Planning and Infrastructure Bill

Debate between Lord Jamieson and Baroness Coffey

Committee stage
Monday 15th September 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Coffey (Con)]

My Lords, I welcome the amendments in the name of the noble Earl, Lord Russell. He referred to two different utilities. Energy should, in effect, be unlimited in the resource available, but it is concerning to a number of communities that, suddenly, energy projects, substations and so on are popping up around the country and lots of planning applications are going in alongside them from solar farms and for other significant uses of data, including data centres and other AI infrastructure. As a consequence, what proportion of grade 1, grade 2 and grade 3a land is now being taken up with planning applications, due to not only solar farms but all the AI-related infrastructure to which the amendments refer? I do not know whether the Minister has that information; if not, I would be grateful if she could write to us.

On Amendment 185P, unlike electricity and energy, water is very much a constrained utility in this country. The amount of water available to keep powering homes, businesses and other activities, including energy stations, is significantly under threat. That is one reason why there will be one of the most significant contractions in the amount of water available to the farming sector in just two years’ time. There is something to be said about the amount of water that we think will be used by AI data centres and the like. At the moment, there seems to be no thinking about how we prioritise the different industrial sectors across our country. Nor am I aware—I am sure that the Minister will correct me if I am wrong—that we are necessarily considering this in planning guidance, although there will be something more widely about whether water is available. This is a really important activity and the Government should absolutely be looking at it, regardless of whether this goes into the Bill.

When I did the plan for water, on making sure there was a clean supply of water—that was part of the intention—and thinking ahead, I do not think that we had really given much thought to this sort of consumption that we are now due to have. To give an example, one reason for the major delays to Sizewell C was that, all of a sudden, the water company responsible said that it could not necessarily guarantee the amount of water to be used in the construction and operation of the nuclear energy plant. That has led to Sizewell C having to think about desalination plants and reservoirs but, at the moment, there are constraints on how some of these things can be spread across sectors in the generation of a nuclear energy station. It is imperative that we think about where else this could happen; to be serious, in terms of the building planned and business growth in the east of England, after Sizewell C was given its consent, no other business has been eligible to get or ask for any more water.

This is a genuinely critical area that the Government need to look at, which is why I welcome the amendment put forward by the noble Earl today. I hope that they will give it serious consideration and I encourage the noble Earl to bring it back on Report.

[Lord Jamieson (Con)]

My Lords, I suspect that many noble Lords across your Lordships’ House are not yet fully aware of the growth, scale and significance of what we call AI-related infrastructure—the hardware and software required to create, train and deploy AI-powered applications and solutions. If we are to fully harness the benefits of AI, unlocking these new efficiencies, fuelling economic growth and creating opportunities for infrastructure investment, we must be mindful of the practical impacts that come with it, as the noble Earl, Lord Russell, and my noble friend Lady Coffey have pointed out, with the two key areas being energy use and water.

As the noble Earl has highlighted, the sheer computational power required for advanced AI models is immense, leading to rising energy demand. Equally, the cooling systems necessary for AI data centres can involve significant water usage. These are important considerations and it makes sense that our planning system and national guidance should take them into account to ensure that infrastructure growth is both sustainable and resilient. I do not believe it is the noble Earl’s intention that these amendments hold back innovation; rather, they call for statutory recognition of these impacts within the planning system, supported by a clear national strategy, guidance and reporting requirements. That seems to me both proportionate and sensible.

The noble Earl’s Amendments 185R and 185S rightly highlight the urgent challenge of climate change and the central role that planning and development must play in addressing it. Their emphasis on ensuring a resilient and sustainable built environment is both timely and welcome, and I place on record our appreciation of the sentiment behind them. At the same time, however, it is important to strike a balance, supporting sustainability while avoiding overly burdensome requirements or excessive regulation that could impede housing delivery or economic growth. I look forward to hearing from the Minister how the Government intend to respond to these concerns.

Planning and Infrastructure Bill

Debate between Lord Jamieson and Baroness Coffey

Committee stage
Monday 1st September 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Coffey (Con)]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[Lord Jamieson (Con)]

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

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Coffey (Con)]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[Lord Jamieson (Con)]

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