Planning and Infrastructure Bill

Lord Hunt of Kings Heath Excerpts

Committee stage
Wednesday 17th September 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ravensdale (CB)]

My Lords, I declare my interests as a chief engineer working for AtkinsRéalis, and as co-chair of Legislators for Nuclear. This group of amendments gets to the heart of some of the issues with this Bill. It is important that we get Britain building again, not least to reverse the long stagnation in the UK economy since 2008. The Chancellor tells us that growth is the problem, and investment is the solution, which I wholeheartedly agree with.

There is a significant risk that Part 3, the centrepiece of this Bill, is not going to deliver for complex infrastructure. The reasons are straightforward: Part 3 may work for a known issue such as nutrient neutrality for a housing development, where developers can club together and pay into a fund. However, for infrastructure developments, habitat issues will not be known in advance, and there will not be time for developers to agree and implement an EDP before consent. Therefore, they are left with a couple of options: they can try to twin-track, which could risk adding even more bureaucracy to the process, or go the existing route. We all know the issues with the existing route—bat tunnels and fish discos have been well-publicised—but less well known are the years-long delays to offshore windfarms due to issues with compensation for environmental impacts and the like.

For example, we have had multi-year delays to the trio of Norfolk offshore wind projects—Norfolk Vanguard East, Norfolk Vanguard West and Norfolk Boreas—due to issues around compensation for an undersea worm, Sabellaria reef, even in areas where it was not present. That is not to mention cutting the size by around 40% and the generation potential of East Anglia ONE North windfarm due to habitat issues with red-throated diver, despite assessments putting the impact at one bird death per year.

Ultimately, if the Government want to meet their ambitious targets for clean energy and growth, they will need an approach that delivers for infrastructure, as well as for housing. For energy, we have managed to build approximately 4 gigawatts of new capacity per year over the last three years. To meet the Government’s clean power target, that will have to increase to at least 15 gigawatts per year between now and 2030—from the Government’s own data—so that is a quadrupling of our current build rate. A lot of that is offshore wind, and I should be clear from my examples that this acceleration in build rates simply will not happen under the current regulatory regime.

At the foundation of all this are the habitats regulations, which are of course very important for the protection of nature in this country but which have become overly burdensome due to the impacts of case law over the years and an overly precautionary approach by the regulator in some cases. Amendment 350 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Hunt of Kings Heath, proposes some minor changes to steer the interpretation of the habitats regulations back to their original intent to protect nature but to strike a balance. This has been developed in broad consultation with planning lawyers and ecologists who have decades of experience in taking large projects through the planning system.

The amendment provides a menu of options for the Government. One of those is defining a science-led approach, which is important because too often the statutory nature conservation bodies require developers to provide evidence against hypothetical rather than real risks. I am vice-chair of the POST board—the Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology. POST is the link between the scientific research community and Parliament, and we work to ensure a science-led approach to lawmaking. This is an area where it is vital that we ensure that we take a scientifically rigorous approach.

The second part of the amendment would overturn some aspects of case law to get to a more proportionate approach, stating that de minimis effects cannot produce an adverse effect; that mitigation measures can be taken into account when deciding whether a proposed project is likely to have a significant effect; that there is no need to redo a habitats assessment for approval of conditions under a consent that was originally subject to a habitats assessment; and, finally, that compensation measures need not address the same type or scale of impact as the harm caused nor be in place before impact occurs, which restates existing law. I will leave the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, to fill in the detail.

The package of measures in Amendment 350 is a pragmatic and proportionate means of restoring some balance to a system that is currently making it extremely difficult to build infrastructure in the UK. One of the key benefits of what we are proposing is that it would have immediate benefits for a range of projects around the UK. It does not need additional regulations to be developed and raised nor EDPs to be developed; the impact is there straight away.

Amendment 346DA in my name is in the same vein and attacks the problem from a different angle—again, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Hunt of Kings Heath, for his support. It seeks to recognise that there are perhaps narrowly defined classes of projects which should be able to cut through the usual process. For example, we are building offshore wind, which is vital to our energy security and therefore to our national security. Is it really acceptable that these developments have been held up for years because of delays to compensatory regimes under the habitats regulations? Can we really afford to delay infrastructure that is key for the Government’s net-zero target, for energy security and therefore national security in this way? I suggest not, and that there could be certain classes of project, those related to national security and energy security, where the Secretary of State should have additional powers to allow projects to proceed and to work to define their own compensatory measures.

Between Amendments 350 and 346DA, we have a package of options for the Government which seek to recognise the issues of Part 3 for infrastructure and ensure that the Bill delivers for growth—I add to this my previous Amendment 46 on regulators. Ultimately, we need to strike a better balance between the impact of infrastructure on the local environment—the micro view—and the benefits of that infrastructure for the nation, whether that is net zero, energy security or economic growth: the macro view.

We have heard some rumblings in the news about a second planning Bill focused on infrastructure. I do not know the truth of that, but my observation is that we cannot wait for another Bill; we simply do not have the time. The Government need to seize the opportunity that the Bill represents and ensure that it delivers for infrastructure, and I restate the immediate benefit that these amendments would have. I beg to move.

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab)]

My Lords, it is a great pleasure to follow the noble Lord. I thank him for his amendments and for his support of mine. In fact, he very ably summarised my amendments. It is clearly important and good that we are getting back to what the Bill is all about: the growth agenda. As the Explanatory Memorandum and policy background state, we have a huge problem in building the infrastructure that we need to get this country going again and growing again. The Bill is obviously designed to help us do that, particularly through the planning reforms, EDPs and so on. The big question is whether the Bill is sufficiently focused to give us confidence that our regulatory system is not going to prevent the kind of rapid growth that we need. This is where there is some concern.

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[Baroness Young of Old Scone (Lab)]

My Lords, I do not know where to start on this one. I must admit that, if I had had the neck of the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, in my hands this morning after reading the Telegraph article, he would no longer be here to press his amendment tonight.

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab)]

My Lords, that does not sound very comradely, if I may say so.

[Baroness Young of Old Scone (Lab)]

I am definitely not feeling comradely right now.

We must get away from this polarisation. These amendments, jointly in the names of the noble Lords, Lord Hunt and Lord Ravensdale, are valuable and worth considering, particularly in the area of infra- structure. But they are complex, and they need calm and informed judgement and analysis before we go overboard for them. We will not stay calm, and we will not have orderly evidence-based judgement, if we get the sort of article that reports in the way that the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, has been portraying it, in places—some of which he reflected this evening.

The ENGOs are not on an ego trip. They are not intrinsically against growth. The regulators are doing their best job with their resources against habitats regulations that were invented in order to stem this massive decline of biodiversity in this country, which threatens our existence. Every species extinction foreshadows our own. We have to get away from this belief that somehow everybody else in Europe implementing the habitats regulations is doing it with less purity, and is being far less up themselves— if noble Lords will pardon that unparliamentary language—than we are. The reality is that most places implementing the habitats directive are not trying to maintain and recover biodiversity in an area that is as densely populated and as much contested, in terms of land use, as this country is, particularly England. We have to bear that in mind: we are trying to cram an awful lot into a very small space of land, particularly in the south-east and around our coastal regions. So let us get off the polarisation argument.

The Telegraph piece is headed:

“Eco-zealots are crushing the economy”.


That does not foster good and sane debate. It says that

“the anti-growth environmental quangos are blocking developments on spurious grounds”

and that Natural England has an “anti-growth” mindset. I do not believe any of these points. It may well be that the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, has been quoted incorrectly, but from what he said tonight I do not believe that. It would be very unfortunate if we fell into the trap of polarising growth against development; we are smart enough to do both, and there is real commitment across conservation interests to do that. So let us stop winding up this debate in an irresponsible way.

I was going to go on to many of the other reasons for delay in the planning system but, at this time of the night, I will not. I will simply say that, when you talk to developers who are not on their soapboxes about the barriers they face, you find that the barriers are not solely environmental; there are many others. It is an example of the poverty of the noble Lord’s case and the way he is making it—not necessarily its basic tenet—that he quotes the old, hackneyed example of the HS2 bat tunnel. The problem with the HS2 bat tunnel was the problem of HS2, not the problem of nature conservation. If, as we had recommended 20 years ago, HS2 was called MS2, Medium Speed 2, it would have been possible to have mightily reduced the cost of the whole project by taking 20 miles an hour off the top speed and allowing the route to wiggle around all the things that we have now spent a fortune compensating for.

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab)]

If my noble friend would let me correct a point, I did not mention bats at all; I mentioned my experience of Hinkley Point C, which is very different.

[Baroness Young of Old Scone (Lab)]

I apologise to the noble Lord for that, but the article in the Telegraph said that, on the night he was quoted, he talked about bats.

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab)]

My Lords, I was at a conference yesterday, and the Telegraph reported on it. The headline is not my authorship.

[Baroness Young of Old Scone (Lab)]

I look forward to a detailed account from the noble Lord as to what exactly he did say that night and what in the Telegraph article he denies that he said. Anyway, if we had cut the speed of HS2, we would have avoided not only having bat tunnels but spending huge amounts of money on compensatory habitat for the destruction of ancient woodlands.

Let us not be unclear about this: Catherine Howard and her colleagues are very knowledgeable, but they are clearly representative of the development sector. Although their views are worth considering, they are not the only experts in this field. I do not believe that the extreme picture of the nature conservation bodies that is being represented is true. Nature is dramatically in decline and the habitats regulations were invented to meet that issue, so let us consider the approach in the amendments calmly and with a lack of polarisation. If we do not, we will simply continue to trade off nature in the interests of growth, when we should in fact deliver both.

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[Lord Blencathra (Con)]

My Lords, I support my noble friend’s amendment and make a plea for a simplified environmental audit for small modular nuclear reactors. I have in my hand here the speech I delivered on 22 October 2015 in the Grand Committee, aiding and supporting my noble friend Viscount Ridley on small modular nuclear reactors. The debate was supported by everyone in that Committee.

The Environment Minister said that she was totally in support of small modular nuclear reactors and that the technology was coming along rapidly and had to be followed through. We were then told that DECC, the Department for Environment and Climate Change, was carrying out a technical study which would inform the development of small modular nuclear reactors, which would conclude in 2016.

What has happened since then? Absolutely nothing—until in June this year the Government gave Rolls-Royce the go-ahead. Rolls-Royce was gagging at the bit in 2015 to crack on with this. I am afraid the last Conservative Government dithered on small modular nuclear reactors, just as Tony Blair's Government dithered on building Hinkley Point, which was initially costed at €3.3 billion. Then it went to £5 billion, £10 billion, £18 billion and £24 billion. I do not know what it is now—£30 billion or £40 billion.

Small modular nuclear reactors are clean energy. They can be positioned around the country, avoiding the need for huge cabling and pylons. As I say, Rolls-Royce was gagging at the bit and has now got approval to go ahead. Rolls-Royce has been building small modular nuclear reactors for 70 years, perfectly safely. They are in nuclear submarines. Of course, there is a difference between the nuclear engine one has in a submarine and the land-based modular nuclear reactor. But the science is not worlds apart. It is like a car company able to build a petrol engine, then told to build a diesel engine. Yes, some of the components are different and the construction is different, but the concept is the same. It is not rocket science.

I was concerned to read the other day that the wonderful visit of President Trump may involve a deal to get American small modular nuclear reactors. Well, I say to the Government, as we have got Rolls-Royce able to make these things and ready to crack on with them, the people of this country will not understand if we get ones dumped from Westinghouse or GE Hitachi from the United States. At the moment, British industry has a head start. Let us make sure we keep that head start by not putting in excessive regulation—which the Americans might not be required to have—nor planning applications which could take years and years to put a small, safe, modular nuclear reactor outside some of our cities.

That is why we need a simplified environmental audit plan for the positioning of our modular nuclear reactors and then we can crack on and get the cheap, clean power we need. The wind farms are not overexpensive, but the government subsidy is now ridiculously high. No wonder everyone wants to build wind farms—it is money for old rope, considering the subsidy the Government give them. We will not need as many of those, and we will not need pylons all over the countryside. I urge the Government to consider not just my noble friend’s amendment but the possibility of a simplified system for small modular nuclear reactors.

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab)]

My Lords, tempting as it is to have a large-scale debate about nuclear energy, I do not think that noble Lords will want that. I broadly understand where the noble Baroness is coming from, and I am sympathetic to the thrust of what she is saying. However, I say to her and to the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, that nuclear is part of the package. It is the essential baseload. We are going to be very reliant on wind and sun, and the whole thing has to be seen together.

We have this huge potential now. Hinkley Point C is making real progress. A final investment decision has been reached for Sizewell C. The noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, is right about the importance of the appraisal that GBN has undertaken, and government support for Rolls-Royce, and the announcement this week of the agreement with the US, which is twofold. The first point is regulatory alignment, which means, rather like in the pharmaceutical sector, that if one of the major regulators in the US, the UK, or Europe signs off a particular medicine, there is often mutual recognition. Clearly, this is important in meeting this point about reducing the amount of unnecessary bureaucracy in relation to regulation in future. The second point is on the announcement by a number of US companies, particularly from the west coast, who wish to invest in AI and data centres in the UK aligned to advanced modular reactors, which is fantastic news.

On the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, I am sure Rolls-Royce is going to be in a very good position, but it has to be open to companies to invite other countries’ reactors as well. You do not want to put all your eggs in one basket in any case. The question then comes back to the issues we have been talking about recently as to whether the regulatory system we have collectively is going to be up to meeting this challenge. I commend a report published yesterday by Britain Remade, whose conference I happened to attend, which caused such offence to my noble friend. It is a very good report about the history of nuclear power development in this country. We had the lead once upon a time. We foolishly threw it away. We have a great chance to get back in at a substantive level, but at the moment it simply costs too much. There are various reasons: there is overspecification—we have heard that before—and there is slow resource-intensive consultation, planning and permitting. We have heard about the issues around some of the environmental protections, and there are various other reasons as well.

I wanted to ask my noble friend this. She knows that there is a Nuclear Regulatory Taskforce. It was set up under the auspices of the Prime Minister and the Chancellor. It gave an interim report in the summer. It is going to come back very soon with a substantive report, but the interim report spoke of,

“fundamental concerns about how regulation operates in practice, with the most prominent being that the system is perceived to be unnecessarily slow, inefficient, and costly”.

On the assumption that this report comes out within the next few weeks, will it be possible to use this Bill on Report as a way of trying to deal with some of the regulatory hurdles? I understand that my noble friend probably cannot answer that, first because the Government have not received the report, and secondly because they will have to consider how to do it, but I just express the hope that we might be able to use this Bill as a vehicle.

[Lord Ravensdale (CB)]

Very briefly, I follow on from the point of the noble Lord, Lord Hunt of Kings Heath. I raised the point he just made in a question a week or so back. That is a really important point: to try and join the dots between the work ongoing with the regulatory task force and this Bill, because it is a prime opportunity to make the legislative changes that are required.

I certainly support the intent of the amendments that the noble Baroness put forward. To go back to the announcement on Monday, we are going to need nuclear in many more locations across the UK than the traditional nuclear sites. I chair an organisation called Midlands Nuclear, where we have been undertaking a siting study for where we can locate nuclear across the region in many non-traditional sites—for example, old coal-fired sites and gas sites. That is going to require a new approach to planning: how we take all these reactors forward, and the sheer number of reactors that were talked about in Monday’s announcement. I temper that by saying that, of course, we are going to need energy of all forms to get to net zero: more wind, solar, nuclear and gas storage. I highlighted some of the issues with wind in debate on the previous group of amendments. We need to think about how we do this more broadly in the planning system.

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Moved by

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath]

356A: After Clause 107, insert the following new Clause—
“Pre-consolidation amendments of planning legislation(1) The Secretary of State may by regulations make such amendments and modifications of the Acts relating to planning as in the Secretary of State’s opinion facilitate, or are otherwise desirable in connection with, the consolidation of the whole or a substantial part of the Acts relating to planning.(2) The Acts relating to planning are—(a) the Commons Act 1899;(b) the Public Health Act 1936;(c) the Agricultural Act 1947;(d) the Historic Buildings and Ancient Monuments Act 1953;(e) the Land Compensation Act 1961;(f) Part 4 of the Public Health Act 1961;(g) the Compulsory Purchase Act 1965;(h) the Forestry Act 1967;(i) the Post Office Act 1969;(j) the Land Compensation Act 1973;(k) the Inner Urban Areas Act 1978;(l) the Ancient Monuments and Archaeological Areas Act 1979;(m) Parts 9 to 18 of the Local Government, Planning and Land Act 1980;(n) the Highways Act 1980;(o) the New Towns Act 1981;(p) the Acquisition of Land Act 1981;(q) Part 2 of the Civil Aviation Act 1982; (r) the Building Act 1984;(s) Part 5 of the Airports Act 1986;(t) the Town and Country Planning Act 1990;(u) the Planning (Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas) Act 1990;(v) the Planning (Hazardous Substances) Act 1990;(w) the Planning (Consequential Provisions) Act 1990;(x) Parts 1, 3 and 5 of the Planning and Compensation Act 1991;(y) the Transport and Works Act 1992;(z) sections 67 to 69 and 96 of, and Schedules 13 and 14 to, the Environment Act 1995(z1) Part 7 of the Greater London Authority Act 1999;(z2) the Countryside and Rights of Way Act 2000;(z3) sections 118 and 397 of, and Schedule 4 to, the Communications Act 2003;(z4) the Planning and Compulsory Purchase Act 2004;(z5) the Natural Environment and Rural Communities Act 2006;(z6) the Commons Act 2006;(z7) the Housing and Regeneration Act 2008;(z8) the Planning Act 2008;(z9) Parts 6 and 9, and sections 202 to 205, of the Localism Act 2011;(z10) the Mobile Homes Act 2013;(z11) the Infrastructure Act 2015;(z12) Parts 6 to 8 of the Housing and Planning Act 2016;(z13) the Neighbourhood Planning Act 2017;(z14) the Environment Act 2021;(z15) the Building Safety Act 2022;(z16) the Historic Environment (Wales) Act 2023;(z17) Parts 3 to 11 of the Levelling-up and Regeneration Act 2023;(z18) this Act;(z19) any other provision of an Act relating to planning, whenever passed.(3) For the purposes of this section, “amend” includes repeal (and similar terms are to be read accordingly).(4) Regulations made under this section do not come into force unless an Act is passed consolidating the whole or a substantial part of the Acts relating to planning.(5) If such an Act is passed, any regulations made under this section come into force immediately before the Act comes into force.(6) Regulations under this section are to be made by statutory instrument.(7) A statutory instrument containing (whether alone or with other provision) regulations under this section may not be made unless a draft of the statutory instrument containing them has been laid before, and approved by a resolution of, each House of Parliament.”Member’s explanatory statement
This new clause enables pre-consolidation amendments to be made to planning legislation, in anticipation of a future Consolidation Bill. It is intended to probe the desirability and feasibility of consolidation of planning legislation.

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab)]

My Lords, we are nearly at the finish. All I want to do here is make a plea to my noble friends the Ministers to consider the benefit of consolidated Acts in relation to planning law. As I have discovered in my imperfect dip into planning law for the Bill, it is very complex; it is a labyrinth of Acts, and they overlap and cross-refer. They have been amended by layers of primary and secondary legislation, and the framework has become very complex. The Bill is all about growth, and I have every sympathy for people that have to operate in the field.

As Ministers, we all acknowledge that consolidated legislation is a good thing, and then we all fail to bring any consolidated legislation. I am well aware that it is my second mea culpa of the week. If we want to sort out our planning system, consolidated legislation would be a very good thing to do. It does not really involve much parliamentary time. It involves the department in work and parliamentary counsel, but the Law Commission is usually able to help. To achieve internal consistency, you need to have pre-consolidation amendments, and that is what my amendment would also allow for.

My noble friends have shown huge stamina in getting through Committee. They have responded sympathetically to many of the constructive amendments put forward. I just hope they might be able to say that they will consider this. I beg to move.

[Baroness Coffey (Con)]

My Lords, I am concerned about this amendment, in particular subsection (3) of the proposed new clause, because it talks about repealing primary legislation. I understand what the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, is getting at in trying to make legislation straightforward. That is why we have all these schedules to legislation nowadays, to try to bring that about. I fear, and I have heard on the grapevine, that the noble Lord has been advised by somebody who is now advising somebody very important in the Government and who has also made subsequent comments about how nature is getting in the way of development. While I am conscious of the positive intentions that the noble Lord seeks to achieve through the amendment, I am just flagging my concern.

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank my noble friend Lord Hunt for Amendment 356A and for highlighting the merits of consolidating our planning legislation. As someone who has been on the sticky end of it for a number of years, I can absolutely see his point.

My noble friend is not the first to consider this. Indeed, the existing legislative framework provides the Government with sufficient powers to consolidate the planning legislation at an appropriate time. Specifically, as the noble Baroness, Lady Scott, said, Section 132 of the Levelling-up and Regeneration Act provides the Secretary of State with broad and flexible powers to make regulations that amend, repeal or otherwise modify a wide range of planning-related statutes.

While we have no immediate plans to consolidate planning legislation in England, we will keep this under review, as we recognise that consolidating planning legislation could offer some benefits. Since the enactment of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990, the legislative framework has undergone numerous amendments, and consolidation may help to streamline and simplify the system. However, a comprehensive consolidation needs to be weighed against the risks of uncertainty and disruption, particularly at a time when the Government are prioritising targeted planning reform to drive economic growth.

Any move towards consolidation would also require substantial resources, so we would need to be confident that it has clear benefits. At this stage, we believe that targeted reform is the best way forward, but we are live to the possibilities that consolidation offers. I hope that my noble friend and other Peers with an interest in planning will continue to work with us. I therefore hope that my noble friend will feel able to withdraw his amendment.

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab)]

I am very grateful to my noble friend. I say to the noble Baroness, Lady Coffey, first, that the person to whom she referred has not in fact advised me on this amendment. Secondly, she should not fear the amendment; I realise that it is a Henry VIII provision, but all it would allow us to do is have pre-consolidation amendments. We could not use it, for instance, to create a special pathway for nuclear developments in the way that the noble Baroness, Lady Bloomfield, suggested. I hope I can reassure her on that.

I am grateful to my noble friend the Minister. Clearly, she and her department recognise that, for people in the field, this can be very complex, so everything we can do to make it as straightforward as possible is to be desired. Having said that, I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.

Amendment 356A withdrawn.

Planning and Infrastructure Bill

Lord Hunt of Kings Heath Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 9th September 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Young of Old Scone (Lab)]

My Lords, I will speak to Amendments 127 and 216.

Amendment 216, to which I have put my name, was led by the noble Earl, Lord Russell, and concerns the zero-carbon standard for new homes. If the noble Lord, Lord Krebs, feels that the adaptation committee reports are cyclical and the same and getting nowhere then the zero-carbon standard discussion feels like Groundhog Day, to be frank. We got so close to having a zero-carbon home commitment in 2015. We were within two weeks of the commitment coming into effect, at a time when the housebuilders, in spite of some initial grumping, had tooled up to deliver it, when all of a sudden the Chancellor, George Osborne, stepped in at the last minute and summarily cancelled it. It was the biggest letdown for everybody. That meant that, for 10 years, we built houses which could have been zero carbon, significantly contributed to reducing our carbon footprint, helped people have warmer homes and helped the communities have lower bills—but we did not. We have lost 10 years of delivery. We have to now grip that and make sure that we do not lose any more years.

The current policy under the future homes standard requires new homes only to be zero-carbon ready by 2025. That does not go far enough. It also does not require anything on solar panels, which this amendment addresses. I know that there has been a bit of a shift in thinking within government over the last few months on the question of distributed solar. I press the Minister to tell us what improvements we are expecting to see on the future homes standard to reverse the harm that was done by Mr Osborne.

Before I sit down, I commend Amendment 127, in the name of the noble Lord, Ravensdale, which would give clear mitigation and adaptation climate change duties to planning authorities. I very much endorse everything that the noble Lord, Lord Krebs, said. I was honoured to serve, at least for a brief period, on the adaptation committee. I helped get the legislation through this House to create it and then promptly did a runner after I had been appointed to it—as they say, it was a good idea at the time.

The whole role of planning authorities in climate change is absolutely crucial, not just for mitigation but for adaptation to the impacts of climate change. I draw the attention of the Minister and the Committee to a recent Local Government Association report which went out extensively to wide consultation. As a result of that consultation with a whole range of consultees, not only local government authorities, it came back with the proposition that there should be statutory powers and duties for local authorities on action for climate change mitigation and adaptation.

There was a bit of schadenfreude for me in that. When we originally got the climate Act through, it prescribed roles for local authorities. In fact, it had a reporting arrangement for local authorities that meant that they had a statutory requirement to report. That was cancelled very rapidly when the Conservative Government came in in 2010. We are now in a position where, although many local authorities are very committed to the idea of their place in mitigation of and adaptation to climate change, they are under no duress to report on that. The only thing they have to do is that, if they are asked by government to report, they are required to do so—but only if asked. That strikes me as a very strange way of keeping track of delivery on this.

As the noble Lord, Lord Krebs, said, the most recent report by the adaptation committee assessing the nation’s level of preparedness to adapt to the impacts of climate change was very gloomy about the lack of progress, and quite rightly so. Adaptation is the Cinderella, the poor relation of the whole climate change effort. It is not going to get any better; it is going to get worse, with heatwaves, droughts, wildfires and floods—it is being so cheerful at this time of night that keeps me going. Amendment 127, to clarify the climate change mitigation and adaptation duties of planning authorities, or something like it, is very important. I hope that the Minister will consider it seriously.

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab)]

My Lords, very briefly, I support the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Ravensdale; I think it is very important. I want to pick up what my noble friend said: many local authorities are very keen to develop policies in relation to climate change, particularly on this very important issue of adaptation. My noble friend will have seen recently that some local authorities have put into reverse any commitment towards net zero and climate change policies. My question to the House is: what do we do about this? It is not fashionable at the moment to mention climate change, for some remarkable reason, but I think it is the most important and biggest issue we face. What are we to do if local authorities are saying, “No, we’ll turn our backs on this. We’ll commit ourselves to fossil fuels. We will develop policies that are very distinct—in opposition almost—to issues around climate change”? My advice to the Government is that this is not acceptable. If we are really serious about net zero and if we are serious about climate change adaptation as well as mitigation, we have to have a much greater concerted effort, in which local government clearly has to play an important part. That is why I think the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Ravensdale, is so important.

[Lord Jamieson (Con)]

My Lords, I will speak on this important group of amendments, which touch on the crucial matters of climate change and, more specifically, overheating, energy efficiency and net-zero carbon developments. I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett of Manor Castle, the noble Lord, Lord Ravensdale, and the noble Earl, Lord Russell, who have tabled these amendments. Their recognition of the pressing challenge that climate change presents and the role that planning and development must play in addressing it is both welcome and timely. In doing so, I wish to express our appreciation for the sentiment behind the amendments in their name and the desire to ensure that our built environment is resilient and sustainable in the face of changing climate.

We on these Benches recognise the need to address climate change and overheating risks in our built environment. However, it is also essential that we balance these aims with the need to avoid introducing overly burdensome mandates and excessive regulation that could hinder much-needed housing delivery, achieving the 1.5 million homes and economic growth. I look forward to hearing from the Minister how the Government intend to address these important and pressing issues, ensuring that we both protect our environment and support sustainable development and homes that are much needed.

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Moved by

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath]

128: After Clause 51, insert the following new Clause—
“Planning Acts legal challenges: reduction in time limit(1) The Town and Country Planning Act 1990 is amended in accordance with subsections (2) to (6).(2) In section 61N (legal challenges in relation to neighbourhood development orders)—(a) in subsection (1)(b) for “6 weeks” substitute “21 days”;(b) in subsection (2)(b) for “6 weeks” substitute “21 days”;(c) in subsection (3)(b) for “6 weeks” substitute “21 days”.(3) In section 106C (legal challenges relating to development consent obligations)—(a) in subsection (1)(b) for “6 weeks” substitute “21 days”;(b) in subsection (1A) for “6 weeks” substitute “21 days”; (c) in subsection (2)(b) for “6 weeks” substitute “21 days”;(d) in subsection (3)(b) for “6 weeks” substitute “21 days”.(4) In section 287 (proceedings for questioning validity of development plans and certain schemes and orders), in subsection (2B), for “6 weeks” substitute “21 days”.(5) In section 288 (proceedings for questioning the validity of other orders, decisions and directions), in subsection (4B), for “6 weeks” substitute “21 days”.(6) In section 289 (appeals to High Court relating to certain notices), after subsection (4B), insert—“(4C) An appeal under this section may not be made without the leave of the High Court.(4D) An application for leave for the purposes of subsection (4C) must be made before the end of the period of 21 days beginning with the day after the decision of the Secretary of State is made.”.(7) In section 63 of the Planning (Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas) Act 1990 (proceedings for questioning the validity of other orders, decisions and directions), in subsection (3A), for “6 weeks” substitute “21 days”.(8) In section 22 of the Planning (Hazardous Substances) Act 1990 (validity of decisions as to applications), in subsection (2B), for “6 weeks” substitute “21 days”.(9) In section 118 of the Planning Act 2008 (legal challenges relating to applications for orders granting development consent)—(a) in subsection (1)(b) for “6 weeks” substitute “21 days”;(b) in subsection (2)(b) for “6 weeks” substitute “21 days”;(c) in subsection (3)(b) for “6 weeks” substitute “21 days”;(d) in subsection (4)(b) for “6 weeks” substitute “21 days”;(e) in subsection (5)(b) for “6 weeks” substitute “21 days”;(f) in subsection (6)(b) for “6 weeks” substitute “21 days”;(g) in subsection (7)(b) for “6 weeks” substitute “21 days”.(10) The amendments made by this section do not apply in relation to a decision made before this section comes into force.”Member’s explanatory statement
This new Clause would reduce the time-limit for legal challenges to certain orders from 6 weeks to 21 days, in line with the deadline for an application for permission to appeal. Transitional provision is further made to ensure that the amendments made by the new Clause apply prospectively only. This amendment extends Amendment 128 to proceedings brought under section 22 of the Planning (Hazardous Substances) Act 1990.

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab)]

My Lords, first, I pay tribute to the noble Lord, Lord Banner, for his outstanding work in relation to judicial review reform. It has clearly had a big impact on the Bill. At the risk of quoting the noble Lord to himself, he said in our earlier debate on this, which seems a long time ago, in relation to judicial review, that his review concludedusb that

“evidence demonstrated that the overwhelming majority of judicial reviews of NSIPs failed. It follows from this that the problem is not with the law, nor is it about ‘activist judges’ … It is about the time it takes for bad JRs to meet their doom”.—[Official Report, 17/7/25; col. 2102.]

Obviously, the proposals in the Bill go quite some way towards meeting the noble Lord’s recommendations in the review. All I am trying to do here, with some probing amendments, is to test whether we could go a little further, and I am grateful to the noble Lord for putting his name to my Amendments 129 and 130. These, and Amendment 135D, attempt to replicate restriction appeals to the Court of Appeal where the High Court has certified the application as being totally without merit in relation to decisions under the Town and Country Planning Act 1990, the listed buildings Act and the hazardous substances Act. Again, the noble Lord asked the Government at Second Reading for clarification as to whether the changes here would be made

“only to infrastructure judicial reviews or to judicial and statutory reviews in planning generally”.—[Official Report, 25/6/25; col. 318.]

It seems to me that there is a compelling case for doing that, and I hope my noble friend may be positive about this.

My Amendment 127 concerns the period within which legal challenges to planning decisions may be brought. It proposes the current six-week time limit be reduced to 21 days. I have used 21 days as a starting point as it reflects the standard time limit for civil appeals. The purpose is really to probe whether the six-week period continues to serve its intended purpose. I am aware that the noble Lord, on balance, in his independent review, did not support the shortening of time limits, but I would be interested in the Minister’s response on this.

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[Lord Wilson of Sedgefield (Lab)]

That means it could go on and on anyway, but it is a point that perhaps we could discuss if the noble Lord wants to do so.

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab)]

I was very grateful to my noble friend for his very responsive wind-up. My noble friend said that the Government would need to consider Amendments 129, 130 and 135D further, and I am very grateful for that. On Amendment 128, I am very grateful to my noble friend for his support, but I did not get much other support around the Committee. I say to the noble Baroness, Lady Coffey: this is not an attack on democracy. As someone with mainly an NHS background, I am only too well aware of the importance of judicial review in the case of local people concerned that NHS bodies have not followed proper procedures. I am afraid that there are too many cases, and I have too many very rich lawyer friends who have made a lot of money out of the NHS’s cavalier approach sometimes. I do understand what the noble Baroness is saying, but I was trying to press whether we could speed up some of the processes. However, I will obviously reflect on what has been said.

Finally, on Amendments 357, 358 and 360, my noble friend said that commencement depended on changes to civil procedure rules, which will be done as soon as practicable. I am trying to think back to what it meant when I said at the Dispatch Box, “as soon as practicable”. I think it is better than “as soon as possible”, and I will take that as a win. I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.

Amendment 128 withdrawn.

Planning and Infrastructure Bill

Lord Hunt of Kings Heath Excerpts

Committee stage
Monday 1st September 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Fuller (Con)]

My Lords, I speak to Amendment 92 in my name. The amendment is simple and straightforward: it recognises that solar farms have a role to play in our energy security, but that that must be balanced with an effective use of our best farmland for food security. I observe that the lack of Labour Party Back-Benchers here says more than we need to about their views on farm and food security.

This amendment would not prevent or fetter the development of solar farms on the poorest quality land or restrain smaller proposals on the best land which command the support of the local planning authority. However, where large-scale solar proposals come forward that include the best and most versatile land, my amendment would mean that the nationally significant infrastructure project—NSIP—process would not and could be engaged. To be clear, this would not be an absolute ban on large-scale solar farms on the best land; it is just that, if those proposals were to come forward, they would need to be determined locally by the planning authority.

It is said that modern society is no more than three meals away from breakdown. In the hierarchy of needs, food in the belly is the number one priority. When the chips are down, you cannot eat a solar panel. Last year, the national wheat yield was down by 20% on account of wet weather. This year, the yield impairment is similar but because of dry weather. Just as there are no guarantees about the weather, we cannot be careless with our food supply.

I have recently heard encouraging noises from Defra Ministers who belatedly realise that the risks of food security are greater than they have ever been and that the best land should be reserved for food production, where inputs can be used most productively. The poorest and least productive land can be harnessed for other uses—environmental, amenity or economic. I welcome this sinner that hath repenteth and I venture that there is now common ground between people like me, who appreciate and value food security, and the Government. That should make acceptance of my amendment easy to achieve, so that the right balance is struck between heating and eating.

I will not go into quite so much detail as my noble friend, but let us talk about what I mean by the best and most versatile land. The Library tells me that, under the 1966 agricultural land classification process, grade 1, 2 and 3a land comprises 42% of the cultivated area of Great Britain; by difference, therefore, the substantial majority, 58% of the agricultural land, is in the poorer grades 3b, 4 and 5. Now, this would still be available for large-scale solar energy under my amendment, and there are millions of poor hectares to go at. That is land the size of 12 Norfolks or two and half times the size of Wales—noble Lords will note that I do not use the football pitch analogy.

Last year at the Dispatch Box, the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, explained that, in the case of a recently approved Sunnica proposal in Suffolk, the proposal did not include some of the best and most versatile land. I will not criticise her for an honest mistake, but I regret to tell the Committee that there was plenty of the best land, including grade 2 land, in that proposal—land that is now lost to food production for a generation. On so many levels, the Government’s rhetoric is at odds with the reality. They have lost control of the numbers, and in so doing are imperilling our food security, which is national security.

In Lincolnshire, the county that more than any other puts bread on our tables, already 2% of that county is under threat from solar. Worse, thanks to my noble friend Lord Frost we learn that the majority of the Heckingham proposal is predominantly the best grade 1 land under the 1966 rules.

In an Answer to a Written Question last November, the Government reported that 1,400 hectares of land in Norfolk were currently under NSIP applications. But the reality was that it was 7,500 hectares, and now the number is greater still. We know from Great British Energy—I am pleased to see the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, in his place—that there just is not the grid capacity to accept all the solar that is being promoted.

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab)]

My Lords, surely the point about the Bill is that it is enabling us to put the structures in place to actually get the grid capacity up and running.

[Lord Fuller (Con)]

True. The noble Lord makes a good point, and so I sense even further a degree of consensus on both sides of the Committee on this matter. If we take the fact that the grid capacity is not there to accept all the solar that has been promoted, because it is diurnal and seasonal and comes in very big flashes which can overwhelm the grid, and that capacity to absorb is limited, only a fool would disagree with limiting the proposals to the poorest land first.

I have heard it said that we need not worry about this and that only the amount of land currently used for golf courses is being used for solar—something like 0.5% of all land—but that is simply not true. It is the 19th hole tale that has grown with the telling. The Government’s land use framework contemplates that 9% of all land will be used for environmental and energy schemes. Let me say straight away that agri-solar is starry-eyed, greenwashed fantasy. The solar panels are taller, so they are even more visually intrusive, with even more chemicals used to bash the weeds so that they do not shade the panels or wrap their tendrils around the steel stanchions.

The principle of controlling solar development aside, this amendment is important because it seeks to remove the loopholes and abuses that we have seen flow from the misuse of the NSIP regime for solar applications, including artificially stringing together many disparate smaller schemes, some miles apart, to get over a hurdle threshold. Where I live, a local proposal comprises a dozen different blocks of land spread out over a canvas more than 15 miles wide and eight miles tall as a device to get over that NSIP threshold. That is an abuse.

I can see that it is in the farmer’s private interests to sign up for solar. On normal arable economics, a farmer would do well to earn £200 an acre from the fruits of his labours, having investing millions in plant and equipment and subjecting himself to the risks of weather and the market. By contrast, solar developers are offering him the chance to sit on the beach with an index-linked £900 or more. Landowners of really quite small holdings which have been aggregated together have given tenant farmers notice to quit so that they can enjoy those inflation-linked payments of over 40 years at many times the rent. But our tenant farmers are among the most entrepreneurial growers, not having had the benefit of inheriting land, and we cannot afford to lose their dynamism.

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[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, I offer my strongest possible support for Amendment 90 in the name of the noble Earl, Lord Russell, to which I have attached my name, and some slightly qualified support for Amendment 177, which we have just heard about from the noble Lord, Lord Ravensdale.

Coincidentally, and entirely without prompting from me, I started the day—rather a long time ago now—speaking to a senior civil servant. They said to me that they thought the great malaise of the UK was people’s lack of a sense of agency—a lack of ability to step up, take control and change what is around them and the direction of the country. This amendment, starting with the local and saying, “Here in your community you can democratically work through your council, local authority and combined authority to decide how to deliver your energy” is the perfect way to start to address those issues.

We are the most centralised polity in western Europe: power and resources are overwhelmingly concentrated here in Westminster. We have almost universal agreement that we have to have an energy transition. This is a major infrastructure element in all our lives, as we have been discussing this evening. We also must have a just transition, so that no community is left behind. Every community needs the opportunity to make plans for its energy future, and that is exactly what Amendment 90 seeks to achieve.

I note that a great deal of work and resources have been put into this over a long period of time. The Centre for Climate Engagement at the University of Cambridge, funded by Innovate UK under the Net Zero Living programme, is building on the work of the Skidmore review—we are talking about cross-party approaches across all Benches—which emphasised the importance of local government, leadership and place-based actions in dealing with the climate emergency.

This goes back a very long way. Green councillor Andrew Cooper, who was working through the European Committee of the Regions, got the UN COP process to acknowledge locally determined contributions. Everyone has heard of nationally determined contributions, but that was about locally determined contributions. Of course, the energy system is only part of this, but it is a very crucial part that impacts people’s lives and communities and on what they look like.

Your Lordships’ House has, in a very long wrestle with two successive Governments, finally got an acknowledgement of the importance of community energy. What I think we would see going forward is local authorities and combined authorities being very keen to encourage and support community energy. That of course is where we can see public support and financial returns growing. This is not about some giant multinational company coming and landing on your community, but about your community saying, “Right, how do we want to generate our energy?” That has to be the foundation.

I am broadly in favour of Amendment 177, but my question is around the weight and shape of the word “guidance”. We are talking about local energy plans, and anything provided from the centre should be support and not—as we see, for example, in planning and with housing allocations—direction. If it is indeed guidance, Amendment 177 is pointing us in the right direction. Together, these two amendments are crucial and I can see no reason for the Government not to accept them.

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab)]

My Lords, I support the amendment from the noble Lord, Lord Ravensdale, to which I have added my name. I am also very sympathetic to the amendment tabled by the noble Earl, Lord Russell.

The noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, raised a very interesting question about the centralisation of this country. In one sense, this Bill is about further centralisation when it comes to major infrastructure projects, which are so crucial to our growth. In essence, in the housing agenda, as well as with a lot of energy infrastructure projects, local government has not been very helpful and has been obstructive. If we believe that growth is a strategic aim of government, as I believe it to be, stronger central direction is vital. The question, however, is whether it can be complemented by local initiatives, which do indeed give local people ownership. That is where I agree with noble Baroness, Lady Bennett: community energy schemes are a fantastic way to leverage support from local people for the kinds of changes that we want to make to our energy infrastructure.

The noble Lord, Lord Ravensdale, obviously speaks with great authority as an energy expert, but he has also played a hugely important leading role in the Midlands Engine. He chaired the Midlands Energy Security Taskforce, which of course strongly supports local area energy plans.

When I was a Minister at DESNZ, I became very much aware of the potential of local community-based energy projects. I remember one visit to my own city of Birmingham, under the auspices of Footsteps: Faiths for a Low Carbon Future, when I met a number of local groups that were dedicated to community green energy projects but were seeking support from agencies at the centre to deliver something tangible. Interestingly, the MECC Trust, based in Balsall Heath, is hosting the launch by the Lord Mayor of Birmingham, in a couple of weeks’ time, of Birmingham’s first net-zero retrofit demonstrator community hub. The potential of hundreds of projects such as this, up and down the country, is very clear.

The amendment that the Government brought to the then Great British Energy Bill, which added projects involving or benefiting local communities to the crucial objective section, was very important. Great British Energy has made it clear that it will work with local energy groups, councils and mayors to fund and support community-led energy projects.

Noble Lords will be aware of recent decisions by some local authorities to roll back commitments in relation to net zero. Ironically, this is taking place as the scientific evidence of the impact of climate change becomes ever clearer. I do not think we can let this go by default. In essence, the noble Baroness asked: what does guidance mean? I think you really have to put the two together. I take the amendment of the noble Earl, Lord Russell, to be a statutory requirement on local authorities to encourage and develop local energy plans. I think that is really important now, in the light of some decisions being made by local authorities. Then, it seems to me, the guidance that we are suggesting fits into that structure.

I hope that the Government will be sympathetic to the need to make sure that local authorities do not pass up the opportunity to support local community energy groups.

[Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist (Con)]

My Lords, this group of amendments relates to the development and implementation of local area energy plans. The proposals raise important questions about the role of local authorities in our transition to a decarbonised, secure and efficient energy system. We have heard some thoughtful contributions about the tensions between local and central government, but also of the enormous potential when the right balance can be struck between the two.

Let me begin with Amendment 90, in the name of the noble Earl, Lord Russell, which would require all local authorities to prepare and publish local area energy plans. These plans would outline current and future energy needs and the decarbonisation pathways to meet them. The underlying intent here is one we can all recognise. The energy transition cannot be delivered only centrally; local authorities must have a clear understanding of their energy demands and the means to meet them sustainably. The noble Earl, Lord Russell, made a number of good points, reinforced by the noble Lord, Lord Hunt of Kings Heath, on which we might all agree in principle.

However, while we acknowledge the ambition behind this amendment, we would caution against placing an additional statutory duty on all local authorities, particularly at a time when many face stretched resources and competing priorities. A blanket requirement risks creating a burden of compliance that may prove challenging for councils already struggling with core service delivery. We must ensure that our expectations of local government are realistic, proportionate and backed with adequate support.

Amendment 177, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Ravensdale, seeks to define the consultation and approval process for local area energy plans and mandates the provision of guidance to assist local authorities in their preparation. We recognise the positive intention here to provide clarity, consistency and technical support to authorities seeking to engage with this important agenda. This amendment also aims to widen the uptake of such planning and to define better the role of local authorities in delivering the future energy system. Those are commendable aims. While we must avoid onerous procedural hurdles or risk diverting local effort away from practical delivery into process-heavy reporting, we hope the Minister will consider this amendment carefully.

In conclusion, these amendments rightly draw attention to the importance of empowering local authorities in the energy transition. I welcome the debate and the ideas put forward, but urge a cautious, pragmatic approach. I look forward to the Minister’s response and any reassurances he can give on the Government’s direction in this space.

Planning and Infrastructure Bill

Lord Hunt of Kings Heath Excerpts

Committee stage
Thursday 17th July 2025 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath]

2: In the subsection, after “The purpose of this Act is to” insert “accelerate the delivery of new homes and critical infrastructure by”

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[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, for her amendment. Although I am seeking to amend her amendment, I echo the point she raised; it is very useful to have a debate about the principles. As the noble Baroness inferred, the scope of the Bill, which is set out at the beginning, is very dry. It does not give the sense of what this is all about. I commend her perseverance in tabling this amendment and allowing us to debate this. I know that the House seems to frown on these “in principle” debates at the beginning of Committee, as I found in trying to amend her amendment.

The noble Baroness is right to identify that there are a lot of tensions and challenges in taking forward this agenda. They are not easily solved, and sometimes we have to accept that there are going to be some trade-offs. My main concern is to speed up energy infrastructure to get us to clean power and, as rapidly as possible, to net zero. I agree that balancing the need for new homes and critical infrastructure with a planning consent process that commands public confidence and supports nature recovery is absolutely right. One of the big problems is that many well-meaning agencies, regulators, planning committees and campaigners have made it almost impossible to get the kind of investment we need in our energy infrastructure. Clearly, it would be perverse for me to say we should disregard the whole issue of nature preservation and environmental issues in the charge for net zero. Equally, many of those organisations concerned about the environment have impeded our real efforts to achieve net zero. Somehow, we have to find a way through.

My noble friend the Minister will be aware of media speculation that her department is about to announce some concessions in relation to Part 3. There are many Labour MPs committed to the growth agenda who would be concerned if Part 3 is watered down and so impedes progress on the growth agenda. Whatever agreement may have been reached with some of the environmental organisations about the actions they are going to take as a result of what the media are certainly talking about as an agreement, it is my experience of the Lords that it will always pocket concessions given at an early stage and come back for more. Discussion of Part 3 is going to be very important. Many Labour MPs will be taking a close interest in the Government’s continued commitment to the growth agenda.

I do not need to say much more about the issues of energy infrastructure. The Commons Environmental Audit Committee in 2024 concluded that many planned renewable energy projects were hampered by persistent problems accessing the electricity grid. National Grid wants to spend £30 billion over the next few years to upgrade our electricity network, and it needs to have confidence that the system is not going to obstruct it in the way that it has for so many years in the past.

It is not just energy. A recent report by Dr Mann Virdee for the Council on Geostrategy basically indicated that:

“Britain’s planning system is one of the primary barriers to efficient infrastructure delivery”.


It is characterised by an

“overly complex and burdensome framework. … Developers face extensive requirements for documentation. The planning application for the Lower Thames Crossing … ran to almost 360,000 pages”—

what a waste of energy. Does anyone think that this is anything other than a risk-averse box-ticking exercise by the myriad regulators we have, who seem to have lost any sense of common sense when it comes to consideration?

Even in the case of Sizewell C, which I have a great affection for—the noble Baroness, Lady Coffey, will know that—had an impact assessment that ran to 44,260 pages. You also then have to go through a justification process as well. This is all a complete waste of time and effort. We need to have confidence, as the Bill goes through, that we are going to see a really streamlined impact.

Following the OBR’s recent report, there has been a lot of comment about the public finances, but for me one of the most significant points in that report is its reference to this legislation and the housebuilding ambitions of the Government—which I applaud—and reckon that GDP will grow by 0.2% as a result of these planning reforms. In the current situation of the public finances, that is something to hold on to.

My amendment merely takes all of the characteristics that the noble Baroness put forward but puts growth at the top of the agenda. We need to send a very powerful message to the regulators, and to all the agencies that have obstructed progress in this country for so long, that they need to get that growth is the number one aim of this. I beg to move.

Amendment 3 (to Amendment 2)

Moved by

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[Lord Banner (Con)]

My Lords, I declare my interest as a practising Silk in planning and environmental law, with a range of clients affected by planning regulation in various ways. I am a non-executive director of SAV Group, a property developer, and of Crossman Special Projects, a land promoter. I am the author of the independent review into legal challenges against NSIPs, which I will speak more on later in these proceedings.

I like purpose clauses in legislation. They are helpful because, in time, the courts will have to interpret the provisions of what will become the Act in due course, and if we do not spell out what the purpose is then the courts will have to define that. Surely it is far better to have a degree of parliamentary control in specifying what the purposes are. If that is to be done—it is not essential, but it is certainly nice to have—I certainly cannot improve on the amendment from the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, as proposed to be amended by the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, and my noble friend Lady Scott.

I have a degree of nervousness, however, about the Bill having its own purpose without there being an overall statutory purpose of planning, as is advocated by the Royal Town Planning Institute and proposed in Amendment 132 from the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett. I do not agree with all the wording of that, but that is not the point for today’s purposes.

The Bill, once enacted, will be part of the wider framework of planning Acts, of which there are many. If it has its own stated purpose but the purpose of planning is not stated, there is a risk of a potential mismatch. That could be remedied by having an overall purpose of planning, which would have a number of advantages. For example, in the context of the increased role of planning officers, they would have that guiding beacon, which may avoid undue pressure being placed on planning officers by elected members—something that does happen, and there is a risk that it may happen to a greater extent if some of the other provisions of the Bill find their way into law. I would advocate consideration of the RTPI proposal, as outlined in Amendment 132.

I emphatically agree with the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, about the need for proportionality. We have to put an end to the days of environmental statements being delivered by vans. No one will read them apart from the people who paid huge fees to produce them and review them—I declare a kind of interest in that respect too, of course. The EIA process is largely intended to help the public understand the environmental effects—it is consultation and taking into account the fruits of the consultation. No member of the public is going to read a lorry full of documents; it is simply not going to happen. Proportionality would be hugely helpful in that respect. There are recent instances of DCO examining inspectors asking 2,000-plus questions. I am sure that was with the best of intentions, but if we aim for perfection, we will not achieve anything.

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab)]

My Lords, from the noble Lord’s experience, does he think it possible to legislate for regulators to use their common sense?

[Lord Banner (Con)]

I tried with my proportionality clause, which we will come to later in the proceedings. That is the best I can do so far; I am toying with tweaking it so that if it were to find its way on to the statute book, the Secretary of State would have the ability to publish statutory guidance on how to give effect to it. But, to echo what the noble Lord said before, if proportionality was spelled out in neon lights in legislation, it would send a message to everybody—consultees, consultants, applicants, decision-makers, the courts and the public—that less can be more. To my mind, that is a fundamental way of furthering the objectives of the Bill.

Planning and Infrastructure Bill

Lord Hunt of Kings Heath Excerpts

Committee stage
Thursday 17th July 2025 Lords Chamber

The main thing was to make sure we had spoken to both the industry and the public sector, and more widely to bodies such as the RTPI and the TCPA, to make sure that we got their views on how the package we are putting together could best deliver the acceleration of the planning system we want to see, and for that to feed into the growth we all want. I feel fairly optimistic that we have the right combination.

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab)]

My Lords, in asking your Lordships to agree, I will withdraw my amendment to the amendment tabled by the noble Baroness. I thank my noble friend for an excellent winding-up; she covered the ground comprehensively. I also thank the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, because it has been a real service to allow us—

[Captain of the King’s Bodyguard of the Yeomen of the Guard and Deputy Chief Whip (Baroness Wheeler) (Lab)]

Sorry, it is for the noble Baroness, Lady Scott, to deal with Amendment 3 first.

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Amendment 3 (to Amendment 2) withdrawn.

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab)]

My Lords, I apologise to the noble Baroness for interfering before she withdrew her amendment to my amendment. I will now withdraw my amendment to the amendment from the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock.

It has been a really good debate in which we have fleshed out some of the key tensions contained in the Bill. We have to be realistic. It is easy to take all the principles that the noble Baroness mentioned and say that at the end of the day, they will all be fine, we will get on with infrastructure investment and building our 1.5 million homes and it is all going to be straightforward. We know it is not. In fact, there are real tensions here and some things will have to give. My argument is that the most important issue here, above all else, is to get the growth agenda going. I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.

Amendment 2 (to Amendment 1) withdrawn.

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Moved by

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath]

8: Clause 1, page 2, line 4, at end insert—
“(4B) The Secretary of State must ensure that in each review—(a) maximum deadlines are set for statutory consultations to be completed for proposed developments which are classified as Nationally Significant Infrastructure Projects,(b) if no response is received from a statutory consultee within the period specified in paragraph (a), it must be taken to mean that the statutory consultee as consented to the proposal, and(c) benchmarking is published alongside the review to compare UK performance with other countries in relation to the cost and timing of developments classified as Nationally Significant Infrastructure Projects encompassed within the review.”Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment seeks to provide further detail about the review of national policy statements with the intention of improving the clarity and speed of the planning process.

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab)]

My Lords, I do not want to return to the previous debate, but there is a general view that the current arthritic planning and regulatory system is a barrier to efficient infrastructure delivery. In the previous debate I referred to the excellent report by Dr Mann Virdee for the Council on Geostrategy, which identified many of the problems. In essence, we have a system where doing nothing is safer than doing something, and where process has eclipsed purpose—that point was put across very well by the noble Lord, Lord Mawson, in our first debate.

Another signal of our problems is the cost of infrastructure investment. On projects such as rail and road, we have unacceptably high costs in comparison with comparable nations. HS2 was budgeted for £37.5 billion; it is now £110 billion. The Lower Thames Crossing was budgeted for £5.3 billion; it is now £9 billion. Hinkley Point C was budgeted for £18 billion; it is now £40 billion to £50 billion. There are many more examples. It is not all due to the planning and regulatory constraints, but they have certainly played their part.

I strongly welcome much of the Bill, particularly the intent to streamline the nationally significant infrastructure projects and the reduction of judicial review opportunities; I very much acknowledge the work of the noble Lord, Lord Banner, and his review on that. The Minister today sent us a letter setting out what further action will be taken in what I think is a very short space of time. I am also very interested in the Bill’s intent to scrap the specimen-by-specimen, site-by-site approach to protecting nature, and to replace it with the nature restoration fund.

I welcome the provisions on energy, partly because my old department wrote them and therefore I could not but applaud and welcome the work that DESNZ has done there. The provisions will make a real difference. The big question for us is: will this be sufficient?

From talking to developers, it is clear that they will have to navigate relevant national policy statements, the DCO regime, the EIAs, the dozens of secondary licences and consents from other regulators, judicial reviews, and the various tiers of local authorities that will be involved. Indeed, in nuclear development, we have a parallel justification process, which is lengthy and expensive. I am very hopeful that the current task force looking at nuclear regulation will come forward with recommendations on whether we can avoid that duplication.

We will come on to Part 3 at some point in September. But there are some real questions about whether EDPs can deliver for major infrastructure projects. I clearly see the benefits where you have lots of housing developments in a particular area. But there are some issues around major infrastructure developments. As Catherine Howard, head of planning at Herbert Smith Freehills Kramer, has written, there is a risk that developers will need to twin-track the EDP process by also going through the traditional habitats assessment regime because an EDP was not in place in time for the consent application. Clearly, that is going to be a real problem for developers.

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[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

I thank the noble Baroness, and I understand her expertise in these matters. If she still has concerns, I am happy to have another conversation with her.

Amendment 16 would require the environmental principles policy statement to be considered in the development of national policy statements. The environmental principles policy statement is a statutory document that aids policymakers in how to interpret and proportionately apply the five environmental principles. Policymakers are assisted in assessing the environmental impact of policy, but this is not a replication of the environmental impact assessment process. The principles are not rules and do not dictate policy outcomes. Ministers are under a statutory duty to have due regard to the environmental principles policy statement when developing policy, including NPSs. This is a matter of legal compliance and is embedded in the policy-making process.

Furthermore, national policy statements are also required by statute to be accompanied by an appraisal of sustainability which incorporates the sustainability appraisal as well as the strategic environmental assessment and ensures that environmental considerations are fully integrated. A habitat regulation assessment must be undertaken for a national policy statement to comply with the requirements of the Conservation of Habitats and Species Regulations 2017. The preparation of an assessment of sustainability is a comprehensive process and includes an examination of the likely environmental effects of designating a national policy statement and the reasonable alternatives to a national policy statement. It also requires the Government to set out measures to mitigate any significant negative effects identified and any enhancement measures.

The assessment of sustainability is an iterative process done in conjunction with the updating of a national policy statement. For example, I encourage Members to read the assessment of sustainability that was published alongside the National Networks National Policy Statement, which I am sure the noble Baroness, Lady Coffey, will already have done. It sets out a clear methodology of all the above and the environmental principles considered when developing the policy and potential alternatives.

I know that has been quite a long explanation, but I felt that the detailed nature of the amendments warranted going into some detail. For those reasons, I do not believe that a separate written assessment within each national policy statement is necessary.

I turn to some of the points raised by other noble Lords. My noble friend Lord Hunt referred to the capability and capacity of Natural England. That issue has been raised many times—it was raised in the other place and has been raised again here—and we will come to it when we start to debate Part 3 of the Bill.

I wonder whether the noble Lord, Lord Mawson, meant the building safety regulator. I was not quite sure which regulator he was talking about but am happy to answer any questions about that. We have done significant work with the building safety regulator to try to speed up the process. We have increased its resources and changed the chief executive. Things are moving much more quickly already, and the development industry is already seeing a change.

The noble Lord, Lord Banner, spoke about the precautionary principle. We have already had discussions about that today. We have to look out for the proportionate use of precautionary principles without going over the top and gold-plating everything, which I am afraid has been too much of a feature of the planning system in the past.

I thank the noble Lords, Lord Ravensdale and Lord Jamieson, and the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, for their contribution to the debate. With all that said, I kindly ask noble Lords not to press their amendments at this stage.

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab)]

My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend. I thought she gave a very comprehensive and helpful response, and obviously I will withdraw my amendment.

It seemed to me that there were a number of threads, but a particular one is the relationship between what the legislation is seeking to achieve, the role of regulators and planners and the interface with the democratic process. The noble Baronesses, Lady Coffey and Lady Pinnock, had some important points to raise here. In the end, we have collectively created—and Parliament is guilty of this—a whole panoply of quangos and regulators, and I suspect that those who have been Ministers are all guilty of that. Some of that seems to be entirely justified; for instance, you want the Office for Nuclear Regulation to be robust and independent. As a Health Minister, far too many years ago, I was part of the team that created independent reconfiguration panels because Ministers were not able to take decisions on the closure of hospitals as it was all too difficult, so sometimes there is a justification for offshoring. But I agree that we have gone too far and that we need to draw a distinction between the independence of regulators in making judgments and our role as parliamentarians and as Ministers in being tough about their performance, which is what lies behind my amendment.

I understand what the noble Baroness, Lady Coffey, means about the issue, particularly in her patch, where a number of different NCOs go through under different NSIP regimes—the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, could talk about cumulative impacts, which I understand—where regulators seem unable to work together, and the box ticking and the judgments they make mean that a collaborative enterprise becomes very difficult. I suspect that is what the noble Lord, Lord Mawson, was talking about in the East End. He, with a fantastic track record in doing this, has a scheme that is partly about improved NHS primary care provision, with housing attached and maybe even commercial development. We are dealing with a host of different bodies, all of which deal with these things in a compartmentalised way, and somehow we have to get through it.

This is partly about the work that the noble Lord, Lord Banner, is doing on the relationship between the proportionate and precautionary principles, and it is also partly about making sure—as the noble Lord, Lord Ravensdale, said—that the new system we introduce asks whether EDPs fit with major infrastructure projects.

Parliamentary oversight, in one way or another, is one way we can overcome some of the barriers, and I have later amendments that put forward some ideas about that. If the democratic process can legitimise the speed-up of what we seek to do, that would be a very helpful move forward. Having said that, I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.

Amendment 8 withdrawn.

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[Baroness Coffey (Con)]

My Lords, I will speak particularly to my Amendment 46A, which is a good example of trying to knit the Bill together. We are trying to speed up aspects of planning decisions on infrastructure, yet also—I will not go heavily into Part 3—create environmental improvement.

This is quite a simple, straightforward amendment. I am very grateful for the counsel of Alexa Culver, with whom I have been engaging through LinkedIn. She is counsel at RSK and is doing a very good job of seeing how this is coming together. In essence, in the Bill as it stands, Natural England is tasked with creating this environmental delivery plan—I am concerned about certain aspects of Part 3—which will hopefully, to paraphrase, improve the environment. That document will be created and approved by the Secretary of State for Defra to make sure that we see improvements.

Therefore, for me it is exceptionally logical that whenever a Secretary of State in another department makes a decision on NSIPs and considers where the national policy statement has effect, they should also, in effect, consider the environmental delivery plan as it is. Under Section 104 of the Planning Act 2008, the Secretary of State already has to consider national policy statements, marine policy documents if relevant, other aspects regarding local impacts and

“any other matters which the Secretary of State thinks are … important”.

That is absolutely critical. In all the changes, particularly in Part 3, the Government are saying that they can have the best of both by doing this. My amendment would make certain that they have to consider it and that it will actually get delivered. That is why I have tabled it at this stage of the Bill.

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab)]

My Lords, I support the noble Lord, Lord Ravensdale, on his Amendment 46. On Amendment 46A, I would be very surprised if the Secretary of State did not take account of EDPs. From the provision that the noble Baroness, Lady Coffey, read out, the Secretary of State clearly has the power to do so.

On Amendment 46, we partly return to the role of regulators. There is a perverse output of regulators making it difficult to achieve net-zero targets, which I find very difficult. Some regulators find it difficult to go wider than the very narrow remit that they seem to work under. One of the questions to the Government is: do they really think it will make a difference? It is easy to make fun of bats or acoustic fish deterrents, but it is fair to ask whether, as a result of this legislation, we will see an end to the ludicrous behaviour of regulators, which has cost so much money, delayed projects by so much time and, as we know, achieved absolutely zilch for conservation or nature preservation. Ultimately, that is the test.

It seems that the regulators do not come under enough challenge on their performance. Somehow, we need to put some mechanisms in the Bill to ensure that the regulators come under the microscope much more on how they behave and that they are held accountable. That is why the amendment is very well judged.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, I will chiefly offer support to Amendment 46A from the noble Baroness, Lady Coffey.

In response to the challenge from the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, who said that of course the Government would not do this, I am afraid that we hear that very often in your Lordships’ House. The noble Lord may be speaking for his own Government, but we are making law for potential future Governments, and we cannot know how they will behave. That is a reason to put Amendment 46A in the Bill.

I respond to the speeches of the noble Lords, Lord Ravensdale and Lord Hunt, with a little reminder that we are one of the most nature-depleted corners of this battered planet. If our regulators have not succeeded in doing the job they should have done in protecting nature, the answer is not to take away more power from the regulators. By all means, make them work better. As the noble Baroness, Lady Coffey, said, we will undoubtedly discuss this at great length in relation to Part 3, but the Bill currently takes away an enormous amount of protection for nature, which is a huge problem.

In talking about Amendments 46 and 46A, I will refer to Defra’s own words from a blog post in 2025 that, we can assume, represents the Government’s view. It starts with a statement with which I can only agree:

“Nature is the bedrock of our entire way of life”.


As I often put it, the economy is a complete subset of the environment; none of the economy exists without a healthy environment. That blog seeks to defend the nature restoration fund, the environment delivery plans and all the other steps that this Government are introducing. You might say that the blog post is a little too vehement for its own good and that its tone sounds extremely defensive. None the less, we can all think of examples of where the Government have, on the one hand, done something for nature, but, on the other, done enormous damage with other policies.

One of the obvious examples that comes to mind here is peat. Peatland is terribly important for nature and for climate. Large amounts of money are spent on restoring peatlands. We also have continued use of the land for driven grouse shooting and the burning of large amounts of peat causing great damage—and continual horticultural use of peat. So we have the Government trying to expensively restore something while continuing to allow the destruction of it. That is why this needs to be in the Bill. I could give many more examples, but given the hour I will not, of where the Government are, in essence, facing in two directions at once and nature is torn down the middle as a result.

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Moved by

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath]

47: Clause 12, page 18, line 10, leave out subsection (2)
Member's explanatory statement
This amendment removes the requirement for all planning appeals to be considered at a hearing.

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[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab)]

My Lords, we come to another interesting clause. In essence, I am trying to find ways to identify those infrastructure developments that are of critical national importance to see whether there is a way in which we can streamline the process of approvals that they have to go through. Also, in picking up the points from the noble Baronesses, Lady Coffey and Lady Pinnock, about the need for democratic legitimacy, I am seeing whether we can use parliamentary processes to help.

I am moving Amendment 47 and speaking to Amendments 48, 49, 52, 53 and 65. The two substantive amendments are Amendments 52 and 65. I have two on judicial review which, because of the mystique of groupings for the first day, should really be grouped with a number of other JR amendments that we will come to later, so I will be brief in speaking on those.

My Amendment 52, in essence, creates a short, abridged parliamentary process to confirm Ministers’ decisions to give development consent for infrastructure projects as a critical national priority. Apparently, until the late 1990s, we had a system of provisional order confirmation Bills, whereby Parliament could confirm orders made by UK Ministers for various proposals, including infrastructure projects. There are many of these on the statute book so it is, in fact, a tried and tested approach that we could use for some projects where we need to speed up delivery but we need to have parliamentary approval as well.

This kind of approach, using a development consent order confirmation Bill, could take only four to six months to go through Parliament, which is nothing like the complexity of the hybrid Bill. We have seen that with HS2, which ultimately failed to satisfy anybody and built in huge delays. We are where we are with HS2. Having said that, the station being built in Birmingham looks pretty good; we can only hope that, one day, a train is actually able to arrive there.

The point about this amendment is to give Parliament a vote. I have very much accepted this point about the need for Parliament to have a say in some of these matters. In a sense, this is another trade-off; I am saying that some projects need to be dealt with in a special way—nationally, by being taken by Ministers, by going through the necessary procedures to ensure that they are appropriate and in being given legitimacy by parliamentary vote. It would give businesses and developers much greater certainty about investment decisions and, as I have said, ensure that we have a proper democratic say in these very important decisions.

Amendment 53 is related to Amendment 52 and would repeal Section 150 of the Planning Act 2008. I well recall our debates on that regime, because I was a Minister involved in it. The NSIP regime was designed with the intention of being a one-stop shop for major infrastructure projects, in terms of the consents required. However, the effect of Section 150 of the 2008 Act has been to stop development consent orders from being as much of a one-stop shop as they could be, because certain regulators have a veto on whether a DCO can roll consents into it that would otherwise have to be obtained separately from regulators. We have already debated the problem of having multiple regulators involved; they do not seem to be able to work together and co-ordinate their response.

I know that there was a debate on a similarly worded amendment that was proposed in the other place. The Government had some concerns about it but promised guidance on how to wrap up other consents in a DCO. However, the problem with that is that the regulators’ veto remains, which is why I argue that it should be moved.

My Amendment 65 can be seen in parallel: I seek to enable the Secretary of State to designate certain classes of development as critical national developments; establish an expert critical national developments task force to advise on each application; and provide that planning permission and any other regulatory consent for such development is deemed to be granted six months after the application is made, unless the Secretary of State issues a written objection within that period or extends the period. Of course, here, I am anticipating the response of my noble friend, because I noted that she was not very keen on my earlier amendment on timelines because different infrastructure developments have different requirements and probably different timelines. This amendment allows the Government to be able to sort of flex the timeline according to circumstances.

I would argue that, at the moment, Ministers lack a coherent mechanism to prioritise and accelerate delivery of critical infrastructure projects. The DCO regime has not really, in the end, delivered what we hoped it would when we took it through Parliament. I hesitate again to mention Sizewell C, but eight years from application to consent is just hopeless, and I must say that on Heathrow too. I support the third runway at Heathrow, because I think that, as the Government have said, this will take place within carbon budgets, but it is just an example of how decisions here can be stuck for decades, and we really have to move on from that.

The amendment I am proposing here would centralise accountability with the Secretary of State. I would align it to my earlier amendment in relation to parliamentary consent. It would bring consents under a single process, introduce a statutory determination deadline and de-risk major investments.

There is international precedent for it. The Canadian Government have also faced great delays in major national infrastructure from fragmented approval systems, environmental litigation and federal/provincial conflicts. Recently, the Parliament of Canada has produced a law with very much the same principles as my amendment, which allows the Canadian Cabinet to designate nation-building projects, as they are called, via Orders in Council.

I refer to my other three amendments. Amendment 47 seeks to remove the requirement for any planning appeals to be considered at an actual hearing. That, in my view, is a streamlining process.

Amendments 48 and 49 are around judicial reviews. I really welcome Clause 12(1), which would restrict judicial review appeals to the Court of Appeal where the High Court decides the application for permission to apply for judicial review is totally without merit. Now, I have already paid tribute to the noble Lord, Lord Banner, for his review; this clause follows that review. We received a very helpful letter from my noble friend the Minister this morning, which gives details about how the Government are going to follow up; that is very welcome indeed, but I just want to probe whether we can go further.

Amendment 48 relates to the reviews of NPSs at least every five years, which I warmly welcome. I take my noble friend’s point about the issue with NPSs that have not been subject to a review and therefore could be considered to be out of date. I just want to make sure that judicial reviews are not used in a way which unreasonably might block progress, so my amendment would remove the possibility of JR in two circumstances: in between the five-yearly reviews, by repealing Section 13(2) of the Planning Act 2008, and in relation to any revisions to NPSs that are solely non-material or are reflective changes—in other words, reflective of published government policy change legislation or court judgments which the Bill is providing for.

I am a strong believer in the judicial review process. My background is mainly in the health service, and the fact is that NHS bodies are sometimes fast and loose with legislation and guidance, particularly when it comes to the outsourcing of services, changes of use, closures of hospitals and the like. There is no doubt that the judicial review process has been necessary to ensure proper transparency. My problem with judicial review is when it is used, essentially, to try to block progress—hence the amendment.

Amendment 49 would bring legal consistency to the Planning Act so that it is the High Court where applications for JR would be made. It is not a substantive change but it would make sure that, in any future event, civil procedure rules cannot be made to divert planning appeals to any court other than the High Court. There is already precedent in Section 63 of the listed buildings Act, which makes it clear that appeals are to be made to the High Court. I think that could flow across the Planning Act.

I hesitate to talk about judicial review when the noble Lord, Lord Banner, is present, but it would be good to have at least some debate as to whether, in the light of his review, we could go further. I beg to move.

[Viscount Hanworth (Lab)]

My Lords, Amendment 52 is of prime importance. Our planning system has become sclerotic. According to the Explanatory Notes that accompany the Bill, the time that it takes on average to secure a development consent order, or DCO, for major infrastructure projects has more than doubled in the last decade to more than four years. The development consent system is beset by objections and pleas and by judicial reviews, with several judicial reviews sometimes besetting the same project. The effects of the delay may be to cause an otherwise viable project to become uneconomic or unaffordable. Nowadays, such delays are often envisaged as a means of defeating a project. The conjunction of lawyers and protesters, which has given rise to a veritable industry, is a modern and unprecedented phenomenon.

Recently, I had good cause to consider such developments. I made a trip by car from London to Ilfracombe in Devon. I had intended to travel on the M4 motorway, which is a major arterial route. However, in consequence of its blockage, I was diverted, on the advice of the Google satnav system, on to the A303. In doing so, I remembered that 303 is the calibre of a rifle bullet. I had hoped to travel at the maximum legal speed, if not at the speed of a bullet. I was pleased to be able to do so until I was brought to a halt. I was then constrained to travel at a snail’s pace for a prolonged period, while passing an ancient stone monument on a single-lane road. I saw the ancient megaliths of Stonehenge on the brow of a hill, which were surrounded by a gathering of druids. I was reminded of their campaign, which has prevented the building of the Stonehenge bypass. They regret the presence of the road and resist the building of a bypass that would encroach upon Salisbury Plain. Some might regard their campaign as a worthy attempt to preserve the dignity of an ancient monument. However, there is another side to the story, which concerns the objections of residents in the neighbouring villages to the diversion of traffic on to their streets. They contend that their villages have an equal claim to preservation.

The legal wrangling has been interminable. The first grant of development consent for a bypass, in 2020, was quashed by the High Court in July 2021. It was then given the green light again, by the Department for Transport, which reissued a development consent two years later, in July 2023. The project was put on hold again, because of another series of judicial reviews, which were dismissed by the High Court in February 2024 and by the Court of Appeal in October 2024. Undeterred by those two defeats, the claimants asked the Supreme Court if they could appeal to it. On 29 January this year, the Supreme Court refused permission to appeal, on the grounds that the challenge did not raise an arguable point of law.

However, this decision was immaterial since, within weeks of taking office last July, the Labour Government had scrapped the plans for a two-mile tunnel that would bypass the monument on the grounds that the cost of the project had become unaffordable. The decision to cancel the project was taken some three and a half years after the development consent order had been issued and after a full and detailed examination of all the issues. In this case, it might be said that the campaigners had won not by virtue of the strength of their case but by dint of endless legal chicanery and delay. However, the same recourse is available to many other parties who, for various reasons, wish to stand in the way of important development projects.

--- Later in debate ---

We agree with the sentiment behind the amendment, but I hope noble Lords will feel assured that we are taking action to tackle the issue head on. For those reasons, I kindly ask the noble Lord to withdraw his amendment.

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab)]

My Lords, I am sure that the whole Committee would wish to thank my noble friend the Minister for her very comprehensive response, which has been replicated throughout today’s proceedings. I am very grateful to her for the attention that she has paid.

I cannot say that this set of amendments has enjoyed uniform support among your Lordships, but I hope they have provoked a debate. I welcome the Bill. It is definitely going in the right direction, but there are still some concerns that I and a number of colleagues have about whether it is really going to cut the cake in the end, hence we are looking at the issues about judicial review. I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Banner, for his comments. I take his point about compulsory purchase and property rights in particular.

We need to come to an end. I will of course consider this very carefully. We still need to look at whether there are some supercharging approaches we can take to the really important infrastructure developments we need, with the benefit of parliamentary scrutiny and legitimacy. Having said that, I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.

Amendment 47 withdrawn.

Planning and Infrastructure Bill

Lord Hunt of Kings Heath Excerpts

2nd reading
Wednesday 25th June 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab)]

My Lords, I very much welcome the Bill, which I see as an essential foundation to building new homes and critical infra- structure. We simply cannot afford the current planning and regulatory system, which seems almost designed to stop growth and make it so expensive and damaging to our economy and basic living standards.

My main interest in the Bill is in Part 1, which will help speed up the building of new energy infrastructure, which I see as vital to achieving clean power by 2030. The noble Baroness, Lady Scott, said that she supports much of the Bill, including the measures on energy. I noticed that she made no mention of clean power and net zero. Of course, the party opposite is in full retreat on this, despite the fact that it was Mrs Thatcher who said at the UN in November 1989:

“It is mankind and his activities which are changing the environment of our planet in damaging and dangerous ways”.


It was the noble Baroness, Lady May, moreover, who, as Prime Minister, legislated for net zero by 2050. But the party opposite is now in full retreat. It has turned its back on climate change and net zero and developed an unfathomable passion for fossil fuels, despite the volatile fossil fuel market being one of the major causes of our high energy prices.

Clean power by 2030 requires a huge upgrading of the country’s major energy infrastructure; on that, I think we are agreed. The Commons Environmental Audit Committee concluded in 2024 that many planned renewable energy projects were hampered by persistent problems accessing the electricity grid, including slow connections, limited capacity of local planning authorities and inappropriate planning regulations. Currently, companies are waiting up to 15 years to be connected to the grid. This is leaving very promising developments absolutely gridlocked.

The advice to government from NESO—the National Energy System Operator—was to increase new transition network infrastructure by 2030 at over twice the pace it was being delivered in the previous decade. That is why the Bill’s provisions are so welcome, in particular: the removal of the burdensome statutory requirement to consult as part of the pre-application stage for nationally significant infrastructure project applications; the grid’s connection queue reforms to move from “first come, first served” to a “first ready and needed, first connected” approach; the new funding mechanism for statutory consultees, which will, I hope, address the lack of capacity and resources; and the proposed bill discount scheme for people living closest to new electricity transmission infrastructure.

Part 3 is also relevant to infrastructure growth. I say to the noble Earl, Lord Russell: I fully accept that it would be perverse if net zero were achieved at the expense of our nature, farmland and general environment, but, as it currently stands, the Bill gives a huge amount of responsibility to Natural England and the other statutory bodies, which have shown no interest in considering the benefits of delivering development, have seen a hollowing out of scientific expertise over the years of austerity, and have no experience in delivering complex infrastructure strategies.

I can see our environmental development delivery plans—to deliver strategic compensation in relation to the habitats regime—working for a given area where you might have multiple housing developers, but I am worried about the extent to which they will work for major infrastructure developments. As Catherine Howard, the head of planning at Herbert Smith Freehills Kramer, wrote, there is a risk that developers would

“need to twin-track the EDP process with going through the traditional Habitats assessment”

regime because an EDP was not in place in time for the consent application. This is going to be hopeless for developers. I believe that the Secretary of State needs to have a call-in power in the event of this being stuck in this way.

With that important caveat, I welcome the Bill; I see it as a great foundation for growth. However, I hope that the Government will be willing to listen to some of the issues for major developers around infrastructure in relation to Part 3.

Extremism Definition and Community Engagement

Lord Hunt of Kings Heath Excerpts

Tuesday 19th March 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Swinburne (Con)]

Absolutely. I totally agree with my noble friend; I am sure most people in this House do as well. We are in a period of heightened tensions. Anti-Semitism and anti-Muslim hate crime levels are at an all-time high. Flags, symbols and graffiti are all causing division and stoking fear locally, and now is the time to tackle this issue head on. The definition tries to ensure that it focuses on extremism that is founded in hatred, violence or intolerance, and which poses a threat to our rights and our freedoms. It does not matter where it comes from: we need to tackle it and try our best to stop it.

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab)]

My Lords, I too believe that this is very important. Clearly it is right that the Government look fully at the risk of extremism. I worry about the definition and some potential unintended consequences. I note the Minister said that organisations that felt they were unfairly affected had recourse to judicial review. Given that this Government have been chuntering about use of judicial review, I am glad to see that they now think that it has a positive benefit.

I want to ask the Minister about one point in the Statement issued by her department, which talks about this work complementing the Government’s updated Prevent guidance. I am puzzled by the guidance issued last year, which lists socialism, anti-fascism and anti-abortion on the Prevent list of terrorism warning signs. A section on the left wing goes on to say:

“Two broad ideologies: socialism and communism. Each are united by a set of grievance narratives which underline their cause”.


I am not sure whether I call myself a socialist. Members of the Labour Party probably would not describe me as a socialist and my local branch definitely would not—it would find other ways to describe me. However, that seems to show some of the risks of Prevent making these quite alarming statements and, because of what Mr Gove has said, their maybe being translated into the extremism definition. I would be grateful if the Minister would at least look at how this relationship will operate.

[Baroness Swinburne (Con)]

I certainly will undertake to do that. The sole purpose of bringing this under one umbrella is to ensure that all departments treat this with the same lens. They will have the same evidence- based methodology and the same basis for making decisions, and we will then ensure that that is across all departments. This is the method by which we will bring all that together so that all departments say the same thing and treat people equally.

Leasehold: Property Management Companies

Lord Hunt of Kings Heath Excerpts

Monday 19th February 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Penn (Con)]

The Bill contains both a time limit and cost limit for the provision of information from freeholders to leaseholders when they are seeking to sell their properties. I do not know the exact circumstances of the case the noble and learned Baroness refers to, but action is being taken in this area.

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab)]

My Lords, the Minister will be aware that legislation in 2000 and 2004 abolished leasehold in Scotland. Given noble Lords’ concerns about the current Bill, why on earth can we not be more radical and abolish leasehold in England and Wales?

[Baroness Penn (Con)]

Following previous Questions I looked at the example of Scotland, which we do seek to learn from, but the circumstances there are significantly different. At the time, there were only some 9,000 long leasehold properties in Scotland, compared with around 5 million leasehold properties in England and Wales. The majority of Scottish leases had ground rents of only £2.50 per year, whereas the average ground rent in England is £300 per year. It is more complicated to take reform forward in England, but the Government are committed to doing this. The Leasehold and Freehold Reform Bill will take important steps toward delivering commonhold as an alternative in future.

Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill

Lord Hunt of Kings Heath Excerpts

Report stage
Wednesday 13th September 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Naseby (Con)]

My Lords, I am a non-smoker. I have never smoked. I have absolutely no intention of smoking. But I would point out to my noble friend on the Front Bench something on which I imagine he is well briefed. Local authorities already have the powers at their discretion to regulate smoking in licensed premises and on pavements outside pubs, bars and restaurants with exterior tables and seating. My noble friend who spoke earlier has been in local government, as have I. The powers are there already. In my judgment, it is for the local people to decide—not for some all-embracing Government above to dictate. There is no need for further central government legislation. The licence holder is already legally required to make sensible provision for seating where smoking is not permitted.

The noble Baroness who spoke earlier said, “Well it’s logical, if it’s banned internally then obviously you ban it externally”. May I suggest to the noble Baroness that external smoke is totally different? It dissipates far quicker outside than it does inside. Outside, it ends up becoming highly diluted and disappears into the atmosphere very quickly. Having said that, it is right that licence holders should remember to ask people to behave properly in the interests of those seating nearby, particularly children.

Frankly, this Bill should not be used as a back-door route to try to ban smoking in public places. We would be threatening pubs and cafés that, if they did not ban smoking outside their premises, they would be refused a licence. That would be thoroughly disproportionate.

As far as I know, my Government have no plan to ban outdoor smoking. It has rejected similar amendments in the past. Excessive regulation could even lead to some pub closures and job losses. This would be to no one’s benefit. Again, as a non-smoker, I find encouragement that the figures for people who smoke seem to go down every year. We should think back to what it was like in the 1970s. Would we have thought that the policies we have implemented would have achieved the current rate? Last year, 13.3% of the population were smoking; on the latest figures, this is down to 12.7%. So the reduction is there—it is happening—and certainly, to use this particular Bill to interfere with what local authorities want to do in their own area is, in my view, totally wrong.

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab)]

My Lords, I too support the amendments tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Holmes of Richmond. I am now caring for my mother and am a grandfather to very young grandchildren, so I have renewed my acquaintance with the problem, as he said, of seeking to go from A to B when there are so many obstacles in the way. His amendments go to the heart of the problem by recognising that pavements are for people to walk on.

I am also delighted to support the noble Lord, Lord Young of Cookham, and other noble Lords in their amendment. I disagree wholeheartedly with the noble Lord, Lord Naseby. First, I do think that the health gain from this measure would be considerable. We are behind the curve in reaching the smoke-free target. Secondly, I disagree with him about the dissipation of smoke. Anyone who has had to walk past pubs where people are smoking outside would say it does not dissipate quickly enough. Thirdly, I do not think it would harm the pub trade; I think it would enhance it because, frankly, going through a fog to get into a pub is not very attractive at all.

On a more general point, the noble Lord, Lord Young, made it clear that he saw this as a popular public measure. I totally agree. I was a member of the Cabinet committee which basically tore up our 2005 manifesto because it was not strong enough. The result of that very rare rebellion by a Cabinet committee led to the ban on smoking in public places. And it was proved right—it was very popular and very effective.

I also recall moving the amendment on banning smoking in cars where children are present. That was overwhelmingly popular. When it went back to the Commons, the Government agreed. So many of their own Back-Benchers supported it because they had had such a lot of strong messages.

I have no doubt whatever that this will be a very positive and popular measure. I hope that the noble Earl will be able to say something positive about it.

[Baroness Pinnock (LD)]

My Lords, this may be the fourth occasion in the House on which I have debated pavement licensing. There is obviously a reason for that; we have not got the regulations quite right. As the noble Lord, Lord Holmes, raised in his amendment, there is a natural conflict between the use of the public highway as an extension of a licensed premises, restaurant or café, and the use of it by the public to get from A to B. I totally agree. At the very earliest iteration of these regulations about pavement licensing, both he and I proposed that barriers ought to be in place to restrict the use of the highway so there would be plenty of room for pedestrians and those in wheelchairs or pushing buggies to get through safely. I am still concerned that that regulation is not part of the licence for use of the public highway.

The second important issue is about smoke free. All I will say is this: it needs to be smoke free. This is a health issue. We need to take every opportunity we can to ensure that there are no opportunities for people who do not wish to inhale somebody else’s smoke to do so. I agree with all noble Lords—bar one—who have spoken on this issue.

Lastly, I will repeat the question that I have raised before. If we are permitting businesses to use the public highway, will the local authority that has to maintain the public highway have the right to require a rent for its use? This would enable continued good maintenance of pavements for people.

Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill

Lord Hunt of Kings Heath Excerpts

Report stage
Wednesday 6th September 2023 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath]

198: After Clause 94, insert the following new Clause—
“Duty to reduce health inequalities and improve well-being(1) For the purposes of this section “the general health and well-being objective” is the reduction of health inequalities and the improvement of well-being through the exercise of planning functions in relation to England.(2) A local planning authority must ensure that the development plan for their area includes policies designed to secure that the development and use of land contribute to the general health and well-being objective.(3) In considering whether to grant planning permission or permission in principle and related approvals, a local planning authority or, as the case may be, the Secretary of State must ensure the decision is consistent with achieving the general health and well-being objective.(4) In complying with this section, a local planning authority or, as the case may be, the Secretary of State must have special regard to the desirability of—(a) ensuring that key destinations such as essential shops, schools, parks and open spaces, health facilities and public transport services are in safe and convenient proximity on foot to homes;(b) facilitating access to these key destinations and creating opportunities for everyone to be physically active by improving existing, and creating new, walking and cycling routes and networks;(c) increasing access to high-quality green infra-structure;(d) ensuring a supply of housing which is affordable to and meets the health, accessibility and well-being needs of people who live in the local planning authority's area.”Member's explanatory statement
This new Clause would create a requirement for local planning authorities to include policies in their development plans which contribute to a new general health and well-being objective. It requires local planning authorities and the Secretary of State to ensure consistency with this objective when deciding whether to grant planning permission or permission in principle and related approvals, such as reserved matters.

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab)]

My Lords, on Monday we debated this amendment, in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Willis, who is unavoidably detained. The amendment proposes a duty to reduce health inequalities and improve well-being through the exercise of planning functions. I am grateful to the noble Earl, Lord Howe, for his response, in which he put his faith in the National Planning Policy Framework, but I do not think that this goes far enough. I wish to test the opinion of the House.