Planning and Infrastructure Bill

Debate between Lord Howard of Rising and Lord Lucas

Committee stage
Thursday 4th September 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Howard of Rising (Con)]

My Lords, Amendment 346DB in my name is a probing amendment to debate what can be done to get rid of the absurd rules relating to bats—I am resisting calling them “batty”. The legislation is complex, but that does not alter the need for something to be done to get rid of the present insanity.

There are no bats in the United Kingdom of the type that is threatened with extinction, so there is no harm or danger to them; you cannot damage something that does not exist. There are some types that are close to being endangered, but there are abundant quantities of these types in other countries throughout the world. If the existing legislation were got rid of, there would be no danger to the world’s bat population. In short, legislation to preserve bats is unnecessary.

I will give two examples of the absurdities caused by the present legislation. Your Lordships will have read of the first, which my noble friend Lord Fuller referred to—the £100 million bat tunnel built during the construction of HS2. At a time of appalling government finances, it is scarcely credible to spend £100 million in this way.

[Lord Lucas (Con)]

My Lords, does my noble friend realise that we could have had 10 front doors for that price?

[Lord Howard of Rising (Con)]

I am very grateful for the intervention. It makes the world of Alice in Wonderland look normal and sensible, and that also applies to the front door.

My second example is on a smaller scale. With the support and blessing of English Heritage, I recently purchased and pulled down a particularly ugly and inappropriate 1960s chalet-style house adjacent to Castle Rising Castle, which is a listed monument, in order to replace the horror with cottages built in the traditional local stone. This was a project for the greater good that, fingers crossed, might have just broken even. That was before the bat people got involved.

An inspection took place to check whether there was any trace of bats in the house. There was no evidence of bats, but that was not good enough for the bat people. I was made to take off the roof, tile by tile, so that a bat person could inspect each tile as it was taken off. This was despite the inspection having shown there was no trace of bats. To get to the roof in safety, the building had to be scaffolded, an absurdity for something about to be pulled down. It then took six men four weeks to remove each tile and show it to the bat person before the tile could be thrown away. Using machinery already on site would have taken one man half a day. I ask your Lordships: what sanity can there be in carrying on in this manner?

I have not even started on what the archaeologist wanted. I was made to dig down three metres, a metre below the two-metre foundations that were planned. At all stages, this had to be inspected by an archaeologist, with men and machinery having to wait for the archaeologist to find time. Your Lordships can guess what that cost.

As a country, we have managed to get to a situation where the greater good is being destroyed by the antics of minority interests, which can look at things only from their own—in many cases laudable, maybe, but very narrow—perspectives. How can any Government expect houses to be built with the enormous difficulties that builders have to contend with? I have mentioned only two. Let us start on the road to sanity by repealing all legislation relating to the preservation of the bat population. They will not disappear; they will still be around centuries after the legislation has been repealed.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Lucas (Con)]

My Lords, if I may return briefly to the main subject of bats, I do not at all agree with my noble friend Lord Howard of Rising that bats are unimportant. They are absolutely part of nature. Nature in this country is hugely depleted and we need a lot more bats, but the lesson I draw from his story is that for all his huge expenditure, no bats benefited whatever. Nothing that he was made to do benefited bats in any way whatever. It is an entirely wrong-headed way of going about things. What we want is a lot more bats. If we had made my noble friend pay a few thousand pounds to make spaces for bats elsewhere in his estate, I am sure he would have done so with pleasure.

[Lord Howard of Rising (Con)]

There is no need. The castle provides a home to endless bats.

[Lord Lucas (Con)]

I think the Government recognise this both in the later parts of this Bill and indeed in what they have done with offshore wind. They recognise that offshore wind will kill a number of sea-birds and that compensation must be made for that.

What we need in this country is a lot more nature. That will take a good chunk of money. It is ridiculous to have a system that just spaffs that money away. We ought to be taking the opportunity of bats, which are pretty mobile creatures. In nature, bats live in cracks in trees. Trees fall down all the time and the bats just move home. We are worrying about bats in a completely ridiculous way. We are wasting huge sums of money and we must stop.