Planning and Infrastructure Bill

Alberto Costa Excerpts

Report stage
Monday 9th June 2025 Commons Chamber

[Alberto Costa (South Leicestershire) (Con)]

I rise to speak to new clause 74 in my name. First, I thank all Members from parties across the House who signed up to my new clause. I also thank Mr Speaker and his team for the novel offer he made this morning on how we might have dealt with new clause 74.

New clause 74 is very simple. It seeks to ensure that promises made to all of us as MPs by prospective developers when considering applications for large-scale housing developments are honoured. I have lost count of the number of developers who have made promises about so-called flagship housing developments, gained the support of the MP and other local community stakeholders, applied for outline planning permission and then been granted it on the basis of a good mixture of homes. In one case—that of Lutterworth East—a pledge was made by the developer to build a minimum of 40% affordable homes. Those developers give the pledge, obtain the support and gain outline planning permission, but then, a few months or a year or two later, they seek to renege completely on the pledges given.

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[Rachel Blake]

I am really moved by what the hon. Gentleman is talking about. Many of us will have had similar experiences. We have been hearing so much about the importance of local decision making. I cannot help but think if only there had been the necessary investment in skills in the planning team who made the decision and determination, and that they had had a planning committee behind them who, by all accounts, could have said, “You need to bring the application back in.” Does he agree that we need to invest in local planning teams so that they can resist such totally inappropriate applications from developers?

[Alberto Costa]

I welcome the hon. Lady’s suggestion, and I would welcome more resources going into local planning teams, but what we have here is a problem, which she may well encounter in her own constituency. Hon. Members should be very careful indeed when developers promise X, Y and Z affordable, social and accessible homes, even with legally binding section 106 agreements, because those agreements can be changed at whim when a local planning authority is put under pressure.

[Martin Wrigley]

Does the hon. Gentleman agree with the Liberal Democrats that, given the unreliability of section 106 agreements and developers living up to them, as he demonstrated, the best way to get affordable homes for his constituents and mine is through an increased amount of social housing delivered by the local council?

[Alberto Costa]

I would welcome that. The Government need to take into account Lutterworth East and to ask themselves why a Labour parliamentarian and a Conservative parliamentarian have had to go begging to the Government to look into the matter. The Government purport to want to see more social housing, more affordable housing and more accessible housing, but with Lutterworth East they have had the opportunity to look into that and have chosen not to rectify the issue. In concluding—I am aware that others wish to speak—I simply ask the Government whether they are willing to have a meeting with me and the Labour parliamentarian in question to discuss what they could do on this matter, given that the developer, incredibly, is none other than a county council.

[Chris Curtis]

May we please start by acknowledging something that still has not been acknowledged enough: the current planning system is broken? Nowhere is that clearer than in our environmental and habitats regulation, which part 3 of the Bill is hoping to fix, and which many amendments—amendment 69 in particular—would make significantly worse.

Let us start with a couple of clear examples. First, we have the lower Thames crossing. Some £250 million was spent on a planning application spanning over 350,000 pages. That is more than 250 times the length of “War and Peace” at a cost that is more than Norway paid to build the world’s longest road tunnel. Fifteen years on, not a single spade is in the ground.

Secondly, we are currently building the most expensive nuclear power station in the history of the human race at Hinkley Point. Why? For the last eight years, EDF has been stuck in regulatory wrangling over—I kid you not—a fish disco: an acoustic system designed to guide fish away from water intakes. Millions spent and still not a single resolution.

My personal favourite is the infamous bat tunnel, where £120 million of taxpayers’ money was wasted on a tunnel that might save a handful of bats from a nearby forest, though many experts argue it will more likely put them in harm’s way. That is not planning; it is parody. While we argue about newts and bat tunnels, what is really happening in Britain is that 150,000 children or more are growing up in temporary accommodation, with all the consequences mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Vauxhall and Camberwell Green (Florence Eshalomi).