Planning and Infrastructure Bill

Debate between Lord Lansley and Lord Wilson of Sedgefield

Committee stage
Thursday 11th September 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wilson of Sedgefield (Lab)]

I hope to address that in a little bit—the noble Baroness may think that I will not, but that is the intention.

Local authorities continue to have various other ways to manage development in villages, and neither the Bill nor our policy reforms exclude the consideration of matters such as the character of a village or the scale and style of development, where relevant, in planning determinations. For instance, a local plan may designate local green space safe from inappropriate development or recognise a Defra-registered village green. Historic village character can also be preserved by using conservation area policies, neighbourhood planning, local listing of important buildings or local design guidance.

As planning policy already sets out adequate and appropriate protection from and support for development relating to villages, both inside and outside the green belt, I do not believe this amendment seeking to use green-belt protections to restrict development in villages is appropriate. Neither of these amendments is necessary to protect the green belt or the character of villages, and their statutory nature would limit the ability of local planning authorities to develop sound strategies and make the decisions necessary to ensure new homes and jobs in the right places. I therefore ask the noble Baroness kindly to withdraw her amendment.

[Lord Lansley (Con)]

Before the Minister sits down, I point out that, in the guidance from February, the Government said of purpose D on the setting of historic towns:

“This purpose relates to historic towns, not villages”.


One simple change that would make an enormous difference would be to recognise that that purpose should relate to historic villages as well. Many of our historic villages used to be historic towns. Lavenham was to all intents and purposes a town; you can go to the coast in Suffolk and see towns from the Middle Ages that now are small villages or, frankly, have virtually disappeared. The history is what should be important—not the present size of the settlement.

[Lord Wilson of Sedgefield (Lab)]

From what I understand, the new regulations were to provide clarity on the green belt. As we have said, they are concerned with preventing urban sprawl, but they do not remove villages from the green belt or prevent land near villages being protected from development through green belt designation. Land around villages that makes a strong contribution to these purposes should not be identified as grey belt, for example. We think that we now have consistency with these regulations and that villages and their historic value and character are already protected in the planning process.

Planning and Infrastructure Bill

Debate between Lord Lansley and Lord Wilson of Sedgefield

Committee stage
Tuesday 9th September 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wilson of Sedgefield (Lab)]

It is something that we should look at. The warm homes plan, for example, which will be published in October—in just a few weeks’ time—will look at our approach to heating in homes and the mitigation that we need to implement for climate change. We are looking at this and everything will continue to be under review.

[Lord Lansley (Con)]

Can the Minister explain? I do not understand why he has not referred to the intended provisions of new Clause 12D(10) describing the content of a spatial development strategy. The Government are proposing that:

“A spatial development strategy must be designed to secure that the use and development of land in the strategy area contribute to the mitigation of, and adaptation to, climate change”.


Can the Minister not say with some certainty that the effect of that would be to ensure that mitigation and adaptation to climate change do form a central part of plan-making?

[Lord Wilson of Sedgefield (Lab)]

Climate change mitigation does play a big part in all the planning arrangements that we are going to introduce. It is one of the central points of the Planning and Infrastructure Bill that we actually take those aspects into consideration.

I turn to Amendment 145B. It is vital that new homes are energy efficient and designed to mitigate the risk associated with overheating and spatial development strategies, particularly as climate change increases the frequency and severity of extreme heat events. The Planning and Compulsory Purchase Act already allows strategic planning authorities to include policies requiring housing to meet standards on energy efficiency and climate resilience in their spatial development strategies, provided they are of strategic importance to the strategy area. As I mentioned previously, the spatial development strategies are intended to be high-level documents. Energy-efficiency and climate resilience standards are more detailed matters that are better suited to a local plan.

We intend to go further this autumn. We will set more ambitious energy-efficiency and carbon-emission requirements for new homes through the future homes and building standards. These standards will set new homes on a path that moves away from reliance on volatile fossil fuels. Homes built to these standards will use sustainable energy sources for their heating and hot water. This means they will be zero-carbon ready and will need no future work to achieve zero-carbon emissions when the electricity grid is fully decarbonised.

I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, for proposing Amendment 180, which would require the submission of embodied carbon assessments for developments of a specified size as part of planning applications. However, to reiterate a point I have made throughout the debate, the National Planning Policy Framework already makes it clear that the planning system must support the transition to a low-carbon future. It calls for a proactive approach to both mitigating and adapting to climate change, in line with the long-term goals set out in the Climate Change Act 2008.

In our consultation on changes to the framework last summer, we sought views on whether carbon could be reliably measured and accounted for in plan-making and decision-making. We wanted to understand the sector’s readiness and to identify any practical barriers to the wider use of carbon assessments in planning. The feedback we received was wide-ranging and constructive. Having carefully considered those views, we concluded that it would not be appropriate at this stage to introduce a mandatory requirement for carbon assessments, given the current state of evolution of assessment techniques and the need to consider very carefully the impact on applicants where additional information such as this is mandated.

However, we recognise the need for greater clarity and guidance. That is why we have committed to updating the planning practice guidance to help both decision-makers and developers make better use of available tools to reduce embodied and operational carbon in the built environment. We also acknowledge that embodied carbon is not just a challenge for buildings; it is a systemic issue across the construction and supply sector. As wider decarbonisation efforts take hold and industries evolve, we expect to see a natural reduction in the embodied carbon of buildings over time. For these reasons, I kindly ask the noble Baroness to withdraw her amendment.