Planning and Infrastructure Bill

Debate between Lord Wilson of Sedgefield and Baroness Parminter

Report stage
Wednesday 29th October 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Parminter (LD)]

My Lords, given that time is short, I will contain our remarks to the standout amendment in this group, Amendment 130, moved so ably by the noble Baroness, Lady Willis of Summertown. It is a means to address a fundamental question we all have on the Bill: how do we help the Government deliver the win-win for nature and the economy by giving developers certainty about this new process, given that we are moving away from an established process which has served for many years, while at the same time ensuring that the environmental protections we want are locked in? The approach taken by the noble Baroness is to curtail the scope of this new process by saying that an EDP can happen only where it has been shown that those approaches will work, benefiting conservation at the strategic landscape scale.

I have to say that we, as Liberal Democrats, thought long and hard about supporting this amendment. It is our contention that we should always follow the science, so if there were scientific evidence that there could be conservation benefits for a species, for example, it would normally be our position to support that. Therefore, this approach to curtail it by area rather than evidence is not one that we would normally support. But as noble Lords will see, after thinking long and hard, we put our Front-Bench name to this amendment. The reason is that we are not convinced at this point in the debate that there are sufficient safeguards about how that scientific evidence will be considered by Natural England to ensure that the environmental safeguards that we all want will be in place. Therefore, we on these Benches will listen very carefully to what the Minister has to say in response to this amendment but, if the noble Baroness is minded to move to a vote on it, at this point in time, we would support her.

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

My Lords, the usual channels have agreed that we should pause now to allow for a short break before Oral Questions at 3 pm. Although unusual, I therefore beg to move that the debate on this amendment be adjourned, and we will return to it later this afternoon.

Planning and Infrastructure Bill

Debate between Lord Wilson of Sedgefield and Baroness Parminter

Committee stage
Thursday 11th September 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wilson of Sedgefield (Lab)]

We believe that what is already there is specific and offers clarity. It is fundamental to the planning regime that we want to bring in. If the noble Lord wants, I can write to him in greater detail about what is on offer here.

[Baroness Parminter (LD)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister at least for the consistency of his reply with that given in the Commons. I thank all other noble Lords who have spoken in this brief debate.

The noble Lord, Lord Deben, made the point well: time is not on our side, and local authorities have a critical part to play in meeting our net-zero targets. The Government cannot do it on their own and we as individuals wanting to drive electric cars cannot do it if local authorities have not put in place plug points or if the houses are in the wrong places. They are pivotal. At some point, you have to start creating the overall conditions to show that the Government and local government are acting in partnership to achieve the legally binding targets which this Government are signed up to and which I am sure they wish to keep to.

To pick up the point from the noble Lord, Lord Deben, what will this Government do if the big local authorities start refusing to take these responsibilities seriously? They will have no chance of getting to the targets that they want to achieve and which this country needs unless they start biting the bullet now and putting some target statutory duties in, as the previous Government gave local authorities statutory duties to promote growth. Without that, they will not get there. I ask them urgently to think again on this. I suspect that we may well return to this on Report. I beg leave to withdraw.