Planning and Infrastructure Bill

Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle Excerpts

Committee stage
Monday 1st September 2025 Lords Chamber

To finish, local area energy plans are crucial to a joined-up systems view of the energy transition, ensuring that we have the view from the ground to inform the national plan, and to have a properly joined-up view of energy systems governance—from local plans through to regional plans, right up to the strategic spatial energy plan to govern the system at a national level. In accepting this amendment, the Government would demonstrate their buy-in to the process and take a critical first step. By providing guidance, they could start to ensure that a coherent set of plans are being developed by local authorities. A funded programme and a technical adviser to ensure consistency and join-up could follow. This is a great opportunity for the Government to get energy planning moving at a local level and ensure coherence and systems join-up. I look forward to working with the Minister and the noble Earl on this.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, I offer my strongest possible support for Amendment 90 in the name of the noble Earl, Lord Russell, to which I have attached my name, and some slightly qualified support for Amendment 177, which we have just heard about from the noble Lord, Lord Ravensdale.

Coincidentally, and entirely without prompting from me, I started the day—rather a long time ago now—speaking to a senior civil servant. They said to me that they thought the great malaise of the UK was people’s lack of a sense of agency—a lack of ability to step up, take control and change what is around them and the direction of the country. This amendment, starting with the local and saying, “Here in your community you can democratically work through your council, local authority and combined authority to decide how to deliver your energy” is the perfect way to start to address those issues.

We are the most centralised polity in western Europe: power and resources are overwhelmingly concentrated here in Westminster. We have almost universal agreement that we have to have an energy transition. This is a major infrastructure element in all our lives, as we have been discussing this evening. We also must have a just transition, so that no community is left behind. Every community needs the opportunity to make plans for its energy future, and that is exactly what Amendment 90 seeks to achieve.

I note that a great deal of work and resources have been put into this over a long period of time. The Centre for Climate Engagement at the University of Cambridge, funded by Innovate UK under the Net Zero Living programme, is building on the work of the Skidmore review—we are talking about cross-party approaches across all Benches—which emphasised the importance of local government, leadership and place-based actions in dealing with the climate emergency.

This goes back a very long way. Green councillor Andrew Cooper, who was working through the European Committee of the Regions, got the UN COP process to acknowledge locally determined contributions. Everyone has heard of nationally determined contributions, but that was about locally determined contributions. Of course, the energy system is only part of this, but it is a very crucial part that impacts people’s lives and communities and on what they look like.

Your Lordships’ House has, in a very long wrestle with two successive Governments, finally got an acknowledgement of the importance of community energy. What I think we would see going forward is local authorities and combined authorities being very keen to encourage and support community energy. That of course is where we can see public support and financial returns growing. This is not about some giant multinational company coming and landing on your community, but about your community saying, “Right, how do we want to generate our energy?” That has to be the foundation.

I am broadly in favour of Amendment 177, but my question is around the weight and shape of the word “guidance”. We are talking about local energy plans, and anything provided from the centre should be support and not—as we see, for example, in planning and with housing allocations—direction. If it is indeed guidance, Amendment 177 is pointing us in the right direction. Together, these two amendments are crucial and I can see no reason for the Government not to accept them.

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab)]

My Lords, I support the amendment from the noble Lord, Lord Ravensdale, to which I have added my name. I am also very sympathetic to the amendment tabled by the noble Earl, Lord Russell.

The noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, raised a very interesting question about the centralisation of this country. In one sense, this Bill is about further centralisation when it comes to major infrastructure projects, which are so crucial to our growth. In essence, in the housing agenda, as well as with a lot of energy infrastructure projects, local government has not been very helpful and has been obstructive. If we believe that growth is a strategic aim of government, as I believe it to be, stronger central direction is vital. The question, however, is whether it can be complemented by local initiatives, which do indeed give local people ownership. That is where I agree with noble Baroness, Lady Bennett: community energy schemes are a fantastic way to leverage support from local people for the kinds of changes that we want to make to our energy infrastructure.

The noble Lord, Lord Ravensdale, obviously speaks with great authority as an energy expert, but he has also played a hugely important leading role in the Midlands Engine. He chaired the Midlands Energy Security Taskforce, which of course strongly supports local area energy plans.

When I was a Minister at DESNZ, I became very much aware of the potential of local community-based energy projects. I remember one visit to my own city of Birmingham, under the auspices of Footsteps: Faiths for a Low Carbon Future, when I met a number of local groups that were dedicated to community green energy projects but were seeking support from agencies at the centre to deliver something tangible. Interestingly, the MECC Trust, based in Balsall Heath, is hosting the launch by the Lord Mayor of Birmingham, in a couple of weeks’ time, of Birmingham’s first net-zero retrofit demonstrator community hub. The potential of hundreds of projects such as this, up and down the country, is very clear.

The amendment that the Government brought to the then Great British Energy Bill, which added projects involving or benefiting local communities to the crucial objective section, was very important. Great British Energy has made it clear that it will work with local energy groups, councils and mayors to fund and support community-led energy projects.

Noble Lords will be aware of recent decisions by some local authorities to roll back commitments in relation to net zero. Ironically, this is taking place as the scientific evidence of the impact of climate change becomes ever clearer. I do not think we can let this go by default. In essence, the noble Baroness asked: what does guidance mean? I think you really have to put the two together. I take the amendment of the noble Earl, Lord Russell, to be a statutory requirement on local authorities to encourage and develop local energy plans. I think that is really important now, in the light of some decisions being made by local authorities. Then, it seems to me, the guidance that we are suggesting fits into that structure.

I hope that the Government will be sympathetic to the need to make sure that local authorities do not pass up the opportunity to support local community energy groups.