Planning and Infrastructure Bill

Debate between Lord Framlingham and Baroness Coffey

Committee stage
Wednesday 17th September 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Coffey (Con)]

My Lords, I am supportive of my noble friend Lord Gascoigne’s amendments, and will speak also to those from my Front Bench.

There are a couple of factors in this. The Treasury hates ring-fencing, because, right now, it pretty much controls every penny that leaves the Government’s hands, whether it goes off to local government or similar. Other departments then want to try to control money that is coming out of existing government departments and how that should or should not be done, and so conventions start to happen within government. That frustrates, at times, the very purpose the levy is there for in the first place. There is precedence, as has already been said by my noble friend Lord Gascoigne, in CIL and the Act that brought that in.

There are other aspects. The amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, would make sure that this is additional money. It basically says that Natural England should not become self-financing and that every single penny raised should go to nature restoration.

Like my noble friend Lord Gascoigne, I was born in the county of Lancashire and I am very proud of that—don’t worry, I will not start singing the cricket song. There is something to be said, building on the principle of rectification at source, for trying to have that biodiversity as near as possible. Very occasionally, there have been infrastructure projects, such as the Channel Tunnel, for which it has simply not been possible to re-create the relevant habitat for certain displaced species, and it has had to go further away. It is a bit like what HS2 found: there is no point in planting trees at the wrong time of year, not watering them and then finding that—what a surprise—70% of them are dead. More money is spent on fixing the problem, instead of sorting it out in the first place. There is an element of co-ordination involved here, which I think Natural England is reasonably well-placed to do.

When we were setting up the BNG pilots, local developers sometimes could not do it, and there was then an opportunity to buy national credits. The department and Natural England were very keen for Natural England to be the only body to have this national pot, but I ensured that a few more bodies were available. It is important to have not necessarily competition but a variety of people who can provide this, as opposed to resource constraints becoming the great determining step or not helping progress. I come back to the Environment Act 2021 and its species abundance target for 2030.

There are other examples. It might be surprising to hear that the Treasury regularly holds back over a billion pounds from the collection of the apprenticeship levy, which it will often use to pay for various training here and there. Nature is too important. I thought it was no longer the Cinderella of the climate and nature environment, but I am afraid that it is back in that sad era. We need to ensure that it receives its fair dues, which is why I support the amendments in this group.

[Lord Framlingham (Con)]

My Lords, I wish to make a brief intervention. In terms of infrastructure, nothing has had a more devastating effect on the countryside and nature than HS2—for no purpose at all, which is very sad. The point I wish to put to the Minister relates to compulsory purchase orders. I do not know whether she is aware that the farmers have been paid only 90% of the value of the farmland taken for HS2, which seems grotesquely unfair. I wonder whether she would take that on board and perhaps comment on it or think about it.

Planning and Infrastructure Bill

Debate between Lord Framlingham and Baroness Coffey

Committee stage
Thursday 4th September 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Framlingham (Con)]

Would the noble Baroness accept that even a small number of illegal immigrants in a tiny village can have as much effect as a larger number in an urban area?

[Baroness Coffey (Con)]

It is reflective of what is proportionate to the local community. My noble friend Lord Framlingham will be aware of the legal judgments of the past few years where some large-scale accommodation sites were deemed unlawful. As my noble friend Lord Jackson of Peterborough said, the current Government are trying to work this out and balance it as well. It is not a straightforward action, so I will not criticise them for it. However, it is certainly valid to have this debate about whether these hotels need a separate planning class, recognising the decision that was made last week in the Court of Appeal.

Houses in multiple occupation require both planning permission and a licence. I do not want us to get into the situation of having to license hotels. However, HMOs have both because the accommodation is being used in a perhaps non-traditional way compared to its original intention. Therefore, extra conditions are put on by the local council or there is deliberate consideration, recognising the change in impact that the transfer of traditional uses of accommodation to others can have on the local community. Therefore, while I expect that the Government will probably brush this aside, it is important to understand the temperature, but also what we have done in the past to recognise when things have changed significantly, in order to make sure that decisions are made carefully, considerately and competently when addressing this type of situation.