Planning and Infrastructure Bill

Alex Sobel Excerpts

2nd reading
Monday 24th March 2025 Commons Chamber

[Alex Sobel (Leeds Central and Headingley) (Lab/Co-op)]

I thank the Minister for recognising the urgent need for the delivery of new homes and critical infrastructure, and I welcome the plan for 1.5 million new safe and decent homes by the end of this Parliament. My constituency is in desperate need of affordable homes to rent, and of one day people being able to own their own home.

Planning should be a powerful lever to tackle nature loss and climate change, as well as meeting housing and low-carbon infrastructure needs. For the Government to meet their nature and climate targets, the planning system needs to integrate nature recovery alongside development. A new nature and climate duty on all planning authorities should require planning policy decisions to contribute to meeting our climate and nature targets.

We cannot let developers avoid responsibility for biodiversity net gain simply by paying into the nature restoration fund, banking money that may never be spent on nature. We cannot let them see it as just the cost of doing business.

The fund offers no guarantee that the populations of protected species will be replaced. According to an analysis by NatureSpace, protected species have limited impact on development. More importantly, existing schemes, such as district licensing, already accelerate development by shaving months from planning applications. We need to promote existing schemes better. We should acknowledge that the nature restoration fund and environment delivery plans will take years to set up. It is within the Bill’s scope to give the Forestry Commission a nature duty. With a nature remit, the Forestry Commission could give greater weight to habitat recovery in the woodlands it manages. The Bill offers a prime legislative opportunity to introduce promised reforms to national parks and landscapes. It should introduce a nature recovery purpose for protected landscapes and institute the promised governance reforms.

In my constituency in Leeds, we are doing our fair share. Leeds city centre is planned to grow by 50,000 homes in the next decade. However, we are at crisis point with 27,000 on the council and housing association waiting lists, and 7,000 in the highest priority banding. They are now waiting for three years to get a home.

As it stands, funding for local authorities is not fluid enough and settlements are not long enough. Councils need to be self-sufficient if rents are to cover maintenance and replenishment of stock. A big part of the solution is to re-implement grant funding targeted at property additionality, with a long-term approach to funding to unlock additional opportunities. Housing investment should be reclassified as infrastructure to support not only the efficient and effective use of funding, but in recognition of a decent home being the foundation of lives and productivity for an individual and the wider economy.

I am asking us to marry the understanding that, when listening to community and ecological experts, environmental law need not be a blocker of development, but an enabler of nature restoration, sustainable development and everyone’s access to green space, with the understanding that housing and social housing are infrastructure for our local authorities to build and structure our communities for the future. Will the Minister meet me to discuss that, as he kindly did about the Renters (Reform) Bill?