English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill

Baroness Maclean of Redditch Excerpts

2nd reading
Monday 8th December 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Maclean of Redditch (Con)]

My Lords, a lot of good points have already been made in this debate and it is clear that the principle of devolution is supported across all of our Benches. I have personally seen really good results from devolution in the Midlands, where I have lived for most of my life. There, we have had serious and meaningful devolution that has already delivered real progress under the leadership of former Conservative Mayor of the West Midlands, Sir Andy Street. It is quite telling that people from across this House have mentioned him in particular. The noble Lord, Lord Storey, has just talked about pride, and Andy made us feel proud of our region and my home city of Birmingham for the first time in a very long time. That was truly precious, after a lifetime of being laughed at for being from Birmingham.

Nothing in the Bill, I am afraid, resembles that successful model. Instead, we are presented with a measure that centralises power and concentrates authority in the hands of a few individuals. It sidelines councillors and weakens scrutiny, and I am afraid that, against the backdrop of cancelling mayoral elections, it makes a mockery of the Government’s claim that they want to strengthen democracy.

I shall bring in some concerns that have been raised directly with me by councillors in my former constituency in Redditch and in the county of Worcestershire. These are people who actually deliver services and understand their communities. I pay tribute to them and to everybody else who steps up to serve their local area. As my noble friend Lady McIntosh said, it is far from clear how an area such as Worcestershire will be affected. It is too small a county to be a large strategic authority, but lumping it in with Birmingham or combining it with Herefordshire or Gloucestershire just would not work. It would be a million miles from the wishes of local communities, so I would be grateful to hear from the Minister how Worcestershire, and Redditch specifically, will be affected by the plans to combine those two tiers of government into one authority.

My noble friend Lord Trenchard is right to highlight the deep roots of counties. I am old enough to remember when my hometown of Solihull was kicked out of Warwickshire and put into the West Midlands. That caused everyone to go into a frightful tizzy and to vote against all the local councillors who had done it.

I have also heard concerns expressed about the concentration of power into the hands of a small number of individuals, and that really is a danger. To have good governance, you need a robust group on a committee challenging each other and making sure that alternative points of view are presented. I can see that we are creating a situation where influence can be captured by targeting a handful of individuals. We could find a small number of mayors who could create a cabal distant from the people that they serve, rather than the current model we have of ward councillors deeply embedded in their local areas, living and breathing those day-to-day problems affecting people every day. Without proper checks, a mayor can simply ignore scrutiny panels. There is no equivalent to parliamentary votes. If a mayor just says, “Well, it’s my way or the highway”, what can those local representatives do? Absolutely nothing.

As I am speaking after the noble Lord, Lord Ravensdale, I follow him in talking about the Midlands. I was fortunate enough to work very closely with Sir Andy Street as he started out as the first mayor of that combined authority. The reason he was successful is that he was able to navigate relationships with other local authorities of different political colours. He was able to deliver significant benefits for the region and put that authority on a path to being an outstanding authority, and he did it just through relationship building and developing trust, despite their different political colours. I genuinely do not think it would have worked if the then Conservative Government had just said, “You have to do it this way. We’re dictating from MHCLG”—as it was at that time. That would not have worked; they would all have dug in and refused, as Labour authorities, to work with a Conservative mayor, but Andy Street was able to bring them together and deliver something. The Government would do well to reflect on successful models of devolution that have worked well and delivered benefits for those areas.

Reorganisation, if done properly, could potentially save millions of pounds, and I think the Government are planning to do that. My worry is that any cost saving could get swallowed up into more bureaucracy. I fear, and I think many of us share this concern, that it looks as though the Government are potentially using this to do their favourite thing, which is put up taxes. When I listen to the Government Front Bench, at no time do they say they have the aspiration of lowering council taxes on hard-pressed council taxpayers. They talk instead about more taxes for tourism, which will cost money to administer and collect and might well have the opposite effect to the one that they imagine.

Real devolution means trusting local people, not bypassing them, but the Bill does none of that. Local government, in the words of one of our noble Peers who I was just having a cup of tea with, is one of those things that is boring but really important because it touches the lives of so many people. It is vital that we get this right, and I hope the Minister will take on board the suggestions of noble Lords to improve it throughout its passage.

Planning and Infrastructure Bill

Baroness Maclean of Redditch Excerpts

Report stage
Wednesday 29th October 2025 Lords Chamber

I have one final stat, which is terribly important. What we are allowing is a tax on people’s desperation. The Gambling Commission survey that came out this month showed that the top reason for gambling, given by 85% of people, is because they hope to have a big win. People are desperate. The survey showed that 27% of those living in the most deprived areas gambled at least weekly; in the least deprived areas, the figure is 14%.

[Baroness Maclean of Redditch (Con)]

My Lords, I want to make a few remarks on Amendment 121G in the name of my noble friend Lady Neville-Rolfe. I also support Amendment 117 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Foster of Bath, on gambling premises. I am a former MP who represented a town centre, Redditch, where we often saw these challenges in maintaining a healthy mix of shops and businesses. Thinking about planning decisions on a holistic basis would have been very beneficial. These challenges cannot be fixed by planning alone, but planning can play a part.

Turning to Amendment 121G, I declare my interest as someone who was a small business owner and an entrepreneur for more than 30 years. I thank my lucky stars that that was not in the construction sector because, honestly, that is one of the hardest sectors to operate in—particularly for a small business. When I was the Housing and Planning Minister, I spent a lot of time with small and medium businesses. It was really difficult to hear their stories, which were often frustrating, heartbreaking and tragic. Ultimately, we as a country are losing out if we fail to support and nourish these incredibly hardy and resilient people. Many of them are at risk of losing their livelihoods; in fact, some recent statistics suggest that around half of SME construction businesses are at risk of insolvency by the end of this Parliament. That is why I support this amendment.

What my noble friend Lady Neville-Rolfe has put forward is very sensible. She makes the point that, too often, the system defaults to one-size-fits-all requirements, which land heaviest on smaller firms. We talk about the NPPF. It has 76 pages and is relatively concise, I agree, but it sits on top of a very large and complex ecosystem of guidance. This is one of the concerns that businesses repeatedly raise: the real burden lies in all of that additional guidance, not just in the 76 pages of the NPPF. Volume housebuilders can navigate such things easily, but it is not so for SMEs. For instance, negotiating Section 106 agreements hits them disproportionately harder, on top of all of the cost burdens that they face.

Anyone who has been a local representative—whether a councillor or a Member of Parliament—knows well that opposition exists to virtually all housing of any kind, no matter where it is. However, in my experience, SME local builders with roots in the community are in a much better position to overcome these hurdles and contribute to desperately needed housing.

In conclusion, these are practical amendments that support local authorities to plan for places in which families want to live, shop and invest.

[Lord Deben (Con)]

My Lords, I support the amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Foster. I am appalled by the statement read to the House by the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett. Noble Lords have to understand that it is very embarrassing for me to be on the side of the noble Lord, Lord Foster, and the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, but I have to say that what she just read out shows what a disgraceful industry this is and how much money is being made out of the poorest and most deprived places.

I have lived with this problem for many years. My father was a clergyman in one of the worst slum areas of Britain. He always said that gambling was much more damaging than drink or any of the other things to which referred. It was particularly damaging in his parish, which contained a large number of military personnel, both retired and present.

I hope that the Minister will not make the speech that I suspect I might have had written for me as a Minister. It goes like this: “This is a planning Bill, and this amendment refers to the licensing duties of a local authority. I know that we already said that it was more appropriate for licensing authorities than the Planning Bill but, because this is a planning Bill, we really believe that it should be left for a different piece of legislation”. Yet the Government have said that they will make these changes immediately when there is some opportunity in Parliament to do it.

This amendment is an opportunity. What is more, it has been shown to be within the long title of the Bill, so, if the Minister says that it cannot be done because it is not appropriate, I will have to say to her that I do not believe the House should accept that. The House should simply say that it is clearly appropriate and that this is a clear opportunity. If the Government do not support that, I say something very tough to them: this is about the very people whom this Government are always banging on about and are supposed to be supporting. These are the people who are most at risk from the bloodsuckers who run the gambling industry and know what they are doing. They are applying to the very people who are most vulnerable and from whom they get most of their money.

I say this to the Minister: there is a growing anger around the country at what is happening and at the vast sums of money that some of the people who own these companies make. The biggest payer of income tax in Britain runs a betting company. That says something deeply offensive about our society; I do not believe that any of us should stop the battle to change this.

I wish also to say one thing about my noble friend Lady Neville-Rolfe’s amendment. I hope that the Government will not say that it is not necessary to make the point about small businesses. My noble friend has concentrated on the construction industry but, very recently—in the past three years—I applied to the local authority to change a residential building back to what it had originally been since 1463: a public house.

That piece of planning change for a very small business —I do not know what I was doing starting a small business at my age, but there we were—for the benefit of the community, took a year. It was the year in which construction prices rose faster than they had for generations. At the end of that year, the cost of what one was trying to do for the community was significantly greater than at the beginning. The reasons for holding it up included the conservation officer complaining that we were going to use second-hand pamments and bricks; we were obviously going to do so because that is my attitude to these things. My architect said, “My client is strongly concerned about climate change and wishes, therefore, to use second-hand materials”. He got back from the conservation officer a note that said, “I don’t care about climate change; I’m interested only in conservation”.

Even if you know something about these things, it is very difficult to put up with a year of that kind of conversation. I merely say to the Minister that it is essential that we have in this Bill a clear statement that small businesses must be treated with the consideration that they do not have the means to do things that big businesses have. I really hope that we can resurrect small construction businesses, but we will not do that unless they have special understanding as far as planning is concerned.

Planning and Infrastructure Bill

Baroness Maclean of Redditch Excerpts

Report stage
Monday 27th October 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Roborough (Con)]

My Lords, I will speak briefly to my Amendments 95 and 98. I am very grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb, for her support for the protection of good agricultural land. Amendment 95 is a broader application of the principle that was debated and rejected by Government and Liberal Democrat Benches in this House last week. We on these Benches believe that food security is national security and, unlike for this Government, these are not empty words: we intend to put that into practice.

We remain concerned that the principle of protecting the best and most versatile land—grades 1, 2 and 3A—appears to be trampled at will, for not just solar farms under NSIP but other developments. We must do better. This land is responsible for supplying the lowest-cost, highest-quality food produced in our country and is far more productive than weaker grades of land. Building without due consideration on the land that we need to feed us is, frankly, short-sighted.

Amendment 98 asks the Government to report annually on how much of our land is being converted from agriculture to tarmac, steel, photovoltaic panels and concrete, and provides the basis for a more informed national debate on how we treat our productive land. I will not test the will of the House on these amendments. However, I would be most grateful to receive an assurance from the Minister that the Government take this issue as seriously as they should. This was not entirely clear from the response to the debate on solar farms and BMV last week.

I also support of the concept of Amendment 88, tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Willis. Well-planned development needs to take into consideration access to green and blue open space, but also how this space can contribute to nature connectivity.

[Baroness Maclean of Redditch (Con)]

My Lords, my Amendment 121 is a vital step towards bringing clarity and scrutiny to the Government’s grey-belt policy. This amendment asks the Secretary of State to publish a clear framework for grey-belt designation within six months of Royal Assent and to lay it before both Houses. Its purpose is straightforward: to ensure that this policy is defined, transparent and subject to oversight. This concept has received remarkably little scrutiny or discussion during the passage of the Bill.

The concept of the grey belt has shifted since it was introduced in the Labour Party’s manifesto. It was first presented as previously developed land and disused car parks—which is largely brownfield land already. Since then, it has expanded in ways that raise serious concerns. Our party is not opposed to using grey-belt land sensibly, but we share the concerns of the Lords Built Environment Committee, which described the rollout as “rushed and incoherent” and unlikely to have

“any significant or lasting impact”

on planning or housing delivery, suggesting that the concept might be “largely redundant”. The current definition includes land in the green belt comprising previously developed land and/or any other land that does not strongly contribute to green-belt purposes.

The Local Government Association and many councillors, including in my home town of Solihull and my former constituency, Redditch, warn that this vague language contributes little and could invite subjective judgments and threaten green-belt protection in places such as Solihull and Redditch, with no other surrounding towns. The entire green belt could be vulnerable. Small housebuilders have warned that it will not help them, especially given under-resourced planning departments.

The risks are clear. Inconsistent criteria and monitoring could lead to uneven treatment and uncertainty. There is no plan to measure progress or success. In short, this policy has shifted without sufficient clarity or scrutiny. My amendment offers Parliament the chance to correct that, and I commend it to the House.

[Baroness Miller of Chilthorne Domer (LD)]

My Lords, I rise to speak to Amendment 88, to which I have added my name. I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Willis, for all her work on this, and the Minister and the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, for meeting us to talk about this amendment.

Without this amendment putting green and blue spaces on a statutory basis, this will be a planning Bill for the privileged. We have heard evidence from the noble Baroness, Lady Willis, this afternoon as to why this might be. There is also further evidence discovered by Wildlife and Countryside Link, which conducted regression model analysis, using official ONS datasets, for first-time buyers by local authority area in 2023. It compared this with the ONS data on the number of adults in each authority who were first-time buyers. First-time buyers are the people who will need green and blue space the most; they will have young families. Wildlife and Countryside Link analysed and mapped the percentage rate for those first-time buyers with in-depth green-space data. It found a direct, statistically significant correlation between lack of green space and higher numbers of first-time buyers. In other words, the first-time buyers are going somewhere because it is cheap: it lacks green space, it lacks amenities, so of course, things are cheaper. That is exactly what this Bill should be resisting.

When we met, the Minister said that she did not like this amendment because it was too prescriptive. She is right that local development plans should decide what green and blue spaces there should be; I do not have a problem with that. However, if there is no statutory requirement for a network of easily accessible green spaces, there will be far fewer of those spaces. This amendment is absolutely in line with Defra’s stated aims, and it would contribute substantially to sustainable urban drainage delivery. It would not tie the hands of local or regional planning authorities; it just points them in the right direction and makes sure they head in that direction. I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Goldsmith, and his colleagues will bear in mind that swift bricks and other nature-friendly construction methods will not result in more swifts unless the network of green and blue spaces exists to provide food sources.

Planning Delivery: Acceleration

Baroness Maclean of Redditch Excerpts

Monday 8th September 2025 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Baroness Maclean of Redditch]

To ask His Majesty’s Government what steps they are taking to accelerate planning delivery as set out in their Plan for Change, published on 5 December 2024.

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

The Government are delivering a set of pro-supply, pro-growth planning reforms. We have updated the National Planning Policy Framework, introducing bold new growth focus measures to underpin the delivery of 1.5 million safe and decent homes. We are also reforming the nationally significant infrastructure projects regime to maximise certainty and speed, and our Planning and Infrastructure Bill will speed up and streamline the delivery of new homes and critical infrastructure, including the delivery of 150 nationally significant infrastructure projects. I know that the noble Baroness takes a particular interest in AI; as the AI champion in the department, I am very pleased to tell her that MHCLG and DSIT, together with the sector, are championing the use of AI in planning with our digital planning programme.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Maclean of Redditch (Con)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister very much for that Answer, and I am grateful for her comments on all those initiatives and also on AI. She will be aware that the previous Housing Secretary delivered only 186,000 net additional dwellings, which is the lowest for over a decade; worse still, permissions are down by 23%. I did see that the new Housing Secretary said he wants to “build baby build”, and he can, by backing Amendments 346DD and 346DE in the name of my noble friend Lord Roborough, to which I have added my name, which would release 160,000 homes stalled by nutrient neutrality. Will she have a go at persuading him?

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

On the delivery of previous Housing Secretaries, it did not help having 17 different Housing Ministers over the last 14 years. We want to get moving on this. I was very pleased to welcome our new Secretary of State this morning, and I know that Secretary of State Reed is just as keen as the rest of us to get delivering on this. I am very pleased that there were over 90,000 planning applications in the first quarter of 2025; that is up 6%. We are, as the noble Baroness will know, debating all the amendments in the Planning and Infrastructure Bill in some depth, as we did last week, and I am sure we will continue to do so.