Planning and Infrastructure Bill

Lord Lucas Excerpts

Report stage
Monday 27th October 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Krebs (CB)]

My Lords, in speaking in support of Amendment 88 in the name of my noble friend Lady Willis of Summertown, I reiterate in particular the point she made in her introduction to the amendment that if, as we have heard on many occasions, the Government’s view is that this amendment is unnecessary because the matter is covered by the NPPF, please could they show us the workings? Can they demonstrate to us with firm data that the NPPF is indeed working to protect green space in our towns, cities and villages? If we do not have the data, how can we believe what the Government tell us?

We then tend to fall back on anecdotes. We have heard a number of anecdotes already this afternoon, and I will add my own. One of my penances in life is that I support Oxford United. I live in Oxford and, as one of my friends said, when you support Oxford United, you support them through thin and thin. Near the Kassam Stadium—which is in a more deprived part of Oxford, the Blackbird Leys estate—there used to be a very nice little green park. It was small, but it was a bit of greenery where children could run around and kick a ball. Just in the last year or so, that green space has been completely covered wall-to-wall with houses—they are packed in and there is no green space left. Anecdotes like that make us anxious. We do not see where green and blue space is being protected.

I hope that the Minister will respond to my noble friend Lady Willis’s request and, probably not at this moment but in writing, send us all the data that shows that the NPPF is delivering what the Government claim it delivers.

[Lord Lucas (Con)]

My Lords, I very much support by noble friend’s Amendment 96, which we will likely hear about in due course. This is really important for the harmonious development of communities and them working well for people. But if we are going to have that then we absolutely need Amendment 88 too. As the noble Lord, Lord Krebs, has just pointed out, if we do not make a clear requirement for green space then it gets swallowed up.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, I will speak chiefly to Amendment 121E in my name. It has not been addressed yet, but it is very much a package with two amendments that have already been widely addressed: Amendment 107 on playing fields, from the noble Lord, Lord Addington, and Amendment 88 on blue and green spaces, from the noble Baroness, Lady Willis. These three amendments fit together.

My amendment, which is the same as the one that I tabled in Committee, seeks to ensure that planning authorities take all practicable steps to ensure a sufficiency of play opportunities for children. As the noble Lord, Lord Krebs, just said, we desperately need playing fields for organised sport and we need green and blue spaces, but somewhere to just kick a ball around is not necessarily a playing field and yet it is a crucial space for children to develop their physical skills—as the noble Baroness, Lady Grey-Thompson, spoke about—and social skills, by getting together to play.

I spoke quite extensively in Committee and I do not intend to repeat everything I said. I will pick up and take forward a couple of points that were raised then. I begin by apologising to the Minister, who made great efforts to reach out and have a meeting with me before Report. I am afraid his emails arrived just beforehand. I was in Ukraine, with limited communications, and it is entirely my fault that that meeting did not happen; I apologise for that. Those were the circumstances.

This is not really my amendment at all. In Committee, the noble Lord, Lord Addington, asked where it had come from and I said that it came from Play England. It is worth tracing through this a little. The 2024 manifesto from Play England was the first to call for play sufficiency legislation. In Committee, the Minister referred to the NPPF change that came in December 2024, but, as we have heard from multiple noble Lords, there is no evidence that it is working. Further, that is a policy, which could be changed, which is very different from having it written into law—which is much harder to change—that planning authorities must consider play sufficiency.

As I said in Committee, this was debated quite extensively by the standards of the other place, and there were broad expressions of support. I am afraid that nothing the Minister said in Committee convinced me that there was any argument against this. I note that the noble Lord asked in Committee if I was aware that there is an APPG on Play. I am—I am a member of the APPG on Play, together with eight other Members of your Lordships’ House, including several from the Government Benches, and 32 MPs. By the standards of these things, that makes it a significant all-party group, which is a recognition of the importance in which this issue is held.

A number of noble Lords, the noble Baroness, Lady Miller, among them, referred to the Wildlife and Countryside Link study which came out this morning about the lack of green spaces where first-time buyers make their first homes. Of course, many of those first-time buyers may well have or be going to have children, who desperately need these play spaces. I note that the paper edition of the Times this morning put beside that the report from the House of Lords environment committee, which I think is out this morning and which talks about how, if the Government are to build new towns, they need to be built as communities, with infrastructure in place. Part of that infrastructure must be play infrastructure.

I referred in Committee to the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child and to the fact that Wales and Scotland already have comparable legislation to this. It is worth noting that Wales has the Well-being of Future Generations (Wales) Act, which almost demands that you have something like a play sufficiency duty.

--- Later in debate ---

Moved by

[Lord Lucas]

87B: After Clause 51, insert the following new Clause—
“Planning permission: biodiversity information(1) The Secretary of State must, by regulations made by statutory instrument, require all biodiversity information generated in the course of a planning application to be submitted, free of charges and restrictions on use, to the local environmental record centre for the area in which planning permission is requested, in the format required by that organisation.(2) A statutory instrument containing regulations under this section is subject to annulment in pursuance of a resolution of either House of Parliament.”Member's explanatory statement
This amendment is to ensure that biodiversity information generated in the course of planning activities is contributed to the national store of such knowledge.

[Lord Lucas (Con)]

My Lords, in the course of the planning system, we gather a great deal of high-quality biodiversity data. By and large, we then throw it away. We should not be doing this. We should be keeping it, making sure it is accessible, so that we can really plot what we are doing in 30 by 30 and in our campaign to restore nature to this country. It is ridiculous that we throw it away.

The Minister very kindly wrote me a letter after Committee saying, among other things, that when discharging the biodiversity gain condition, applicants can choose to share their data with local environmental records centres, and many are already choosing to do so. I organised a ring-round; it is not happening—it is not true—so we must have some very clear regulation that this data should not be lost. If this cannot be done in this Bill, then please may I sit down with the Minister in preparation for the next planning Bill? This cannot go on. I beg to move.

[Lord Blencathra (Con)]

My Lords, I shall speak to my Amendment 87BA. The most important vehicle for nature recovery in this country is via the local nature recovery strategies being developed by the 48 local authorities in charge. One can design a recovery strategy only if one knows what is there in the first place, or rather what is not there, what is lacking and needs to be recovered. My noble friend’s amendment is wise and right, but I would urge the Government to go further, since many organisations collect species information, often working collaboratively to pool data and make it available for research and conservation purposes.

The primary network for this collaboration is the National Biodiversity Network, the NBN, which brings together government bodies, charities, volunteer-led recording schemes, data aggregators and networks. The NBN is a charity that oversees the UK-wide partnership for gathering and sharing biodiversity data.

Then we have the Biological Records Centre, the BRC, which was established in 1964. The BRC co-ordinates and supports wildlife recording schemes and societies across the UK, working with volunteer recorders. It manages the online recording tools called iRecord and iNaturalistUK, and its data is published on the NBN Atlas.

Then we come to the local environmental records centres, the LERCs, the organisation mentioned in my noble friend’s amendment. Natural England has divided England into 159 distinct national character areas, or NCAs. Each NCA is defined by a unique combination of natural and human factors, including landscape, biodiversity, geodiversity—that is geology and land forms—history, and cultural and economic activity.

That information is invaluable in helping authorities develop their LNRS but so is all available data, government and private. My noble friend’s amendment asks that the biodiversity information collected in the course of a planning application should be given to the LERCS—I would add that it should be given to the NBN and the BRC also. We cannot have enough data available for decision-making.

Where I depart from my noble friend’s amendment is that he wants to make it compulsory and legal; I would hope that is not necessary and that exhortation from the Government to the local authorities would ensure that this information is sent to the three organisations we have mentioned in our amendments.

I hope that they will not use the excuse that this is all confidential in the planning application and they cannot send it. That is nonsense; it should not be deemed confidential, and it should be passed on to those organisations. If the Secretary of State wants another new slogan in addition to “Build, baby, build”, I would suggest “Data, baby, data, data, data”.

--- Later in debate ---

Amendment 87BA (to Amendment 87B) not moved.

[Lord Lucas (Con)]

My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for her reply. I shall not drop this issue but, for the moment, I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.

Amendment 87B withdrawn.

--- Later in debate ---

Moved by

[Lord Lucas]

87G: Clause 52, page 70, line 38, at end insert “, or where the area of a spatial development strategy contains any part of a national park authority.”
Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment seeks to ensure coherent planning through extending the Secretary of State’s powers to establish a joint committee of authorities where a national park is present in the spatial development strategy area.

[Lord Lucas (Con)]

My Lords, I am very grateful to the Minister for writing to me on my amendment in Committee. I apologise for revisiting this question, but I really think we need to be clear about this. The idea that national park authorities should be in some way a subsidiary and junior part of this process is something that I really feel will not work.

National park authorities are sole local planning authorities for almost 10% of England. They are statutory local planning authorities, charged with balancing development and economic growth. They operate across local authority boundaries and routinely co-ordinate with multiple councils, agencies and communities. In short, they already do strategic planning. The idea that the new spatial development strategies should in some way be senior, should start to completely alter the planning process within the national park so that it becomes subsidiary, is something that really goes against the purpose of national parks, as I understand it. Yet, as things stand, the Bill gives national park authorities a limited role in shaping spatial development strategies: they will be informed after the event rather than engaged from the outset, and I cannot see how that leads to good planning.

Under the Planning and Compulsory Purchase Act 2004, national park authorities were recognised as key partners in preparing regional spatial strategies. That statutory status worked well. It gave clarity and accountability without burdening national parks with inappropriate new powers or undue weight. It is precisely that kind of formal consultative and advisory role that I would like to see the Government restoring in the Bill. Spatial development strategies created in partnership with national parks are far more likely to be better balanced and more coherent, to engage with growth in all its guises and to be more deliverable. I therefore urge the Minister to rethink government policy on this matter. I beg to move.

[Baroness Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville (LD)]

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, for this amendment. I apologise for not being able to take part in Committee, due to hip surgery. I welcome the inclusion of spatial development strategies as a particularly useful tool for ensuring that larger areas participate in planning for the future. They remind me of the regional development strategies previously in place during my days on the South West of England RDA. Sometimes they worked, sometimes they left much to be desired, but they were a step in the right direction.

When looking at spatial planning on a more holistic basis, it is important to ensure that all those organisations with an interest are consulted. This includes the national parks, which are guardians of environmentally sensitive land across the country. I lived in Somerset for over 50 years and regularly visited Exmoor and Dartmoor National Parks. Without proper environmental planning, both these parks would be the poorer, and species often depleted. I now live on the edge of the South Downs National Park and, again, I am extremely concerned that those who manage and look after their beautiful area should have a say in the spatial planning that affects them.

I know from my frequent visits to the Peak District—my husband comes from Derbyshire—that millions of visitors come to the national parks; many of them are overseas visitors. The parks are a vital part of the recreational activities for those who visit, especially for residents of nearby cities and urban constrained areas. The balance between ensuring free access and enjoyment for all visitors who contribute to the green economy and ensuring the survival of the environment and the species that depend on the parks for their survival is vital. Each park will have its own ecosystem, whether that be based on open moorland, peatland, ancient woodland or marshland. Each will have animal and insect species that are indigenous to their area, and the plant life that sustains them. It is therefore vital that the national parks should, as the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, indicated, have a seat at the spatial planning table. At a time when species that the countryside supports are in devastating decline, it is unthinkable for the voice of local national parks not to be heard. I fully support Amendment 87G.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

My Lords, Amendment 87G tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, seeks to ensure that the Secretary of State can establish strategic planning boards in areas that include a national park. As I explained in Committee, an SDS area is defined in new Section 12A which the Bill will insert into the Planning and Compulsory Purchase Act 2004 as the area of the strategic planning authority preparing the spatial development strategy. The strategy area encompasses all local authorities, including local planning authorities, such as national park authorities. Therefore, the Secretary of State could already use the power in new Section 12B to establish a strategic planning board covering an area with a national park or part of a national park.

In response to the comments from the noble Lord, Lord Roborough, about the role of the national park authorities, I say that while national park authorities will not sit on boards, they will have a very important role to play in the preparation of spatial development strategies. We will expect boards and other authorities with national parks in their areas to engage closely with national park authorities to ensure these valued areas remain protected. National park authorities will continue to prepare local plans for their areas which will set out policies on the use and development of land. There is no change to the role of the national park authorities in preparing those local plans for their areas.

The strategic planning boards will be established through statutory instruments after the Bill receives Royal Assent. The constituent authorities will be formally consulted on the draft statutory instruments ahead of them coming into force, as is required by new Section 12B(4).

With these explanations, I hope the noble Lord will be able to withdraw his amendment.

[Lord Lucas (Con)]

My Lords, I see I have not won the argument, so I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.

Amendment 87G withdrawn.