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.

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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.