Planning and Infrastructure Bill

Earl Russell Excerpts

2nd reading
Wednesday 25th June 2025 Lords Chamber

[Earl Russell (LD)]

My Lords, we welcome the stated aim of getting Britain building and kick-starting our economic growth, delivering much-needed housing and critical infrastructure. We also recognise the urgent need to fundamentally reform and improve our planning systems. We must build more homes—more affordable homes—and infrastructure to meet the challenges of our time, from improving transport systems to addressing climate change.

The current systems are clearly not working. Getting to clean power alone by 2030 will require huge investment in renewable energy and the grid. Our electricity consumption is due to more than double by 2050, and we welcome the reforms to the grid connection system.

We are at the stage of the energy transition where we need to build a lot of stuff, and we need to be able to take our communities with us to get that done. Although the intention to improve the systems and processes is welcome, some of the solutions proposed are misguided and concerning. The Government have chosen neither bats nor crested newts, because the Government want growth. These plans are much more “done to” than “done with” when it comes to our local communities. The Government suggest that existing environmental protections are a significant barrier to development and that these plans will provide a win-win for both nature and the economy, and a more strategic approach.

Nature appears to have little voice and little value within these proposals. Our planning systems need to be aligned with and support our climate and nature goals. If enacted, the Bill will degrade our nature and biodiversity, and the real reforms and funding that our planning system desperately needs will be missed. My arguments are based on the Government’s own evidence; the impact assessment admits:

“There is very limited data on how environmental obligations affect development”.


Official analysis provides no data to support the argument that environmental legislation holds up building.

Removing these protections will not help. Delays are more often rooted in lengthy pre-planning application stages, poor processes, lack of data and of data sharing, outdated national policy statements and, in some cases, yet to be delivered policies such as land use frameworks and various spatial plans. In addition, our local authorities are permanently understaffed, underfunded and unable to cope. We can add to this list skills shortages, supply chain issues and market confidence.

As we have heard, more than 1.5 million homes in England have planning permission; 95% of local planning applications are approved. All too often, developers do not build, and the systems simply fail to ensure delivery. The Bill misses an important opportunity to better hold large housebuilders to account and continues a developer-led approach.

The environmental delivery plans and the nature restoration levy proposals are an alarming step backwards for nature protection. The Bill proposes that developers can pay into a nature restoration fund instead of fulfilling existing legal obligations to protect wildlife and habitats. This bypasses the fundamental mitigation hierarchy: the principle that impacts should first be avoided, then mitigated and compensated for only as a last resort. There is no requirement for developers to even attempt to avoid harm before resorting to paying the off-set fee. This is a profound weakening of our environmental law.

I do not much like the idea that nature can be transplanted in this way for a fee. It treats nature as akin to a problem as simple as house removals. Nature cannot simply be moved around to suit developers’ needs. This model is entirely unsuitable for irreplaceable habitats. All sites with nature protections should be removed from these provisions. Many of these habitats are simply impossible to recreate and move elsewhere.

The abundance of 753 terrestrial and freshwater species has, on average, fallen by 19% across the UK since 1970. How do we expect to meet our biodiversity targets with these proposals? Proposals to give these unique ecosystems stronger protections were rejected in the other place and government amendments never arrived. The Government even rejected a cross-party amendment to allow swift bricks in new homes. What hope is there for nature if adding a £36 swift brick is so easily rejected? We must work with nature, bring it into our developments and promote access. Doing so provides rewards for our quality of life and improves our health. We must restore and work with nature to help mitigate the impact of climate change.

Instead, the Bill’s overall improvement test states that the conservation measures must only be

“likely to be sufficient to outweigh”

negative impacts. This introduces uncertainty, unpredictability and subjectivity, falling far short of the rigorous scientific certainty required by our existing environmental laws. We believe this must be strengthened and that the benefits must significantly outweigh any harm. The Office for Environmental Protection has also expressed significant concerns about the Bill as drafted, saying that it reduces the level of environmental protection. It describes the provisions as a “regression”, particularly for habitats and species.

Concerns also persist regarding adequate resourcing and capacity for Natural England to administer the substantial new responsibilities. These will be in a complex system that the Government are putting in place. We are calling for independent oversight of the NRF to ensure that funds are spent effectively and transparently.

To conclude, we must properly resource our planning authorities. Some 25% of all planners have been lost in the past seven years. The Government will allow local authorities to set their own fees but these must be ring-fenced to ensure that the money and skills are available to ensure a sufficient local planning system. We must strengthen our local democratic accountability and public trust. The Bill’s approach risks alienating communities and diminishing the crucial role of our elected councils. I worry this could have a negative impact as we roll out all the stuff we need to build to get to net zero. We must ensure meaningful engagement and good communications, and that communities have a voice in and benefit from the energy transition itself.

We will work with the Government to improve the Bill, but they may well be surprised by the level of cross-party consensus that has already established itself on all sides of your Lordships’ House on these matters.

Climate Change: Wildfire Strategy and Action Plan

Earl Russell Excerpts

Thursday 8th May 2025 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Earl Russell]

To ask His Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the increased risk of wildfires caused by climate change; and when they will publish a Wildfire Strategy and Action Plan.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (Lord Khan of Burnley) (Lab)]

My Lords, outdoor fires, especially wildfires, are expected by many academics to increase in frequency and impact, predominantly driven by climate change. The Home Office, as the former lead government department for wildfire, worked closely with Defra, its agencies and other stakeholders to identify policy options to enhance our resilience and response to wildfires. The outcomes of this work are currently being considered following the transition of fire functions to MHCLG on 1 April.

[Earl Russell (LD)]

My Lords, we are having a bad wildfire year, with 439 wildfires and 95 square miles burned already. By mid-April, the total burned area will be the second worst on record. Wildfires are devastating to people and property, and brutal to our biodiversity and net-zero efforts. I push the Government to do more. I ask the Minister to review our wildfire resilience plans for the rest of this year, to respond to the NFCC’s urgent calls for dedicated funding and specialist equipment, and for further action to improve public education.

[Lord Khan of Burnley (Lab)]

My Lords, the noble Earl is right to raise this important issue. The numbers he highlighted are worrying. We are working closely with the NFCC. We continue to fund the national resilience wildfire adviser, who is tasked with reviewing capability and approaches across the fire sector. We are also providing proactive public safety communications on barbeques, cigarettes and open fires, in collaboration with the National Fire Chiefs Council.

Impact of Environmental Regulations on Development (Built Environment Committee Report)

Earl Russell Excerpts

Friday 19th April 2024 Lords Chamber

[Earl Russell (LD)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to speak on this report today. I was a member of the Built Environment Committee for a short period. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, for his chairmanship, and I thank the other members of the committee.

This inquiry is important and timely. As the introduction of the report says:

“At the heart of this inquiry is the interaction between two government policies: a drive for development—particularly of housing—and … a commitment to protect habitats … Both policies should be achievable in a mutually reinforcing way. In practice, our inquiry has found that this has been hampered … by lack of co-ordination in policy-making and haphazard and unbalanced implementation”.


Today I shall speak primarily to the environmental side of this debate. The Government have strong environmental ambitions, such as being the first Government ever to leave nature in a better position than they found it, and in some areas progress has been achieved. I thank the Government for halving our CO₂ emissions, which are now at their lowest level since 1837, but there is much to do and very little time to do it in.

As the tasks ahead have become more challenging, the political will appears to be declining. We have already seen the Government rowing back from several key environmental commitments or delaying them. Ambition is great, but it means nothing without a relentless drive to implement and clear and consistent policy-making. The transition to net zero by 2050 is challenging. It impacts all sections of society, and it will be a key part of government policy going forward. The transition must be a just one.

While there are strong ambitions, the Government are largely off-track to meet many of their environmental commitments. The Office for Environmental Protection’s annual report says the Government are meeting only four of their 40 key targets. To paraphrase that report, the Government remain largely off-track; many policies are at the early stages or are long-awaited; government plans must stack up; and the Government must set out transparently how they will change the nation’s trajectory in good time. The Government are also failing to meet their housebuilding targets. While they remain committed to building 1 million homes over this Parliament, they are not on target to meet that.

In my humble opinion, the general government response to the inquiry to date has been poor. The Government have not adequately engaged with or addressed many of the key areas, while in others they have provided the stock answer of blaming nutrient neutrality for the problems. The report went out of its way to search for potential solutions and point out clearly where the systems and processes in place were not working. Ideas put forward included giving housebuilding a statutory footing.

Underlying the key report is a continued trend of poorly thought-out processes, a lack of coherent policies, a lack of support for developers and a hodge-podge of systems and processes that work for no one. We have planning authorities that lack funding, a lack of planners and general systemic problems across many sectors that are inhibiting the need and the demand for housing.

When we need policy implementation across all areas of government to be a co-ordinated dance, we have something that in reality is much more akin to Laurel and Hardy than to Torvill and Dean. The idea that we can have either new housing or nutrient neutrality but not both is a false dichotomy; to accept that would be to reward past failure and to agree to continue to fail in future as well. We can and must have both, and the Government need to work to achieve that at speed and at scale. The idea that environmental targets are somehow of secondary importance is alarming. Environmental commitments must not be a convenient scapegoat for inaction, a lack of coherent policy or an inability to meet the Government’s own obligations.

We are one of the most nature-deprived countries in the world, while England has the lowest numbers of houses available in the developed world and the highest rate of inadequate housing in Europe. The Government must act at scale and at speed to change that.

Green Spaces

Earl Russell Excerpts

Thursday 1st February 2024 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Earl Russell]

To ask His Majesty’s Government whether they have plans to increase the number of locally available and easily accessible green spaces.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities (Baroness Penn) (Con)]

Our environmental improvement plan includes a commitment that everyone should live within a 15-minute walk of a green or blue space and includes measures to reduce barriers which prevent people accessing them. Progress on this commitment is well under way through the levelling up parks fund, the green infrastructure framework, the urban trees challenge fund, the Access for All programme and the woodland access implementation plan.

[Baroness Fookes (Con)]

My Lords—

[Earl Russell (LD)]

I thank the Minister for the response. I warmly welcome this commitment; it is extremely important. However, 38% of people do not have access to green or blue space. Those who are economically marginalised have the least access of all. Access to green space is vital for our physical, mental and general well-being. Can the Minister confirm what proposals the Government have to deliver the target and when they expect to make progress?

[Baroness Penn (Con)]

My Lords, one of the programmes I mentioned in my initial Answer, the levelling up parks fund, is focused specifically on grants given to and administered by local authorities to deliver new or improved green spaces in more than 100 of the neighbourhoods most deprived of green spaces across the UK. Some 92% of recipients of that funding have reported increases in access to green spaces in deprived urban areas. That is one example of how we are delivering on that commitment. I also reassure the noble Earl that we are working across government to ensure that there is a robust baseline for measuring that commitment, so that we can report on progress in future.