Absent Voting (Elections in Scotland and Wales) Bill

Lord Jamieson Excerpts

3rd reading
Friday 24th October 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Murphy of Torfaen]

That the Bill do now pass.

[Lord Jamieson (Con)]

My Lords, I declare my interest as a councillor in central Bedfordshire.

The Bill is most welcome, and I thank the noble Lord, Lord Murphy of Torfaen, for bringing it forward. It makes the necessary provisions to ensure that, where divergence has arisen across the whole of Great Britain, shared democratic values are brought into closer practical alignment. In doing so, it strengthens the unity of our democratic system while respecting the distinct identities of the devolved nations. We on these Benches have always sought to bridge the gaps between the constituent communities that make our country so unique and vibrant.

It is right to acknowledge that the Bill builds on the work of the previous Government, including the Elections Act 2022, which took important steps to reinforce the security and transparency of our democratic processes. That Act introduced measures such as digital imprints on online campaign materials and enhanced security for political funding—reforms that were both timely and necessary. It is therefore regrettable that legislative consent was not granted for those measures at the time. This Bill now goes some way to mitigate the effect of those divisions.

I also reiterate what my noble friend Lady Scott said at Second Reading: I urge the Government to reconsider any proposals to dilute voter ID requirements. Today we are legislating to make voting easier while maintaining appropriate safeguards. We must not, at the same time, take steps to weaken the security of our elections.

Finally, accessibility is vital, but so too is security. Protecting the integrity of our elections by guarding against fraud or interference is a core duty of any responsible Government. In the other place, my honourable friend Paul Holmes rightly called for Ministers to

“take decisive and proactive steps…to prevent malign influence, whether domestic or foreign”—[Official Report, Commons, 4/7/25; col. 594.]

as we modernise and reform our systems. I would therefore be grateful if the Minister could use this opportunity to set out what specific steps the Government are taking to uphold that commitment.

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

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord for his comments. I thank all noble Lords for their contributions to and support for the Bill, and particularly my noble friend Lord Murphy of Torfaen for his stewardship of the Bill through this House.

Our democracy remains at the heart of our Government’s purpose and mission. On the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Jamieson, the Government will bring forward a number of changes in the forthcoming elections Bill, which will come before this House in due course; we will have the opportunity to discuss these matters further at that point.

I thank my noble friend Lord Murphy for his excellent contribution to our democratic process.

Chinese Embassy

Lord Jamieson Excerpts

Thursday 23rd October 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Harris of Haringey (Lab)]

My Lords—

[Lord Jamieson (Con)]

My Lords—

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[Lord Stirrup (CB)]

My Lords, I am somewhat puzzled by something that the Minister said earlier and wonder whether she could clarify—

[Lord Jamieson (Con)]

My Lords—

[Lord Stirrup (CB)]

I thought that we had just reached agreement on this.

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[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

The planning decision will be taken on material planning grounds by the Planning Minister, having had all the material information that is required to take that decision submitted to them. That decision will be announced together with the documents and the information that was used to make it on 10 December.

[Lord Jamieson (Con)]

My Lords, I too will provide the Minister with an opportunity, so to speak, to get out of the groove. Ministers have delayed the decision on the proposed Chinese embassy. Can the Minister confirm whether our security services have had sufficient opportunity to feed into the planning decisions on the project? Will the Government consider amending the Planning and Infrastructure Bill to strengthen the provisions about planning applications with major security implications?

Planning and Infrastructure Bill

Lord Jamieson Excerpts

Report stage
Wednesday 22nd October 2025 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Lord Jamieson]

58: After Clause 47, insert the following new Clause—
National Lane Rental Scheme: establishment(1) Within six months of the day on which this Act is passed, the Secretary of State must establish a National Lane Rental Scheme (“the Scheme”).(2) The Scheme must ensure that—(a) local authorities are able to grant lane rental permission to utility companies as standard,(b) the Secretary of State is only involved in the granting of lane rental when utility companies appeal to the Secretary of State about the local authority’s actions under paragraph (a), and(c) any public highway may be subject to lane rental provisions, irrespective of size or level of sensitivity.(3) The Secretary of State must—(a) consolidate existing regulations which provide for local authorities to grant permission for lane rental to utility companies for works, and(b) ensure that any orders made under section 74A of the New Roads and Street Works Act 1991 which may contradict the provisions of the Scheme are repealed.(4) The Secretary of State may by regulations made by statutory instrument vary provisions in the Scheme.(5) A statutory instrument containing regulations under this section is subject to annulment in pursuance of a resolution of either House of Parliament.(6) Any revenues raised through the National Lane Rental Scheme must be ring-fenced by local authorities and used exclusively for—(a) repair and maintenance of highways, including the remediation of potholes, and(b) measures to minimise future disruption from utility works.”Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment would require the Secretary of State to bring forward a national scheme for Lane Rental during road works with the intention of developing a simpler, less bureaucratic, and more consistent system.

[Lord Jamieson (Con)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for his response when I raised this in Committee and his subsequent communication. I am sure he recognises the problem that this amendment seeks to address, but I am afraid that limited tinkering does not solve the problem; we need to do something more meaningful.

As I said in Committee, we are plagued with constant disruption to our roads from roadworks. In the majority of cases, these relate to utilities works. It is a huge frustration to all drivers, often causing significant traffic delays, economic damage and environmental impact. It also affects householders, pedestrians and cyclists caught up in or impacted by the noise and fumes of idling cars. Local businesses suffer, as they lose business when people can no longer come to their pub, shop or whatever because of the excessive journey times. When these delays are on major roads, small country roads are often impacted by excessive traffic as people seek alternative routes.

Drivers are doubly frustrated when we see no work being done by these roadworks. Sometimes that is for a good reason but, often, it is for the convenience of the contractor. Last time, I gave the example of traffic lights being put out on a Friday for work starting on the subsequent Monday. The work is completed on the Thursday, yet the traffic lights are not removed until the subsequent Monday, so we have traffic lights and a closure for 10 days when there is only three or four days’ work. There is also the example of work being done during the day but nothing being done overnight, with the opportunity to move these traffic lights to one side. We recognise that utility work is essential, but it really should be done in a way that minimises disruption and keeps road closures and traffic lights to the absolute minimum.

Councils and the Government have sought to address this issue through measures such as permitting regimes. Many councils do this in a proactive manner, enforcing roadworks being kept to the permitted time, but that does not stop utility companies seeking a two-week gap when they might be able to get away with a five-day or six-day closure. As we discussed last time, there is a lane rental scheme under the 2012 lane rental regulations. As my noble friend Lord Moylan can attest from his time in London, the scheme works well for Transport for London. However, TfL is an exception, as the majority of its significant roads can be covered by the criterion of “highly sensitive roads” and it has the resources to deal with the bureaucracy involved, which includes applying to the Secretary of State for a statutory instrument. Outside London, the scheme can include a maximum of only 10% or 20% of the road network. As such, only four county councils have applied. It does not work in rural areas in particular.

There is a better way. There should be a national scheme, with appropriate protections and so on, that enables a wider range of highways to be included so that councils can simply opt in without the need to apply for a statutory instrument. This amendment seeks to reduce not only the time during which our roads are held up by roadworks but the bureaucracy involved in getting a lane rental scheme. Can the Minister not tinker with the existing scheme but, as the Chancellor has promised, sweep away unnecessary red tape to enable growth by enabling local highways authorities to keep our roads open and our traffic flowing, for the benefit of motorists, residents, the economy and local businesses? I beg to move.

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[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

I thank the noble Lord, Lord Jamieson, for moving this amendment on a new national lane rental scheme. As the noble Lord says, he and I have exchanged correspondence on this issue, for which I also thank him. This Government are committed to reducing disruption from street works and improving the efficiency of our road networks.

Lane rental is a valuable tool that enables highway authorities to charge utilities up to £2,500 per day for works on the busiest roads at the busiest times. These charges incentivise quicker completion, off-peak scheduling and alternative locations to minimise disruption. Existing schemes, not only that in London with Transport for London—a scheme I happened to have the privilege of introducing in my time as the commissioner at Transport for London—but those in Kent, Surrey, East and West Sussex and other applications that are in train, show that lane rental encourages more thoughtful planning and has proven effective in reducing disruption where congestion is most acute.

However, lane rental is not suitable for every area or every road. Many local authorities do not experience the levels of congestion needed to justify the administrative and financial burden of operating such a scheme. We remain committed to empowering local authorities but we must be mindful that there is a risk that extending lane rental powers universally could lead to an inconsistent and fragmented approach across the country. The Government recognise the value of local leadership. That is why, in our devolution White Paper, we committed—subject to consultation—to devolving approval of local lane rental schemes to mayoral strategic authorities. We have consulted on this proposal and will publish the results and next steps as soon as we can.

In relation to proposed revenue ring-fencing, from January 2026, highway authorities operating lane rental schemes will be required to spend 50% of surplus lane rental charges on highway maintenance, including the remediation of potholes, and the remaining 50% on measures intended to reduce the disruption or other adverse effects arising because of street works. These requirements will be set out in legislation and updated guidance, ensuring a balanced and targeted use of funds. For the reasons outlined, I therefore ask the noble Lord to withdraw his amendment.

[Lord Jamieson (Con)]

My Lords, I am somewhat disappointed by the Minister’s response, because I think we should have a national scheme that can be opted into—and so would still be very much a local scheme—but I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.

Amendment 58 withdrawn.

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I have a lot of sympathy with the amendment in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Boycott, which was moved ably by the noble Lord, Lord Hampton. If he wanted to test the opinion of the House on this matter, we on these Benches would agree with them.

[Lord Jamieson (Con)]

My Lords, I shall speak to Amendment 62 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Boycott, which was moved so ably by the noble Lord, Lord Hampton. Although I understand the good intentions behind this amendment, there needs to be a recognition that the planning process is a quasi-judicial process. We also support mandatory training for councillors; we would have supported training for officials and, potentially, for Government Ministers, had my noble friend Lord Fuller’s amendment arisen, but I will let that pass for now.

Such training must focus on the statutory duties of members, ensuring that those who sit on planning committees are fully aware of their roles; of the legal and regulatory environment; and of the procedures on which they need to make judgment. They need to make decisions based on the legal and regulatory aspects that pertain to the proposals brought to the committee. Climate change, biodiversity, ecology and so on are already embedded in national planning policy. There is guidance on them; that guidance will, and should, be part of the training process.

By expanding the scope of the training beyond the statutory duties—as well as ensuring that consideration of the relevant legislation, planning guidance and local policies occurs in determining an application—the proposals risk adding confusion to the training process and, potentially, undermining the quasi-judicial role of a planning committee. I would have been more sympathetic to proposals around ensuring both that the training is effective and that it covers all aspects of the guidance, policies and legislation—including those highlighted today. However, as I said, having training that is more generic risks confusion. Therefore, I cannot support these proposals.

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

My Lords, first, I express my gratitude to noble Lords for providing broad support for the concept of mandatory training for members of local planning authorities.

I turn to Amendment 62, which was tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Boycott, and ably moved by the noble Lord, Lord Hampton. As I have set out previously, I am very sympathetic to the issues that were raised by noble Lords in Committee. I reiterate what I said at the time: it would be unthinkable that prescribed training would not include, for example, content on biodiversity net gain. The Government maintain, however, that such specific reference to the content of training should be reserved for secondary legislation. On that, I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Fuller, for once; that is not always the case.

Let me respond to the point about the status quo continuing. This Bill brings mandatory training into force for the first time, so it does move us on from the status quo. Including specific details in the Bill would require the inclusion of an exhaustive list—the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, gave some examples of what may or may not be in there—which would have to be kept up to date as we move forward, thus requiring valuable time in Parliament.

I will respond briefly to the questions from the noble Lord, Lord Hampton, on what is being done. The Government are working to bring forward the training package; we consulted on our general approach earlier this year. We will ensure that the training is comprehensive and based on both best practice and ongoing engagement with both industry and local government.

For these reasons, I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Hampton, will feel able to withdraw this amendment on behalf of the noble Baroness, Lady Boycott.

Planning and Infrastructure Bill

Lord Jamieson Excerpts

Report stage
Wednesday 22nd October 2025 Lords Chamber

That is why my noble friend’s amendment is so welcome and necessary. This, coupled with the other amendments that would fetter and restrict judicial review—I note my noble friend Lord Banner is not in his place, but it is his recommendations that I am referring to—is the right thing. To get to the nub of Amendment 76, the chair of planning should be able to revisit an officialdom’s otherwise fatal objections to get it to committee, so that local champions can take all the evidence into account, listen carefully to objections, balance that public and private interest, and get Britain building, and not pander to self-serving qangos that are only interested in pursuing their own ideologies to the exclusion of all else.

[Lord Jamieson (Con)]

My Lords, it is pleasing to hear support for local democracy from around the House, which I can only endorse.

Amendment 63, tabled by my noble friend Lord Lansley, concerns the first set of regulations made under the proposed national scheme, which, as drafted, would determine how local planning decisions are to be made in the future. My noble friend’s amendment seeks to ensure that these initial regulations are subject to the stronger form of parliamentary scrutiny, the affirmative procedure. That requirement is important, as the national scheme represents a major structural change in the planning system. It alters fundamentally the balance between decisions taken by elected planning committees and those delegated to officers.

Such a shift in decision-making authority carries significant implications for local accountability, democratic oversight and public confidence in the planning system. Given the scale and significance of these reforms, it is only right that Parliament should have the opportunity to consider, debate and explicitly approve the first set of regulations before they take effect. Therefore, my noble friend’s amendment seeks not to delay progress but to strengthen legitimacy, to ensure that this House and the other place have a proper role in scrutinising the framework through which these changes will be implemented. In short, the affirmative procedure would provide a vital check and balance at a moment of genuine structural transition in the planning system. I hope that the Government will look favourably on my noble friend’s sensible and proportionate proposal.

Amendment 76, tabled in my name, aims to ensure that the vital role of local democracy in the determination of planning applications continues, while ensuring that spurious call-ins are avoided, by requiring the head of planning and the chair of the planning committee to confirm that the objections are on valid planning grounds. This reflects best practice in many authorities today.

We believe in local democracy because we believe in local people. That means ensuring that the right homes are built in the right places, with the consent and confidence of the communities they affect. Committee chairs and chief planning officers are well placed to judge when wider scrutiny is needed. Retaining their discretion in this way would ensure transparency and trust, without dismantling the efficiency of a national delegation scheme.

Ministers may argue that the amendment would undermine the purpose of national delegation by allowing too many applications to go to committee, but that is simply not the case. It requires the agreement of both the professional planner and the elected chair, and only when the objections rest on valid planning grounds. That is a proportionate safeguard, not a free-for-all. This is about balance and maintaining efficiency in the system, while giving communities the confidence that genuine concerns will be heard and scrutinised. That is how we build trust in planning and how we deliver development that truly has local consent.

Finally, I will briefly speak to Amendments 62A and 87F, tabled by my noble friend Lady Coffey. Amendment 62A is in a similar vein to my own, as it proposes that an officer should not determine an application outside of an adopted local plan. Amendment 87F looks to the issue of the failure to build out, so can the Minister say why the Government have not moved forward with the parts of the Levelling-up and Regeneration Act that sought to address that?

[Lord Mackinlay of Richborough (Con)]

My Lords, my noble friend Lord Jamieson was quicker to his feet than I was. I will make a few comments on Amendment 87F, standing in the name of my noble friend Lady Coffey.

I served as a councillor for eight years on the unitary Medway Council, working for some of that time on planning, and had the benefit of representing a constituency in Kent in the other place. I am very aware that whenever a substantial planning application is put to the local community there is generally uproar and a lot of concern. There may be a lot of consultation and a lot of money spent by the developer. There are presentations to the local public and local councillors, and everything else that goes with that. It can be quite upsetting for local communities. In my experience, the Liberal Democrats are very adept at exploiting that concern, usually for political advantage.

Having gone through that process, we find that a lot of the planning applications never actually get built out—and at a time when we have a huge demand for housing. Developers then look again at somewhere a bit simpler to develop out. It is not for us in this place to dictate the market—that is obviously for developers—but the terms that my noble friend Lady Coffey has proposed are right. Perhaps we should start to recognise some of the names among the bigger developers that seem to be going for applications and not building them out. We hear, obliquely, about hundreds of thousands of planning applications that have been approved that are yet to be built out. I do not know the exact figure —I do not think that I have ever known it—but we are told that it is in the many hundreds of thousands.

If my noble friend Lady Coffey’s amendment were to be adopted, it would be very refreshing to know those numbers regularly. It could give local people some pressure to knock on the doors of the developers and ask, “Are you going to do this or not?” In addition, other authorities would be able to look at neighbouring authorities elsewhere in the country and, if they see similar developer names, they might start to wonder what those developers were doing.

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

My Lords, that was an interesting debate on these amendments. Believing in local people also means building the homes that they need and the infrastructure to support those homes. This problem with buildout did not commence in July 2024; it has been there for a long time, and this Bill is trying to do something about it.

I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Coffey, for Amendment 62A, which 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 the amendment; however, it is common for applications to be submitted for development that do not accord with the local plan. That does not mean that all those applications are controversial or that they require committee scrutiny. To bring all such applications to committee would undermine the whole point of Clause 51. I therefore ask the noble Baroness to withdraw her amendment.

Amendment 63 from the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, seeks to make initial regulations relating to the national scheme of delegation subject to the affirmative procedure. As I mentioned in Committee, 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. The Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee has published its report on the Bill and has not raised any concerns about either this power or the proposed procedure.

I recognise that the noble Lord has altered his amendment so that it applies only to the first set of regulations, but I still do not believe that the revised amendment is necessary. We already consulted on our proposed approach in May this year. The Secretary of State, under the Bill’s provisions, will be required to consult appropriate persons before making the regulations and the subsequent changes to them. That means that the Government will conduct another consultation on these very regulations before they are brought into force. In practice, this means that key stakeholders, including local planning authorities, will be able to respond on the detailed proposals set out in the regulations to ensure that they will work effectively in practice. They are the practitioners, after all, so I look forward to hearing their comments.

Amendment 76 in the names of the noble Baroness, Lady Scott, and the noble Lord, Lord Jamieson, seeks to give the chair of a planning committee and the head of planning the discretion to allow any planning application to be determined by committee where there are objections on valid planning grounds. Noble Lords will recall that we debated an identical amendment in Committee, and I can confirm that the Government have not changed their position on this issue. The intention of the amendment undermines the introduction of a national scheme of delegation. Valid planning objections are a frequent occurrence on planning applications—anyone who has ever been on a council will know that only too well. This amendment would therefore mean that almost any application would be capable of being referred to committee. That is clearly something we would not want to support. However, I repeat that the intention behind the national scheme of delegation is not to undermine local democracy. It is simply to allow planning committees to operate more effectively in the interests of their communities.

I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Coffey, for Amendment 87F relating to the buildout of development, which is a key issue. The amendment seeks to improve the transparency of buildout data by requiring the Secretary of State to publish information on a quarterly basis about the number of planning consents granted where building has not started or completed in each local planning authority. I start by reaffirming to the noble Baroness, as I did in Committee, that I fully support the aim of improving buildout and the rate of residential development. The Government remain committed to making sure that all planning permissions are translated into homes. That said, I remain of the view, as I have previously set out, that we do not need this amendment to achieve that.

When we debated buildout in Committee, I highlighted our publication in May of an important working paper, which sets out a more effective and comprehensive approach to speeding up buildout. It includes greater transparency of buildout rates, new powers for local planning authorities to decline to determine applications from developers that have built out more slowly and greater emphasis on mixed-use tenures, as well as exploring a potential delayed homes penalty as a last resort. The working paper also emphasised that we want to make it easier for local authorities to confirm CPOs, which will help unlock stalled sites and make land assembly easier when this is in the public interest. We have also set up our new homes accelerator, which will help to unblock some of those stalled sites and find out what is causing the problem that is slowing down buildout. We are now analysing the responses to that working paper, and we will set out our next steps in due course. I reiterate that the measures set out in the working paper will make a real difference to the buildout of residential development that we all want to see. Therefore, given our strategy to support faster buildout, I hope the noble Baroness will not move her amendment.

[Lord Jamieson (Con)]

Can I ask for clarification? I asked a specific question regarding the Levelling-up and Regeneration Act and its sections saying that a planning authority does not need to determine an application where the applicant has not built out elsewhere. I think the Minister was hinting that this is what the Government are doing, but will they implement that?

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

We did consult on that very issue. We are still analysing the responses to the working paper. As soon as we have done that, I will inform the House of the outcome.

[Lord Jamieson (Con)]

Are the Government not prepared to implement the Levelling-up and Regeneration Act sections as they stand now, despite having the power to do so?

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

I can only repeat that, on the powers on which we consulted in the working paper, we want to look at the responses and then implement them.

Planning and Infrastructure Bill

Lord Jamieson Excerpts

Report stage
Wednesday 22nd October 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Pinnock (LD)]

My Lords, I am going to be extraordinarily brief, because the noble Lord, Lord Freyberg, has explained explicitly what this is about and why it is desperately needed. I add my name to all those who have spoken so passionately in favour of it and look forward to the Minister, with equal passion, agreeing to it.

[Lord Jamieson (Con)]

I am going to try to be brief, but I am afraid I am going to be beaten by the Liberal Democrats—just occasionally one has to accept this. I offer our support for Amendments 71 and 82, tabled by my noble friend Lady McIntosh of Pickering. As other noble Lords have said, it is a principle of fairness. If you are the one bringing change, you should be responsible for managing its impact. Yet, time and again, we have seen valued businesses, particularly in the live music, hospitality and cultural sectors, threatened or closed down due to new developments that arrive without sufficient mitigation and proper regard to the context within which they are being introduced. If you build a house on the edge of a cricket pitch, do not be surprised to see the occasional cricket ball flying into your garden.

The reality is that guidance, however well intentioned, is inconsistently applied. Local authorities are left without a clear statutory duty to uphold the agent of change principle. Amendment 82 extends this principle to a licensing regime we would also support. We see this as a constructive and proportionate improvement to the Bill that balances the need for new development with the equally important need to protect existing cultural, social and economic structures. We on these Benches are pleased to support this principle and hope that the Government will recognise the value of giving it a clear statutory footing. I ask the Minister for an assurance that existing businesses and community facilities will not be put at risk from subsequent developments.

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank all noble Lords for a very interesting debate on this topic. Next July, I will have the benefit of five days of Oasis concerts in the fantastic venue of Knebworth House, which is just about a mile away from my house, and this summer we enjoyed Old Town Live, a day-long festival for local bands including, I hope, some of the successors to Oasis—we never know. I can hear and enjoy both of these from my house, and they represent the important cultural role of music venues and their place in the ladder of musical talent that not only contributes so much to our culture in this country but makes an enormous contribution to our economy as well. I say that to show that I understand the issue here and the Government share the desire to ensure that new homes do not undermine the operation of long-established businesses in their local area, be they music or other cultural venues.

The agent of change principle is embedded into the planning system. Where the operation of an existing premises could have a significant adverse effect on new development in its vicinity, the responsibility lies with the applicant or agent of change to put suitable mitigation in place, whether that is engineering solutions, layout, planning conditions or mitigating the impact through noise insulation. This policy forms part of the National Planning Policy Framework and local planning authorities must already have regard to it where it is relevant to a planning decision.

We are exploring how we can make the agent of change policy in planning as clear as possible through our new national policies for decision-making, which we will consult on this year. We have recently launched a call for evidence, which seeks views on how we can better apply the principle in licensing. This will reduce inconsistent decisions, while ensuring that we have the flexibility for local authorities to balance the needs of businesses with housing growth. I would therefore kindly ask the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh, to withdraw her amendment.

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I urgently request that, within the 1.5 million homes to be built, the Government set a fixed target for providing housing for children and their adult carers that is safe, suitable and enables children to develop both socially and through attending school. Amendment 85 deliberately does not provide solutions, because I recognise that this will require a multifaceted approach, but I ask that the Government commit to including the desperate needs of these children within the housebuilding programme.

[Lord Jamieson (Con)]

My Lords, we support the intentions behind Amendments 72 and 85 and thank the noble Lord, Lord Best, the noble Baronesses, Lady Thornhill and Lady Pinnock, and others for bringing them forward.

There is no doubt that we need more affordable housing and more social rent homes. We also recognise that planning permissions must be followed through and that, too often, affordable housing secured at the outset does not fully materialise. Amendment 72 puts forward a clear principle that, if affordable housing is agreed to as part of a planning consent, it must be delivered, and that social rent should form a meaningful part of that. This is right and we are entirely supportive of that aim. There are, of course, practical and legal complications around how these obligations are enforced, and we would want to ensure that any new duty works effectively within existing planning and viability frameworks.

However, councils also need to have a degree of flexibility to meet local needs, which is why I have a concern about putting a specific figure in the Bill. As the noble Lord, Lord Best, is well aware, I am particularly interested in housing for older people and specialist accommodation for those with disabilities. This is often more costly to build than standard housing. By taking a flexible approach at the local level on affordable percentages or mix, specialist but more expensive housing that meets local needs can be delivered. Imposing a national requirement may undermine that flexibility to deliver for local needs. That is how I, as leader of Central Bedfordshire, was able to deliver specialist accommodation for older people—freeing up family homes as a consequence—and for those with significant disabilities, as well as short-term accommodation. I would not want the opportunity for this lost because of an imposed national target in legislation. That said, let us make this absolutely clear: we are very strongly in support of the need for clarity and accountability for developers. They should and must deliver what they agree to when they get a planning permission.

Amendment 85 rightly highlights the needs of children and families facing homelessness or in temporary accommodation, a group whose experiences are often invisible in planning policy. Ensuring that local planning authorities take account of these needs is a modest but important step and we support it, but I refer to my earlier comments on the need for flexibility. Again, I am going to refer to my own experience, and to one of the proudest things I did when I was leader of Central Bedfordshire Council. We had about 125 households in bread and breakfast; 10 years later, that was effectively zero. That was 125 households who had the opportunity to live in a proper home. There were two key reasons for it. One was that we built specialist temporary accommodation and converted some buildings for that; but the second is that we built homes they could move into. So, we also need to consider that we must build the quantum of homes that is needed if we are truly to address the issue of homelessness.

Both amendments speak to the same wider truth: housing policy must be about delivery, not just ambition. We hope the Government will take these proposals seriously and come back with measures that match the urgency of the housing crisis we face.

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

I thank the noble Lord, Lord Best, for Amendment 72. I have to say that the last words of the noble Lord, Lord Jamieson, when we are trying to sort out a housing crisis that his party created, are a bit rich. But I will park that for the moment.

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[Lord Jamieson (Con)]

I am pleased that the last Government delivered 1 million homes over the last five years. I will be delighted if this Government deliver 1.5 million, but at the moment, they are on track to deliver considerably fewer, increasing that crisis.

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

The noble Lord’s Government left 130,000 children in temporary accommodation.

As noble Lords will know, the Government are committed to delivering the biggest increase in social and affordable housing in a generation and to prioritising the building of new homes for social rent, but we take a different view from the noble Lord on how to achieve this. The revised NPPF provides local authorities greater flexibility to deliver the right tenure mix to suit local housing needs, and planning practice guidance that supports the NPPF sets out that plan-makers should collaborate with the local community, developers and other stakeholders to create realistic, deliverable policies.

I understand the frustrations around the issue of viability, so the Government are also reviewing the planning practice guidance on viability to ensure that the system works to optimise developer contributions, and that negotiation or renegotiation of Section 106 agreements takes place only when genuinely necessary. Once planning obligations are entered into under Section 106, they run with the land and are legally binding on all parties to the agreement, so they can be enforced by the local planning authority. As we take forward work on a set of national policies for decision-making, we will also consider further steps to support social and affordable housing.

Turning to Amendment 85, tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, while we agree that we need to tackle homelessness, especially where children and families are involved, I will explain why we cannot support this approach. The planning system is already complex, and adding duties to have regard to particular matters, no matter how laudable, are not required in statute, given that national planning policy is a strong material consideration in planning decisions. As we take forward work on a set of national policies for decision-making, we will also consider further steps to support social and affordable housing. Councils must, by law, make sure that any temporary accommodation placements are suitable to the needs of the people placed there. On World Homelessness Day this month, we announced £10.9 million to increase access to support and services for families in temporary accommodation. I therefore ask noble Lords not to press their amendments.

[Lord Best (CB)]

My Lords, I am deeply grateful to noble Lords for their support for Amendment 72. I thank my noble friend Lord Carlile for his eloquent words, and I offer the noble Baronesses, Lady Grender, Lady Pinnock and Lady Bennett, sincere thanks for their support. The noble Lord, Lord Jamieson, is unfortunately unable to support this amendment, which, without his help and that of his colleagues, I fear would not achieve the majority it needs.

I do not accept the noble Lord’s point that having a 20% baseline below which we would not go in terms of affordable housing, and social rented housing in particular, is necessarily a blockage to flexibility. The baseline of 20% at social rents—the typical housing association and council rents—would not put a great burden on the housebuilders negotiating with the planning authority that also wanted to produce housing for older people. I do not think it would entail an additional burden.

Sometimes the older people’s housing of the kind that the noble Lord has produced in his own borough—and I strongly congratulate him, as council leader, on achieving a disproportionate amount of housing for older people; he has done a great job—will be social housing and would count towards the affordable housing quota that I am talking about; sometimes it will be housing for outright sale, which would not be part of this equation so we would not worry about it. Having a baseline of 20% social housing as an absolute minimum is not going to impede—

[Lord Jamieson (Con)]

If I may just be clear, I apologise but I meant affordable housing that was for older people; I did not mean housing for private sale, when I talked about flexibility. I apologise if that was not clear.

[Lord Best (CB)]

Yes, well, I am sorry that we differ on this because it means that it would be pointless me taking this to a vote.

What I will say is that I am deeply grateful to the Minister for explaining that the issue of viability advice is now under consideration and that we will be getting new advice, which I hope will be much stronger and more positive than in the past. So I am grateful to her, and I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Planning and Infrastructure Bill

Lord Jamieson Excerpts

Report stage
Monday 20th October 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, I will speak briefly. It is a great pleasure to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Kramer, as I did recently in the Moses Room on the same issue of whistleblowing. The noble Baroness is our pioneer, expert and leader on whistleblowing. I signed this amendment because it is important to demonstrate that this is an issue of broad concern.

The noble Baroness made clearly the case that we have huge problems with effectively and cost-effectively delivering major projects so that they do what they say they will do on the tin. The people who are most likely to know that something is going wrong are people within the organisation. It is terribly important to ensure that whistleblowers feel safe and will not tear their life apart if they come forward to report the issue.

The noble Baroness, helped by other Peers, has come up with a creative solution for NISTA to pick up this role in this context. I therefore hope that we will hear some movement from the Government on the issue.

[Lord Jamieson (Con)]

My Lords, as we said in Committee, Amendment 22, from the noble Baroness, Lady Kramer, is a clear and well-intentioned proposal that raises important questions about how individuals can share their concerns relating to NSIPs. However, as we noted previously, establishing independent bodies through amendments is not straightforward. The former Minister, the noble Lord, Lord Khan, addressed that point, and the Government have set out their enthusiasm to work with organisations that support whistleblowers. We will hold the Government to account on that assurance and continue to work with your Lordships’ House to ensure that whistleblowers are protected.

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

My Lords, Amendment 22, tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Kramer, proposes that the National Infrastructure and Service Transformation Authority—NISTA—be given a new responsibility to receive, assess, investigate where appropriate and oversee whistleblowing disclosures related to nationally significant infrastructure projects. The amendment seeks to ensure appropriate protection for whistleblowers and co-ordination with relevant regulators and planning authorities.

I am grateful to the noble Baroness for raising this important issue and have listened carefully to her remarks. While I recognise the intention behind the amendment, I must say again that I do not share the view that there is evidence of whistleblowing being a current, widespread concern within the NSIP regime. As she will know, there is already a well-established framework of prescribed persons and bodies to whom whistleblowers may turn, independent of their employer, as provided for under the Employment Rights Act 1996. They include organisations covering areas such as environmental protection, health and safety, transport, utilities and local government, which are of direct relevance to NSIPs.

Adding NISTA to this list would duplicate existing functions already carried out by regulators, such as the Environment Agency, which have the appropriate expertise and statutory powers. Given this existing framework, we believe that adding another body to the list would create a duplication of roles and, in any event, would not require primary legislation to achieve, as new persons or bodies can already be prescribed through Section 43F of the Employment Rights Act 1996. In the light of this, I respectfully invite the noble Baroness to withdraw her amendment.

--- Later in debate ---

The parliamentary process proposed by the amendment includes a petitioning mechanism and Joint Committee scrutiny, ensuring that public concerns can be raised and considered, if not already considered during the DCO process. It includes safeguards that would enable meaningful public involvement in relation to points not raised during the DCO process. All these provisions are included in the lengthy schedule. This might still require some fine-tuning, which could incorporate the advice of various parties, parliamentary draftsmen, and so on. I urge Ministers and their officials to consider this amendment in the light of the very real challenges that large infrastructure projects face and that they will continue to face, even with the measures already in Part 1. I therefore commend my amendment to the House.

[Lord Jamieson (Con)]

My Lords, this is a significant proposed new clause, which the noble Viscount, Lord Hanworth, spoke to in Committee, where he made broader remarks on the functionality of our planning system, which he has repeated today. I recall the comments about the length of time it was taking to get a bypass round Stonehenge, and my comment that it will take longer to build that bypass than Stone Age man took to build Stonehenge.

We agree with the issue that the noble Viscount is seeking to address: that the planning system does not work all the time for these large national infrastructure projects. They take too long, the costs go up and deliverability goes down. So I have immense respect for those who have taken the time to draft this new clause reflecting some of the comments made in Committee—I really appreciate the time that that has taken. The noble Viscount proposes that each order determining an application to be a critical national priority must be presented to Parliament as a full public Bill. Paragraph 3 of the proposed new schedule then sets out a petitioning process, a counter-petitioning process and a reporting process. The remaining parts of this lengthy amendment provide a highly detailed description of how such a Bill would progress through a Joint Committee and then complete its passage.

However, we do not consider that presenting a Bill to Parliament with all the associated procedures would be a proportionate proposal. We are somewhat sympathetic to confirmatory Acts in areas such as nuclear, but this is a prescriptive amendment and therefore one that we cannot support, even if we understand the issue.

[Lord Wilson of Sedgefield (Lab)]

I thank the noble Viscount for Amendment 23, which builds on a previous amendment tabled in Committee. It proposes a process for projects designated by the Secretary of State as “critical national priority”, where development consent orders would come into force only once approved through an Act of Parliament. This amendment seeks to bypass judicial review and insulate these projects from challenge and thereby speed up the building of infrastructure.

Although the provision does not directly alter the judicial review process itself, it uses parliamentary process to significantly reduce the public’s ability to challenge government decisions on these types of critical projects. This amendment proposes a mechanism for the Secretary of State to designate certain classes of development as “critical national priority”, based on identification in a relevant national policy statement.

It is important to remind the House that this status already exists and is actively applied—for example, to renewable and low-carbon energy projects through the energy NPS, to strengthen the need case for such infrastructure. However, this amendment seeks to go much further. I cannot support it for a number of key reasons. First, the proposed ouster in new Section 118(1A) would shield decisions from judicial review even where they were unlawful. For this reason, it is an approach which the courts have historically resisted. Given that this would be applied to some of the biggest and most controversial schemes, it is likely that challenges would be lodged in respect of the confirmed DCO, thereby undermining the time savings sought in the first place.

Secondly, the amendment would result in a constitutional confrontation between Parliament and the courts. This may result in questioning of well understood constitutional conventions, inviting further legal uncertainty.

Finally, there are serious practical impediments to the amendment. It would introduce a new, truncated parliamentary procedure for applicants to undertake after having completed the DCO process. It risks creating confusion and slowing the delivery of our most important projects by layering parliamentary procedures on top of an already rigorous regime. That adds more work and uncertainty for applicants—particularly detrimental for our largest projects—at a time when clarity and efficiency are essential. We recognise that the amendment is driven by valid concerns that lengthy legal challenges delay projects and add costs. However, the right approach to tackling this problem is by still enabling legal challenges but supporting the courts to handle them efficiently.

Further to our commitment to implement the Banner review and limit the ability for meritless cases to return to the courts, the Government recently decided to go further. On 15 October, they announced their intention to work with the judiciary to implement further procedural changes to ensure that NSIP cases are dealt with more quickly and consistently. The changes include introducing clear target timescales for NSIP cases in the High Court, aiming for a substantive hearing within four months of the application. We are also making it clear that NSIP cases in the Court of Appeal should be handled by judges with appropriate planning experience.

Together with the recent reforms, these further procedural changes will help make the judicial review process for major projects quicker, clearer and more predictable. I am grateful to my noble friend for tabling this amendment and for the thoughtful debate that it has prompted.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Jamieson (Con)]

My Lords, I thank my noble friend Lord Fuller for his amendment, which raises the important question of fire safety and long-duration energy storage. It is right that there should be a role for local fire authorities in looking at planning applications involving potentially highly combustible materials. It is clear that energy storage based on lithium batteries or other highly reactive materials, if not suitably engineered, could pose a fire risk.

This is still a relatively new large-storage technology, where councils and fire authorities are building their levels of expertise. In this context, having clear national guidance on safe installation and construction akin to building control, taking account of HSE, fire, industry and other experts would facilitate the assessment of these schemes. Do the Government plan to provide such clear guidance that councils, industry and others can rely on in assessing applications for LDES that would also streamline consultation and hence facilitate local engagement with fire authorities?

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

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Fuller, for his amendment. I start by apologising to him for the meeting date, which I understand is 30 October. He will know from comments made earlier that I have had a great number of meetings before Report, so I can only assume that it was a misunderstanding and apologise to him that it was not held before we got to Report.

The noble Lord said that over on this side we would not be shedding any tears about the price of Lamborghinis going up, but he obviously does not understand my guilty pleasure of fast cars—but then I come from the same town as Lewis Hamilton, so I have an excuse.

The noble Lord’s amendment seeks to require long-duration electricity storage—LDES—operators to consult the local fire authorities to assess the project’s fire risk before installation. In Committee, the noble Lord commented on the frequency and danger of lithium battery fires. I thank the noble Earl, Lord Russell, for the distinction that he made between individual battery fires and these large-scale ones. I reassure the noble Lord that the Government take issues relating to fire safety extremely seriously—I know that my noble friend Lord Khan gave the same reassurance—but we still do not feel that this amendment is proportionate or necessary, and indeed it could create unintended risks for fire services.

I understand that these concerns are largely in relation to lithium-ion batteries. Analysis from DESNZ suggests that fires at battery energy storage sites are rare. The latest available five-year annual average fire incidence rate for GB batteries is 0.7%, which is lower than that for wider non-domestic building fires in England, which is around 0.8%. We expect all LDES developers to ensure that their sites are safe, regardless of the technology employed. It is still, of course, vital that any risks are appropriately and proportionately managed to ensure that we maintain public safety and trust. We have spoken previously of the role that the Health and Safety Executive plays in regulating storage assets. Developers and operators of these sites have a legal duty to manage risks, and government expects them to engage with local fire services when drawing up emergency response plans.

Defra will conclude its industry consultation shortly on the modernisation of environmental permitting for industry, which includes proposals to bring BESS within scope of the 2016 permitting regulations. If introduced, EPR would require developers and operators to demonstrate to the Environment Agency how specific risks are being managed, while providing for the ongoing regulation of battery storage sites. While it is already the Government’s expectation that developers engage with fire services during the planning process, this amendment risks imposing additional administrative burdens on fire services which are not proportionate to the risks associated with this technology.

DESNZ is actively engaging fire authorities and the battery storage industry on the whole issue of battery fire safety. In fact, Minister Shanks hosted a round table today on battery safety, which included representatives from the National Fire Chiefs Council and battery developers, so I can reassure the House that Minister Shanks is taking this issue extremely seriously. I hope that that provides some reassurance to the noble Lord, Lord Fuller, and the noble Earl, Lord Russell.

I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Fuller, is satisfied with the reassurances and will agree to withdraw the amendment.

--- Later in debate ---

Amendment 42 (to Amendment 41) not moved.

[Lord Jamieson (Con)]

I speak slightly in awe. I am not the world expert on seismic arrays, so I will keep my comments brief. This is the practical bit. We recognise that the Government are trying to create a balancing act between the safe and critical operation of seismic arrays and the opportunity of wind farms. From this side of the House, without the technical knowledge of the noble Earl, Lord Russell, can we receive an assurance from the Government that they have that balance right and that we will not compromise those seismic arrays and the potential national security and treaty obligations?

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

I hope that I can reassure the noble Lord that we are working very closely with our colleagues in the MoD on this issue and will endeavour to make sure that the balance is right in both cases.

Planning and Infrastructure Bill

Lord Jamieson Excerpts

Report stage
Monday 20th October 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Pinnock (LD)]

My Lords, I believe this amendment has merit. As the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, has just said, it is important that there is a comprehensive overview of the cumulative impact of a national strategic infrastructure project on a wider area than just the single project that is being considered.

In response to the first group, the Minister was very clear in stating that the Government wanted a more strategic approach to planning. I have issues with a more strategic approach, because it is often the details that matter most. But, if there is to be a more strategic approach, surely that must imply that it is not just on a single project but on the whole range of infrastructure projects—150—that the Government have in mind for the remainder of this Parliament.

For instance, there will be a cumulative effect of road infrastructure, and of the move to net zero, which we on these Benches totally support, and therefore more green infrastructure for energy creation. All of that requires an oversight of the totality of those projects, because it is important to understand the overall impact on local communities, rather than considering the impact project by project, as the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh of Pickering, explained, in terms of wind farms or solar farms, for instance. I support all of these, but we need to understand their cumulative impact on communities, the landscape and the environment.

So these issues are important and I am glad they have been brought up. I hope the Minister in her response will be able to satisfy those of us who have these concerns that the Government are not going to run roughshod over the needs of communities and the environment while making their rush for growth.

[Lord Jamieson (Con)]

First, I declare my interest as a councillor in central Bedfordshire.

I thank my noble friend Lady McIntosh of Pickering for tabling her amendment and raising the issue of cumulative impacts. Under the Planning Act 2008, which governs nationally significant infrastructure projects such as major energy, transport and water developments, environmental and social assessments are already in place at various stages. However, my noble friend raises a very important issue: we should not look at developments just in isolation, whether or not they are nationally significant infrastructure projects, but consider their cumulative impact in an area.

My noble friend also raised what I refer to as consequential developments. If one were to build an offshore wind farm, by implication one would also have the consequential development of an electrical connection. Should this not also be considered as part of the planning process?

While we do not believe that this is the most appropriate mechanism—the Minister raised the issue of strategic and spatial planning, which is probably a more appropriate way to address this—we believe that it is an important issue. Depending on the Minister’s response, we may return to this at a later stage.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Pinnock (LD)]

My Lords, we now have before us Amendment 3 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Coffey—which I thought was coming in the previous group—and there is much to agree with in what she said. The national policy statements set the tone and the content for the NPPF and then the further guidance on planning legislation, so they are the fundamental base of all further changes to planning law. They are very important.

For the Government to try to take out the opportunity for democratic oversight and scrutiny is not just regrettable but a centralising process which we should not support. Planning affects everybody’s life one way or another, be it major infrastructure projects or small housing developments. Planning affects people, and if it affects people, people’s voices should be heard, and so people’s democratically elected representatives ought to be heard. It is our role in this House to scrutinise legislation. That is what is happening now, and we are saying, “This will not do”. We cannot have more centralising of planning processes and removing democratic oversight in so doing. If the noble Baroness, Lady Coffey, wishes to test the opinion of the House on this issue, as she has intimated, we on these Benches will support her.

[Lord Jamieson (Con)]

In Committee, I described this amendment, tabled by my noble friend Lady Coffey, as vital because it preserves parliamentary accountability, ensuring that government must respond to resolutions and recommendations from Select Committees. The safeguard strengthens transparency, clarifies policy direction at an early stage, and reduces uncertainty for those affected by these statements. Robust scrutiny helps to catch potential issues before they escalate later. I appreciate that the Minister has sought to reassure us with a new, streamlined process for updating national policy statements, and of course efficiency is welcome, but scrutiny must not become the casualty of speed. This amendment strikes the right balance. It enables timely updates while ensuring that Parliament remains meaningfully engaged.

Clause 2 concerns the parliamentary scrutiny of national policy statements. While I accept that certain elements of the process could be accelerated, key aspects of the clause diminish accountability to Parliament in favour of the Executive. I struggle to understand why, given the enormous impact of national policy statements, the Government are proposing to remove such an important element of parliamentary oversight. We continue to support parliamentary scrutiny and as such, we will support this amendment.

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness for her amendment.

Clause 2 introduces a new, additional streamlined procedure for updating national policy statements. National policy statements are the cornerstone of the planning system for our most significant national infrastructure. In the past, national policy statements have been too slow to reflect government priorities, planning policy or legislative changes, with some NPSs not updated for over a decade. As the National Infrastructure Commission has recognised, a lack of updates has created uncertainty for applicants, statutory consultees and the examining authority. It has also increased the risk of legal challenge and driven the gold-plating in the system that we are all trying to avoid.

--- Later in debate ---

[Viscount Hanworth (Lab)]

My Lords, I do not know whether this is premature, but I wish to speak to Amendment 83.

The modern methodology of infrastructure planning is heavily dependent on the computer. Computer-aided design software has replaced the draughtsman’s drawing board. This has greatly expedited the design process. Moreover, CAD technology enables the design of houses and other structures to be made public at an early stage of development. The building information modelling standards are intended to facilitate the sharing of information, which can be consigned to the cloud to become accessible to all concerned, including the public at large. The transparent information is liable to be shared via a so-called digital twin model. Level 2 of the BIM standards was made mandatory for public projects in 2022. Level 3 was due to be made mandatory this year, but there has been a delay—indeed, more than a delay; there has been some backtracking.

The Minister’s response to the original version of the amendment was to declare that the requirement for a digital twin at an earlier stage of the development would impose extra costs and delays. This evinces a fundamental misunderstanding. It is precisely at the earliest stages of a project that modern technology is most efficacious. The question arises of what could have caused this misunderstanding. I am liable to attribute it to the civil servants as much as to the Minister. I imagine that one of the causes could be the experience of inappropriate applications of the BIM standards. There has been a minor change to the text of the original amendment. It now declares that the standards should not be imposed on projects concerned with limited extensions of existing buildings, or on those concerned with the restoration of existing buildings.

I have been told by an architect involved in the restoration of historic buildings of a demand to provide a fully dimensioned plan of a listed building, plus an inventory of all the materials involved in its original construction. The BIM standards were never intended to be imposed in this way. With this proviso, I propose the amendment as a serious attempt to promote a methodology of infrastructure planning, of which Britain is a leading exponent.

[Lord Jamieson (Con)]

My Lords, these amendments, tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, were first brought forward in Committee, and I made the point then, which I repeat now, that Clause 4 systematically removes several of the existing pre-application requirements.

This amendment seeks specifically to retain Section 47 of the Planning Act, the statutory duty to consult the local community. As the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, raised, we have said throughout that it is only right and appropriate that local communities should be consulted and involved. Removing this requirement for pre-application consultation risks cutting communities out of the conversation altogether. It means local people may neither understand nor even be aware of the broad outlines or detailed implications of developments which, for better or worse, will have a direct impact on their lives and the local environment.

As I understood the Minister in Committee, the Government’s concern was not with the principle or value of consultation in itself, but rather with the potential delay cost that the current process might entail. However, delay and cost can be addressed through sensible reform of the system. That does not justify what feels like a nuclear option: the wholesale removal of the duty to consult. We remain unconvinced that the House has yet been given a satisfactory explanation as to why such sweeping change is necessary.

The Government have said:

“I am sure we all have experiences of the best in consultation—with a developer that not only consults but truly engages with communities over a period of time to get”


a better project

“and those at the opposite end that carry out a half-hearted tick-box exercise and then”

carry on regardless

“without changing anything, keeping a laser focus on”

minimising their costs, and that

“We want to encourage the former, not the latter”.—[Official Report, 17/7/25; cols. 2073-74.]

That is an admirable sentiment, but how is that objective served by the removal of the very mechanism that requires such consultation in the first place? These questions matter not merely as points of process but because they go to the heart of public confidence in the planning system.

The Government should provide clear and succinct guidance on pre-application consultation: that there should be genuine engagement with communities; that the relevant information should be provided transparently and in easily digestible form; that the issues and ideas from the consultations are reflected in the final application or a rationale for not doing so.

However, these amendments propose a much more prescriptive and, I might say, confusing and even contradictory pre-application process. While we cannot support the noble Baroness’s amendment in full, we equally cannot support the Government’s decision to sweep away the entire framework. A more balanced approach could have addressed legitimate concerns about delay, while enhancing the opportunities for local people to have their say on developments that shape their communities.

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, for bringing back these amendments, which we debated extensively in Committee. Amendments 9 and 10 seek to reinstate the statutory duty for applicants to consult during the pre-application stage of a development consent order application. While we absolutely recognise the value of early and meaningful engagement, we have been clear that the existing statutory requirements have become overly rigid and are now contributing to delays and risk-averse behaviours.

Removing the statutory duty instead allows developers to tailor their engagement to the scale and nature of their projects, supported by guidance. I repeat: the Government still expect high-quality consultation to take place. We have listened carefully to the industry and the message has been consistent. The current statutory framework is slowing things down, encouraging excessive documentation and making developers reluctant to adapt proposals for fear of triggering further rounds of required statutory consultation. We are confident that developers will continue to consult meaningfully and that communities will still have further opportunities to engage through the examination process. We are so confident, in fact, that this will not undermine the quality of applications brought forward that we are amending the Bill to make reasons for rejection more transparent, a point which I will come to later.

Guidance will be published to ensure that applications remain robust and responsive to local issues. The Government are currently consulting on proposals associated with this guidance and will take into account responses when it is developed. If these amendments were accepted, we risk reverting to the status quo and failing to address the very issues we are trying to fix: delays, complexity and confusion. For these reasons, I respectfully ask that the noble Baroness withdraw her amendment.

Amendments 11 and 12 seek to impose statutory obligations around guidance for pre-application consultation, despite the statutory requirement to consult being removed from the Planning Act 2008 through this Bill. The decision to remove the statutory requirement for pre-application consultation was not made lightly. It was introduced to tackle the growing delays and procedural burdens that have crept into the NSIP regime over time. We are trying to fix a system that has become too slow, too risk averse and too complex.

As we have discussed and recognised throughout the passage of the Bill, the current Planning Act requirements have led to rigid approaches, which are designed with the need to meet legislative prescription in mind, rather than the need to develop high-quality infrastructure schemes which are capable of improving the lives of local communities and delivering positive environmental impacts. I suppose my frustration here is that we all agree that we need to speed the system up but whatever we propose to do that, Members object to.

Over the last few months we have had the opportunity to meet a wide range of stakeholders and discuss the removal of pre-application requirements, including a number of bodies and individuals with valuable insight and experience of the NSIP regime since its inception back in 2008. We have seen a positive reaction to our proposals from those stakeholders. Speaking to local authorities and statutory consultees, it is clear that the existing requirements are not successfully driving constructive engagement and consultation.

Our discussions have reaffirmed our conviction that the existing approach is not working; changes are needed for the Government to meet the UK’s national infrastructure needs. These reforms will save time and money, benefiting everyone. This does not mean worse outcomes or poorer quality applications. Instead, it means resources can be focused on the main issues at the heart of the planning decision. It means there will be greater flexibility for applicants to innovate in how engagement is done when working through the iterative stages of an application during pre-application. It opens the door to more bespoke, targeted and effective engagement and consultation practices.

Requiring applicants to have regard to guidance about consultation and engagement, where the underlying legal duty to consult has been removed, would, we feel, be confusing. Moreover, the noble Baroness’s proposed amendment goes further by attempting to bind the content for future guidance to a fixed set of principles. While I understand these principles are well-intentioned, we do not believe it is right to legislate for them. The Government have already launched a public consultation on what the content of the guidance should be, and we want it to be shaped by the views of those who use guidance, not constrained by prescriptive legislative language developed before that process has even concluded.

All sides of the House agree on the importance of meaningful engagement and consultation; it is essential if we want to deliver infrastructure which is well designed and delivers positive outcomes for neighbouring communities and the environment. We expect developers to engage and consult proportionately and constructively, but we also believe that flexibility, not statutory rigidity, is the best way to achieve that. While I appreciate the spirit behind the amendments, they would undermine the very reforms we are trying to deliver, so I hope the noble Baroness will not press them.

Amendment 80 was a proposal previously raised in Committee. As the House will recall, the clause seeks to require the Secretary of State to consider how community consultation has been carried out when deciding whether a nationally significant infrastructure project application should be accepted for examination. It sets out a number of criteria, including whether the applicant has sought to resolve issues, enabled interested parties to influence the project during early phases, obtained relevant local information and enabled appropriate mitigation through consultation with the affected communities. As we discussed at length in Committee, the Government recognise the value of community engagement. Since 2013, the pre-application stage has nearly doubled in length. Our proposals could save businesses up to £1 billion over the lifetime of this Parliament by reducing delays across projects.

I say this to remind noble Lords of the reasoning behind these changes, including the “adequacy of consultation” test in Section 55 of the Planning Act 2008. We had a system where applicants focus on defensibility rather than dialogue, and where consultation is treated as a hurdle to clear and not a tool to improve proposals. The reformed acceptance test allows the Secretary of State to make a balanced judgment about the quality of the application, recognising that the NSIP process is a continuum from pre-application through to decision. It incentivises applicants to engage with the objective of producing good-quality applications, as opposed to meeting prescriptive statutory requirements.

Building Safety Levy (England) Regulations 2025

Lord Jamieson Excerpts

Wednesday 15th October 2025 Grand Committee

[Lord Shipley (LD)]

My Lords, I was interested to listen to the noble Lord, Lord Fuller. I note his concerns and hope the Minister will respond to them, but this is such a fundamental issue that it is important that I state that we support the substance of the levy as set out. Indeed, I noticed that the noble Lord, Lord Fuller, said that there is a general acceptance by the industry, despite some of the problems that the Minister will need to address.

I support entirely every point made by the noble Lord, Lord Young of Cookham, and the conclusions that he has reached. I share his concerns about the speed of action—it has been too slow—and the fact that for many leaseholders, nothing in practice has changed. As we have heard, there are deadlines, of 2029 and 2031, which are not far off. However, I hope the Minister will be able to confirm the statement made by the noble Lord, Lord Young of Cookham, that the Treasury might be willing to increase the level of loans to the department. I very much hope that that will prove to be the case.

I have two specific questions for the Minister before I say a few further words. First, I have not understood from the Explanatory Memorandum why there is a three-year review period, as opposed to a shorter one. In the context of what the noble Lords, Lord Young of Cookham and Lord Fuller, said about speed, reviewing after three years seems to be too long a period. Secondly, why does the purpose-built student accommodation have a threshold of 30 bed spaces for exemptions, as opposed to some other number? Why was the figure of 30 decided on?

These are vital regulations, as they implement one of the cornerstones of the Building Safety Act that was the response to the Grenfell Tower tragedy. As we know, the purpose of the levy is to provide funding for remediation that is essential in many residential properties in order to assure the safety of residents. This statutory instrument provides the considerable detail needed, including, for example, exemptions for small developments and social housing, which seem to us to be reasonable.

It also seems right that the levy is based on square metres of floor space, that brownfield sites will have a levy at a lower rate, and that the levy varies according to general property values in a local authority area. The Government broadly have the approach right. However, as the noble Lord, Lord Young of Cookham, so rightly identified, the problem is that many leaseholders are still being penalised by freeholders and managing agents where properties have not yet been remediated. The penalties imposed are via the substantial increases in service charges and, on top of this, innocent leaseholders are paying huge household insurance costs. Will the Government review their approach to defining those buildings at risk? These are not the same as the assessment made by the insurance market, and it is leaseholders who then pay the price, as well as finding that the value of their property has plummeted.

In conclusion, will the Government commit to a review of at-risk properties and the external wall system assessment to provide some hope for leaseholders caught up in a nightmare that is not of their making?

[Lord Jamieson (Con)]

I declare my interest as a councillor in central Bedfordshire. Fortunately, we do not have many high-rise buildings in rural areas.

In response to the Building Safety Levy (England) Regulations 2025, the principle is absolutely right that those who have profited from residential development should contribute to the cost of making homes safe. It is both fair and necessary. This levy was set up by the Building Safety Act 2022 under the previous Conservative Administration, and it is an important part of wider efforts. I make very clear that we support this, but some issues need addressing.

The Government anticipate that the levy will raise approximately £3.4 billion over the next decade to help fund remediation of historic safety defects, including dangerous cladding. For too long, thousands of residents have lived in buildings that they know are unsafe. They suffer the stress and emotional toil of being in an unsafe building and, as my noble friend Lord Young of Cookham pointed out, they are unable to sell and to move on with their lives. The situation is not of their making. My noble friend made a number of points, and it is crucial that this is done faster and better. I would very much like to know whether the Minister believes that the two deadlines of 2029 and 2031 will be achieved given that, as my noble friend pointed out, around half have not even started. I cannot remember the exact phrase—

[Lord Young of Cookham (Con)]

In programme.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Jamieson (Con)]

In programme was the phrase; well, we need “in action” rather than “in programme”. We welcome the levy. It has been designed with care and certain exemptions are in place, particularly for smaller developers, social housing providers and community- focused schemes. Those exemptions are vital and they ensure that the supply of affordable and socially beneficial housing is not inadvertently undermined.

The Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee’s findings are that the overall impact on house prices and supply is expected to be modest and that the administrative costs are proportionate to the revenues raised, but I want to come on to some of the issues that were raised by my noble friend Lord Fuller. There are two aspects to this: the first is the safety of the people who are in unsafe buildings, which is crucial; the second is that we need to ensure that we are still building buildings for people who do not have a place to live.

Concerns raised by the National Federation of Builders and others about the cumulative impact of regulatory pressure on housebuilding should not be dismissed out of hand. This has its greatest impact on London. My noble friend gave a number of statistics, but Molior’s current analysis suggests that only 15,000 to 20,000 homes will be under construction in London in January 2027. That compares to a target of 82,000 and that was a reduced target. There are 185,000 people living in temporary accommodation in London and over 350,000 in the UK. We need homes, and we need to ensure that whatever we do helps to deliver new homes in a safe and meaningful way, and that there is no cumulative impact from this.

The second part of this—the resourcing and performance of the building safety regulator—is really important. Since July 2024, over 2,000 applications have been submitted for building control at gateways 2 and 3. Of these, 283 have been approved, 670 have been either declared invalid or rejected and 997 are still awaiting approval. Those are delays to buildings. In fact, Building Magazine estimated that one in four that hit stage 4, which is the final approval, are not yet approved: that is hundreds of empty apartments that could be occupied. Therefore, I am again seeking assurance from the Minister on what will be done to speed up the building safety regulator. As my noble friend Lord Fuller also said, the process is somewhat complex; how can we make it more transparent and accessible, so that we can get stuff done more quickly?

Delays or bottlenecks at this stage are slowing down vital safety work and much- needed development alike. As my noble friend Lord Fuller raised, the cash flow impact means that schemes become increasingly unviable, and I have heard a developer say, “We are not starting with this”; not because they are not willing to build safe buildings, but because of the financial risks of unforeseen and unnecessary delays in trying to get through the building safety regulation scheme, and because banks are charging increased interest rates because of that risk to developers. Getting this right is a win-win: we will have more safe buildings and more homes for people. We need to take that into account.

I would like to take a moment to reflect on the wider context. The Grenfell Tower fire was more than eight years ago, and it continues to cast a long shadow in the profound systemic failings in regulation, in oversight and in the way residents’ voices were ignored. Progress has been made since that tragedy, but we must continue to push forward with urgency and determination. The promises made to affected communities must be honoured in full, and the culture that allowed such failures to occur must be permanently changed. In that spirit, we support the introduction of this levy. We believe it is a proportionate and necessary measure, and we will continue to hold the Government to account for how it is implemented. I thank the Minister for bringing forward these regulations and commend the work of all those across both Houses and across all parties who have contributed to this important legislation.

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

My Lords, I am grateful for those very helpful contributions to this debate and for the broad support that these regulations have received from all noble Lords who have spoken. I completely understand the stress and emotional upset that these issues have caused to all those affected by them, not least because I have a building in Stevenage called Vista Tower, which was profoundly affected by the issues. It was not a cladding issue, it was a different issue, but I have dealt with that over the years since those issues were discovered.

I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Jamieson, that for those affected by the Grenfell Tower disaster it has been a very long time indeed. We need to move things on as quickly as we can, not just for all those who are still suffering from the impact of the building safety issues, but for those people at Grenfell who have very bravely and courageously, in my view, used the awful experience that they went through to champion the cause of others who have been affected. I hope we can accelerate this plan so that we can get through these issues as quickly as possible. Indeed, as all noble Lords have recognised, this building safety levy is part of the mechanism to help us do that.

I will pick up some of the individual points that noble Peers have made. If I miss any, I am sure they will stand up and ask me again or I will reply in writing.

The noble Lord, Lord Young, referred to Treasury support and the ongoing funding for this. Remediation funding is already being provided, and the levy launch date does not affect the pace of remediation, so we are not going to slow it down and wait for the levy to kick in. The Government are committed to remediating buildings as quickly as possible, so levy receipts will cover the remaining remediation costs once taxpayer contributions, industry pledges and contractual obligations have been taken into account. It is our intention to keep going within an accelerating plan, not wait until the levy comes in to carry on with this work.

The noble Lord, Lord Young, referred to the scope of the levy. The scope of the levy does not imply responsibility on behalf of levy payers for historic building safety defects. I think the noble Lord was broadly supportive of putting this levy across the board. Developers have to make a full contribution to the overall cost of making buildings safe, reflecting the wider benefit that they derive from a well-functioning market and the substantial funding support the Government continue to provide to the housing market. So, it is being applied across the board.

The noble Lord, Lord Young, and other Peers mentioned the remediation acceleration plan. Clearly, eight years on from Grenfell there is no justification for any building to remain unsafe. Our goal is clear: to remove the barriers to remediation, to get buildings fixed faster and to allow residents to, at last, feel safe in their own homes.

An update on the remediation acceleration plan was published in July and outlined our plan to bring forward a remediation Bill in order to create a hard endpoint for remediation. A proposed legal duty to remediate will compel landlords to remediate buildings within fixed timescales or face criminal prosecution.

The RAP set timescales to provide greater clarity to residents on when they might expect their buildings to be remediated. As noble Lords have recognised, we expect that, by the end of 2029, every building over 18 metres in a government funding scheme will be remediated and every building over 11 metres with unsafe cladding will either have been remediated or have a date for completion, or else its landlords will be liable for penalties.

I am afraid that I am not able to comment on the exact date of the remediation Bill, although I would love to do so. It will be brought forward as soon as parliamentary time allows. I very much understand the frustration of those people in unsafe buildings who are still waiting for work to be done, but we are moving at pace on this now. The noble Lord, Lord Young, held his own Government’s feet to the fire on this matter, as well as pressing me on it; he is right to do that.

[Lord Jamieson (Con)]

In the comment she just made, the Minister said that all buildings over 18 metres will be done by 2029 and that all buildings in the second category will, by 2031, either be done or have a completion date. The completion date could be one or two years away.

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

It is expected to be a reasonable date. We are not going to let people push it forward another 10 years, for example; that would be unreasonable.

I note noble Lords’ comments about the insurance industry. We continue to work with the insurance industry on this matter. I understand that this is a difficult issue.

The noble Lord, Lord Young, asked about non-qualifying leaseholders; I know that this matter has been a very sore point with such leaseholders. The leaseholder protections were designed to protect people living in their own homes. That is why the threshold was set at ownership of three properties in total: to distinguish between owner-occupiers and those who have made investment decisions. However, there is still substantial support. All leaseholders benefit where a responsible developer has been identified or where the freeholder is or was associated with the developer, and all leaseholders benefit from protections in relevant buildings if it is their principal home.

Where no responsible developer can be identified or made to pay, the cladding safety scheme funds eligible cladding remediation for buildings over 11 metres, ensuring that leaseholders do not face cladding bills. The law also allows for the recovery of costs for interim measures and expert reports via remediation contribution orders, placing costs with those responsible rather than residents. Even if some leases are non-qualifying—those for investment properties, for example —a leaseholder’s principal home on 14 February 2022 in a relevant building can still be a qualifying lease and benefit from protections if it meets the statutory criteria.

On the issues around construction product manufacturers, the power to charge the levy in the Building Act 1984 do not allow for it to be charged on construction product manufacturers. In February 2025, the Government published the construction products Green Paper, setting out comprehensive proposals for system-wide reform of that construction products regime. We are reviewing consultation responses, including on measures to introduce sufficiently robust sanctions, penalties and liabilities in order to hold economic operators, including construction product manufacturers, to account. The Government are committed to ensuring effective redress for manufacturer failings, whether they are historical or arise in future.

The cost of remediation must be shared equitably among those who have profited from or have an interest in the development and construction of unsafe buildings. It is unacceptable that some construction product manufacturers have not yet made a fair contribution to resolving this building safety crisis; I want to be very categorical about that. The Building Safety Act introduced new provisions in Sections 147 and 151 to enable developers, building owners and leaseholders to bring a claim against construction product manufacturers and suppliers where a product has been mis-sold or is inherently defective; Section 149 allows claims for historical defects where cladding products have rendered a building unfit for habitation. These provisions create redress routes where no direct contractual relationship exists.

Developers sit at the apex of the industry and are therefore well positioned to take the lead in funding and co-ordinating remediation works. Once they are complete, developers can seek to recover costs from the other parties involved in the supply chain. We are currently reviewing those sections of the Building Safety Act to make sure that the redress routes are robust, support effective cost recovery and promote accountability. We will provide an update on that later this year.

On the protection for buildings over 11 metres or five storeys—we have had this discussion before—evidence shows that problems with historical fire safety defects are concentrated in medium and high-rise buildings, where the risk to life tends to increase with height. By contrast, buildings under 11 metres typically present lower risks and can often be managed with other proportionate mitigations rather than remediation schemes. I know that there is a dispute with the insurance industry over that and, as I said, we continue our dialogue with it.

Leaseholders in collectively owned buildings are excluded from the leaseholder protections because the freehold is owned by some or all of the leaseholders, and the protections would therefore not have their intended effect. Collectively owned buildings are still eligible for the Government’s cladding safety scheme and the responsible actors scheme, and they can also bring remediation contribution orders against former owners, developers or associated persons. We are committed to reviewing how better to protect leaseholders from costs.

The noble Lords, Lord Fuller and Lord Jamieson, raised the pace of housebuilding and its impact. The levy has been designed to minimise potential housing supply impacts while balancing the need to raise the revenue required to make homes safe. All the issues raised with me at the SME round table I attended earlier this afternoon are already being explored and looked at, and I will continue that dialogue with those people. I have undertaken to give them some feedback.

Developers have had plenty of notice that the levy is coming and to include it in their viability plans. It was announced in 2021, and developers have had 15 months from being provided with the detailed design until the launch in 2026. Levy measures to minimise the housing supply impact—I mentioned these in my introduction—include variable levy rates at local authority level, the discount on developments on previously developed land, exemptions for affordable housing and developments of fewer than 10 dwellings. We expect that the cost of the levy will, in time, be reflected in the price that developers pay for land. Affordable housing is exempt from the building safety levy, and the Government are unlocking housebuilding at an unprecedented level. We have already taken urgent action through the planning reforms, which we will discuss next week, and through the £39 billion of investment for social and affordable housing.

I will make some comments on the building safety regulator because it is really important and noble Lords have mentioned it. Local authorities will administer the levy even when the building safety regulator is the Building Control Authority. The levy has been designed to minimise additional responsibilities imposed on the BSR. On 30 June, we announced a new phase for the BSR, including strengthening the leadership of that organisation, tackling operational challenges and moving it from the HSE to a stand-alone body. The building safety regulator has been open and transparent about the challenges of implementing a significant shift in the way building safety is now regulated in high-risk buildings.

The BSR has implemented a range of operational improvements, and it will recruit over 100 new staff to strengthen capacity by the end of the year. Over the past three months, the BSR has made major changes to improve the processing of gateway 2 applications, including a new fast-track innovation unit. Early indications suggest that the new model is working effectively. We expect the model to start to deliver improvements in processing times in the coming months, and we continue to commit to the highest standards of safety. The fast-track process is about refining a new system, not stepping back on commitments. I take the noble Lord’s point about the quality of responses; it is clearly not acceptable to send a response back with just “roof” written on it. I will take that back. His points about digital compatibility are well made. I will take those back and reply to him in writing.

On the payment point, I understand that the levy is paid at building control application, and in a major development that would probably be phased, so the building levy would be applied in that phased way. The noble Lord asked for a delay to the introduction, but developers have already had 15 months after being provided with the detail, so I do not think that that would be justified.

On the SME point, we are still consulting on the issue around medium-sized developments. I will respond in due course, once we have analysed those responses.

The noble Lord, Lord Shipley, asked about reviews. They can be more frequent—the minimum is three years—and there will be a continual review process. We need a balance, providing certainty with an ability to amend in the light of changing circumstances. We will continually keep this under review. In response to his question about PBSA, 30 bed spaces in PBSA are roughly equivalent to 10 dwelling-house thresholds, so that is why it has been set at that rate.

In conclusion, we think that the building safety levy is essential to fund the remediation of these historic building safety issues without further burdening residents and leaseholders, who have already suffered quite considerably through all this. The Government are committed to delivering 1.5 million homes to meet the country’s long-term housing needs and to unlock growth. That must work in parallel with our commitment to remedying the building safety failures of the past. The industry that contributed to such problems must pay to remedy them. The draft regulations set out a fair approach to collect the required funds, while ensuring minimal impact on housing supply and industry.

[Lord Jamieson (Con)]

The Minister very kindly commented on the improvements in the speed and transparency of the building safety regulator—that is very good. Is there a timetable of targets for how quickly it will turn around gateway 2, gateway 3 and gateway 4? I do not expect an answer now, but, if so, would the Minister be kind enough to write to us on that?

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

I thank the noble Lord for his comments. A new person—Andy Roe—is in charge of the building safety regulator. It would be helpful for me to ask Andy to draft a letter for noble Lords to set out our progress on making the BSR more effective.

Renters’ Rights Bill

Lord Jamieson Excerpts

Tuesday 14th October 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Thornhill (LD)]

My Lords, first, I join the noble Lord, Lord Best, in praising the noble Lord, Lord Young, for his tenacity and commitment to shared ownership owners, who really are the raw end of the market and get a raw deal in many ways. He has really shown his mettle in his commitment to this. It is also fair to thank the noble Baroness, Lady Taylor, for listening and doing something about it. I hope that her commitment to shared owners continues in other areas that we will look at.

Turning to Motion C1, from the noble Lord, Lord Cromwell, which it appears we will vote on, it is very difficult to follow the eloquence of the noble Lords, Lord Pannick and Lord Cromwell, but I will try. The noble Lord, Lord Best, has already highlighted what we call “revenge evictions”, and we are approaching that issue from the position of working—for many years, in the case of my noble friend Lady Grender—with renter groups and renter charities. From that, we get a real idea of what is happening at the sharp end, which is not quite as narrow as we might like to think it is. There are probably more unscrupulous landlords out there than the number of homes that take over one year to sell.

On revenge evictions, there is the risk that a tenant will be kicked out because they ask for improvements—the noble Lord gave a very good example of that, but there are many others. In certain parts of the country where rents are not as expensive, six months’ rent would make it worth while for the landlord to kick somebody out on that ground if they ask for even some modest accessibility improvements and so on. We are arguing over six, nine or 12 months, and the truth is that only time will tell. What I seek from the Government is some reassurance that this will be looked at, because that could very well be the case.

The noble Lord, Lord Best, mentioned Scotland. It is interesting that the properties in one in five evictions that were made on this repossession ground then turned up on their database as still being for sale. That gives weight to the fact that people are prepared to do it, because in Scotland they have no period for not re-letting.

In several debates, I mentioned that I chatted to my women friends who are landlords; I referred to them as my “landladies”. I put this to them, and they looked at me as if it were a weird question. They said, “If I were concerned about my property sitting empty, I am actually able to sell my property with the tenants still in the property while the ‘For Sale’ board is up on the door, so I would talk to them and say that the ‘For Sale’ board is going up, but I certainly wouldn’t be serving notice until I was certain that I had a buyer”. That is due to—this is a statistic that has not been bandied about—the length of time it sometimes takes to sell a house. Interestingly, they did not see it as the kind of emotive, big, terrible, unfair problem that noble Lords have made it out to be. By keeping your tenants in the property, you are not only getting the rent but—much more importantly, in our view—you are giving your tenants more time to find a home.

[Lord Jamieson (Con)]

My Lords, I declare my interest as a councillor in central Bedfordshire. I will speak briefly to support two important Motions before us, one tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Cromwell, on no re-let provisions, and the other by my noble friend Lord Young of Cookham on shared ownership.

On Motion C1, as the noble Lord, Lord Cromwell, clearly explained, under the Bill, where a landlord seeks possession to sell a property and that sale then falls through—as it does in about one-third of cases—the landlord is prohibited from re-letting the property for 12 months. In practice, that means perfectly good homes must stand empty for a whole year. The amendment does not undermine the Bill’s purpose; it retains the requirement for a genuine sales process and safeguards against abuse. It introduces the vital element of proportionality. A six-month restriction would still deter bad actors while avoiding unnecessary loss of rental supply at a time when demand and rents are rising sharply. We have a housing crisis, and we must take every opportunity to improve the supply of housing and homes. Leaving homes empty for 12 months does not help those desperately looking for a home to rent.

Turning to shared owners, I would also like to extend my appreciation of the dedicated work of my noble friend Lord Young of Cookham, and we support the Motion in his name. He has made a compelling and deeply fair case on behalf of shared owners who, through no fault of their own, have found themselves trapped by the complexities of the shared ownership system. I want to thank Ministers for listening to the concerns raised across the House and for working constructively with my noble friend on this issue. We would support my noble friend if he took this to a vote, but from what the Minister has said, my understanding is that the Government are supportive of it. Therefore, we hope that a vote is not necessary.

Planning and Infrastructure Bill

Lord Jamieson Excerpts

Committee stage
Wednesday 17th September 2025 Lords Chamber

That has enabled me to strike out much of my planned contribution—noble Lords may wish to cheer at this point—

[Lord Jamieson (Con)]

Hear, hear!

[Lord Cromwell (CB)]

Thank you. See you for breakfast!

On a more serious note, I ask the Minister perhaps to write to me to set out what these opportunities are, how they will be made available, and how the appropriate payment rates will be determined. I am not suggesting that she can quantify them now, but what is the process? I do not think the Bill makes that clear, unless I have missed it.

I will take the three amendments in my name as a group, as they are linked. They address the actual delivery of the conservation measures set out in environmental delivery plans, once those have been established. Clause 76(3) recognises that and says:

“Natural England may pay another person to take conservation measures”.


But the Bill lacks a clear, simple and manageable series of steps for Natural England to follow to achieve that. My Amendment 318B would turn the “may” into a “must”, meaning that third parties should be engaged. Incidentally, I do not think that those would be entirely commercial; they could be non-governmental organisations that are able to deliver.

My Amendments 320B and 325ZA set out a series of rational steps for delivering conservation works, which are: first, hold a competitive tender process; secondly, if there are no willing bidders, seek to buy the land at market value; thirdly, if that really proves impossible, proceed to compulsory purchase as a last resort. These amendments would strengthen the Bill by setting out a clear set of sequential and proportionate process stages for the all-important implementation of conservation works. This would be helpful both to Natural England and to those wishing to engage with delivering the EDP process. I hope the Government will recognise this as a helpful clarification that will support the effective implementation of the plans under Natural England supervision.