as working with a wide range of stakeholders to update the Section 54 statutory guidance. I hope that gives the noble Lord some reassurance that we are taking this very seriously indeed.

From my time as the Minister in MHCLG with responsibility for net zero, I know that we have looked extensively at the UK supply chains and what might be done to further promote and help them to grow their businesses. All this being said, I agree with the sentiments of the noble Baroness that more should be done to install solar on rooftops. We are pursuing various measures in connection to this, as mentioned by the noble Earl, Lord Russell, from solar on schools and hospitals and our new building standards to tax breaks and our new £13.2 billion warm homes plan. We have recently conducted a call for evidence about solar car parks, which the noble Baroness praised in Committee.

It is important that we do not overstate the amount of agricultural land that might be occupied by solar infrastructure. I know the noble Lord, Lord Fuller, questioned the Government’s figures on land use. Without being drawn into that discussion, it is clear that a relatively small amount of land, 0.4% in the most ambitious scenarios, is due to have solar installed by 2030. This does not constitute a threat to food security or to British farming, which the Government will always champion. Rather, the primary threat to British agriculture comes from the damaging effects of climate change, and the noble Lord, Lord Fuller, already mentioned the impact on harvests this year. We have to take that into account as well. I, for one, think that Britain should do its part in the global effort to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Building low-carbon power plants is an essential aspect of this.

I hope that the noble Lord and the noble Baroness will note the steps the Government have taken to return the decision-making of more solar projects to local authorities and the existing robust provisions for planning authorities to consider impacts on food production, and that the noble Lord might consider withdrawing his amendment.

Planning and Infrastructure Bill

Debate between Baroness Taylor of Stevenage and Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts

Committee stage
Monday 15th September 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

I thank the noble Lord, Lord Hodgson, for his amendment, which seeks to probe the effects of the Bill on rights of way, including unrecorded rights of way. I thank him for his kind comments about Lord Rosser; we still miss him very much, so I am grateful.

As we heard, the Government announced on Boxing Day 2024 their intention to repeal the cut-off date of 1 January 2031 for recording historic rights of way. This means that paths used by walkers, cyclists and equestrians can continue to be officially recorded after this date and will not be lost to the public. This is a significant step in preserving access to well-used but often unrecorded paths across England, many of which have been in place, as the noble Lord, Lord Roborough, said, for hundreds of years.

Local highway authorities have statutory duties to record and maintain public rights of way, allowing them to be accessed and enjoyed by the public. They must also have a rights of way improvement plan which explains how improvements will be made to public rights of way, preserving them and providing a better experience for users. Given the statutory duty placed on local authorities to maintain and protect public rights of way, an additional review is not necessary.

A thorough and meaningful review would also not be possible within six months of publication of the Act. Local authorities are already handling a significant volume of unrecorded rights of way registrations, and the requirement to conduct a review would result in further delays to this process. In addition, the repeal of the cut-off date means that historic public rights of way can still be officially recorded, so will not be lost but can continue to be enjoyed by the public.

I will pick up a couple of the questions asked by the noble Lord, Lord Hodgson. I will check whether the working party is still in place; I do not know the answer to that. I hope it is, because working parties like that help us to shape government policy. On the question of why we should not use this Bill for the repeal, I suspect that a deal of consultation would have to be carried out, and that is probably why it is not in this Bill, but I will respond in writing to him on that point.

For these reasons, I hope the noble Lord will withdraw his amendment.

[Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts (Con)]

My Lords, I am grateful to all those who have taken part in this short debate. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Thurlow; I say to my noble friend Lord Roborough that the reality is that unrecorded does not mean unused. I mentioned that over 3,000 miles of footpath in Cornwall and about 2,700 in Herefordshire are used but unrecorded, so he is not quite right to say that if they are unrecorded they are unused. There are certainly some that have not been recorded that are unused, and I understand the force of his point. But I do not think it gets to the nub of the matter to say that, because they have not been recorded, they must be unused.

I am also grateful to the Minister for her reaffirming the intention to bring forward legislation that will enable this cut-off debt to be removed for ever. I am sorry she cannot find a way to put it into the Bill, on the grounds that it will be gratifying to have a conclusion to this as soon as possible. But two-thirds of a loaf is better than no bread, and I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

I set out for the noble Lord all the measurements already taken, in respect of the take of agricultural land. That is an important part of the system. As regards solar generation, the Solar Roadmap sets out how much land we estimate could be taken by solar farms as part of our clean power 2030 commitment. Even in ambitious scenarios, we expect only up to 0.4% of total UK land to be occupied. Solar farms can operate alongside farming activities but, to answer noble Lords’ points about the provision of solar on non-domestic buildings, we will be setting that out shortly, as we have done already for domestic buildings. For these reasons, I ask the noble Lord to withdraw his amendment.

[Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts (Con)]

My Lords, I thank all noble Lords who have spoken in this debate, particularly my noble friend Lord Bellingham about the importance of audit, my noble friend Lord Fuller—I am sure that this amendment could be improved with a bit expertise and a sharp pencil—and my noble friend Lord Deben. Building on his question about water, Southern Water is making plans to introduce 40 billion litres in summer months from next year, because we do not have enough water. My noble friend’s points about water are absolutely on the button and, of course, he was right to say that the Minister’s speech—and I absolutely know that she means well—was aspirational; it was what we hope to do.

I say only that until we are able to get our arms around the whole of this issue, join the dots, look at it, think about it and explain it to the British people, we are going to have a very difficult time. It is not a party-political issue. It is an issue for our society. Earlier this summer, I published a booklet called Don’t Stop Thinking About Tomorrow. I got the help of the noble Lord, Lord Glasman, and his Common Good Foundation, a centre-left think tank, and I got nine experts without any political background. What they concluded, absolutely, was that the way we are handling this, in silos, is completely hopeless. Each silo may be reporting brilliantly about what is happening in its silo, but no one is joining the dots together, and this is beginning to seep into society.

Up until now, this has been a fringe effort on the extreme left and the extreme right, seeking to make trouble. If noble Lords have a moment, they should look at today’s Times and Trevor Phillips’ article. He says this about yesterday’s march:

“The usual suspects, left and right, who always show up at events like this, took the opportunity to throw bottles at police … But for the most part, the 150,000 people who showed up to march the mile or so from Waterloo, across Lambeth Bridge and past the Palace of Westminster to Whitehall, were unaware of any commotion. Only the hard core stayed to hear Robinson’s peroration. This was not an angry, activist crowd. And therein lies the danger to our democracy. When ordinary people are ready to brave the first cold weekend of the autumn at the behest of a serial convict and self-confessed fraudster, something is very rotten in the state of Britain. These are the people you meet at the country pub with their dogs, or in a queue for drinks at half-time”.

Spending Commitments to Local Councils

Debate between Baroness Taylor of Stevenage and Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts

Monday 22nd July 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts (Con)]

My Lords, what plans do the Government have to update the council tax bandings? They were last reviewed in 1991 so are now virtually meaningless.

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

We know that the council tax banding system has been around for a very long time. In recent years, it has been important to keep the stability of funding for local councils because of the pressure they have been under. We will continue to make sure we get the balance right between local autonomy on funding and the financial pressure on residents. However, long-term funding stability in the wider local government funding system should help that. As for looking at the banding system, that could cause the kind of disruption that would make life even more difficult for local authorities.