Planning and Infrastructure Bill

Baroness Freeman of Steventon Excerpts

2nd reading
Wednesday 25th June 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Freeman of Steventon (CB)]

My Lords, the fact that we are facing increasing demands on our infrastructure and living in one of the most nature-depleted countries in the world shows that we need to plan our new and retrofitted homes carefully. They need to be as light touch on the environment and national infrastructure as possible and, wherever feasible, they need to have a positive impact to meet our aspirations and our legal targets. This is, I am sure, the aim of all of us, but the Bill needs amendment to achieve it.

Every building that we construct or renovate should be designed to use and waste as little energy as possible and to generate as much of its own as possible. It should be designed to provide habitats for wildlife, such as through cavity nest boxes, which in effect cost nothing, and it should be designed to minimise harm to wildlife. The British Trust for Ornithology estimates that, in the UK, around 30 million birds a year die by flying into windows—yet bird-safe designs and glass cost little more and are legislated for in other jurisdictions. I shall be pressing for bird safety in planning and design, as this is such a simple measure.

At the next level up, every new housing development should be planned under the same principles. How can we help ensure that community-level energy, water or sewerage systems are designed and built to make communities more resilient and put less pressure on the national infrastructure? How can we integrate these developments properly with existing houses and communities, helping preserve their character and independence, and with their natural environment? Places where people live and thrive need to be places where other species live and thrive too. The proposed spatial development strategies and environmental development plans need to be hard-wired to the long-awaited land use framework and to local nature recovery strategies, and they also really need to reflect communities’ priorities.

The UK is committed to legal biodiversity restoration targets, and we need to legislate that all planning and development, including that by development corporations, is done with a view to biodiversity enhancement. With that in mind, I hope the Government will agree to tightening up aspects of Part 3 to ensure that it is in line with their aims. As other noble Lords have mentioned —and I think everyone will agree—there are some habitats and landscapes where no amount of money will compensate for their loss, and they cannot be moved to some other location. Ministers have previously said that they think that irreplaceable places implicitly fall outside the scope of the proposed environmental development plans, in which case I urge the Government to make it explicit in the Bill.

Then there are some habitats that have been so degraded already that they can be considered suitable for development, but here we must see this as a double opportunity to provide homes for people and, in doing so, to enhance the biodiversity opportunities on that land. It could be a triple win. Enhancement can go beyond designing buildings to provide natural habitats and bird safety; it can extend to giving people access to green spaces and increasing flood resilience and local water storage—nature-based solutions that benefit people and biodiversity and relieve our national infrastructure all at the same time, on that very piece of land. Amendments to the Bill are necessary but could achieve that.

Finally, land that is currently a green space but not designated irreplaceable will be damaged by development, despite all the considerations of green planning, which need to be legislated for as the first approach. This is where the Government, through the Bill, rightly see that environmental development plans can help by taking a more strategic and holistic approach to the whole area and bringing another piece of land into the equation—a piece of degraded and endangered land that can be protected and have its biodiversity enhanced to make up for the loss on the developed land.

Again, at the moment the wording needs to be amended to ensure a win-win. It is not currently stated in the Bill that the biodiversity benefits on this land need to overcompensate for the losses by the 10% or more required under the current biodiversity net gain system. If we sited that greened-up land as close as possible to the sacrificed development land, we would help wildlife displaced from one area to colonise another, and it would act as a green space for the people who move into that development. That is a win-win and can fit perfectly with existing local nature recovery strategies, but they need to be added into the Bill.

Alongside these big, broad principles, the Bill needs amending to ensure that environmental development is in place and under way before building development starts; to ensure that biodiversity benefits are carefully and scientifically measured and monitored, with further enhancements to the plan being made, if necessary, if the hoped-for outcomes are not at first forthcoming; and to ensure that the greened-up land, once allocated, is given a high and permanent level of protection so that it cannot just be built on itself in a few years’ time, negating its purpose.

I very much hope that the Government will consider putting forward their own amendments to deal with each of these. I look forward to working with other noble Lords on them.