Planning and Infrastructure Bill

Lord Jamieson Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 9th September 2025 Lords Chamber

[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.

[Lord in Waiting/Government Whip (Lord Wilson of Sedgefield) (Lab)]

I thank the noble Lords who have tabled amendments relating to climate change and overheating. It is obviously the biggest issue facing not just the Government and the country but the world. I turn first to Amendments 125, 126, 181 and 216, which concern efforts to adapt new homes and buildings to account for the risk of overheating and the need to drive energy efficiency in new homes. The Government agree that action is needed to address these risks, but we must be mindful of the existing regulatory and legislative regimes that underpin action in these areas.

The building regulations already set specific performance targets for new homes and non-domestic buildings. Compliance with these regulations is mandatory. Aspects of building construction concerned with heating, energy efficiency and cooling are best addressed through these regulations, which the Government are using to make progress on these vital issues. For example, in 2022, a new part of the building regulations was introduced, part O, which is specifically designed to ensure that new homes are built to mitigate the risk of overheating. We are already considering whether part O and its associated guidance can be improved, having run a call for evidence as part of the consultation on the future homes and building standards to seek views on this.

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[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

I am going to point to what the noble Baroness, Lady Young of Old Scone, said—how close we got, and a really bad decision was made. How do we make good decisions really quickly?

Okay, I will come to what the Minister said. It relied on building regulations and compliance with those, but we know what is being built now is not complying even with the inadequate regulations we have now, and that issue needs to be discussed. The final point I want to make is this: the noble Lord, Lord Jamieson, said that we cannot do anything to interfere with much-needed housing delivery. We have to build houses that people can safely live in. That has to be an absolute prerequisite. But, in the meantime, I—

[Lord Jamieson (Con)]

I do not think I said that we cannot do anything. It is all about having a balance.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

I accept the point made by the noble Lord, and I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

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[Lord Lucas (Con)]

My Lords, I accept that it has been agreed by the usual channels, but this is a revising Chamber and we are supposed to be looking at a serious Bill and taking its provisions seriously. If the Government want to get through 20 groups today then it will take the time it takes. None the less, when it comes to Amendment 135G, I shall be brief.

The main reason I hear for planning processes taking longer than they should is that planning authorities take longer than they should. The Government should have the power to do something about that, and that is what my amendment seeks to achieve.

[Lord Jamieson (Con)]

My Lords, I begin by thanking the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, and my noble friend Lord Lucas for bringing their amendments to the attention of the Committee. They have raised a number of important points, and I look forward to hearing the Minister addressing both noble Lords’ concerns.

I turn to the amendments in my name. The purpose of Amendment 135HZG is to reduce costs and delays in the planning system by putting beyond doubt in legislation the principles that currently rely on case law. Where planning permission has already been granted and remains extant, decisions on subsequent planning applications relating to detailed matters, whether determined by an officer or a committee, should not reopen issues that were settled in the original planning permission. This matters because uncertainty in the system not only increases costs for applicants but creates unnecessary duplication of effort for planning authorities and applicants. Greater clarity will enable both sides to proceed with confidence, efficiency and speed.

Amendment 135HZH, in my name and that of noble friend Lady Scott of Bybrook, is a probing amendment intended to test whether the planning system provides sufficient certainty once a permission has been granted and to explore how necessary changes prompted by new national legislation might be handled without reopening matters that have already been settled. The principle of finality is essential, particularly where significant work has already been undertaken and applications are well advanced. This amendment invites the Government to consider whether clearer statutory guidance on finality could help improve efficiency and reduce delay.

Finally, Amendment 185SE, tabled in my name, aims to provide clarity to the planning system, so that project delays are minimised where legislative changes necessitate modifications to an already approved permission—for instance, as we discussed earlier today, legislation that might require solar cells on all new homes.

In such circumstances, such modifications should be deemed to have planning permission in principle. It is vital, because projects can be significantly delayed and costs increased, and developers are required to seek fresh planning permissions simply to comply with new legislation that has come about after they receive their original planning permission. By ensuring that those modifications are covered in principle, we can safeguard progress while maintaining the integrity of the planning system.

If we are to achieve the Government’s objective of 1.5 million new homes, the planning system needs to deliver. These three amendments are guided by the same underlying principle. Clarity and certainty in planning law reduce unnecessary delay, avoid wasteful duplication and allow both applicants and authorities to focus their energies on what should be their priority, which is delivering high-quality developments of high-quality homes that support our residents and our communities.

[Lord Fuller (Con)]

I had not realised what the noble Lord was going to say from the Dispatch Box, but I wish to support his Amendments 135HZG and 135HZH What he could have said—but did not—was that there is almost an interaction with the previous group, in that sometimes there is a perverse incentive to add delay to a process to run down the clock. However, in this case, the noble Lord could have said that, as a result of those delays, a whole series of new studies would need to be remade. For instance, ecology studies may last for only two or three years so may be triggered once more, and they in turn can only be created at certain times of the year—in the spring, for example. The combination effect, in respect not just of the previous group but of this group, means that the delays could be even longer, so I strongly support the noble Lord. Finality and certainty are important, and I support him not only for the reasons he gives but for the avoidance of interference with the previous set of amendments.

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[Lord Wilson of Sedgefield (Lab)]

I would not accept that. It has to be a balance between what we can do to make things more flexible and ensuring that we have the right kind of infrastructure to lead to the growth we want in the local economy. We need a flexible system and what we are trying to devise here is that.

Amendments 135HZG and 135HZH cover the important but technical issue of decision-makers revisiting matters which have been established through the grant of planning permission when determining applications for supplementary consents, such as reserved matter approvals. I recognise that these are probing amendments, and I understand the concern about matters being revisited when they should not be. We want to see supplementary consents determined as swiftly as possible. Case law has long established that supplementary consents must focus on the specific matters directly related to the consent and not revisit wider matters which have been addressed by the original grant of planning permission.

However, we are sceptical about the merits of putting this case law on a statutory footing as suggested by Amendment 135HZG. The principle is well established among planning officers and putting it on a statutory footing will not speed up their decision-making. Indeed, it could create new grounds for legal challenges to planning decisions, which we want to avoid.

Similarly, I am not convinced that we need a review on this matter.

[Lord Jamieson (Con)]

I gratefully appreciate the answer the Minister has given, but I want some clarity. He made two comments there. The reason for this, and I accept it is a probing amendment, is to bring into the planning process absolute clarity that a decision has been made and cannot be revisited. That certainly seems to be the case with case law. But the reason we have case law is because people are making decisions in the planning system which then have to go to court. By making things much clearer, it will enhance the role of those who are saying, “Hold on, we have already decided that there is planning approval for x”. Just because you are now changing the colour of the door, that does not mean you can revisit the original planning permission again. I am slightly puzzled why he is saying that, by making that clarification, it may even result in more legal processes. I am not necessarily expecting an answer tonight, because I appreciate he has valiantly stepped in at the last minute, but if he could think a little more about that and maybe we can have a conversation afterwards.

[Lord Wilson of Sedgefield (Lab)]

I could write to the noble Lord on that specific point. But it seems to me that the principle is well established among planning officers and putting it on a statutory footing will not speed up the decision-making. Similarly, we are not convinced that we need a review on this matter. We, of course, are always looking at opportunities to improve the planning system and if there is evidence that supplementary consents like reserved matter approvals were unnecessarily revisiting matters, we would want to take action, but we do not think a review would be proportionate.

Finally, Amendment 185SE seeks to ensure that changes required to extant planning permissions to comply with changes in legislation would benefit from automatic planning permission. I can say we share a common goal, which is to ensure that developments are not delayed by new legislative requirements. When the Government introduce changes to planning legislation, they are usually not applied retrospectively to avoid the uncertainty this would cause, but we recognise that changes to other regulatory regimes, such as building regulations, can impact on approved development and this may require subsequent amendments to the planning permission which can be frustrating for developers. However, we do not think this amendment provides a solution. It is too broad, and some regulatory changes can have a material impact on approved development which warrant further consideration from a planning perspective.

Instead, we are keen to ensure that, when new legislation is developed which could impact on development, the consequences for planning are recognised and minimised. There are already a number of mechanisms available within the planning system which allow changes to planning permissions in a proportionate way, such as light-touch applications for non-material amendments under Section 96A of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990, and we are keen to see these mechanisms being used to address the consequences of any wider regulatory changes on approved development. For these reasons, I hope that the noble Lord will beg leave to withdraw his amendment.

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[Baroness Warwick of Undercliffe (Lab)]

My Lords, I will speak briefly in support of the noble Baroness, Lady Thornhill. With the Government’s ambition to increase the supply of social and affordable housing and the reforms to improve the capacity of the planning system, now seems the right time to reform PDR. The Government have rightly made the quality and safety of housing a priority, but conversions to PDR are not subject to the same standards compared to developments going through the full planning system.

The Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors, in its report on the impact of extending permitted development rights on public authorities and communities, found that the quality of office-to-residential conversions was significantly worse than those which had been brought through the planning process. Other than the nationally described space standards and requirements around natural light, there are no minimum standards for these converted homes relating to safety, facilities, communal space, or connection to amenities.

It is essential that the housing that is developed is the right housing to meet local needs and make a positive impact on the lives of residents. It is necessary to make it a viable solution for addressing the housing crisis. At a minimum, conversions should meet the healthy homes principle brought forward by the Town and Country Planning Association’s Healthy Homes campaign. I hope that the Minister will be able to respond positively to these points.

[Lord Jamieson (Con)]

My Lords, I thank my noble friend Lord Lucas and the noble Baroness, Lady Thornhill, for bringing these matters to the attention of the Committee. Permitted development rights are a significant area of policy as they play a crucial role in both the supply and the quality of new homes. It is important not only for the delivery of more housing but also for ensuring that those homes meet the needs of the communities in which they are built. The rules which govern permitted development therefore deserve careful consideration and the contributions made in today’s debate have highlighted the balance that must be struck between delivering more homes and protections for local communities and ensuring quality homes.

My noble friend Lord Lucas has raised a point of particular frustration for many homeowners in his Amendment 185A, and this reads across to other areas of government policy. I know owners of heritage properties and homes in conservation areas face particular challenges with increasing the energy efficiency of their home, and my noble friend is right to put this challenge to Ministers. I also note that the Government have announced that as of 2030 all private landlords will be required to meet a higher standard in their properties, with energy performance certificates of C or equivalent, up from the current level of E. Given the fact that many heritage and listed properties, including those in conservation areas, are often not permitted to instal double glazing—I refer to my comments in the previous group—can the Minister confirm that the new EPC requirement will not apply to listed and heritage properties? We look forward to hearing the Government’s view on these amendments and to understanding how they propose to address the concerns that have been raised.

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

Before I address the amendments in this group, I want to correct an error that I made earlier when I was responding to the noble Lord, Lord Young, who has kindly pointed out my error. When I said the £39 billion allocated for social and affordable housing was for this Parliament, it is in fact a 10-year pledge of funding. I want to make sure that is corrected in Hansard.

All the amendments in this group tabled by noble Baroness, Lady Thornhill, and the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, seek to amend permitted development rights. Changes to permitted development rights are brought forward through secondary legislation as amendments to the general permitted development order, generally following public consultation. This ensures that the views of the public are taken into account, including those that would benefit from or otherwise be impacted by the rights created or removed. We will continue to keep permitted development rights under review and I am grateful for the views that have been put forward by noble Lords in this regard.

Amendment 134 seeks to revoke the nationally set permitted development rights that deliver new homes through a change of use or by extending upwards and that allow dwelling houses to change use to a small house in multiple occupation and vice versa. The sustainable solution to the housing crisis is to accelerate the delivery of affordable, safe and decent purpose-built housing. I understand the intent of these amendments, with which I have a deal of sympathy. However, as the noble Baroness, Lady Thornhill will know, we are in a housing crisis and these permitted development rights have provided over 113,000 new homes in the last nine years. Permitted development rights are subject to prior approval by the local planning authority to allow for local consideration of specific planning matters. We acknowledge the concerns that exist about the quality of some of the residential units created through permitted development rights, particularly those created from commercial-to-residential conversions. We have all seen booklets with pictures of horrendous examples of those conversions and I would not want to advocate that type of practice.

All new homes delivered under permitted development rights are now required to meet nationally described space standards and provide adequate natural light in all habitable rooms. All new homes, whether delivered through permitted development rights or following a planning application, are required to meet building regulations.

We all know that small houses in multiple occupation can play an important part in providing low-cost accommodation. The permitted development right for a change of use from a dwelling house to a small house in multiple occupation helps to provide flexibility. The permitted development aspect of that can be removed by making an Article 4 direction where the local planning authority considers it necessary and in line with national planning policy. The amendment would make it harder to create new homes from existing buildings at a time of acute housing need. I have not seen the letter that the noble Baroness, Lady Thornhill, referred to and I look forward to receiving that. But, for all the reasons that I have explained, I hope she will withdraw the amendment.

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[Lord Lansley (Con)]

My Lords, it seems to me that we are getting ahead of ourselves. We are yet to reach Part 3, but these seem to be mostly considerations relating to the content of Part 3 and how the environmental delivery plans and the nature restoration levy are intended to work.

I understood my noble friend Lady Coffey’s amendment to be grouped where it is and say what it does because nowhere in Part 3 is there something that otherwise tells us how the making of an environmental delivery plan affects a local planning authority in making its decisions. It seemed to me that she had tabled a rather useful amendment that did precisely that.

I do not think it is relevant whether a developer has to pay the levy or not. It can request to pay the levy, or, as we can see in Clause 66 and Schedule 4, Natural England can make it mandatory that it pays the levy. Either way, it does not really matter. The point is that, if the environmental delivery plan is made, a local authority should clearly take it into account in determining any planning permission, in the same way as it would be required to have regard to all the legislation relating to protected sites and protected species. Schedule 4 simply tells us that when the local authority makes planning decisions it may disregard them because there is an environmental delivery plan in place. What my noble friend Lady Coffey is saying would be at least a useful addition, in a technical sense, to the Bill.

[Lord Jamieson (Con)]

My Lords, I thank my noble friend Lord Lucas for his thoughtful ongoing contribution to our debate on this Bill. His amendment raises some significant questions about how biodiversity information is gathered, shared and used within the planning system.

This sparked a few questions that we wish to ask the Minister. First, can she clarify how the Government see the balance between requiring robust biodiversity data and avoiding unnecessary burdens on applicants—particularly smaller developers or individuals making household applications? Secondly, what consideration has been given to the readiness and capacity of local environmental record centres or other organisations to provide such information, should regulations of this kind be introduced? Thirdly, has consideration been given that this be addressed as part of the spatial development strategy or local plan? Lastly, how do the Government propose to ensure consistency and standardisation in biodiversity data collected so that it meaningfully informs local and national policy in the future?

Amendment 135, tabled by my noble friend Lady Coffey, seeks to ensure that environmental delivery plans relevant to the land in question are considered when making planning decisions. This seems to be an eminently sensible and pragmatic measure that joins up the EDP process with planning decision-making. However, this amendment also raises the important point that I raised at Second Reading: the chicken and egg question. How can you develop an EDP without knowing what the spatial development strategy is that it is seeking to mitigate? Conversely, do you need an EDP to make a spatial development strategy deliverable? It would seem sensible that they are done in parallel. If so, why would an EDP not be part of the spatial development strategy? Can the Minister please provide a clearer answer than at Second Reading?

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Coffey, and the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, for their amendments in this group. There will be a very full debate on the wider issues around EDPs, the role of Natural England and so on next week. I will answer the specific points today and, in view of the hour, we will leave the wider discussions until next week.

Amendment 135A seeks to ensure that any applicable environmental delivery plan is taken into account by a planning decision-maker when making a planning decision under the Town and Country Planning Act. Although it is crucial that EDPs are fully integrated into the wider planning system, I assure the noble Baroness that how EDPs work in practice means that the amendment is not necessary. Where a developer makes a payment into an EDP, the making of that payment discharges the relevant environmental obligation. This means that the planning decision-maker will not need to consider the specific environmental obligation covered by the EDP when deciding on an application.

To respond to the points about the differences that came forward after we had met with the environmental NGOs, and the response of the OEP, the government amendments make changes explicit in the Bill which were only implicit. We met with noble Lords to discuss this.

Amendment 135F seeks to enable the Secretary of State to make regulations about the biodiversity information required for applications for planning permission and enable specific bodies providing this information to applicants to charge for it. The Government agree it is critical that developers reduce and mitigate their impacts on biodiversity. We also agree that to achieve this, robust biodiversity information should be provided with planning applications where habitats and wildlife are affected by development proposals. However, I am not convinced that we need further powers to achieve this or that we should specify precisely where and how such information needs to be sourced.

Since 2024, subject to certain exceptions, biodiversity net gain has been mandatory for new planning permissions to achieve at least 10% net gain in biodiversity value. As part of this framework, developers are now required to provide a baseline assessment of pre-development biodiversity value of the site using the statutory biodiversity metric published by the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. Natural England provides considerable guidance and support to developers and local planning authorities on the use of this metric. The biggest infrastructure developers will also be required to do so from May 2026 when BNG is extended to nationally significant infrastructure projects.

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[Lord Jamieson (Con)]

My Lords, ensuring that planning meetings can be held when they are needed and that they are accessible is of real importance. Equally, the clarity of outcome is critical, and the transparency. Applicants, the public and those participating need to see that proposals have been properly considered with clarity of decision-making, otherwise confidence in the system will be undermined. I therefore ask the Minister what consideration has been given to how these provisions will operate in practice. Linked to this issue, what safeguards can the Government provide to ensure that the decisions reached in local planning meetings are both transparent and understood by all? I hope the Minister can reassure your Lordships’ House on these points.

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

I thank the noble Baronesses, Lady Thornhill and Lady McIntosh, for the amendments relating to planning authority meetings. Amendment 135E would require councils to stream their planning meetings online, to publish records of those meetings and to allow members of the public to speak at them via online participation.

I have to say “well remembered” to the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, on the levelling-up Bill—I think all of us who worked on that Bill deserve a badge to say that we survived. I indeed supported this issue, and the Government are committed to legislating to allow councils to meet remotely in response to our consultation. We are working with sector representatives such as the Local Government Association and others to clarify how this would work in practice, including how to ensure that existing rules around meetings are applied appropriately to remote and hybrid meetings without undermining democratic accountability or procedural integrity. We want to get this right and that might mean taking a little longer to work through the detail of the proposal to make sure that the changes are legally robust, practically workable and aligned with the expectation of both local authorities and the public.

We are committed to ending this micromanagement of local councils from Whitehall. Decisions about how councils run their day-to-day affairs should be taken locally. We do not think it is appropriate at the moment to make streaming meetings compulsory, as this amendment proposes. Councils can already stream their meetings online and can, if they wish, make arrangements to hear representations from the public online. Indeed, many councils already do this. The Government encourage councils to consider how they can make local democracy accessible to their residents, and that includes for reasons of disability, as the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, pointed out. Streaming meetings may be a helpful step to make local decision-making more transparent. However, making that a locally operational decision and not because of a diktat is important.

Amendment 135HZA would allow planning committees and subcommittees to meet remotely or in hybrid form in circumstances to be specified in regulations. Outdated legislation has the implied effect of requiring all local authorities to hold their meetings in one physical location only. This was confirmed by a court case several years ago. As I mentioned earlier, all local authorities are independent bodies with their own democratic mandate, and as the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh, has raised several times in this House in recent years, they should be able to decide how they want to organise their own meetings and Parliament should not stand in their way. That is why the Government have committed to allowing councils to make decisions themselves about whether to hold their meetings in person, to do them fully online, or to have a hybrid form.

Planning and Infrastructure Bill

Lord Jamieson Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 9th September 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Jamieson (Con)]

My Lords, this important group of amendments relates to the creation of healthy homes and neighbourhoods, the role of planning in promoting well-being, and the standards and accuracy of housing development. I thank the noble Lords who tabled these amendments; their recognition of the need to place health and well-being at the heart of housing policy and planning is both welcome and timely. In doing so, I wish to express our appreciation of the sentiment behind the amendments, and the desire to ensure that development is not just about numbers and units delivered, but about the quality of life of those who will live in them.

I note the amendments tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Crisp. Taken together, these seek to integrate health and well-being considerations into housing and planning through duties on authorities’ reporting requirements and potential enforcement provisions. The link between housing and public health is well recognised but, as with many such proposals, the issue is one of balancing aspirations with the demands of regulation.

The noble Baroness, Lady Bennett of Manor Castle, has also brought forward a thoughtful proposal: Amendment 124 on advertising. This raises an important issue of public health and the role of advertising. The noble Baroness mentioned gambling advertising, but I would also add that for junk food, particularly in areas close to schools, for instance.

Amendment 132 on the disclosure of environmental performance in marketing materials and Amendment 227, clarifying local authority enforcement powers, raise important questions about consumer protection and transparency. We look forward to the Government’s reply.

I wish to recognise the valuable contribution of my noble friend Lord Moynihan and speak to his Amendment 138A. As he often emphasises, creating space for sport and physical activity can deliver wide-ranging benefits, not only for an individual’s fitness, but for community cohesion and long-term public health. His amendment would add the promotion of health and well-being to the conditions of strategic importance within spatial development strategies. This raises an important and thought-provoking point, and we look forward with interest to the Government’s response.

Lastly, I return to the issues raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Levitt. We have already underlined the importance of respecting local vernacular and design in planning and development. The spirit of her Amendment 185SA is, I believe, a constructive one: namely, that there should be a preferred approach to the consideration of architectural style grounding in sound plan-making principles, and framed by an appropriate, locally distinctive context for building design. Where that is fitting, such an approach ensures that development is not only functional but reflective of the character and heritage of the community it serves.

That is why the previous Conservative Government set up the Office for Place: to ensure that good design was part of building. Unfortunately, this current Labour Government have closed the office. We should not just be building units; we must build homes that are well designed and form part of successful communities. I look forward to hearing the Minister’s response on how this Government will ensure good design.

Across this group of amendments, there is a unifying theme: that housing should not merely be about shelter, but about creating places that sustain life, health and community—whether through high standards, clearer duties, better design or fairer advertising. These amendments challenge us to raise our ambition, but ambition must be tempered with practicality. The central question is how we embed these principles in a way that is workable, proportionate and does not risk unintended consequences for housing delivery, affordability or local discretion. I look forward to hearing from the Minister on how the Government intend to respond to these important proposals, and how they will ensure that the planning system and housing policy place health and the well-being of people and communities at their heart.

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank all noble Lords for their amendments tabled in this grouping. We have had a very useful and interesting debate on this topic this evening. I am very grateful to the noble Lords who put forward amendments, who have deep expertise and are great advocates on the issue of health, housing and communities. That is greatly appreciated.

The Government agree that the quality of our homes, and the wider environment around them, are intrinsically linked to the creation of healthy communities. Taken together, planning policy, guidance and building regulations tackle these important matters and collectively promote the creation of healthy communities and homes for the people who reside there. It may be helpful if I quickly outline some of these provisions at the outset to show the interaction between the National Planning Policy Framework, the National Design Guide, the National Model Design Code, building regulations and the Future Homes Standard—that sounds more like a PhD essay than a quick intervention, but I will do my best—in collectively promoting healthy homes and communities.

First, the NPPF has the goal of achieving sustainable development at its heart, which includes supporting a strong, vibrant and healthy community, and ensuring that a sufficient number and range of homes can be provided to meet the needs of present and future generations. I am not sure about the 70 years that the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, talked about, but we will do our best. The framework sets out that development plans should aim to achieve healthy, inclusive and safe places which promote social interaction, and enable healthy lives, through both promoting good health and preventing ill-health, especially where this would address identified local health and well-being needs and reduce health inequalities. That is all set out in the National Planning Policy Framework; it is very clear what is expected.

The framework also recognises the importance of open space, sports and recreation facilities in supporting the health and well-being of communities. It is clear that local plans should seek to meet the identified need for these spaces and facilities, and seek opportunities for new provision. Further considerations on healthy and safe communities are also set out in Planning Practice Guidance, which supports the implementation of the NPPF in practice.

Secondly, the National Design Guide and National Model Design Code are part of the suite of Planning Practice Guidance. They illustrate how well-designed, healthy, inclusive, social and green places can be achieved. They provide detailed advice on creating safe, inclusive and accessible homes, buildings and public spaces, prioritising walking and cycling, and green space and biodiversity in new development that promotes activity and social interaction.

All new homes delivered under permitted development rights are required to meet the nationally described space standards and provide adequate natural light in all habitable rooms. While under the permitted development right that allows for commercial buildings, such as shops and offices, to change use to homes, local authorities can consider the impacts of noise from commercial premises on the intended occupiers during the decision-making process. All new homes, whether delivered through a permitted development right or following a planning application, are required to meet building regulations and fire safety requirements.

Lastly, building regulations set out the minimum legal performance standards that all new homes must meet to ensure that they protect people’s safety, health and welfare. We continue to review and strengthen these standards. For example, this autumn the Government will publish the Future Homes Standard, which will increase the energy efficiency requirements in building regulations. New homes will be equipped with low-carbon heating and, in most cases, solar panels, making them fit for the future, comfortable for occupants, and affordable to heat. At the same time, we will publish our response to the call for evidence on the new overheating requirement, which has been in effect since June 2022. This requires that new homes are designed to minimise overheating and thus remain resilient as our climate changes.

Amendment 123 is on health and well-being in development plans. Amendments 138A, 185SC, 185SD and 185SF are on ensuring adequate provision for spaces and facilities for sport and physical activity and making sure they are appropriately considered in the planning system and in new spatial development strategies. The provisions in the National Planning Policy Framework I have outlined mean that these matters will already be taken into account. Within Clause 52, new Section 12D(1) enables spatial development strategies to include policies relating to access to green space, active travel, and sports and physical activity facilities, providing that they are of strategic importance to the area.

The noble Lord, Lord Crisp, mentioned the English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill, which is in the other place at the moment. Clause 43 of that Bill is a general duty which applies to all the duties that combined authorities have to have regard to—the need to improve health inequalities between people living in their area. It is not a specific planning duty, and we believe that in the case of planning we should deal with those matters through the National Planning Policy Framework.

Amendment 124, tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, seeks to include environmental impact and public health as additional considerations to take into account in regulating advertisements. The advertisement consent regime is designed to ensure that outdoor advertisements are in the right locations. It is a light-touch system concerned with only two issues: the impact of the advertisement on amenity and public safety. Amenity includes oral and visual amenity and relevant factors such as the general characteristics of the locality. Public safety is largely concerned with the transport network: for example, distractions to road users or safety on railway lines. The content of advertisements is subject to a separate regulatory system—I know the noble Baroness is aware of this—which is overseen by the Advertising Standards Authority. To widen the scope of matters which can be considered through the advertisement consent regime, particularly in relation to public health, is likely to bring the focus more on to the content of the advertisement. If that were the case it would create an overlap between the two regulatory regimes where at present there is a clear distinction, which would risk causing uncertainty and confusion. Therefore, while I understand what the noble Baroness is trying to achieve, we think the current scope of the advertisement consent regime remains appropriate.

Amendments 132 and 185D would introduce a purpose of planning and provide that anyone exercising a planning function must do so in a manner that is compatible with that purpose. I must reiterate that the pursuit of sustainable development is at the heart of what the planning system seeks to achieve. Reflecting this, it is a principle which is woven through our National Planning Policy Framework, from the overarching objectives which it sets, through to the specific policies for achieving them. For example, the national planning policy sets out how to plan for good design, sustainable modes of transport, an integrated approach to the location of housing, economic uses, essential community services and facilities, and the vital role of open space, green infrastructure and play in supporting health and well-being and recreation. It is clear that local plans should meet identified needs and seek opportunities for new provision. It also supports a transition to a low-carbon future and promotes renewable and low-carbon energy, and requires plans to take a proactive approach to climate change. These are all important principles, and we should not underestimate the role of the National Planning Policy Framework in translating these into practice. But I wish to resist these amendments, not just because they would impose significant burdens on any individual or body exercising a planning function in order to gauge compliance, but as inevitably these provisions will become a focus for challenges to plans and decisions.

Amendment 185SA seeks to introduce a code of practice for design. First, I congratulate my noble friend Lady Levitt on her well-deserved promotion to the Front Bench and thank the noble Lord, Lord Carlile, for speaking to her amendment—I suspect he may have a few more occasions when he has to say, “Yes, Minister”, but I do not want to interfere with that part of his life. I agree with my noble friend that we have a role to play in setting clear expectations for design and placemaking to support local authorities to demand better through the planning system, and a responsibility to ensure that they have the tools necessary to do this. I thank her very much for meeting with me to discuss this. As I have mentioned, the National Planning Policy Framework already emphasises that the creation of high-quality and sustainable buildings and places is fundamental to what planning and development should achieve. The framework is supplemented by national design guidance. I gather from this amendment that my noble friend believes we could go further, and that is exactly what we intend to do. We are consulting on national policies for decision-making, including on design, later in 2025, and we are also in the process of updating national design guidance and will publish this later this year.

Grenfell Tower: Bureau Veritas

Lord Jamieson Excerpts

Tuesday 9th September 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

The police have said that this will take time. I know that all those who are victims and survivors will want this to move forward as quickly as possible—I completely understand their concern about that. This is one of the largest and most legally complex investigations ever conducted by the Metropolitan Police, with 180 officers and staff dedicated to the investigation. Those responsible absolutely must be held to account, and we fully support the police in this important work. That is why Ministers have agreed to provide up to £9.3 million to support the Met with additional costs of the criminal investigation in this year. We want this to move as quickly as possible, but it is very important that the investigation is conducted thoroughly and properly.

[Lord Jamieson (Con)]

My Lords, what assurances can the Minister give that the fire performance data supplied by manufacturers to certification bodies is independently validated before approval?

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

My Lords, that is part of the Remediation Acceleration Plan, and we will be looking very closely at how we properly validate. The noble Lord will be aware of the changes that were made to building control inspection under his Government. We need to move forward with a proper system of building control inspection so that we can make sure that the buildings that are constructed are safe. We have also announced some significant changes to the building safety regulator, with stronger leadership, new governance and a new fast-track process, which we hope will speed up building control for new build applications by bringing in in-house specialists. I hope that that will drive this forward as fast as possible.

Planning Delivery: Acceleration

Lord Jamieson Excerpts

Monday 8th September 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

I am grateful to my noble friend for highlighting a key issue. The Government have announced additional funding to support the recruitment and training of 300 graduates and apprentices into local planning authorities. That is part of a wider £46 million package of investment in the planning system to upskill local planners to ensure they are able to implement the reforms that we are putting through, ensuring—and this is very important—that everywhere has a local plan in place. That will help them to resist the type of planning they do not want to see. We are also allowing authorities to set their own fees through the Planning and Infrastructure Bill, and ensuring these fees are retained in the planning system to improve the overall service.

[Lord Jamieson (Con)]

My Lords, as my noble friend Lady Maclean pointed out, this Government are already well behind on their target of 1.5 million new homes. With planning permissions granted in the first half of this year falling to below 100,000—the lowest since 2012—does the Minister believe that removing the lower rate for inert waste, which would potentially add £25,000 to the cost of a new home, will be helpful in achieving that 1.5 million target?

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

Could the noble Lord repeat what he is asking to be removed?

[Lord Jamieson (Con)]

There is currently a consultation going on regarding the cost of disposing of waste. Inert building waste, such as earth, will potentially be charged at the full rate, rather than the current discounted rate, which will potentially add £25,000 to the cost of building a new home. Will that help deliver your 1.5 million target?

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

As we have done since we came into office, we are looking at all obstacles to delivering new homes, working very closely with the sector. I have had a number of issues raised with me; we continue to look at those, and I will be discussing them with the new Secretary of State. We will continue, as I mentioned on the housing accelerator programme, to look at any barriers to see whether there are things we can do to speed this process up.

Planning and Infrastructure Bill

Lord Jamieson Excerpts

Committee stage
Thursday 4th September 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Fuller (Con)]

My Lords, I strongly support this set of amendments, particularly Amendment 135HZE, which I think my noble friend is just about to wrap up on.

Noble Lords will recall that I have been a councillor and sat on a local planning committee for 23 years; I was the leader for 17 years. It was one of my privileges to appoint the committee and choose the chairman. I always explained to my members that the purpose of planning was not an administrative function that existed as an end in itself—although this Bill sometimes treats it as if it were so—but to arbitrate between the private interests of the applicant and the public interest. I use the word “arbitrate” purposefully, because people who sit on a planning committee have a difficult job. They must weigh up so much conflicting information within an adversarial system and, ultimately, either the proposer or objector wins.

Much of this Bill is established under the false premise that local planning committees are blockers of development and that the ranks of officials will not rest until every square inch of our nation is concreted over. But this is nonsense. The premise is that officials bring none of their prejudices to bear, but that is simply not true. We have Natural England, which leaves no stone unturned in blocking development. We have the railways, which ballast every proposal with ridiculous costs, such as £5 million for a footbridge to cross between two platforms. We have the highways authorities, which tie themselves in knots under the misdirection that personal transport outside development boundaries is unsustainable. That is before all the other bad actors in many other quangos that increasingly advance their own narrow self-interests rather than the public interest.

I do not deny the importance of some of their representations, but the problem with these quangos is that they all claim a veto—it is their way or no way. It is from these vetoes that we have got the £100 million bat bridge, to which I expect my noble friend Lord Howard may refer. It is from these vetoes that we get this mitigating trade in natterjack newts or whatever they are, organisms that are rare in Europe but commonplace in every English village pond. And then of course there is the insanity of nutrient neutrality, as if building a bungalow in Bristol is going to somehow clean up the River Wensum.

Given the way planning works, in many cases it takes only one of these vetoes from just one of the statutory consultees to block the entire proposal. That is especially the case when officers advise members to refuse an otherwise acceptable proposal on the overly precautionary grounds that an adverse decision could be grounds for appeal or expensive judicial review. We need the planning committee to cut through the undergrowth, and to stop looking over their shoulder and being fearful of challenge.

I congratulate my noble friend Lord Banner, who is not in his place, on his report in which he made several recommendations. But those will count for nothing if there is nobody without the mandate, duty and courage to get those applications to committee. In my experience, it is the committees populated by the accountable councillors that do more to get Britain building than the faceless dead hand of the state quangos.

We need elected people who know a self-serving veto or spurious objection when they see one. We need people on the ground who know the importance of building homes, economies and places that enhance communities to arbitrate those competing interests. That is why this amendment is so welcome and necessary. It is absolutely right that the chair of the planning committee, working with the senior planner, should be able to revisit otherwise fatal objections to get that balance, to enable the local champions who populate those committees to take all the evidence into account, to listen carefully to objections, to balance the private and public interest and to get Britain building, and not pander to the self-serving quangos sometimes interested only in pursuing their own ideologies to the exclusion of all else.

[Lord Jamieson (Con)]

My Lords, I will briefly speak to Amendment 135HZF and to my noble friend Lady Scott of Bybrook’s Amendments 103A and 103B before addressing the other amendments in this group.

Local democratic accountability must be protected. Local people should have a say in the decisions that affect their daily lives. These amendments seek to ensure planning decisions remain the remit of elected councils which are accountable to their communities. It is important that large or controversial applications should be considered through local debate so that all views are sufficiently represented.

Delegation of decision-making to unelected planning officers not only deprives local people of their democratic voice but compromises the entire planning framework. Public planning committees allow for transparent and easily accessible forums for residents, ensuring that their voice is heard in the planning process. Enforced delegation of important planning decisions or controversial ones would make the whole process more opaque, weaken community engagement and disfranchise those most affected by the decisions. With a loss of local trust in the whole planning system, how do the Government plan to maintain community engagement and trust in the planning system if they are not involved?

By ensuring the Secretary of State does not have sweeping powers of delegation, local autonomy would be preserved, empowering those best equipped to make decisions about their local community. Amendments 103A and 103B question the Government’s decision to make guidance on the scope, size and composition of the national scheme, subject to delegation rather than primary legislation.

Amendment 135HZE enshrines the right for an application to be determined by a planning committee where there are objections to the application and both the head of planning—or, potentially, the chief planner—and the chair of the planning committee have agreed that these are on valid planning grounds, which is best practice, currently. While some have raised the risk of spurious arguments causing delays, the above protections and subsequent amendments in my name on finality should address these concerns, enabling us to get on with housing delivery while retaining the democratic voice. This is the right balance.

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[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Baronesses, Lady Pinnock, Lady Scott and Lady Coffey, and the noble Lords, Lord Jamieson, Lord Lansley and Lord Cameron, for their amendments. I also thank the noble Lords, Lord Inglewood and Lord Fuller, for their contributions to this discussion. This group of amendments relates to Clause 51 on the national scheme of delegation, which was debated extensively in the other place and during Second Reading in this House.

I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, for her recognition of the need to develop greater consistency and equity in the planning process. Of course, the other motivation is to ensure that councillors can focus their attention both on local plans, where they can really make a difference to place-shaping, and on those local applications that genuinely benefit from their input. Having been a councillor for 27 years, sitting on the planning committee listening to a two-hour debate on whether a fence should be four feet high or five feet high, I think there is a good case for focusing attention on what matters.

I turn first to Amendments 103A and 103B. I understand that these are probing amendments to understand the rationale for the Secretary of State’s powers to issue guidance on the national scheme of delegation and composition of planning committees and why they are not subject to the regulatory procedures which can be scrutinised by Parliament rather than setting it out in primary legislation itself. These powers for the Secretary of State to issue guidance are auxiliary to the main powers to make regulations about the national scheme of delegation and the composition of planning committees. The regulations will set out the key requirements and the guidance will supplement them.

As many of us know, the planning system is very complex and nuanced, and there are often calls for clear guidance to complement planning regulations. In line with other powers for the Secretary of State to issue guidance within the planning system, we do not propose to make this guidance subject to regulatory procedures. However, there is a clear requirement for the Secretary of State to consult on the guidance along with regulations before reissuing it. This enables all stakeholders, including local planning authorities, to comment and feed into the draft guidance.

On Amendment 104 from the noble Lord, Lord Cameron, he asked about national parks authorities—which includes the Broads Authority. They are a special class of local planning authority which make planning decisions for their area. Due to the different governance arrangements and the nature of development in these areas, they were deliberately excluded from the national scheme of delegation provisions, which applies only to conventional local planning authorities. Development corporations and Homes England, when acting as the local planning authority, were also excluded for similar reasons. The justification for intervention in the reform of committees includes creating a more consistent approach to applications for housing development and delivering more predictable outcomes in the planning system in order to achieve growth and support the delivery of 1.5 million homes. There is less imperative to intervene in national park authorities, where we do not envisage large-scale housing developments.

Amendment 105 seeks to make regulations relating to the national scheme of delegation subject to the affirmative procedure, as just commented on by the noble Lord, Lord Fuller. I am not convinced that this amendment is needed. It is common practice across planning legislation for regulations of a detailed and technical nature such as these to be subject to the negative procedure. I also draw the Committee’s attention to the fact that the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee has published its report and has not raised any concerns about either this power or the proposed procedure. Of course, this does not mean there will be no further scrutiny of the proposed regulations. We have included a safeguard in the Bill to require the Secretary of State to consult appropriate persons before making the regulations. In practice, this means that key stakeholders, including local planning authorities, will be able to respond on the detailed proposals to ensure that they will work effectively in practice.

Just to pick up the point the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, made on NDMPs, it is the intention to publish the NDMPs—I am going to say “in due course”; he knows I do not like that expression, but that is where we are—and I will follow up in writing to him about whether these will automatically be delegated. I think that is under consideration, but I will respond to him in writing on that. However, we do hope to publish them as soon as possible.

I will address Amendment 103ZA, tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Coffey, and Amendments 135HZE and 135HZF, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Jamieson, together as they both deal with the types of application which should go to committee. Taking Amendment 103ZA first, it would require applications for development not included in the local plan, or for a housing density lower than that specified in the plan, to be determined by committee. I appreciate the sentiment behind this amendment. The Government also want to ensure that the right development happens in the right areas, and our brownfield-first policy is designed to achieve that. However, there are many applications involved in development which do not conform with a local plan. That does not mean they are all controversial—many are not—and therefore I do not believe that they all need to be considered by committee.

Amendments 135HZE and 135HZF from the noble Lord, Lord Jamieson, deal with whether certain types of applications should go to committee or not. Taking Amendment 135HZE first, as the noble Lord will know, it is very common for there to be valid planning objections to an application. This amendment would give free rein to committee chairs and chief planning officers to take a great many more applications to committee. As such, it would undermine the whole purpose of the national scheme of delegation, and therefore the Government cannot support it.

[Lord Jamieson (Con)]

I thank the Minister for allowing me to interrupt. I am slightly curious: the Government trust a planning officer to make a decision on something, but they do not trust them to determine whether there is a genuinely valid objection to an application? I find that slightly curious.

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

We trust planning officers, but we do not want to undermine that scheme of delegation.

Amendment 135HZF seeks to ensure that any applications by the council itself or any of its employees or councillors where there are no objections do not need to go to committee. While I understand the noble Lord’s reasons for tabling such an amendment, I again think that this is a matter best dealt with in the regulations rather than in the Bill. Indeed, the recent technical consultation on planning committees sought views on the treatment of such applications. I can therefore assure the noble Lord that we will consider his suggestion alongside the formal responses to that consultation.

To conclude, I assure noble Lords once again that Clause 51 is not about taking away local democratic oversight. It is about improving the system to allow planning committees to operate more effectively in the interests of their communities and to give them the time to focus their attention where it really matters.

I now turn to a series of amendments tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, which seek to remove the requirement to create regulations needed for the framework for a mandatory national scheme of delegation and would replace this requirement with a power to make statutory guidance. They would also remove the ability for the Secretary of State to control the size and composition of planning committees.

The Government have been very clear: we want to see a national scheme of delegation introduced to ensure greater certainty across the country and to speed up decision-making to support the delivery of 1.5 million homes during this Parliament. I emphasise that these reforms are a real priority for this Government. We need to ensure that the legal framework for the national scheme of delegation is robust and clear, and that is why we need to legislate for it through regulations. Statutory guidance is not sufficient to provide the certainty and consistency that we want to see.

I also disagree that we should not legislate to control the size and composition of planning committees. I fully accept that many planning committees have slimmed down in recent years and are nearer the optimal size for effective engagement and debate. However, there are still too many which are unwieldy, undermining the quality of decision-making. We firmly believe that there remains a strong case to have powers to regulate the committees’ size and composition. With these explanations, I kindly ask noble Lords not to press their amendments.

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[Lord Teverson (LD)]

My Lords, from these Benches I support this amendment and thank other Lords for their support. One thing the noble Viscount, Lord Hanworth, said is that if we had had a digital twin model earlier, the bat tunnel we talked about would probably never have been necessary in HS2.

Clearly, there are issues around this on data privacy, keeping information up to date, legacy systems and so forth. But one of the positives is that once you have a model, you do not just discard it once the project has finished; you continue using it into the future and update it. It allows you all the benefits into the future.

We on these Benches are very interested to hear where the Government are in the development of this area, which I certainly hope is an area where the UK, with its IT prowess, will move ahead of our competitors and use it for the kinds of not very successful infrastructure projects that we have had in recent years.

[Lord Jamieson (Con)]

My Lords, in speaking to the amendments of the noble Baroness, Lady Miller of Chilthorne Domer, I am also greatly pleased to say that we seem to have broken out into a spirit of co-operation. As noble Lords will know, modelling and simulation are used to drive efficiency in infrastructure and planning projects. I recall, as a project engineer more than 30 years ago, using simulations and realising just how valuable they are in avoiding mistakes and bringing people on board with exactly what you are proposing.

Therefore, they have the potential to reduce costly mistakes in the planning process, deliver infrastructure that is better, more adaptive and more resilient and, as Members have commented, bring residents and others on board because they can see what is there. They would also, I hope, allow developers to modify their plans to reflect what the public want because it can be done so much more easily through a model.

This technology is moving at pace, as are other technologies such as AI, and it is therefore likely that legislation will be required in future to keep pace with changes. Ensuring that the law remains sufficiently flexible and future-proof and does not inhibit development is going to be important, as is how this is integrated into the planning system as opposed to being a stand-alone, nice little model that you look at. If we are going to look at amendments and how changes can be made, we have to think about whether that means we need to produce a volume of paper documents or whether there is some output that we can integrate. It is a complex issue that we need more thought on, but it is a great opportunity. How do the Government intend to ensure that this planning law evolves, and how can it be integrated so that planners are able to realise the full potential of technology? I look forward to hearing the Minister’s reply.

[Lord Wilson of Sedgefield (Lab)]

I thank noble Lords for their contributions to this debate. I also thank the noble Baroness, Lady Miller, for her amendments relating to modelling and simulation technologies and commend her forbearance for waiting this long to get to this important group of amendments. I thank the noble Viscount, Lord Hanworth, for his tour de force on the use of twin modelling. I also thank the noble Lords, Lord Lucas, Lord Cromwell, Lord Teverson and Lord Jameson, for their welcome comments.

Amendment 107 seeks to require applications for development consent orders to provide and publish a digital twin model as part of the consultation process. This digital model would need to meet building information modelling level 3. We agree that there is great potential in the development of new technologies, such as digital twin modelling, to support the planning system. The Prime Minister recently recognised the great achievements of planning AI exemplars in speeding up the planning system in local authorities. We also recognise that the use of digital twin modelling could make the potential benefits and impacts of a large-scale infrastructure project more accessible and transparent to the communities affected.

While there is great potential here, we do not think it is proportionate to require it of every applicant at this stage. The purpose of this Bill is to speed up the process by which nationally significant infrastructure projects are consented to deliver the infrastructure this country needs. Requiring digital twin modelling at an early stage in a project’s design is likely to add cost and delay for applicants, particularly given that schemes are likely to change during the pre-application stage.

As noble Lords will be aware, the Bill also removes the statutory requirement to consult before an application is submitted to the Planning Inspectorate. If the Government wish to mandate this innovation on applications in future, they already have the power to do so. The Levelling-up and Regeneration Act gives the Secretary of State, and by extension the Planning Inspectorate, powers to request additional digital products when applicants submit applications.

Amendments 195, 196, 198 and 199 would provide development corporations with the power to undertake modelling and simulation to building information modelling level 3 standards in order to evaluate the impact of the activities. As noble Lords will be aware, development corporations deliver large-scale development and infrastructure projects that take years to deliver. We expect robust and up-to-date modelling and simulation to be undertaken by development corporations to plan and deliver each stage.

However, we believe these amendments to be unnecessary. Development corporations already have broad-ranging powers to do anything that is necessary to achieve their objectives. There is therefore no legislative bar to development corporations undertaking this level of modelling and simulation. None the less, where appropriate we encourage development corporations to make good use of digital tools to promote greater information sharing and collaboration across the projects they deliver. I therefore kindly ask the noble Baroness to withdraw her amendment.

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Flooding causes immense distress. It is not just the year it takes for a house to dry out or the stench that lingers long after; it is the mental toll of the trauma, the fear every time the rain falls harder than usual and the sheer impossibility of selling or insuring a home that has suffered from repeated floods. The Bill, as it stands, seems silent on these matters. If we are serious about building homes that are safe, resilient and insurable, the amendments in this group are really important. For the sake of millions of families and millions more in decades to come, as we face up to the tragic reality of the climate emergency, I ask the Government to take this opportunity in the Bill for flooded communities right now and for the ones, I am afraid, that we will see in the future.

[Lord Jamieson (Con)]

My Lords, I will discuss the serious issue of flooding risks. I thank my noble friend Lady McIntosh of Pickering and the noble Baroness, Lady Grender, for their hard work and amendments to the Bill, which I shall discuss in further detail in a moment.

Flooding threatens our communities and livelihoods with increasing frequency and severity. As the noble Baroness, Lady Grender, mentioned, some 6.3 million properties in England are located in areas at risk of flooding from rivers, the sea or surface water. I am experiencing—and I am sure others have experienced this as local councillors—ever-increasing incidences of flooding on our patches.

Flooding negatively impacts many aspects of people’s lives. The noble Baroness, Lady Grender, mentioned some examples, and I can attest to examples in my own area and to seeing people flooded out of their homes two or three times in the space of three or four years. It upsets their health, finances and mental health. Can the Government confirm that protecting communities most at risk of flooding is a priority for them?

My noble friend Lady McIntosh of Pickering has rightly tabled Amendments 108, 109, 155 and 156 to help ensure that the consideration of flood risk is not overlooked in the planning permission decisions. We support her in her objectives and hope the Government will take this issue with the seriousness it deserves.

I also thank the noble Baroness, Lady Grender, for her Amendments 135B and 135C, on having regard to a development’s impact on the flooding and flood resilience in the broader area. There are, however, concerns regarding the potential scope and practicality of the broader point of assessing the impact on climate resilience.

On Amendment 227A and the incorporation of flood resilience in new buildings, this should be done on a risk-based approach. As we enter the autumn and winter months, it is imperative that the Government are well prepared for the flood risks soon to be faced by millions up and down this country. What procedures do the Government have in place to fulfil their duty of ensuring that strategic flood-risk assessments are up to date? Can the Minister take this opportunity to assure noble Lords that the Government’s flood preparedness is adequate and that Ministers stand ready to implement flood recovery measures rapidly where flooding occurs?

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Baronesses, Lady McIntosh of Pickering and Lady Grender, for their amendments on flood risk and resilience in the planning system. I also thank many Members of this Chamber. The noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh, and I had lots of discussion about flooding during the passage of the levelling-up Bill. I know that lots of Members in this House worked very hard to draw these risks to the attention of the House and the wider public.

I agree with what the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh, said about the devastation that it causes. I visited Calderdale—I was doing a peer review there—very shortly after the terrible flooding that the area experienced in 2020. The impact of that was still very live; in fact, some of the shops were still shut because they were still damp. One thing that particularly struck me was that the only way of communicating during that flood, which, from memory, happened over the Christmas period, was to go back to pinning notices on the village noticeboard, because all the infrastructure—IT and everything—had gone down. They could not use phones and could not travel, so they were pinning notices on the old village noticeboard. These are terrible events.

The amendments raise very important issues about how we plan for and mitigate the impacts of flooding, particularly in the context of climate change. I can assure all noble Lords—the noble Lord, Lord Jamieson, specifically asked me the question—that the Government take these issues very seriously. We are acutely aware of the misery, disruption and costs that arise from flooding, of the increased risk associated with climate change, and of the need to maintain a robust approach to managing these risks. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Jamieson: we cannot overestimate the impact not just of flooding itself, which is awful, but of the fear of flooding when people live in properties subject to it. My area is not flood-prone, but we occasionally get flash floods when there is a big storm, which causes water ingress to people’s properties. I remember talking to a constituent about their terrible fear. As soon as it started to rain quite heavily, they would worry that it would happen again. How much worse that must be if you live in a flood-prone area, I can only imagine. It is not just the flooding itself; it is the fear of floods that impacts people.

The noble Baronesses, Lady McIntosh and Lady Bennett, mentioned the work being done by the Environment Agency. It has commissioned an independent review of property flood resilience. It is not just an untargeted review of this, but a specific review around property flood resilience. The review will seek to identify current gaps and opportunities to grow the property flood resilience market, resulting in a new action plan. That review will report to the Environment Agency and Defra in autumn 2025.

I think it was the noble Baroness, Lady Willis, who referred to the investment the Government are putting into flood resilience and maintaining flood defences. She is correct: we are investing £2.65 billion over two years—that is, 2024-25 and 2025-26—to build and maintain defences. That includes an additional £108 million that we are reprioritising into asset maintenance, ensuring that an additional 14,500 properties will have their expected level of protection maintained or restored. I repeat that because it shows, I hope, that the Government take these issues seriously.

Amendment 108 proposes a statutory ban on residential development in areas that fall within flood zone 3. Although we fully recognise the importance of directing development away from areas at the highest risk of flooding, this amendment would prevent development in large urban areas already protected by robust flood defences. For example, significant parts of Hull and central London lie within flood zone 3 but benefit from engineered flood protection. Under this amendment, development in these areas would be prohibited, even where it can be made safe for its lifetime and does not increase flood risk elsewhere.

The National Planning Policy Framework already includes strong protections which make it clear that inappropriate development in areas at risk of flooding should be avoided by directing development away from areas at highest risk, including flood plains. I understand the scepticism of the noble Baroness, Lady Willis, about the NPPF, but I do not think that any planning inspector would accept a local plan submitted by a local authority that did not conform with the NPPF in terms of placing houses in flood risk areas, unless significant mitigation measures were put in place to prevent flooding.

Our policy means that new housing and most other forms of development are not appropriate in a functional flood plain where water has to flow or, importantly—the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh, mentioned this—be stored in times of flood. Where development is permitted, it must be demonstrated that it will be safe for its lifetime, taking account of the vulnerability of its users.

I turn to Amendment 109, which proposes mandating property flood-resilience measures in all new homes at high risk of flooding, and Amendment 227A, which proposes introducing a requirement for specific flood-resilience features in all new homes. Improving resilience in properties subject to flood risk is an important objective. Reflecting this, the building regulations already support flood-resilient construction in areas at risk of flooding, while ensuring that properties that do not require further flood-resilience measures are not burdened with unnecessary costs. Requiring flood-resilient construction for all new dwellings would be disproportionate, given that many are located outside areas of current or projected flood risk. Designers of new homes may also choose to follow the Construction Industry Research and Information Association code of practice, which includes installing flood-resilient features.

I turn now to Amendments 135B and 135C, which would require local planning authorities to assess both the flood and climate resilience impacts of developments and whether a development could increase flood risk to neighbouring land, alongside introducing an annual reporting duty for the Secretary of State. Assessing the flood risk implications of development, as well as climate mitigation and adaptation more broadly, is already a requirement under the National Planning Policy Framework. The framework is clear that for development to be acceptable it should not increase flood risk elsewhere and should be safe for its lifetime if located in an area where flood risk exists.

Similarly, Amendment 155 seeks to place other aspects of national flood risk policy on a statutory basis—namely, the sequential and exception tests. We can agree about the importance of these policies, but it is important that policy on complex issues such as flood risk is capable of being adjusted as new evidence and issues arise. As I mentioned—I will mention it again—the National Planning Policy Framework plays a powerful role in the planning system. Both plan makers and planning decisions must have regard to it. It is not guidance in the usual sense of the word; it is a very clear part of the statutory planning process. These amendments would not only replicate this but introduce unhelpful inflexibility in our ability to keep policy under review.

The proposed reporting requirement set out in Amendment 135C would also impose a significant reporting obligation on the Government. Local planning authorities are already responsible for ensuring compliance with planning permissions and conditions, including monitoring and taking enforcement action if necessary.

Finally, Amendment 156 on strategic flood risk assessment maps would require local authorities to ensure that their maps are based on the most up-to-date data from the Environment Agency. This is already expected practice. Local authorities are required to use the latest available data when preparing strategic flood risk assessments, and the Environment Agency regularly updates its flood-mapping tools. Mandating updates in statute could impose administrative and financial burdens, particularly for smaller authorities.

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[Lord Jamieson (Con)]

My Lords, I will speak briefly to Amendment 113, tabled by my noble friend Lord Lucas, which raises an important and thought-provoking issue that merits the attention of your Lordships’ Committee and the Government’s consideration.

Amendment 113 concerns the use of termite-resistant wood in new-build homes. My noble friend Lord Lucas draws attention to the risks that they pose. Although historically more common in warmer climates, they may become prevalent here as our own climate changes and, as he mentioned, as they inevitably move further northwards from France. The damage that termites can inflict on timber structures is both severe and costly. In regions where infestations have taken hold, the consequences for home owners, insurers and local authorities have been profound. As temperatures rise, it is only prudent to consider the resilience of our housing stock to such emerging risks.

While I will not take a definitive position on the amendment, I commend my noble friend for raising these matters. They speak to the broader challenge of building homes that are not only fit for purpose today but resilient to the demands of tomorrow. I look forward to hearing the Minister’s response on how the Government intend to engage on this important issue.

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

My Lords, I am very grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, for tabling Amendment 113. He is right that I was not intimately acquainted with the procedure of termites in France. However, I do now know far more about the house longhorn beetle than I have ever known, and I will continue to look at this issue.

The noble Lord may have been in the Chamber on Monday when we were discussing wood being used in construction. I mentioned an office development I visited, which is just across the river from Parliament, and which makes extensive use of wood in its construction. We will see more of that; wood is a good building material and developments such as that are good uses of wood. It is therefore very important that we take these matters extremely seriously.

The noble Lord’s amendment seeks to prevent planning authorities from granting planning permission for new-build homes if timber construction products specified at planning stages are not termite resistant. Fortunately for us, termites are not endemic to the UK. Even though an infestation was recorded in the 1990s, that was subject to a successful eradication programme.

While I appreciate the noble Lord’s intention, the Building Regulations, rather than the planning system, are the appropriate way of establishing minimum legal requirements in the design of new building work. The sanitary arrangements we have in place to regulate timber imports allow us to remain vigilant. The Government take the view that mandating termite resistance in any wood used for construction materials in new-build homes would be a disproportionate measure, leading to an increased cost for developers and consumers, and adding to local planning authority burdens. However, if a threat were to emerge, guidance on timber products for new development and suitable wood treatments could be included in Approved Document A, which accompanies the Building Regulations for structure.

I hope I have given some reassurance to the noble Lord; nevertheless, I ask him to withdraw his amendment.

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Amendment 114 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Inglewood, which my noble friend Lady Pinnock has signed, has the support of these Benches. I look the forward to the Minister’s response.

[Lord Jamieson (Con)]

My Lords, I shall speak to Amendments 114, 118 and 119, tabled, respectively, by the noble Lord, Lord Inglewood, and the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, and introduced so ably by their deputies—sorry, substitutes. These amendments seek to improve the quality and accountability of consultation within the planning system. Amendment 114 seeks to make the Gardens Trust a statutory consultee for developments affecting historic parks and gardens. These are not just green spaces; they are vital heritage assets, and their protection should be part of the planning process.

Amendment 118 seeks to require pre-application consultation with the emergency services where developments may affect their operations. Too often, the fire and ambulance services are brought in too late, after issues arise, not before.

Finally, Amendment 119 addresses a more systemic issue: the need for meaningful consultation with communities. It would require the Secretary of State to consider how developers have engaged with local people before accepting applications for development consent. The message is clear: consultation should be early, serious and able to influence outcomes. It should not be just a tick-box exercise.

The role of a statutory consultee is important in the planning process, and it is right that appropriate bodies are consulted. However, it is also important that their responses are timely and pragmatic and do not unduly delay the planning process. Expanding the list of consultees may be justified but we must at all times have an eye on the risks of delay and overburdensome rules in the planning system, too.

Ultimately, these amendments are about restoring public confidence. When people feel genuinely listened to, development is not only more likely to succeed but more likely to be supported. Relationship building is intrinsic to successful planning. This helps everyone: communities, planners and developers alike. I look forward to the Minister’s response.

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lords who tabled these important amendments and their two substitutes for speaking to them. I thank all noble Lords for their patience in a very long Thursday Bill session; I am grateful to them all.

Amendments 114 and 118, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Inglewood, and the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, seek to designate the Gardens Trust and the emergency services as statutory consultees within the planning system. I begin by acknowledging the contributions these organisations already make across a range of functions. When you have been involved in planning, you know how important that expert advice is on significant environmental, transport, safety and heritage issues to make sure that we end up with good decision-making.

However, on 26 January the Chancellor announced a pause in the introduction of new statutory consultees, pending a broader review of the current framework. The Housing Minister subsequently issued a Written Ministerial Statement on 10 March, setting out the Government’s intention to reform the system to ensure that statutory consultees can provide timely and expert advice that supports high-quality development. The Government will be consulting on those proposed reforms shortly.

The Statement also set out our intention to consult on the impact of removing certain statutory consultees, including the Gardens Trust. This reflects a desire to streamline processes and address duplication, as Historic England already holds statutory responsibilities for higher-graded parks and gardens. This is a consultation only, and no decision will be made until we have fully considered the feedback on potential impacts.

The Government also intend to consult on their approach to the introduction of new statutory consultees, recognising that risks and responsibilities of course evolve over time. This consultation will reflect the fact that there must be a high bar to creating new statutory consultees if we are to avoid exacerbating current issues of uncertainty, bureaucracy and delay. We should be requiring consultation on a case-by-case basis only if it is not possible to address matters strategically. Input is often effectively secured through local plans, including engagement with the emergency services, such as designing out crime; and where case-by-case engagement is warranted, local authorities already have the discretion to consult these bodies on a non-statutory basis.

Furthermore, in considering potential additions to the list of statutory consultees, it is essential that the roles of existing statutory consultees should not be duplicated, and that functions already addressed through other regimes, such as building regulations, should not be duplicated either. The fire and rescue service, for instance, already must be consulted on relevant plans as part of the building safety regulations, while the Building Safety Regulator oversees and approves work for high-risk buildings. Meanwhile, the Health and Safety Executive operates a hazardous substance licensing regime and is a statutory consultee on development applications which may be impacted by this.

Finally, although we deeply value the insights provided by a wide range of organisations during public consultations, statutory consultee status carries with it a legal obligation to respond within prescribed timeframes. That is a very significant responsibility, and sometimes even existing consultees—sometimes even upper-tier councils if you are in a district council—face challenges in meeting the requirements. For this reason, we believe the threshold for granting such status must remain appropriately high.

As I have set out, we intend to consult on these matters soon. If decisions are taken to introduce new statutory consultees, this can be done through secondary legislation under existing powers.

Amendment 119 proposes that the Secretary of State consider how community consultation has been carried out when deciding whether an NSIP application should be accepted for examination. It suggests specifically that the Secretary of State must consider whether the application has sought to resolve issues, enabled interested parties to influence the project during the early phases, obtained relevant information about the locality, and enabled appropriate mitigation through consultation.

We agree that engaging communities can support applicants to improve their applications by enabling them to identify issues important to the local community, to understand the likely impacts of the scheme, and to consider potential mitigations. However, as we have seen over our time debating these clauses, we know that the existing statutory tests related to consultation do not achieve that in a proportionate way.

We know this because evidence shows that existing statutory pre-application consultation requirements, the scale and specificity of which have been unique to the NSIP regime, have led to unintended consequences. Developers, keen to avoid risk, produce overly complex documentation aimed more at legal compliance than genuine engagement. They are reluctant to adapt their plans in response to feedback, fearing that they will need to reconsult if they do so, which slows down delivery and drives up costs—which in turn frustrates the UK’s ability to plan and deliver essential infrastructure.

I remind the Committee that, since 2013, the pre-application stage has doubled in length. Our proposals could save businesses up to £1 billion over the lifetime of this Parliament by reducing delays across projects. That is why we have proposed removing statutory consultation requirements at the pre-application stage, including the adequacy of consultation test in Section 55 of the Planning Act 2008. Instead, we are introducing a clearer, more practical acceptance test: is the application suitable to proceed to examination?

This new test allows the Secretary of State to make a balanced judgment about the quality of the application and recognises that the NSIP planning process is a continuum from pre-application through to decision. I reassure the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, that the changes that the Government are proposing do not undermine the importance of consultation and engagement on applications, as my honourable friend Matthew Pennycook made clear in his ministerial Statement on 23 April. Applications are unlikely to be of sufficient quality to be granted consent if meaningful engagement has not been undertaken on them.

Instead of statutory requirements, the Government have now issued a consultation on guidance which will seek to help applicants understand what good engagement looks like. That consultation is open until 27 October, and we are looking forward to receiving responses. The Planning Inspectorate’s advice will also continue to emphasise the value of early issue resolution. With those reassurances, I hope that the noble Lord will feel able to withdraw the amendment.

Local Audit (Amendment of Definition of Smaller Authority) Regulations 2025

Lord Jamieson Excerpts

Wednesday 3rd September 2025 Grand Committee

[Lord Shipley (LD)]

I thank the noble Lord for that intervention. It may be that RPI is the right way of doing it. I do not know why he took RPI there and not CPI. However, the issue is: why, in fact, are the Government not going to peg the £15 million to inflation? At what point will that figure then be adjusted because inflation continues to rise? We have to have a debate about that fact, but I thank the noble Lord, Lord Fuller, for explaining the RPI figures since 2014. Clearly, it may be that £15 million is the correct figure, but I would like to know what assessment the department has made of the implications of that figure on the number of local authorities that will be taken out of the full audit requirement?

[Lord Jamieson (Con)]

My Lords, again, I raise my interest as a councillor in central Bedfordshire, which, just being slightly boastful, is a council that for the 10 years I was leader had its accounts audited and signed off every year within the deadline and was one of the few councils to do so.

I am grateful to the Minister for introducing this statutory instrument. The instrument raises the threshold, as has been discussed, to £15 million in annual income or expenditure. Public bodies below this will no longer need to have the full audit and can follow the streamlined annual governance and accountability return—AGAR—process.

This reform is in response to the long-standing and well documented challenges that England’s local audit system faces. It is worth noting that this is not a new policy initiative. The foundations were laid under the previous Conservative Government, who published the consultation in December 2024, setting out proposals to overhaul the local audit framework. The consultation highlighted widespread concerns around audit capacity proportionality and long-term sustainability. A formal response was subsequently published on 9 April 2025. I ask the Minister to update the Committee on progress towards implementing the remaining elements of this broader strategy.

We believe that the instrument before us is a pragmatic and proportionate reform. It recognises that many smaller authorities do not carry the same level of financial risk as larger bodies and should not be burdened with audit requirements that are both costly and unnecessary where they are unnecessary.

The Government have suggested that this change will ease the financial and administrative burden on smaller authorities, reduce the pressure on the over- stretched audit market and allow scarce audit resources to be better focused on higher-risk councils where scrutiny is most urgently needed. We note that 55% of the consultation respondents supported raising the threshold, indicating that the proposal carries a degree of support from within the sector itself.

In closing, I would be grateful if the Minister could address a few further points. First, what safeguards are in place to ensure that smaller authorities, no longer subject to the full audit, continue to operate with high standards of financial transparency and sound governance, which I think addresses the point that the noble Lord, Lord Sikka, was raising? While £15 million is a sensible threshold, will other factors be taken into account, such as the debt levels of councils? A council that is heavily in debt, even if it is just below the £15 million threshold, is clearly at much higher risk than one that is just above it and has no debt.

Secondly, will the department be issuing updated guidance to support these authorities as they continue using the AGAR framework? As my noble friend Lord Fuller mentioned, are there other consequences that are not in this paper, and that are coming as a change to this definition, that we are not considering today and should be considered?

Finally, can the Minister provide an update on the progress of the wider local audit reform programme, as set out in December 2024? In particular, will she address the issues of proportionality, risk-based accounting and focusing that limited resource on higher-risk areas and not on low-risk, bureaucratic processes?

I have one other question; I apologise. Can the Minister update the Committee on how the Government are addressing the shortage of local government audit practitioners?

These are my last few sentences. We support this instrument in principle. It is a sensible step forward towards a more proportionate, risk-based local audit regime. However, I raise those various issues. We need to ensure that there is robust oversight, transparency and regular review, to ensure that public accountability is not diminished in the process.

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank all noble Lords who have contributed to this interesting debate. As noble Lords will know, I spent a lot of time on the same board that the noble Lord, Lord Fuller, sat on: the LGA Resources Board.

We have talked a lot about the history of the abolition of the Audit Commission. I do not think that any of us want to go back down that route. Although the steps that were taken were taken with good intent and might have driven down costs, the complexity of local government audit was, I think, underestimated. We ended up in a situation where we had a significant backlog of audits and where some of the smaller local authorities were subject to what the noble Lord, Lord Jamieson, referred to as unnecessary bureaucracy and financial reporting. That did not help anybody, which is why the Government are firmly committed to bringing forward reform of the local audit system more generally. Much of that is contained in the English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill. I hope—indeed, I am sure—that we will have some more interesting discussions on the wider issues around audit during the passage of that Bill.

I will pick up some of the points that have been made here today. Nobody wants to see audit improve more than I do. The importance of reassuring local people that their councils are operating in a financially sound manner cannot be underestimated; that is vital, so we want to see it working well.

On my noble friend Lord Sikka’s comments, there is significant provision for this smaller authority audit regime to continue to provide transparency to the public, through the annual governance and accountability return, and for authorities under the £15 million threshold. We believe that this is both proportionate and sufficient. The regime still includes requirements for transparency, public inspection rights and the ability of local electors to raise concerns with external auditors. Local electors will retain the right to inspect accounts and raise their concerns; this will ensure that public oversight and accountability are still there even when those full audits are no longer required.

I think that my noble friend’s points about the oversight bodies will be more usefully discussed when we discuss the wider audit picture. I understand the points that he makes and I am sure that we will have those discussions in due course; I am grateful for his contribution.

The noble Lord, Lord Fuller, spoke about the audit failings with which anyone in local government is very familiar. I will start with his comments about proportionality; I will come on to the issues around authorities in a moment.

The way that this will work is that, if district or higher-tier councils fall below the new threshold, they will become a smaller authority for that year. In the following two years, even if it goes over the threshold in those two years, the department will work with any affected authorities to agree what the appropriate approach should be. By avoiding unnecessary financial reporting and audit costs, those smaller councils will be able to focus their money on where it matters most: supporting local communities and delivering essential services.

The noble Lord raised the important point about council tax capping in those small authorities. It is not intended that these regulations will be in any way related to the council tax capping regime. They are simply about determining financial reporting assurance and the audit regime requirements for local authorities. That is the intent.

The noble Lord raised the Broads Authority. I refer to my previous comments about public scrutiny. Obviously, the governance of the Broads Authority is for the electorate to determine, eventually.

The noble Lord asked whether the definition would cap smaller towns at a 5% council tax cap. I hope that what I have said makes it clear that this regime is not linked to the council tax capping regime, so there should not be an impact on that.

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[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

It is not usual to have an impact statement for an instrument such as this. There will be an impact statement for the Bill, of course, when it comes forward with the local audit office proposals. However, I can tell my noble friend that the assurance reviews to which smaller authorities are subject cost between £210 and £3,780.

On principal audits, anyone who has been part of a local authority knows that when the audit bill comes in every year, it is a significant cost to the local authority. It can range from £70,000 to more than £1 million. My local authority is a relatively small authority in Hertfordshire but, when I stepped down from it, the bill was already well over £130,000. That is an enormous cost on the taxpayer. If it is not proportionate and necessary, we should be taking that burden away from council tax payers and letting local authorities spend that money on the services that they need. I hope that partial response to my noble friend’s question helps.

The noble Lord, Lord Jamieson, asked whether debt levels will be taken into account. I feel fairly sure that the AGAR guidelines will include a way of determining whether the debt levels of an authority require additional attention to be drawn to that authority. I will come back to the noble Lord on that in writing because it is important. As we know, even relatively small authorities have seen significant debt levels in recent times, so that is an important issue, and I thank him for raising it.

The noble Lord asked about the publication of the AGAR guidelines. Again, I am pretty sure we will have guidelines on that, but I will respond more fully in writing, if that is okay.

I hope that I have picked up all noble Lords’ questions.

[Lord Jamieson (Con)]

There was one more, which was about addressing the shortage of local authority auditors.

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

The uncertainty around this in the past couple of years has not helped. Once the English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill goes through, and it is very clear to everybody what the approach to local audit will be, we will work closely with the sector to ensure that we are developing the capacity in the workforce and the skills that we need to make sure that audit is carried out properly. I cannot emphasise enough my understanding of how important that is to reassure local people that their authorities are operating in a financially sound way, so I give the noble Lord my reassurance that I will be keeping a careful eye on that. I hope that the certainty that the Bill delivers on the local audit office proposals helps us to move that on.

In conclusion, these changes will support small authorities by ensuring appropriate governance and accountability without unnecessary burdens. They will help protect value for money and contribute to a more sustainable local audit system. The instrument delivers a clear benefit to smaller authorities by aligning audit requirements with the scale and risk of local authorities, ensuring that the local audit system is proportionate and efficient. I commend the regulations to the Committee.

Buckinghamshire Council, Surrey County Council and Warwickshire County Council (Housing and Regeneration Functions) Regulations 2025

Lord Jamieson Excerpts

Wednesday 3rd September 2025 Grand Committee

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (Baroness Taylor of Stevenage) (Lab)]

My Lords, these regulations were laid before the House on 9 June and provide for the implementation of the devolution deals confirmed on 6 March 2024 between the previous Government and the three councils concerned. This Government have shown their commitment to devolution, moving power from the centre and into the hands of local communities. In May 2025, all three councils consented to the making of this instrument.

If Parliament approves them, the regulations will be made under the enabling provision in the Cities and Local Government Devolution Act 2016. The provisions of the regulations will come into force on the day after the day the regulations are made. The regulations confer housing and regeneration functions on the respective councils, as set out in their devolution agreements. As required, alongside the regulations, we have laid a Section 17(6) report providing details about the public authority functions being devolved to the councils.

Additional funding will be available to the three areas through the adult skills fund, to be devolved to the councils from the 2026-27 academic year, alongside education and skills functions. The Department for Education will work with the councils to support their preparations and aid their meeting the necessary readiness criteria. The Government will legislate in due course, when the Secretary of State for Education is assured that the councils are operationally ready and is satisfied that the required statutory tests have been met in each area.

In December 2024, the three councils submitted supporting information on their potential use of the proposed functions. For this, they had engaged with local stakeholders, which showed local support for the conferral of the new functions upon each of these councils. In laying this instrument before Parliament, the Secretary of State is satisfied that the statutory tests in the 2016 Act are met; namely, that the making of the regulations is likely to improve the economic, social and environmental well-being of some or all of the people who live or work in the relevant local authorities’ areas.

To conclude, these regulations will move forward this Government’s agenda of English devolution, empowering local leaders to make decisions that will benefit their communities. I extend my thanks to the local leaders and their councils for their hard work and the vital role that they play in making this critical mission a reality in their areas. I hope that noble Lords will join me in supporting the draft regulations, which I commend to the Committee. I beg to move.

[Lord Jamieson (Con)]

My Lords, I refer to my interest as a councillor in central Bedfordshire. I support this statutory instrument, which confers housing and regeneration functions upon Buckinghamshire Council, Surrey County Council and Warwickshire County Council, to be exercised concurrently with Homes England. This instrument follows the level 2 devolution framework arrangements made in March 2024 between the previous Conservative Government and the three local authorities, as the Minister has rightly outlined.

The regulations grant a suite of powers relating to housing and regeneration. Specifically, they enable councils to take on responsibility for the provision of housing, regeneration of land and infrastructure, and the acquisition and disposal of land. These are important functions previously held by Homes England. As a councillor and ex-council leader, I know how doing this locally is so much better than doing it nationally. It allows things to be done in a way that delivers better outcomes for residents, frequently at lower cost.

We on these Benches support these measures and welcome the Government’s continued commitment to advancing devolution in these areas. The statutory instrument, as the Minister has already laid out, honours the agreement made in good faith by local leaders under the previous Government and reflects what we hope will remain a shared cross-party commitment to empowering local communities to shape their own future.

In the cases of Surrey and Warwickshire, the inclusion of a safeguard requiring district council consent for the use of compulsory purchase orders under the Housing and Regeneration Act 2008 is a particularly welcome provision. It recognises the reality of two-tier local government in those areas and helps preserve the principle of local democratic accountability. We welcome the Minister’s confirmation that these powers cannot be exercised without that consent.

We are also mindful that these arrangements come at a time of wider transition in the local government landscape. As the Government prepare to introduce the English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill, we would welcome clarity in due course on how existing level 2 agreements, such as those we are discussing today, will align with any new combined authority or mayoral structures that may follow in these areas.

In conclusion, we believe that this statutory instrument is a positive and practical step. It strengthens local leadership and provides councils with important tools to deliver housing, regenerate communities and respond to local priorities. It is right that we uphold the commitments made through the devolution framework agreements; we are pleased to support the implementation of this measure today.

Planning and Infrastructure Bill

Lord Jamieson Excerpts

Committee stage
Monday 1st September 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Coffey (Con)]

My Lords, we are in the final stretch, and I will not be at all insulted if people choose to vacate at this stage of proceedings, recognising that we are past the usual hour. But the future of energy infrastructure matters. It matters where it is in the country; it matters for national security. That is why I have tabled Amendment 94C.

It is no secret to those people who have been in this Chamber or the Moses Room when I have talked about energy that I have recognised that part of Suffolk has a huge number of NSIPs relating to energy. I will talk about various issues in the three different groups; I have done this somewhat deliberately to try to make sure that Ministers and officials from each of the different departments really consider what they are signing up to and what is happening with the progress of electricity infrastructure across this country.

I am not in any denial that we need to consider carefully the transition to a different sort of grid. This needs to be considered carefully in recognising what is happening on concentration. In about 10 years’ time, it may have gone down a little, but about 30% of the country’s electricity will be generated in quite a small part of the country or it will act as the host point for interconnection from the continent. That will be concentrated in an area not of 50 square miles, as I referred to in my amendment, but considerably smaller. That is happening through the continuing generation of Sizewell B, the future generation of Sizewell C and interconnectors coming in at various points along the Suffolk coast—interconnectors to the continent and to the offshore wind farms that are already operational and currently being expanded.

One of my concerns—I appreciate that this is another issue of which I never managed to persuade my former colleagues, but I am hoping that the Government will listen—is that it is a huge matter of national security that we are concentrating so much of the energy in this country in a very small part geographically. I will not call that overemphasis a sitting duck, because I am very conscious of all the security that goes into nuclear power stations and the like, but it is an overconcentration. We think about the impact that a breakdown of resilience can have, and it could end up depriving the rest of the country of desperately needed energy.

It is for that reason I genuinely believe that, strategically, the Government should be thinking about spreading our principal electricity generation around the country. I will come to other reasons why I think the cumulation does not help, but it is that sort of threat which we should be considering right now. I am aware of the concerns in continental Europe about the deployment of certain grades of weapons by foreign actors. I am aware of the risk that has to be monitored and assessed, and we should be doing that in this country as well. That is why I genuinely believe the Government should reconsider their accumulation of projects and be far more strategic in where all these different energy sources are being placed in the country.

To that end, I believe that we should be looking to reflect the fact that we have opportunities in different parts of the country where, by the way, the Government already have land—they do not need to acquire more land. Too often, it is the Ministry of Defence refusing to take on some of these projects, because it wants to do various practices and different things like that. At the same time, plenty of agriculture is being sacrificed, but I am conscious we have already had that debate, so I do not want to dwell on it.

It is for those reasons I hoped that, by tabling this simple amendment, DESNZ would consider, with other parts of government, whether it is really treading down the right path in concentrating energy production and whether it should be more strategic in its thinking. With that, I beg to move.

[Lord Jamieson (Con)]

My Lords, I thank my noble friend Lady Coffey for bringing this matter to the attention of the Committee, in particular the issue of concentration of power supply and potential implications. This amendment would limit the consent for electricity infrastructure within a 50-square mile area where the cumulative capacity is more than 10% of the country’s total. This raises several important questions for the Government. What assessment has been made of the cumulative impacts on a local area already hosting significant infrastructure? Additionally, how will fairness between different regions be measured and maintained? What mechanisms are in place to prevent overconcentration in certain areas at the expense of others, given, as my noble friend mentioned, the potential strategic risks to the country? I look forward to the Minister’s reply.

[Lord Khan of Burnley (Lab)]

My Lords, Amendment 94C, tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Coffey, would create a new local area test, designed to limit the consenting of electricity infrastructure by reference to a percentage of the national total. In other words, it is addressed at the overconcentration of infrastructure in particular places.

The Government agree with the noble Baroness that the siting of electricity infrastructure should be considered carefully. While the Government are taking a strategic view, they are doing so via the strategic spatial energy plan and the centralised strategic network plan, due for publication by the end of 2026 and 2027 respectively.

It is unclear how exactly the amendment is intended to work in practice, given the complications of concepts such as cumulative capacity. It is not in the national interest for individual applications to be assessed or prevented by reference to a subjective threshold. They must be judged on the need case for the infrastructure weighed against local impacts, and that is precisely what the current system achieves. For projects designated as nationally significant, known as NSIPs, there is already a national policy statement, approved by Parliament, which sets out in detail the need case for this infrastructure and all the considerations that must be applied when consenting it.

This amendment would add further complexity to the consenting system, which could lead to a slowing down of the decision-making process for low-carbon and electricity infrastructure projects, which are crucial for this country—although, in practice, the threshold of 10% of the entire country’s electricity capacity is so high that it is highly unlikely that any project would in fact reach such a threshold.

The Government agree that infrastructure planning should have a special element. The strategic special energy plan will support a more actively planned approach to energy infrastructure across England, Scotland and Wales, land and sea, between 2030 and 2050. It will do this by assessing and identifying the optimal locations, quantities and types of energy infrastructure required for generation and storage to meet our future energy demand with the clean, affordable and secure supply that we need.

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[Baroness Coffey (Con)]

I specifically wanted to speak to the funding of issues such as energy projects. This issue, probably more than anything else—perhaps the fact that the national grid is part-owned by American private equity owners may wind people up a little bit more—is the one that, fundamentally, makes communities around the country, and I have seen it much more locally, consider the planning system, when it comes to energy projects, a complete and utter joke.

It is already decided, regardless of what happens in the planning system, that these projects will go ahead. It does not matter if they do not quite fit the planning law, because a few tweaks could potentially be made. It does not matter what the community thinks. It does not matter what Parliament thinks, because Ofgem has already made the decisions and determinations that these projects can go ahead and money can start being spent on them before planning has even started.

I give your Lordships the example of Norwich to Tilbury. Ofgem came up with its early construction funding in April 2025. Its planning submission was submitted only on Friday. Sea Link, a project that I will continue to fight for as long as I can, had its ECF announcement made. Normally, Ofgem’s policy is that only 20% of the funding can be granted, in effect, through early construction funding. Ofgem has given 48% to the national grid—NGET—to proceed with Sea Link. Planning had to be delayed because there was an error in the planning process, so that got going only last month as well. This is what the people in communities in various parts of the country see. What is the point?

That is my huge frustration: in effect, there is a predetermination that planning applications are going to be made. I am still slightly surprised that people have not been successful in certain aspects of getting this JR-ed at some point. So here we are. We have projects going when they have barely started, or in some cases have not even started, the planning process.

I have proposed this new clause to restore some credibility to planning, to restore some credibility to the idea that it is not just a commercial deal or a done deal. Ofgem should be restrained from granting this sort of funding process until at least the planning document has been submitted and ideally been given consent. For what it is worth, a lot of this kind of scepticism would go away if there was a genuine belief that the planning system meant anything at all.

I am conscious that, to try to get to 2030 on this accelerated timetable, we need to get on with these projects. I have already referred to previous ones where planning processes are still under way when we have already reached the consented capacity for a series of energy projects, and yet they keep coming.

No wonder people are desperate and tabling JRs, or pre-action protocols and the like. They are so frustrated with a machinery that says, “Yeah, we’ll sort of do the basics, but it is done”. This is the reason that I felt particularly strongly and wanted to table Amendment 94D: just to be a voice for people who want to believe that our country respects law and respects that there is not a predetermination. God alone knows how many consultations I went through as a Secretary of State when I was told, “Be very careful, you can’t come to a predetermination in all of this”. Yet Ofgem, of course, gives the game away.

I will not say any more. To be candid, I do not expect a huge response from the Minister. I am not trying to be rude in advance; perhaps I am predetermining what I am expecting to hear. Nevertheless, I am saying this for people right across the country: let us do the right thing; let us make sure that we are not allowing money to be printed for developers who have not even started the actual planning process. I beg to move.

[Lord Jamieson (Con)]

My Lords, I rise briefly to talk to Amendment 94D, tabled in the name of my noble friend Lady Coffey. This amendment concerns constraints on grants delivered by the Gas and Electricity Markets Authority. I simply ask the Minister whether he can clarify how the Government intend to ensure that such grants are awarded in a way that is both transparent and consistent across different technologies. I look forward to the Minister’s response.

[Lord Khan of Burnley (Lab)]

My Lords, Amendment 94D tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Coffey, seeks to prohibit the Gas and Electricity Markets Authority—GEMA—from granting or considering early construction funding or accelerated strategic transmission investment unless planning consent has already been secured.

While I understand that network companies should not be given excessive funding for projects where procurement or construction costs are not yet incurred, I must urge noble Lords to consider the unintended consequences that this amendment would have for our energy infrastructure and our collective ambition to deliver a net zero-ready grid.

Let us be clear: the mechanisms in question, early construction funding and ASTI, are not blank cheques. They are carefully staged investments, including stages designed precisely to support the preparatory work that enables planning consent to be sought in the first place. This includes environmental assessments, route design, stakeholder engagement and technical feasibility studies. These are not luxuries; they are prerequisites for any responsible and successful planning application.

To deny access to funding before planning consent is granted creates a paradox. Planning consent cannot be obtained without preparatory work, and preparatory work cannot be funded without planning consent. This amendment risks trapping vital transmission projects in a bureaucratic cul-de-sac.

We are not debating theoretical infrastructure; we are talking about the backbone of our future clean energy system—projects that will connect offshore wind, solar and other renewables to homes and businesses across the country. These are the arteries of our economy. Delaying them risks not only our clean energy mission and net-zero commitment but the security and affordability of our energy and wider economic growth as grid capacity is needed to power new investments.

Moreover, GEMA already operates under a rigorous framework of accountability and oversight. Funding decisions are not made lightly; they are subject to scrutiny, cost-benefit analysis and alignment with strategic national priorities. To impose a statutory constraint at this stage would not enhance that process but hinder it. I therefore kindly ask the noble Baroness, Lady Coffey, to withdraw her amendment.

Voting at 16

Lord Jamieson Excerpts

Thursday 24th July 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Khan of Burnley (Lab)]

My Lords, I am going to repeat the answer I gave to my noble friend. Education in our schools is a vital part of implementing this policy. In relation to knowledge and skills, we will work with all stakeholders, including schools, colleges and universities, to ensure maximum participation. I never thought I would see the day when I would be advising a Lord Lieutenant.

[Lord Jamieson (Con)]

My Lords, will the Minister clarify at what age the Government consider someone to be an adult? Is it 17, when a person can apply for a provisional driving licence? Is it 18, when they can marry, stand for Parliament or get a tattoo? Is it 21, when they can adopt a child or apply for a provisional HGV licence? Or is it 16?

[Lord Khan of Burnley (Lab)]

My Lords, I am just going to repeat the fact that there are places, both across the United Kingdom—Scotland and Wales, the Isle of Man, Jersey and Guernsey—and other places such as Austria, where they have successfully lowered the voting age to 16. Let me repeat this very important point to the noble Lord: evidence from these places shows that those who vote at a younger age are more likely to continue voting as they get older. We have 16 year-olds serving in the British Army. Regardless of the difference in ages that the noble Lord cited, we want to make sure that we get long-term habits enabled and established with young people, since the evidence shows that, later in life, they will be more focused on taking part.

Planning and Infrastructure Bill

Lord Jamieson Excerpts

Committee stage
Thursday 17th July 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ravensdale (CB)]

My Lords, I support Amendment 8, in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Hunt of Kings Heath, to which I have added my name. I emphasise the points he made, in that I think the biggest risk with this Bill is that it will not deliver for large infrastructure, in the sense that it will not address the concerns around environmental regulation.

Part 3 is very well set up for housebuilding, but if we look at the high-profile issues with environmental regulation that we have seen with some of our large projects, such as the HS2 bat tunnel or the acoustic fish deterrent—the fish disco, as it is called—we find that those were all habitats issues that were uncovered when the developers started to assess the site and figure out how they were going to operate their specific piece of infrastructure. Those are not the kind of things that would have been addressed through the proposed environmental delivery plan mechanism or the nature restoration fund. It simply does not match up with the timescales of how the EDP process would work. That is something that we will come back to later in Committee.

However, there are some welcome things that the Government are looking at, and I welcome the amendment from the Government to remove the statutory requirement for a pre-application process on NSIPs. What the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, has proposed sits alongside that really well, in setting out maximum deadlines and no-response provisions. This measure would be helpful to emphasise that and help speed large infrastructure through the system by making it a statutory requirement.

[Lord Jamieson (Con)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Hunt of Kings Heath, for leading this group on national policy and for his advocation for speed and simplicity, taking away two of the points that I was about to make. This goes to the heart of what our planning system needs to have: clarity and speed. Policy needs to be clear and consistently implemented, so that developers, planners and local councils understand what is required and how decisions will be made in a way that reduces risk and cost to all parties, while being clear and transparent to the public.

On timeliness, projects need to move through the system efficiently and effectively so that they are delivered on time and to avoid unnecessary, costly delays. How does the Minister intend to provide further detail about the review of national policy statements and ensure that clarity, consistency and timeliness are truly embedded in that process?

Amendment 9, to which I have added my name, seeks to probe the meaning of “exceptional circumstances” in the context of reviewing or amending national policy. Its aim is to clarify the intent behind the term, while still ensuring that Ministers retain the flexibility that they need for genuine national emergencies. My concern is that an amendment to the national policy statement, as required by new subsection (5A), could be delayed if the threshold for what constitutes “exceptional circumstances” is vague. I would be grateful if the Minister could set out what she considers would fall within the scope of that phrase and whether the current wording risks introducing unnecessary uncertainty or even a shift in overall approach.

We need to strike a careful balance, avoiding the risk of judicial review while maintaining sufficient ministerial flexibility in genuine emergencies. Governments must be able to act swiftly when needed yet, if a decision is justified solely on the basis of exceptional circumstances, it becomes difficult to test or challenge that rationale. Courts often defer to such open-ended terms, which can weaken accountability, and your Lordships’ House may find it difficult to challenge the use of powers in this area. I would welcome reassurance from the Minister that the wording achieves the right balance.

Finally, I thank my noble friend Lady Coffey for her carefully considered and valuable contribution to this group. Her insight and experience will be vital in improving this Bill. In particular, I highlight Amendment 13 tabled by my noble friend. This amendment is vital, because it would preserve parliamentary accountability by requiring the Government to formally respond to any resolutions or recommendations from Select Committees. That, in turn, would help to clarify policy direction early, reduce uncertainty for developers and ensure timely engagement with concerns before they can cause delay. Stronger scrutiny at this stage can help catch potential issues before they escalate.

I also thank other noble Lords who have spoken in this debate—the noble Lords, Lord Hunt of Kings Heath, Lord Mawson and Lord Ravensdale—in particular on the continuing issue of EDPs and their fitness for purpose, and the role of Natural England, which is something that I am sure we will come back to again and, possibly, again.

The amendments we have just discussed are small but significant measures. I hope that the Minister can provide your Lordships with the answers to these questions and engage the knowledge the Committee brings to ensure that we get this right.

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[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, I offer my strong support for the entire presentation from the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, and her amendments. I cannot top her example of unknown mines underground, but the example that I was thinking of is on a much smaller scale, and it addresses the point raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Neville-Rolfe. She said that those mines, et cetera—the physical infrastructure—should be on the record; I think we all know that very often they are not.

However, there is also the question of the local community and how it works, which is never going to be written down. The example that I was thinking of comes from central London, from Camden borough. I was at a meeting where the council came along very excitedly with the idea that it was going to knock down a community centre, build housing, and build a new community centre on what most people from the outside thought were some pretty unpleasant, small, raggedy corner shops—a little row of shops which you get typically in suburban areas. The council officers and the local councillors were visibly astonished when local people, mostly elderly, were up in arms and horrified about the idea of those shops being demolished. They said, “We’re not mobile enough to get to Camden High Street and we’re scared of the traffic on Camden High Street and the speed at which it goes. Even though these shops are probably both very expensive and don’t have a great range of goods, et cetera, we hugely value them”. That is just a small-scale example of how only communities themselves know the way in which they work. If they had had input earlier on, there would not have been lots of very angry pensioners at that meeting, as we saw.

Amendment 107 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Miller, is really important and picks up the use of technology, and potentially its positive use, and sets out rules for it. Again, I am afraid that my next example is also from Camden, because that is where lots of my planning stories come from. The Crick centre was imposed on the local community—I declare a retrospective interest in that I was the chair of the St Pancras and Somers Town Planning Action committee that opposed it, a long time ago. When it was finally built, people said, “But that doesn’t look anything like what the pictures looked like”. I think that is something that we are all extremely familiar with. The idea of creating some standards and rules—they already exist, but we should put them into statute—seems an extremely good one.

[Lord Jamieson (Con)]

My Lords, first, my apologies: I should have mentioned my interest as a councillor in central Bedfordshire earlier in the debate.

I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, for her leadership on this important group of amendments. Clause 4 systematically removes several pre-application requirements. I will focus first on Amendment 25, tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock. This amendment seeks to retain Section 47 of the Planning Act: the duty to consult the local community. Can the Minister clarify the Government’s position? Ministers have previously stated that the Bill does not in any way reduce local democratic input. If that is the case, can the Minister explain why the duty to consult communities is being removed? How did the Government arrive at the decision to remove Section 47 of the Planning Act, as my noble friend Lady Neville-Rolfe raised, and what are the specific problems they are trying to resolve in doing so?

We know from experience that when local communities are given genuine influence over planning through mechanisms such as neighbourhood plans, they are often more supportive of new housing and infrastructure—we have heard cases from the noble Baronesses, Lady Pinnock and Lady Bennett, where the local input added significant value—especially when it reflects local needs such as affordable housing, safeguards green space or comes with vital local infrastructure improvements. Indeed, neighbourhood plans introduced under the Localism Act 2011 have in many cases led to more housing being approved rather than less. This suggests that working with communities delivers better outcomes.

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[Baroness Pinnock (LD)]

My Lords, this is a further iteration of the debate we had on the previous group about pre-application consultation, but this time with the specific purpose of consultation with owners and occupiers of land. I still hope that we can get to the point where the Government have a rethink about reforming the pre-application process without removing it altogether.

We are in danger of throwing the baby out with the bathwater with Clause 4. I have listened carefully to the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh, and, as with the previous group, there are important points to be made. Informing people about an application is important, along with the community on which it impacts, particularly with regard to information to owners and occupiers of land. It is just rude not to, quite apart from the legal responsibility. Even with an ordinary application, though not an infrastructure one, the requirement is to notify the owner of the land that something is being proposed—even if you do not own the land, as we heard earlier from the noble Baroness, Lady Coffey. I urge the Minister to think about reviewing and reforming pre-application rather than removing it.

[Lord Jamieson (Con)]

My Lords, the amendments in this group, tabled by my noble friend Lady McIntosh of Pickering and supported variously by my noble friend Lady Coffey, speak to the important principle of consulting those who will be affected by changes, who are often best placed to provide information about development ahead of time. I appreciated the Minister’s comments on consultation in the previous group. The Government themselves are going to a consultation on providing the optimum guidance for consultation in the future. That is a positive, despite the multiple consultations.

At this stage in our deliberations, it is important to consider what “consultation” means. We are not talking about wreckers or blockers. These Houses of Parliament—indeed, your Lordships’ House itself—are constitutionally tasked with consultation and review. That is what we are doing at this very moment: reviewing the Government’s proposal in detail and providing feedback with the intention of making a proposal better and more workable in practice.

As we have heard, category 1 and 2 persons are definitions that refer to persons with significant interests in affected land. They know, literally, the lay of the land, the conditions, the constraints and the opportunities that could be faced by any development in advance of a project being started. The benefit of the knowledge and experience that these parties have must not be understated. One obvious way to prevent bad development is to promote good consultation.

We are keen to see spades in the ground and development starting to get under way, but there is no point if we get bad developments in the wrong place and where they are not appropriate. We have a duty to deliver, but we also have a duty to deliver responsibly. Removing requirements to consult key parties means that the Government increasingly run the risk of championing bad development.

There is also the question of buy-in. The Government will find that the public do not appreciate being done to, rather than being done with. Does this not strike to the heart of what the Government are trying to do with the Bill? The Government will find that if they do not undertake this policy programme carefully, with close reference to the very people they are intending to exclude from the consultation stage—I note the Minister’s previous comments, which are much appreciated—they will not be thanked for it. Consultation with stakeholders is, as noble Lords who are business-minded will know, an important way to build support, gain approval and deliver projects that work.

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

My Lords, Amendments 26, 27, 32, 35, 39 and 42 were tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh. I am grateful to her for her amendments, and I thank the noble Baronesses, Lady Coffey and Lady Pinnock, for their comments. The noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, referred to throwing the baby out with the bathwater. I am afraid that, in this instance, the baby has become so fat that it cannot even get out of the bath, never mind be thrown out.

As I have outlined over the course of this debate, these amendments seek to undo a number of amendments tabled by the Government in the other place to remove the statutory requirement for applicants to consult in the preparation of an application. Given that this significant change was introduced during the Bill’s passage—a point I accept from all noble Lords who have mentioned it—I will outline again the Government’s motivations for making the change.

A particular aspect of concern has been the increasing length of time spent at the pre-application stage, resulting from the way that statutory requirements are being complied with. As outlined, consultation has become a tick-box exercise—the very one I was referring to earlier—that encourages risk aversion and gold-plating. We have therefore concluded that these requirements are now serving to slow schemes down rather than speed them up, and that the consultation taking place is not meaningful to the people involved. It just becomes that tick-box exercise.

In bringing in these changes, we want to speed up the typical period taken to submit applications and further save money in this Parliament’s pipeline of projects. We are committed to sustaining a planning system that encourages high-quality applications and delivers benefits to the nation and local communities. We all know that high-quality applications are those that have been developed through early and meaningful engagement with those impacted, including local authorities, statutory consultees, communities and landowners. Affected individuals will, of course, still be able to object to applications, provide evidence of impacts on them and participate in the process through which applications are examined.

As I have explained, in making this change the Government are clear that this signifies not that consultation and engagement are no longer important but just that the current system is not working well for either developers or communities. Guidance will be forthcoming on how engagement can be undertaken so that applicants can produce high-quality applications. We look forward to engagement on this matter. I take the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Jamieson, about consultation on consultation—he is right—but, in this case, it is necessary.

The Planning Inspectorate will continue to consider whether an application is suitable to proceed to examination and be examined under statutory timeframes. The guidance will outline best practice—to answer the point made by the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh. I cannot give her any absolute detail yet because, as we said, we are consulting on it, but it will outline the best practice, which will involve pre-application engagement. The Planning Inspectorate, on behalf of the Secretary of State, will continue to issue advice to applicants under Section 51 of the Act and have regard to the extent to which applicants have had regard to the advice. These changes will provide flexibility so that applicants can undertake engagement in the way they consider best for their proposed development in accordance with that guidance. I therefore kindly ask the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh, to withdraw her amendment.

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[Lord Jamieson (Con)]

My Lords, I rise to speak to Amendment 46 in the names of the noble Lords, Lord Ravensdale and Lord Krebs. It is interesting, as mentioned by the noble Lord, Hunt of Kings Heath, and the noble Baronesses, Lady Bennett of Manor Castle and Lady Pinnock, that we keep coming back to this issue of prioritisation, hierarchy and the role of regulators. I particularly note the comments of the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, that we need to start resolving this issue. I am sure that on this side of the House we shall come back to it as we progress through the Bill, but I want to focus on this amendment.

There is no doubt that we have to address the issue of low-carbon energy and low-carbon infrastructure. It will be essential to hitting our zero-carbon targets and addressing the challenges of climate change. Although we support the efforts to advance clean energy, we must also guard against an unbalanced approach, particularly one that risks compromising the reliability and resilience of our energy systems. Low-carbon generation should not be considered in isolation, as I believe the noble Lord mentioned, or privileged above all other forms of infrastructure. The grid as we know it is undergoing rapid change; the Government’s ambition to rebuild it around renewable sources within just five years is rooted in ideology. Solar and wind are by nature intermittent. They cannot provide the stable backbone that the grid requires.

The stability of our electricity system depends on what is known as inertia, the capacity to resist sudden fluctuations in frequency. This essential property is delivered by turbines in energy-dense technologies such as nuclear, hydro and gas-fired power stations. It is not delivered by wind or solar farms. Without sufficient inertia, we run the risk of system destabilisation, leading to the worst case of failures and blackouts. We need a serious, detailed plan to safeguard the resilience and sovereignty of the UK’s energy supply. That means ensuring a mix of technologies, including those that deliver system stability and resilience, as well as decarbonisation.

On the amendment, we have a number of questions which we hope noble Lords can address. First, it refers to “sustainable development”, a term that invites interpretation. In planning, there is already a well understood definition of sustainable development in relation to planning applications for housing and commercial development, but I do not believe that that is intended here. What precisely is meant here and how is it to be applied in practice? How do we avoid confusion with the existing interpretation of sustainable development?

Secondly, on the list of regulators, why were these specific bodies selected and by what criteria? We welcome collaboration, but it must be clear and consistent.

Finally, there is the matter of the Secretary of State’s powers to prescribe other relevant bodies by regulation. That is a significant authority, and I would be grateful for clarity on how it would be exercised and scrutinised. Although we support the spirit of this amendment, we urge caution and a desire to have a balanced approach.

Briefly, on Amendment 46A tabled by my noble friend Lady Coffey, she raises an important point, so we will listen carefully to the Minister’s reply. Ensuring that planning consent has considered environmental protections is of course vital and must not be overlooked.

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

My Lords, Amendment 46, tabled by the noble Lords, Lords Ravensdale and Lord Krebs, seeks to ensure that in relation to nationally significant infrastructure projects for low-carbon energy, relevant authorities such as the Environment Agency should have special regard for the need to contribute to certain government environmental targets when making representations as interested parties under the Planning Act 2008.

The amendment refers specifically to compliance by the Secretary of State with carbon targets and budgeting; adapting to current or predicted climate change impacts under the Climate Change Act 2008; achievement of biodiversity targets under the Environment Act 2021; and achieving sustainable development. As we have heard throughout the debate today, and at earlier stages of the Bill, it is vital that we move forward and deliver the critical infrastructure that we need, not least to cut greenhouse gas emissions to net zero by 2050. As my colleagues in the other place noted, the Bill can deliver a win-win for growth and nature. Developments such as clean energy infrastructure are key to tackling the climate crisis and supporting nature recovery.

To pick up on the point raised by the noble Lord, Lord Ravensdale, regarding the Corry review, which was important, the review recommended that the Government publish a refreshed set of outcomes and strategic policy statements for regulators, with the aim of restating the Government’s priorities and mandating regulators to use constrained discretion to deliver them. This might answer some of the noble Lord’s questions about this. The Government have accepted this recommendation, one of the nine Corry recommendations being fast-tracked. We are moving quickly to publish the first set of strategic policy statements. I hope that this is helpful.

I thank the noble Lords for their constructive and helpful proposals in this amendment, which seeks to ensure that input from specific statutory consultees is given with the wider context of government targets in mind. The Government agree with the intention behind the amendment. I reassure noble Lords that the Government already have the tools they need to guide public bodies in their engagement with the development consent order process.

The national policy statements for energy infrastructure take full account of the Government’s wider objectives for energy infrastructure to contribute to the achievement of sustainable development and to ensure that the UK can meet its decarbonisation targets. In particular, these national policy statements grant critical national priority status to low-carbon projects. This means that the types of projects that the noble Lord is most concerned with have additional weight in the planning balance. Through the Bill, the Government are introducing a duty on public bodies to have regard to guidance published by the Secretary of State in making those representations which are referred to in the noble Lords’ amendment.

The Government will consult later this summer on what guidance about consultation and engagement on the NSIP process should contain, as I have already outlined. As we review and develop guidance on all aspects of the NSIP process, we will consider, alongside government policy in national policy statements, how we can support the intent of this amendment. I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Ravensdale, is reassured and will withdraw the amendment.

On the request from the noble Lord, Lord Jamieson, about the definition of sustainability, I will consult further and come back to him.

[Lord Jamieson (Con)]

I was repeating the request from the noble Lord, Lord Ravensdale.

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

I apologise. I took the liberty of popping out of the Chamber for five minutes. We will reply on that.

Amendment 46A, tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Coffey, and supported by the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, seeks to ensure that when determining whether planning consent should be granted for a nationally significant infrastructure project, the Secretary of State must take into account any environmental delivery plan applying to the land that will be developed. The Committee will be scrutinising Part 3 of the Bill in a later sitting. I look forward to that, but I am happy to speak to this amendment today.

The Planning and Infrastructure Bill creates a new type of plan: an environmental delivery plan—EDP. Within an area defined in an EDP, Natural England will identify the impact that relevant development is expected to have on a defined environmental feature or features. These can be features of protected sites or a protected species. Natural England will then set out a package of conservation measures that will outweigh the impacts of the development on the relevant environmental feature.

This process for developing EDPs and the wider set of safeguards across the NRF will be subject to further discussion under Part 3. However, in respect of this amendment, the crucial point is that once an EDP is approved by the Secretary of State that covers development of the type in question and in the location in question, developers will be able to make a payment through the nature restoration levy, which would discharge the relevant environmental obligation being addressed through the EDP. Where a developer chooses not to utilise an EDP, they will need to address these environmental obligations under the existing system. As a decision for the developer, it would not be necessary to require the Secretary of State, when considering a development consent order, to have regard to an EDP that the developer might choose not to use. In these circumstances, the decision would need to consider whether the application was in line with existing environmental obligations.

Further to this, mandating that the Secretary of State takes account of an EDP removes flexibility for the developer on how to discharge environmental obligations. This could impact on the viability of a scheme and would undermine the Government’s commitment to decide 150 infrastructure planning consents during this Parliament, as well as wider growth objectives. I appreciate that there are still some questions in there about how EDPs will work, but that is not the subject of today’s discussion—we will cover that under Part 3.

Furthermore, while the content of an EDP is not intended to be relevant to the planning merits of a determination, if the Secretary of State determines that an applicable EDP is material, they can have regard to it. That is already the case: under Section 104(2)(d) of the Planning Act 2008, the Secretary of State must have regard to any other matters which they think are both important and relevant to their decision. This could include any relevant EDP. I hope that that reassures the noble Baroness, Lady Coffey.

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[Baroness Pinnock (LD)]

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, has brought before us his own Bill. It is worthy to stand alone and provoke a significant discussion about how different procedures could deal with large-scale infrastructure applications. I am not in a position to know whether it would work or not. It is an attempt to provide an alternative, and I am looking forward to the Minister, with all the civil servants behind her, being able to explain why it will or will not work.

I always start from a different starting point, which is that, first, we are a small island. Comparing us with Canada and its vast expanse, or even with France, which is significantly geographically larger than the United Kingdom with a similar population, makes for poor comparisons.

That is the first of the challenges anyone in this country has with large-scale infrastructure. The second is this. No case was made to people about the benefits to them from either of the large-scale infrastructure projects that have been mentioned, HS2 and the A303. HS2 was never about shaving 10 minutes off a journey between London and Birmingham or 20 minutes off a journey to Leeds—though it will never get there. It was never about that. It was about congestion on the railways, but that case was never made. So it is no surprise when the public do not respond to the project in that way. Why are we going through the destruction of our villages and favoured landscapes for the sake of 20 minutes? That was the argument. You have to make the case and the case is not being made. It was the same with the A303 and various other major projects. That seems to me to be a difficulty.

I take issue with the noble Lord, Lord Ravensdale, using the word “radical”. That word is always used by developers when they want something that the rest of us do not want. We might want its outcome, but we do not like what it is going to do to our environment. I think we have to try harder.

As for the noble Viscount, Lord Hanworth, calling planning “sclerotic”, this element of infrastructure planning is very difficult, but let us not label the whole of the planning process as sclerotic. Local planning authorities do not hold up development; the statistics demonstrate that. The issue is with infrastructure planning. That is why the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, has brought forward his alternative procedure for it. Whether or not that would work, I will leave to others with more detailed backing from the civil servants to decide.

The issue with planning applications, big or small, is always that if you do not involve the public and tell them what it is for, what it will do and what the downsides are, you set yourself up for a big fight, and that is what happens. As for the judicial review, what do I know about it except that it seems to go on for ever and achieve nothing—and costs a lot of money as well. If you resort to the legal process to resolve applications which should be decided between elected people and the community, you are never going to get an answer. I look forward to the reply and a judgment on this one.

[Lord Jamieson (Con)]

My Lords, I will speak briefly on this group of amendments, all tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Hunt of King’s Heath. The amendments in this group all relate to the role of appeals and the judicial processes involved in national policy statements. As many noble Lords have said, the current system for critical national infrastructure does not work. We need to get a move on, but we also need to protect the environment and nature. I quite liked the comments of the noble Viscount, Lord Hanworth. He alluded to the absurdity that Stone Age man could build Stonehenge quicker than 21st-century man can build a bypass round it. This just does not make sense.

It is no secret that the court system is facing a severe backlog. This is a point we have made from this Dispatch Box on numerous occasions during the passage of the Renters’ Rights Bill. As we argued then, there is simply not enough capacity for courts to hear endless challenges. Continual judicial reviews of decisions made by planning bodies clog up the courts, causing significant delays to the planning and building process. If we are to have an effective programme of infrastructure development and housebuilding that will boost economic growth, we must ensure not only that vexatious legal delays are kept to a minimum but that the threat of these—which, as we have heard, cause delays and lorry-loads of paperwork—is avoided.

Amendment 52 seems to present a paradox. On the one hand, the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, is understandably seeking to speed up the planning process through his Amendment 48, which is, we believe, a somewhat reasonable proposal, although we do have concerns regarding the risk of the Secretary of State having even greater Henry VIII powers.