Planning and Infrastructure Bill

Baroness Coffey Excerpts

Report stage
Wednesday 29th October 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, my noble friend Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb attached her name to this amendment in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh. It is a great pleasure to follow the noble Baroness, who waited with such patience to present this terribly important group of amendments. It is disappointing that the length of the day and the hour mean that this group will not get the kind of attention it deserves, but it is worth highlighting the breadth of political and non-political support for this amendment. It is also signed by the noble Baroness, Lady Willis of Summertown, one of our acknowledged experts in this general space, and by the noble Baroness, Lady Young of Old Scone.

I will make two additional remarks. We have already had a comprehensive introduction to the background, the very long history and the arguments for this. I am sure some noble Lords here were at the Lord Speaker’s Lecture this week, given by the noble Baroness, Lady May, who is not currently in her place. One of the MPs there asked: “Isn’t it really a problem that constituents today expect the Government to fix things in an hour or a day, just like they get something delivered from the internet?” Maybe it is, but I think 16 years is quite long enough for people to wait for the implementation of Schedule 3 to the Flood and Water Management Act.

There is a real issue here. The public often think that once the Government have announced something it is going to happen—and that is something we need more political education on and awareness of—but surely they have the right to believe that, once a law has been passed, having been through all the scrutiny and effort such as we are putting in now, it will be implemented. It has been carefully examined and is understood to be a good idea, and the people expect it to be delivered, and it brings politics into disrepute when it is not—that is the small “p” political argument for this amendment.

On the broader argument for SUDS generally, I have visited many such schemes, but the one I point noble Lords to—it is well worth visiting for those who have not seen it—is at the LILAC co-housing scheme in Leeds, which is essentially built around a central pond that all the water on the site drains into. We have spent many hours talking about how important green spaces are and how important supporting biodiversity is. We unfortunately did not get to vote, but we spent a lot of time talking about how important play space for children is. This is a way you can use SUDS. Well-designed SUDS can deliver so many other things that the Government say they want and that the House has said it wants. This is simple, practical common sense on how we should be designing the kind of communities—not just housing—that we desperately need.

[Baroness Coffey (Con)]

My Lords, I have a particular attachment to this amendment. I think it is fair to say that, when I went back into Defra, I was pretty surprised that we had not made any progress in getting Schedule 3 sorted. Yet again, it was the part for housing that had put a block on it, on the basis that apparently it was going to cost more money. But all that does, in a different way, is transfer the costs, both societal and financial, from a developer trying to put together a community to the billpayer, and those costs are potentially higher. I know that we managed to secure, and the Government have continued with it, over £96 billion from the water companies to address certain things to do with sewerage. This is one of those ridiculous situations where there is an obvious answer. As my noble friend Lady McIntosh has already mentioned, Sir Jon Cunliffe has said this should be done. Why has it not been done?

Actually, not just the committee from the Commons but also the committee in this place were very supportive and delighted that, when I was in post briefly for that year, we were going to get things done. We did the review, managed to get DLUHC over the line, and then managed to put out confirmation of a policy we were going to do. We were going to do a consultation. That got going as well, and then the election happened. Do not get me wrong: I understand why this might not be a top priority for a Government coming in, despite this whole issue being one of their key campaigning messages in the 2024 election. Here is the solution, ready-made, that they could just do at the stroke of a pen. That is why it a concern that we are not at this point yet.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Fuller (Con)]

My Lords, on this group of amendments I feel as if I am on my own. I agree absolutely that SUDS, or sustainable urban drainage systems, can play a wonderful role for smaller-style developments—for ones and twos, miles away from the mains in rural areas, they are obviously the way to go and oftentimes they are the only way to go—but I cannot see for the life of me how promoting SUDS and accepting these amendments will be proportionate when we are talking not just about connecting 10 or 15 homes but building 1.5 million. We will never solve the housing problem by connecting 1.5 million homes to SUDS. We have to connect them to the mains; it is the only way forward.

[Baroness Coffey (Con)]

That is what Schedule 3 does.

[Lord Fuller (Con)]

But I am concerned, listening to this, because we will be letting the water undertakers—the sewage firms—off the hook if we are not careful. I say to my noble friend that I have looked carefully at the amendments. This whole Bill is about speeding up development; we have to get these homes going. It seems to me that we are potentially having a perverse incentive in allowing the sewage treatment firms to have a veto over new development.

The sewage treatment works and the operators—the water undertakers—are going to be the tail that wags the dog. If they say, “We haven’t got enough capacity, therefore you can’t connect”, no new homes will be built at all. I am really concerned about this. I went to the world heritage site at Iona in Scotland and its sewage treatment works were at capacity. It ended up with the visitor centre being forced to have its own package system that drained straight through the public areas, making it worse. In Norfolk, Anglian Water is saying that its sewage treatment plants are at capacity and it cannot contemplate any new homes. It is the blocker: 40,000 new homes in the greater Norwich area, as well as other areas, are now at risk. So far, so much for speeding development. This is going to slow it down, because it gives them a get-out—a perverse incentive not to invest in what they should be doing, while taking the money from business rates and so forth.

In aggregate, we are going to end up with more polluting package systems rather than connecting. That is no good for places such as Poringland, in my own area, where there is clay and the drainage is really poor. This is really important because by promoting a multiplicity of much smaller package systems, rather than incentivising the main sewerage providers to invest, we are going to avoid scale—and we need the larger, better-structured sewage treatment works brought up to scratch, because it is only then that they would address the phosphate problem. Phosphate is very difficult to do in a package system because there are harsh chemicals, so you have to wear face masks, gloves and all the health and safety paraphernalia. It all has to be carefully handled. This is where we get the economy of scale, which is what we should be encouraging.

Another point is that if we are to allow the sewage companies to say, “We think we’re full now, so you can’t have any more”, we will end up with more small package schemes. There is the smell. They are also unreliable and expensive to maintain. It is difficult to get them adopted.

I am really concerned about Amendment 198. I do not want to put the black spot on it entirely, but it needs to be improved. We would end up with a perverse situation in which there was a lack of capacity and we incentivised the sewage treatment companies and water companies to take it easy, rather than go the extra mile. This is not some theoretical risk. In places in Norfolk such as Heacham, Docking, Snettisham, Horsford, Brancaster and the entirety of the greater Norwich area, Anglian Water is holding up the delivery of tens of thousands of houses.

This is an infrastructure Bill, so there would be unintended consequences. While the amendment is well meaning—I accept everything the noble Baroness said about what is in the Water Act, and I accept that for smaller schemes this is it—if we are to have an infrastructure Bill, we need to remove the excuses for the sewage treatment companies and the water undertakings not to invest in that most basic infrastructure. It is as if we are going back to the days before Chamberlain in Birmingham and Bazalgette here on the Embankment in London. We spent ages on the Water Bill, and there is widespread concern about sewage discharge, but sewage discharges will be solved only if we hold the water companies’ feet to the flames and get them to invest. It is a real problem if they just say, “Well, it’s a bit difficult. We’re not going to invest, and therefore you can’t build houses and can’t get the economy moving”.

In summary, we need to make sure that we take into account that SUDS has a role for smaller schemes, but we should not allow the pressure to be taken off the large companies for the big schemes—the schemes that will deliver the homes this nation needs by getting roofs over people’s heads. Otherwise, we will never meet the targets. As it is, in the Times yesterday there were questions about whether we will even get half way to delivering the housing targets, let alone all the way.