Planning and Infrastructure Bill

Baroness Pinnock Excerpts

2nd reading
Wednesday 25th June 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Pinnock (LD)]

My Lords, I am speaker number 60, and this has been a long and wide-ranging debate. I thank all noble Lords who have raised important and pertinent issues for the House to address at the next stage. Some have been new issues, and I look forward to hearing about mediation processes within the planning system. I particularly thank my 10 Liberal Democrat colleagues for their contributions, which have been, as noble Lords have heard, both supportive and challenging in equal measure. Many of us have benefited from the professional groups, charities and individuals who have provided helpful information on which we could base our debate today. I remind the House that I have a relevant interest as a councillor on Kirklees Council in West Yorkshire.

This is a very significant Bill for our nation. It has the potential to fundamentally change the foundation of the Town and Country Planning Act 1947, which established the principle that planning permission is required for land development. It separated land ownership from the automatic right to develop it. Enshrined in that Act is local democratic decision-making, on both what land can be developed and how it can be developed. This democratic principle has gradually and properly expanded over the years to include and involve in the process those affected by potential development.

In the era of instant and easy communication of both factual and inaccurate information, the principle of local communities having their say and elected representatives making the decisions is ever more important. Ensuring the involvement of communities is vital in both hearing local information about a site and demonstrating that those directly affected are important in the process. The erosion of the local democratic process, as proposed in the Bill, is not acceptable and will not lead to swifter planning decisions, as many noble Lords from across the House have referenced. A better balance must be found between the needs of development and of local communities and their elected representatives.

Major infrastructure projects are, as we have heard, beset with delays and eye-watering cost rises—HS2 is just one of the examples that has been referred to in our debate—and change is necessary. Reducing the time taken to reach a decision is critical. Removing the pre-application stage, however, is a false economy, as it is at that stage that interested parties are alerted to the scheme and can have input, which helps the applicant make amendments in response. As there will be increasing numbers of nationally significant infrastructure projects, it is vital that communities are informed and engaged at an early stage, both in the detail of the application and in its prime purpose for the nation. Communities must feel that they can have their say if resentment at change is not to thrive.

Turning to the more specific planning process changes, spatial development strategies will do much to inform economic development, infrastructure investment and local strategies in a mayoral authority. I too remember, and was part of helping to develop, the previous regional development strategies 20-odd years ago. However, any such strategy must have the support of communities and their local elected representatives if it is not to be constantly challenged. The new clauses introduced into the Bill when it was taken through the Commons throw some light on how this will be achieved. What is not clear is whether all constituent authorities will have a place on a joint board and what decision-making powers the board jointly and severally has in relation to the mayor. Perhaps the Minister can provide some details on the membership and powers of the joint boards. She will have thousands of questions to answer when she sums up, so maybe a note would suffice.

On the proposed changes to the local planning system, the starting point for these discussions must be the knowledge that the local authority planning procedures vary greatly according to the type and size of council. Differences reflect the communities that are served, and a one-size approach to local planning definitely does not fit all.

Like other noble Lords who have spoken, I agree with mandatory training for members of local planning committees. I introduced it when I was leader of Kirklees 20 years ago. Members of planning committees then understand the constraints of planning and highways legislation; it is important and it helps the debate on any planning applications to focus on planning issues.

The number of members of a planning committee is also important. Limiting the membership must go alongside the rights of ward councillors to speak to the committee on a pertinent application. That is their elected duty and responsibility. Equally, as other noble Lords have said, local councils should have the right to choose the size of their planning committee so that it suits their local needs. Imposing top-down schemes of national delegation is not the way forward. There is no evidence that planning committees are the blockers—a contemptible accusation. Some 80% of planning applications are already approved, one way or another; some 90% are already delegated to officers’ decision-making. Of those referred to the Planning Inspectorate by developers, less than 3% are overturned on appeal. The planning system works—it just needs more investment.

The real blockers to housing development are the major housebuilders which acquire planning consent and then wait for an upturn in the market or even play the system with constant applications to alter aspects of the original planning permission. The evidence is clear. The Government could easily reach their target of 1.5 million new homes in this Parliament if the 1.2 million currently with planning permission were built. Reform of this part of the process is desperately needed. That is what needs to change.

There are families in every community who are desperate for a home at a social rent. The scandal of the Bill is that this need is not specifically addressed, nor is the urgent need to provide a definition of so-called affordable housing.

Part 3 of the Bill has attracted a very large number of comments and challenges from across the House, and rightly so. The proposal for a nature restoration fund reads like a developers’ charter. It enables developers to disregard the impact on and destruction of nature as a result of their development and salve their consciences by contributing to the fund. That will not do. Developers must be cognisant of the effect of their construction on habitats. The Bill could well result in some localities having their local habitats and green spaces destroyed, and the recompense is miles away. That is no good for them or for the biodiversity of the area. Fundamental changes to this part of the Bill are essential, and no doubt will be proposed.

Finally, the direction of travel envisaged in the Bill is one that we on these Benches support. However, the Bill has absolutely failed in finding the right balance between the competing ambitions of infrastructure provision, housebuilding and economic development on the one hand and community involvement, democratic decision-making and nature protection and enhancement on the other. We on these Benches will do all we can to work with the Government, where this is possible, to tip the scales in support of democracy, nature and communities.

Planning and Infrastructure Bill

Baroness Pinnock Excerpts

Committee stage
Thursday 17th July 2025 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Baroness Pinnock]

1: Before Clause 1, insert the following new Clause—
“Purpose of this ActThe purpose of this Act is to—(a) accelerate the delivery of new homes and critical infrastructure,(b) improve the planning and consenting processes,(c) support nature recovery through more effective development and restoration, and(d) increase community acceptability of infrastructure and development.”

[Baroness Pinnock (LD)]

My Lords, on the opening day in Committee it is always good to start with a discussion about the basis of the Bill—the principles that form the fundamentals of the Planning and Infrastructure Bill. The reason for this amendment is just that. The policy drivers for the Bill are described in the preamble to the Explanatory Notes, which says that critical infrastructure must have “faster and more certain” consenting orders; that local planning committees are to be modernised to provide more certainty; that nature recovery requires “a more strategic approach”; and, finally, that the Bill

“intends to speed up and streamline the delivery of new homes and … infrastructure”.

It is accepted—certainly by those of us on these Benches—that our country has failed to build vital infrastructure in a timely and cost-effective way. All accept the urgent need for more housing, especially for housing with a social rent. However, what is seen as “streamlining” by the Government may be seen as “steamrolling” by communities. What are seen as modernising planning committees may well be seen as the removal of democratic decision-making and accountability. What is seen as a strategic approach to nature recovery may well be seen as the unacceptable relegation of the value and importance of nature to our community. Hence this amendment in my name, which seeks to clarify the purpose of the Bill by careful definition of the language used.

Planning and Infrastructure Bill

Baroness Pinnock Excerpts

Committee stage
Thursday 17th July 2025 Lords Chamber

Amendments 4 to 7 (to Amendment 1) not moved.

[Baroness Pinnock (LD)]

Amendments upon amendments upon amendments is a novel approach for me. I too thank everyone who has engaged with this debate; it has been a positive and constructive one that I hope will lay the foundations for the rest of the Bill. We are all anxious to get critical infrastructure built in this country. I particularly reference the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, and energy infrastructure. We have to find a way of doing that much more promptly than is currently the case.

My amendment is about not trying to prevent development and infrastructure being created but finding the right balance—the noble Lord, Lord Banner, used the word proportionality—between what the country desperately needs and how far local communities can influence those changes. The noble Lord, Lord Hunt, used the word tension, and that is where I think it lies.

It always strikes me that one of the responsibilities of those of us fortunate enough to be elected politicians is to make those arguments to people, to say that we need more homes and therefore this is how we are going to do it. I have done it in my own ward just lately. Making that case is one of the responsibilities put on us if we are fortunate enough to be elected.

I take issue with something the Minister said. She said that we do not need a purpose clause but then listed the five things that are the purpose. I listed only four but we could add the fifth, which is about strategic planning. That is why it is important to lay down these points before we enter the next stages of debate.

The Minister said that local communities can engage at the local planning stage. I have taken at least two—it could be three—local plans through the area that I represent. It is extraordinarily difficult to get folk to engage in theory, because all you have is a map when you say to them, “This is going to be a housing site and this is going to be a business site”. I have tried hard, but it is very difficult to engage people on that. I have no doubt that we will return to that point.

I will make two more points before I withdraw. First, we need a definition of affordable housing; we on these Benches will pursue that. Secondly, the amendment about building 1.5 million homes, tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Scott, would have been greatly enhanced if it had included the essential element of homes for social rent. On these Benches, we will keep pressing that we desperately need homes for social rent above almost anything else. I am tired and angry at some of the conditions that people in my area are living in. If we could have decent social homes for rent, it would greatly enhance their lives. With that anger, I thank everybody for their engagement and beg leave to withdraw.

Amendment 1 withdrawn.

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[Baroness Pinnock (LD)]

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, began this group in talking about the tensions that are to be found in creating the balance between getting the critical infrastructure that this country desperately needs and how we go about doing it. He quite rightly reminded the Committee of the escalating costs of particular infrastructure developments and gave the reason that risk aversion leads to piles of paper being produced to make sure that nobody is caught out by any of the challenges to the decisions that have been made.

I agreed with that; that is right. But the national policy statements, which are the foundation stones of planning and infrastructure development in this country, are critical. The noble Baroness, Lady Coffey, is right to point out that any fundamental change to our national policy ought to have proper public accountability through your Lordships’ House and from the other place. She is quite right to do that, because accountability helps the process: it helps to maybe expose weaknesses in what is being proposed and maybe enhance the policy statement itself. In the rush for growth, we ought not to throw out the accountability that is essential in planning and infrastructure development—I think that that thread will run through discussions of the Bill. That is the dilemma and the tension we have: where do we have accountability, how much weight do we give to it and how much weight do we give to the urgent need for development? We are going to have to find our way through that.

Everybody here is, I think, anxious that the country is able to produce particularly critical infrastructure and housing without undue costs and delay. It is how we get there that is the problem. I am on board with the noble Baroness, Lady Coffey, in wanting any changes to national policy statements at least to be brought before the House as affirmative resolutions. With that, I look forward to the Minister weaving her way through these dilemmas.

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

My Lords, a number of amendments tabled by my noble friend Lord Hunt of Kings Heath, the noble Baroness, Lady Coffey, and the noble Baroness, Lady Scott of Bybrook—whose amendment was spoken to by the noble Lord, Lord Jamieson—seek to amend Clauses 1 and 2 of the Bill, which set out new expectations for the regular updating of national policy statements and also establish a streamlined procedure for updating national policy statements when select changes are made to them.

Amendment 8 was tabled by my noble friend Lord Hunt of Kings Heath. I thank him for the amount of thought that he has clearly put into improving the Bill—and some very radical thinking, which we will come to in later suggestions, but which is always welcome. His amendment was also signed by the noble Lord, Lord Ravensdale. While I absolutely understand and share the desire to improve the speed and clarity of the planning process for nationally significant infrastructure projects and national policy statements, I believe that the amendment’s wholesale approach could potentially have unintended consequences.

First, the amendment proposes fixed time limits for statutory consultation. In the case of national policy statements, statutory consultation is not typically the cause of delay, unlike development consent orders, where we have removed the statutory requirement for pre-application consultation. For national policy statements, the time taken for statutory consultation varies significantly depending on the complexity of the policy area and the nature of the infrastructure involved. Imposing a uniform time limit risks undermining the quality and thoroughness of consultation, especially for those more complex or contentious sectors and projects. The Government’s own consultation principles make it clear that consultation should be proportionate—I think we will hear that word a lot during our debates—to the potential impacts of the proposal.

Secondly, the amendment attempts to tackle concerns about the timeliness of responses by statutory consultees to national policy statement consultations and requests for further information on development consent order applications. Our experience on national policy statements is that statutory consultees respond adequately and without too much delay. We appreciate that there is evidence of slower responses from statutory consultees on live development consent order applications. However, the idea that statutory consultees should completely lose their right to comment on an NPS if they do not respond within a set timeframe may be a step too far or too rigid.

Statutory consultees such as the Health and Safety Executive play a critical role in safeguarding public welfare. Their input is not optional but essential. Instead of removing their critical role in the process, the Government are actively reforming how they prioritise and resource their work across the planning system. This includes measures in the Bill that enable statutory consultees to fund their services across the broader planning system more sustainably and requires them to have regard to government-issued guidance on their role in the NSIP regime.

For the first time, this provides a statutory mechanism to ensure that consultees engage appropriately and in a timely manner, without compromising the integrity of the process. National policy statements are the cornerstone of the NSIP consenting process. I recognise that the spirit of these amendments is in keeping with wider approaches taken to make the system more productive and streamlined. However, the issues faced by national policy statements manifest themselves differently. In practice, these amendments would have unintended consequences that risk damaging how the NSIP system operates.

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[Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)]

My Lords, I thank my noble friend Lady Coffey for explaining this group. That leaves me no need to go through it again, but I am pleased to support her Amendments 17 and 23. I will be brief, but I wanted to say something about both of them, especially Amendment 17. This amendment is vital because it probes the fundamental issue of democratic accountability and local consent. If the government-imposed national significant infrastructure projects can proceed without planning consent or public engagement, we risk undermining public trust by excluding communities from decisions that directly affect them. This also weakens local accountability by sidelining local authorities and stakeholders, and it increases the risks of legal and political challenges, as the lack of consultation may well lead to resistance or even to judicial review.

Probing this issue is essential to ensure that any such powers are used only when they are truly justified—when they are proportionate to the situation and exercised with true transparency. I raised this concern in the opening group today, and it is one on which we really need some clear answers. I ask again, why is it necessary for government-imposed NSIPs to bypass both planning consent and public engagement? How is this consistent with the Government’s continued claims that localism is protected?

[Baroness Pinnock (LD)]

My Lords, I apologise for not preceding the noble Baroness, Lady Scott.

Amendment 17 would remove the required consent for the construction of or extensions to a generating station for electricity. Can the Minister explain why, in this instance, the government proposal is that it be disapplied from the existing requirements for going through a proper process? It is important to understand the reason. If it is for timeliness, what causes the delays? If it is for reasons of cost, is that related to timeliness? Is there another way to have accountability and public discourse without creating delays and cost pressures? Otherwise, why would we want to disapply the current requirements for consent? Again, there is a thread of accountability running through this: there is a tension, as the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, mentioned, between getting things done and accountability for local communities.

With those few comments, I look forward to a detailed answer from the Minister.

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Coffey, for tabling these amendments. As she said, they are probing amendments, and I hope to be able to give her an explanation. She again mentioned the letter that Minister Pennycook promised. I have asked to be informed whether that letter was sent. If it was, I will provide the noble Baroness with a copy, but it would not be usual, I suspect, for copies of letters that were circulated to a committee in the other place to be automatically circulated here. If that letter exists, I will send it to her.

All the amendments in this group, tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Coffey, seek to amend the operation of the redirection process as set out in Clause 3, including the replacement of regulation-making powers with time limits or statutory guidance. I recognise that Amendment 17 is probing, so I will first seek to explain how the redirection process has been designed before addressing some of her concerns head on and then turning to Amendment 23. I apologise if these explanations seem very detailed, but it is important to take the time to explain properly.

The NSIP regime was designed to provide a single route through which to consent all types of large-scale infrastructure schemes. As we know, on occasion this one-size-fits-all approach is not proportionate for specific developments. Clause 3 seeks to address this by creating a new power for the Secretary of State to issue a direction disapplying the requirement for schemes above the NSIP thresholds to seek development consent. Clause 3 sets out the circumstances in which a request for a direction may arise, what a request may contain and the steps the Secretary of State must follow in responding. Crucially, the Secretary of State may direct development out of the NSIP regime only if they consider an alternative consenting route to be appropriate given the particular circumstances of the development in question. Enhancing the flexibility of the planning system in this way should reduce burdens on applicants which are otherwise disproportionate and support the Government’s ambitions to have a streamlined planning system. This level of flexibility already exists under the Planning Act.

Section 35 enables the Secretary of State to direct into the NSIP regime those projects which fall outside of the statutory thresholds but which have none the less requested to follow the process for nationally significant infrastructure schemes. This has been invaluable, as we know, for enabling numerous water schemes to progress.

Clause 3 provides that flexibility but in the other direction. It may be that a transport scheme is located in an area with a supportive local authority and does not require the acquisition of land. Instead of requiring the entire scheme to become an NSIP, an applicant could now request to follow the route that is most appropriate to their project. As the Government’s working paper on proposals to streamline the consenting process for infrastructure acknowledged, the existing thresholds have not kept pace with technological advancements. This has held back projects from coming forward—for example, medium-sized schemes—because the process of obtaining development consent was out of kilter with the relatively straightforward nature of the scheme.

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Moved by

[Baroness Pinnock]

24: Clause 4, page 8, line 22, leave out paragraph (a)

[Baroness Pinnock (LD)]

My Lords, Amendments 24 and 25, in my name, relate to Clause 4, in which the Government seek to remove certain pre-application requirements. I am concerned about two of these. The first omits the duty to consult and the second omits the duty to consult the local community. These are very significant changes to pre-application requirements that were introduced in the Planning Act 2008. In my experience, pre-application is an extremely helpful part of the process, as it enables information to be shared and discussed by the communities that will be affected and their elected representatives—councillors and Members of Parliament.

The value of a pre-application duty to consult seems to me to be vital, particularly in relation to infrastructure schemes. The opportunity for communities that are affected to understand the proposals and their impact is much reduced by the process that is followed for large-scale infrastructure applications. For example, the process for large-scale infrastructure is set out very well in the Explanatory Notes, which talks about the pre-application process followed by the submission and acceptance of the application, then the pre-examination stage where members of the public can register as interested parties—although that is subject to some change—and then the examination in public. The opportunities for the general public, as opposed to those who feel they are able to take part in an examination in public, are extremely limited. Therefore, the pre-application stage becomes even more important in relation to large-scale infrastructure applications.

In my experience, the importance of the pre-application process is that it can be invaluable to both the developer and the local community. I will refer to an example not of a large-scale infrastructure application but for 400 homes on a site near where I live. There was a pre-application consultation stage with members of the public. The application was for a site that was known to have been used for coal workings, and the official coal board documents did not identify precisely where all the mine shafts were—they actually did not even know how many there were. However, residents whose families had lived in the area for a long time knew where the mine shafts were and shared that local knowledge with the developer. They were also able to share information, which did not seem to exist formally at all, of the shallow tunnelling on the site.

In this instance, the housing developer gained considerably from the pre-application process in knowing where the mine shafts were that would have to be capped off, and knowing where the shallow tunnels for the coal workings were, which could require attention during the construction phase. The local residents benefited because it enabled them to understand and be provided with factual information by the applicant.

In my view, the changes proposed in the Bill to remove the duty to consult with the local community would be totally counterproductive. Members of the community will get information about the proposals which may not be accurate if there is not a pre-application opportunity. I know from experience that, once inaccurate information is shared on social media sites, it is very difficult to counter and to get the actual situation accepted. The climate in which development takes place these days is for the public to believe that the worst is going to happen.

If the pre-application stage for large-scale infrastructure is believed to be too lengthy with too many parts to it, it seems to me that the best way forward would be to retain the principle of pre-application but to reform the process so that it was not so time-consuming and did not delay the construction processes. That is why the pre-application process is absolutely vital. Removing the duty will simply make the process more challenging for the developer and resentment and frustration will grow, both against the development and at the failure of the democratic process. Living in a democracy involves making time for debate and challenge; it is the price we on these Benches are willing to pay. I beg to move.

[Baroness Coffey (Con)]

My Lords, I will speak to this group of amendments. My noble friend Lady McIntosh of Pickering degrouped some of her amendments. Because I signed some of them, there is a risk that I might end up duplicating my words in the next debate, but that is not my intention.

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[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

Okay, I will not go into the detail on that amendment now but come back to it. It was originally listed as being in this group. I apologise for the misunderstanding. I would just say to the noble Baroness that I am a big fan of digital twinning, so I look forward to the debate on that subject.

I ask noble Lords who have amendments in this group not to press them and I ask the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, to withdraw her amendment.

[Baroness Pinnock (LD)]

My Lords, first of all, I thank the noble Baronesses, Lady Coffey and Lady Bennett, my noble friend Lady Miller and the noble Lord, Lord Jamieson, for their supportive words on my amendments. My noble friend Lady Miller summed it up when she said that it is very important to take the community with you. That is the message to developers. The Minister’s response was: it will be the developers’ decision as to whether they will engage in pre-application consultation. I do not know about other people’s experience of developers, but mine is that if you give them an inch, they will take at least a mile. Not requiring a statutory pre-application consultation will mean that communities do not understand or know the detail or broad-brush approach of a development that, for better or for worse, will have an impact on them.

If the issues that the Minister spelled out very clearly about the delays and costs of pre-application consultations are the problem, as she has stated, then surely the approach should be to reform what is required in a pre-application. I have just had experience of a pre-application process that involved a change to a major highways route of about 15 miles long through the area in which I live. We have had three or possibly four levels of public consultation, and in the end nobody was satisfied because nothing had substantially changed from the first one in which changes were made. The pre-application process should be reformed so that people’s voices are heard, changes are made where appropriate and then there are tweaks as the process goes on.

There is no legitimate reason for not allowing people’s voices to be heard. I feel very strongly about this and no doubt the Minister will hear from me again on Report. With that, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 24 withdrawn.

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[Baroness Pinnock (LD)]

My Lords, this is a further iteration of the debate we had on the previous group about pre-application consultation, but this time with the specific purpose of consultation with owners and occupiers of land. I still hope that we can get to the point where the Government have a rethink about reforming the pre-application process without removing it altogether.

We are in danger of throwing the baby out with the bathwater with Clause 4. I have listened carefully to the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh, and, as with the previous group, there are important points to be made. Informing people about an application is important, along with the community on which it impacts, particularly with regard to information to owners and occupiers of land. It is just rude not to, quite apart from the legal responsibility. Even with an ordinary application, though not an infrastructure one, the requirement is to notify the owner of the land that something is being proposed—even if you do not own the land, as we heard earlier from the noble Baroness, Lady Coffey. I urge the Minister to think about reviewing and reforming pre-application rather than removing it.

[Lord Jamieson (Con)]

My Lords, the amendments in this group, tabled by my noble friend Lady McIntosh of Pickering and supported variously by my noble friend Lady Coffey, speak to the important principle of consulting those who will be affected by changes, who are often best placed to provide information about development ahead of time. I appreciated the Minister’s comments on consultation in the previous group. The Government themselves are going to a consultation on providing the optimum guidance for consultation in the future. That is a positive, despite the multiple consultations.

At this stage in our deliberations, it is important to consider what “consultation” means. We are not talking about wreckers or blockers. These Houses of Parliament—indeed, your Lordships’ House itself—are constitutionally tasked with consultation and review. That is what we are doing at this very moment: reviewing the Government’s proposal in detail and providing feedback with the intention of making a proposal better and more workable in practice.

As we have heard, category 1 and 2 persons are definitions that refer to persons with significant interests in affected land. They know, literally, the lay of the land, the conditions, the constraints and the opportunities that could be faced by any development in advance of a project being started. The benefit of the knowledge and experience that these parties have must not be understated. One obvious way to prevent bad development is to promote good consultation.

We are keen to see spades in the ground and development starting to get under way, but there is no point if we get bad developments in the wrong place and where they are not appropriate. We have a duty to deliver, but we also have a duty to deliver responsibly. Removing requirements to consult key parties means that the Government increasingly run the risk of championing bad development.

There is also the question of buy-in. The Government will find that the public do not appreciate being done to, rather than being done with. Does this not strike to the heart of what the Government are trying to do with the Bill? The Government will find that if they do not undertake this policy programme carefully, with close reference to the very people they are intending to exclude from the consultation stage—I note the Minister’s previous comments, which are much appreciated—they will not be thanked for it. Consultation with stakeholders is, as noble Lords who are business-minded will know, an important way to build support, gain approval and deliver projects that work.

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[Lord Banner (Con)]

My Lords, I shall say a few words in support of this amendment. I can see it reducing the risk of judicial review. Quite often, not just in the planning context but in other contexts, where there is no duty to give reasons for a decision that is judicially reviewable, judicial review is the only way of teasing out the reasoning, at least in the pre-action process. Quite often, when judicial review is then commenced, the disclosure generates release of the ministerial submission, or whatever the advice may have been, on which the decision was based. If there were a duty to publish the reasons for non-acceptance of an application, it would enable the aggrieved would-be applicant to understand and take advice on the reasons without litigating. I can see that additional advantage to this proposed amendment, alongside the advantages that my noble friend Lady Scott just outlined.

[Baroness Pinnock (LD)]

My Lords, this is a very interesting amendment. In domestic planning applications, and commercial planning applications that are outside the infrastructure process, applications that are refused get a decision notice with a list of the reasons for refusal, which gives the developer the opportunity to review those and resubmit with relevant changes. This goes to the heart of the way the infrastructure application process works, in that we are now going to have a reduction in the pre-application process, and restricted examination in public; consequently, as the noble Lord, Lord Banner, says, the only resort will be to judicial review. The whole process for infrastructure applications needs a real rethink, in my view, because the pre-application stage will throw up some of the problems that the noble Baroness, Lady Scott, referenced, in terms of what might be the causes of refusal. She is quite right that for big infrastructure applications, reasons ought to be given for a rejection of the proposals.

Again, everyone here is anxious that critical infrastructure gets the go-ahead, but it must be given the go-ahead within the right framework of openness, consultation and listening to communities. At the minute, it seems that some of that framework is being removed and is going to be in the hands of the developers, come what may. I hope the Minister will give us some clues that the Government are going to change the process.

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

My Lords, we are all optimists.

Clause 6 amends the acceptance stage for applications for development consent. The noble Baroness, Lady Scott of Bybrook, has tabled an amendment to this clause, seeking to ensure that the Secretary of State publishes the reasons for the decision and identifies the relevant statutory or regulatory basis. At the acceptance stage, the Planning Inspectorate, on behalf of the Secretary of State, will consider whether an application for a nationally significant infrastructure project should proceed to examination. This test grants acceptance to applications for the country’s largest and most complex schemes on the basis of whether they can be examined within the strict statutory timeframes set out in the Planning Act 2008. Let us not forget that these statutory timeframes are what applicants admire most about the regime. They provide much needed certainty and clarity.

In our Planning Reform Working Paper: Streamlining Infrastructure Consenting published in January, we indicated that applicants often take a risk-averse approach to the acceptance test, as a refusal or a withdrawal can delay projects and harm investor confidence. Applicants will often gold-plate their application by undertaking additional consultation, delaying applications from coming forward. Accordingly, Clause 6 updates the acceptance test, not just to account for the removal of consultation at the pre-application stage but to increase the flexibility of the acceptance stage, so that applicants are more likely to come forward sooner. In doing so, Clause 6 amends the test to be applied from a “satisfactory” standard to “suitable to proceed to examination”. This wording brings the test closer to the objective of this part of the process.

The amendment proposed would require the Secretary of State to publish the reasons why an application has been rejected, explaining where it has not complied with new Section 55A (2) and (5). It is rightly intended to increase transparency and to protect developers from arbitrary rejection. The Government fully agree with the intention behind this amendment, which is to prevent arbitrary rejections for applicants. That is in part what has motivated the Government to introduce Section 55A. We want to allow for corrective actions, where needed, to enable acceptance rather than outright rejections or the withdrawal of applications. However, for the reasons I will outline shortly, we do not think this amendment is necessary, as the existing provisions in the Planning Act 2008 and new Section 55A provide sufficient transparency and protection for applicants.

The Government expect that this new provision will be used where an application does not strictly comply with requirements but where the application could quickly address any deficiencies or gaps. For example, regulations under the Planning Act require plans and drawings to be of a specified size and scale, and this includes specific requirements where multiple sheets are provided. Where applications need revision to comply with these or other such requirements, this process will allow for changes to be made easily where an application would previously have been rejected. Subsections (2) and (5) of the new section also require the Secretary of State to inform the applicant of what changes are needed and when these are needed by.

Moreover, the NSIP regime is built around strong principles of transparency and fairness. The Secretary of State will still be required to provide the applicant with the reasons why an application has not been accepted. The Planning Inspectorate routinely provides advice to potential applicants under Section 51 of the Planning Act 2008 before an application is submitted and is required to publish such advice on its website. Therefore, advice to the applicant at the pre-application stage, which can be used to highlight any more significant concerns, is already made publicly available. Given that the Planning Act 2008 and new Section 55A already require an explanation to be provided to applicants for why an application has been rejected, we do not believe that these amendments are required.

The Government have committed to consult on guidance to support consultation and engagement for nationally significant infrastructure projects this summer, as I have already outlined. As part of this consultation, we would very much welcome views on the acceptance of applications and the guidance needed to support the changes in the Bill. In particular, we recognise the importance of ensuring that requests made to applicants to provide additional information are proportionate, and we will ensure that guidance sitting alongside this change makes that clear. I hope the noble Baroness is reassured and, for all these reasons, I ask her to withdraw her amendment.

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[Lord Ravensdale (CB)]

Perhaps I may answer the noble Lord now. I thank him for his comments. He is absolutely right that there is a broader point here, but the amendment took into account the scope limitations of the Bill, which is why we raised it in that way. He is right that there is a broader point on regulators, but that would take it outside the scope of this legislation.

[Baroness Pinnock (LD)]

My Lords, these have been two very interesting amendments to think about. The noble Lord, Lord Ravensdale, quite rightly points to the fact that there are significant delays in wind farms in the North Sea because of demands by regulators in relation to Sabellaria. There is the tension that we started this Committee day with, which is if, as a country or as a world, we do not go down the net-zero route, there will not be nature to protect, because most of Norfolk and Suffolk will disappear under the waves of the North Sea. There has to be some balancing act between retention and restoration of nature, and not wilful destruction of it, but at the same time enabling the move towards net zero that we must do at speed. I am glad I am not in a ministerial position where I have got to do that balancing act, but that has to happen. We will not please everybody; that is also true.

The other issue that has come into this debate is, as the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, put it—I think I quote him correctly—“the egregious behaviour of regulators”. But it is this Parliament that provides the duties for regulators. A Parliament some time ago demanded that regulators look after the marine environment—or Natural England and all the rest of it.

It is about trying to pull all the moving parts together and understanding where we have to do the trade-offs. I have great sympathy with the amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Ravensdale, but also with the emphasis on the importance of continuing to protect and preserve nature. That is what the Bill ought to be able to do, but I am not sure that it does—in fact, at the moment, I am convinced that it does not. I hope that by continual discussion we will find a route through if the Government are willing to listen.

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[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, briefly, I feel that the discussion of this potentially extraordinarily far-reaching group of amendments has a different perspective from that of those I often work with—the environmental groups, human rights groups and groups representing disadvantaged communities that are bringing judicial reviews. The perspective I approach this from is how incredibly expensive and difficult judicial reviews are and how often they fail, even when, according to measures of common sense at least, they should have succeeded. That is very much where I come from.

The Committee does not just have to listen to me on this. We saw, particularly after the judicial review over the Prorogation of Parliament, a great deal of debate about judicial review. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Reed of Allermuir, the President of the Supreme Court, was quoted in the Law Society Gazette of March 2020:

“Judges are very well aware of the risk of challenges being brought in what are political rather than legal grounds. They are repelling them and are careful to avoid straying into what are genuine political matters. When this is a matter that is to be considered it should not start from the premise that judges are eager to pronounce on political issues. The true position is actually quite the opposite”.


We have a system of judicial review that very often does not work to defend the powerless in our society, and that of course includes nature as well as people. Yet it is there as a final backstop, and sometimes it works—sometimes it does protect those people—and so it is crucial that we maintain it.

I commend the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, for his ingenuity. This single amendment has possibly the largest legal consequences I have ever seen, as I think the noble Lord, Lord Banner, set out for us very clearly and with vastly more expertise than I can offer.

I say to the noble Lord, Lord Banner, that if we are thinking about trying to speed up judicial review, which in principle is not something that I have any problem with, one thing that undoubtedly slows it down is inequality of arms. Small community groups and environmental groups face a massive inequality of arms; it is very hard for them to go fast, because they just do not have the resources. They have to wait until the crowdfunder has raised some more money before they can keep going. Perhaps dealing with that inequality of arms would be good for the efficiency of decision-making in our society.

None the less, it is fairly self-evident, but, for the avoidance of doubt, I will say that I am strongly opposed to the approach being taken in this group of amendments.

[Baroness Pinnock (LD)]

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, has brought before us his own Bill. It is worthy to stand alone and provoke a significant discussion about how different procedures could deal with large-scale infrastructure applications. I am not in a position to know whether it would work or not. It is an attempt to provide an alternative, and I am looking forward to the Minister, with all the civil servants behind her, being able to explain why it will or will not work.

I always start from a different starting point, which is that, first, we are a small island. Comparing us with Canada and its vast expanse, or even with France, which is significantly geographically larger than the United Kingdom with a similar population, makes for poor comparisons.

That is the first of the challenges anyone in this country has with large-scale infrastructure. The second is this. No case was made to people about the benefits to them from either of the large-scale infrastructure projects that have been mentioned, HS2 and the A303. HS2 was never about shaving 10 minutes off a journey between London and Birmingham or 20 minutes off a journey to Leeds—though it will never get there. It was never about that. It was about congestion on the railways, but that case was never made. So it is no surprise when the public do not respond to the project in that way. Why are we going through the destruction of our villages and favoured landscapes for the sake of 20 minutes? That was the argument. You have to make the case and the case is not being made. It was the same with the A303 and various other major projects. That seems to me to be a difficulty.

I take issue with the noble Lord, Lord Ravensdale, using the word “radical”. That word is always used by developers when they want something that the rest of us do not want. We might want its outcome, but we do not like what it is going to do to our environment. I think we have to try harder.

As for the noble Viscount, Lord Hanworth, calling planning “sclerotic”, this element of infrastructure planning is very difficult, but let us not label the whole of the planning process as sclerotic. Local planning authorities do not hold up development; the statistics demonstrate that. The issue is with infrastructure planning. That is why the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, has brought forward his alternative procedure for it. Whether or not that would work, I will leave to others with more detailed backing from the civil servants to decide.

The issue with planning applications, big or small, is always that if you do not involve the public and tell them what it is for, what it will do and what the downsides are, you set yourself up for a big fight, and that is what happens. As for the judicial review, what do I know about it except that it seems to go on for ever and achieve nothing—and costs a lot of money as well. If you resort to the legal process to resolve applications which should be decided between elected people and the community, you are never going to get an answer. I look forward to the reply and a judgment on this one.

[Lord Jamieson (Con)]

My Lords, I will speak briefly on this group of amendments, all tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Hunt of King’s Heath. The amendments in this group all relate to the role of appeals and the judicial processes involved in national policy statements. As many noble Lords have said, the current system for critical national infrastructure does not work. We need to get a move on, but we also need to protect the environment and nature. I quite liked the comments of the noble Viscount, Lord Hanworth. He alluded to the absurdity that Stone Age man could build Stonehenge quicker than 21st-century man can build a bypass round it. This just does not make sense.

It is no secret that the court system is facing a severe backlog. This is a point we have made from this Dispatch Box on numerous occasions during the passage of the Renters’ Rights Bill. As we argued then, there is simply not enough capacity for courts to hear endless challenges. Continual judicial reviews of decisions made by planning bodies clog up the courts, causing significant delays to the planning and building process. If we are to have an effective programme of infrastructure development and housebuilding that will boost economic growth, we must ensure not only that vexatious legal delays are kept to a minimum but that the threat of these—which, as we have heard, cause delays and lorry-loads of paperwork—is avoided.

Amendment 52 seems to present a paradox. On the one hand, the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, is understandably seeking to speed up the planning process through his Amendment 48, which is, we believe, a somewhat reasonable proposal, although we do have concerns regarding the risk of the Secretary of State having even greater Henry VIII powers.

Planning and Infrastructure Bill

Baroness Pinnock Excerpts

Committee stage
Thursday 24th July 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Jamieson (Con)]

My Lords, we welcome the sentiment behind the amendments proposed by the noble Lord, Lord Hunt of King’s Heath. It is clear that, if we are to meet our net-zero targets, there is a need for long-term sustainable technologies such as carbon capture and storage. They must be part of the conversation. The potential of CCS to decarbonise sectors such as heavy industry are—I cannot quite remember the phrase used by the noble Earl, Lord Russell, in referring to those that could not be done in other ways—really important and significant.

We on these Benches also recognise that infrastructure plays an important supporting role in innovation and low-carbon growth. Allowing certain carbon capture projects to be designated NSIPs could offer a more streamlined path to planning approval, removing unnecessary barriers to strategically important developments. However, like my noble friend Lord—

[Baroness Pinnock (LD)]

Grayling?

[Lord Jamieson (Con)]

Grayling. As was pointed out earlier, it has been 184 days. Some of us are just getting a little tired. Like my noble friend, I must also offer a note of caution and a bit of a “but”.

Although CCS is a promising technology, it is not without its challenges. It is expensive, it is not a silver bullet, and it is somewhat untested. Therefore, as the noble Earl, Lord Russell, pointed out, we need closer scrutiny to make sure that it can be done commercially and at scale, which, to date, has not been done. It has not been proved to be viable. We do not want a technology that will cost the taxpayer money, and there are other technologies that could also potentially achieve this aim.

We should also consider this as part of a broader strategy. We must continue to prioritise clean energy, in particular dense technologies such as nuclear. It is our duty to ensure that the costs of decarbonisation are not unfairly borne by households and businesses already facing significant financial pressures.

So, while I support the broad intention of the amendment and agree that enabling clarity in planning and law is important, we must proceed with care. Our route to net zero must be grounded in economic and technical reality.

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[Lord Whitty (Lab)]

I too did not intend to speak on this group, but it occurs to me that these are such wide-ranging provisions that the charging of one local public authority by another is probably covered, in which case I wish to refer to a matter which was referred to when we were discussing the interim report on water yesterday. Could the new regulator of the water sector make provision for charging highways authorities, whether Highways England or local authority highways authorities, for the incredible effect the run-off of water from highways has on the quality and quantity of water? If these provisions do not cover that, is it covered elsewhere? The interaction between two forms of environmental and planning arrangements are covered here, in part, and the water dimension, and the not inconsiderable run-off from the highways into the water system, is an important issue which either the Environment Agency or the new regulator will have to face up to.

[Baroness Pinnock (LD)]

My Lords, I just query the assertion made by the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, that it is a planning authority that deals with run-off. It is if there is a planning application, when appropriate measures have to be made for dealing with surface water drainage. If it is already existing infrastructure, the highways authorities are responsible for surface water drainage in gullies. Sometimes it is then the water companies which are responsible for the collection of that water, sometimes it is the river authorities.

This is an issue that ought to be resolved but never is, because it is complicated. But we should try to tease out that the run-off that the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, was referring to is not essentially a planning problem except where there is new development. That is when it happens. That is when you must get permissions for surface water drainage agreed with the water company if it is also a statutory drainage company.

--- Later in debate ---

Moved by

[Baroness Pinnock]

54: Clause 41, page 54, line 22, at end insert—
“(1A) Any disapplication of heritage protections under this section must be exercised in a manner that—(a) recognises the value of the United Kingdom’s archaeological and architectural heritage to the nation and to local communities;(b) respects the principle that structures and sites are designated for protection only where they are of special or particular historic or cultural significance; and(c) ensures that development under this Act gives due regard to the importance of conserving the historic environment alongside the need for future infrastructure.”

[Baroness Pinnock (LD)]

I am awake, my Lords. It has been quite a long afternoon, has it not?

Amendment 54 in my name and that of my noble friend Lady Pidgeon was tabled some time ago, so everyone will have had time to think about its consequences. It focuses on the potential for significant harm to listed buildings, ancient monuments and archaeological sites and on preventing any ill-considered harm caused by the measures in Clause 41. That clause refers to Section 17 of the Transport and Works Act 1992, about which we have heard a lot in the past hour and which relates to applications for listed building consent in England and Wales where a planned transport development, such as a railway or a road, will involve the demolition, in whole or in part, of a building or site with a statutory protection. Under this regime, the application for listed building or other consents is referred directly to the Secretary of State, instead of an application to the local planning authority.

Clause 41 amends the Planning (Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas) Act 1990 so that authorisations related to heritage protection are no longer required; that includes listed building consent, conservation area consent, scheduled monument consent and notifications for works in areas of archaeological importance. If the clause is agreed, the process will mean that applicants can obtain all necessary consents, including those for heritage matters, through the Transport and Works Act process rather than needing to apply separately to different bodies. I guess that this is part of the so-called streamlining of planning application processes.

However, a one-stop shop approach such as this will result in local heritage structures, which are a source of local pride, being bulldozed from the local landscape. Many heritage organisations, including Historic England and the Heritage Alliance, have expressed concerns that the disapplication of separate heritage consents could weaken the checks and balances designed to protect historic assets. Applying Clause 41 in this way may have the knock-on effect of watering down the well-understood protections of our heritage and may lead to more requests for reducing enforcement and statutory protections.

Another major problem with this wholesale reduction in heritage protections is that there will be no prioritisation of the value of different historic assets. For example, will Hadrian’s Wall be regarded as having protection if there is an application for, say, a new route by rail or road into the north of our nation? Hadrian’s Wall, a world heritage site, has substantial protection but, following the changes made under this Bill, it will be treated in the same way as other, less important—but still vital—heritage assets.

As the powers under Clause 41 are discretionary, inconsistencies can creep in and cause even greater local and national outrage. For example, Hadrian’s Wall is protected, but a local monument that is very valued by a local community can be swept aside.

As far as the Bill is concerned, this measure undermines two essential elements of planning. The first is engaging with communities so that they have the full facts and can have their say. The second is that the scales by which we currently assess projects are tipped excessively in favour of development proposals to the detriment of our heritage. Further, an approach such as this gives a green light to less scrupulous developers who will gain by destroying historic assets.

Our heritage is an important part of who we are as a nation, and it has to be much more carefully weighed in the balance than is proposed in Clause 41. I look forward to hearing about the amendments in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, and others. I beg to move.

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[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

My Lords, the Bill seeks to deliver a faster and more certain consenting process for infrastructure. It is quite clear that there are a whole range of measures within the Bill that seek to do that, and I think the general clarity of the intention of the Bill is absolutely there.

But I am going to save your Lordships quite a lot of time because, having said that and having listened very carefully to the contributions made by a series of noble Lords just now, I can say that the Government are not looking to reduce heritage protections through this clause. We are seeking to streamline the process of decision-making by creating a one-stop shop; it would sometimes be the case in the current regime that separate government departments would still need to issue separate consents.

In the light of what noble Lords have seriously said—with some passion, conviction and a great deal of clarity—I commit to go away and reflect on the arguments raised. I cannot say what happened following the discussion in the other place, but I can commit to considering all the arguments raised. We will return to this subject, bearing in mind what I have heard this afternoon. In the meantime, I kindly ask the noble Baroness to withdraw her amendment.

[Baroness Pinnock (LD)]

This may be a first for me in this House to have a Minister listening to the arguments and thinking, “Maybe this needs further thought and consideration”. I congratulate the Minister on achieving that today, because that is what Committee should be about: we make the arguments and question what the Government are proposing, and the Minister listens carefully and, instead of defending the indefensible, says, “Good points have been made, and I am going to go away and seriously think about them”. I thank him most heartily for doing so. It has been a really thoughtful, considered and expert debate from people who have had experience in government on the same issues and have raised—more eloquently than me—the issues that are pertinent to this clause.

None of us here wants to stand in the way of the development of important infrastructure. That is not what this is about. It is not about preserving our heritage in aspic—as the noble Lord, Lord Parkinson, said—but finding new life for our heritage assets and respecting them. It is about having that balance between the heritage that people in this country really value, on the one hand, and the importance of having a growth in infrastructure on the other. At the minute, I think the Government have that balance wrong. I very much thank everybody who has taken part in this debate. I really look forward to the Minister coming back and helping us with this. I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.

Amendment 54 withdrawn.

Planning and Infrastructure Bill

Baroness Pinnock Excerpts

Committee stage
Monday 1st September 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Coffey (Con)]

My Lords, I will speak to Amendment 82C; I have also tabled a number of other amendments in this group. In essence, this amendment considers bill discounts and community benefits.

I think it is fair to say that the Government have recognised the need for some benefits, but they have not been generous enough, in my view. That is why I also strongly support Amendment 83, tabled by my noble friends on the Front Bench, to make sure that we are sufficiently generous. I am convinced that that will go a long way to persuading—or at least giving some comfort to—householders in large parts of our United Kingdom who will suffer some of the consequential impacts of the acceleration of renewable energy involving pylons and similar.

In essence, I am also concerned that we seem to have lost the amount of electricity generation happening around the country. It seemed quite odd to me that people might get compensation for there being a pylon within 500 metres of them, but people living next to the generation of new substations and new nuclear power stations are not, as it stands, intended to receive any community benefit.

One of the successes of the French Government was to try to reduce the electricity bills of people living close to generation. That has long been considered a sensible way forward for a local community. I am not saying that everybody in those local communities wants to be, to use their words, “bought off” by a reduction on their bill, but it would go a considerable way with some of the frustration in the preparation of those huge construction projects as well as being an ongoing reminder that they are living near a nuclear power station. They may not have realised one was going to be built there—or a substation, or the like—when they moved to that area.

Clause 26 enables the establishment of the energy bill discount scheme. I have tabled a couple of amendments, that it should not be “may” but “must”. I am conscious that the noble Earl, Lord Russell, has also included “must” in Amendment 86. That matters to give absolute certainty to local communities that this will happen and that we will not have to wait for further consultation, commencements and the like, and that it will actually be done.

It is important that we consider not just nuclear, which I have referred to already—I do not think that I would qualify for any of that, by the way; I do not live too far away from Sizewell C, but nevertheless, there are plenty of people who qualify. We should also consider it for other energy projects, including wind farms and the like, especially recognising the Government’s proposals.

The Government’s proposed discount is only 25% of the £1,000 bill discount that the previous Government suggested, which has already been referred to in Amendment 83. However, it is clear that we need to make sure this gets to the households, so there are parts of this clause which are absolutely right to be included by the Government.

On Amendment 86, tabled by the noble Earl, Lord Russell, I recall that I was a Parliamentary Private Secretary to Michael Fallon a long time ago. I think it was back in 2013 that we started discussing what amount of money local communities should get. That reflects quite how long this discussion has been going on for. At one point, it was about business rate revenues: what would be retained, what would be kept by the council and what would be given to bill payers. It is important to make sure that as much of this money goes directly to local people as possible.

In terms of thinking this through, the Ministers may not have the answer today, and I do not expect them to have an answer on every single part of discussions about business rates retentions. However, it would be useful to understand where the Government have ended up on how much of business rates would be retained by local councils for the operation of all these different power plants which are busy being built around the country. I am sure that local government would welcome that clarity. Certainly, if 100% of the business rates of Sizewell C were to be retained in East Suffolk—indeed, by the new unitary authority in due course—they would be very happy indeed. That is not to say that East Suffolk keeps all that money; right now, it participates in pooling. Nevertheless, it is about recognising that this significant infrastructure in a very modest way provides some local community benefit which can be used for a variety of factors. It is for those reasons that generation as well as pylons need to be recognised in any bill discount scheme. I hope that the Government will be generous in that regard.

Forgive me, but there is one other amendment that I have forgotten to speak to. It would make sure that this cost is not borne by other taxpayers or bill payers. This needs to be considered in the cost of the project. We will discuss this more in the Moses Room on Wednesday, but, too often, when it seems that the Government are being very generous about discounts, rebates and similar, it is actually bill payers in other parts of the country who simply pay for that. We need to recognise that we have an electricity system that will of course bring some disruption in certain parts of the country where generation and other aspects of transmission are happening—we all need to pay our energy bills—but, for once, we should see some of the energy companies recognising the significant profits they will be making from those projects and that, for the future, they do not have to rely on bill payers paying for those benefits in the short term. I beg to move.

[Baroness Pinnock (LD)]

My Lords, Amendment 85 in my name seeks to explore the extent and purpose of the compensation proposed for new energy infrastructure, particularly with regard to electrical infrastructure that already exists. Can the Minister explain how the clause enhances schemes that currently exist in the form of wayleave arrangements and payments for use of land for pylons, for example? Will the new scheme, for instance, be consistent with current arrangements for compensation?

Clarity about the parameters used to determine those residents who will qualify for compensation for the new infrastructure is important in understanding the scale of the scheme as anticipated by the Government. In a press statement, the Government stated that households within 500 metres of new or upgraded electricity transmission infrastructure will get electricity bill discounts of up to £2,500 over 10 years, and that this will see rural communities receive hundreds of pounds in their pockets for hosting vital infrastructure. It continues:

“Alongside money off bills, separate new guidance will set out how developers should ensure communities hosting transmission infrastructure can benefit by funding projects like sports clubs, educational programmes or leisure facilities”.


That press release sets out the principles behind what the Government are proposing for new electricity infrastructure. As I am sure the Minister will know, there are already over 20,000 pre-existing pylons, which have been associated largely with coalfields. Hence, many of the clusters of pylons are close to those sites; in Yorkshire, for example. For those communities at that time, there was an expectation by the state that electricity transmission was for the common good. The question I want an answer to today is: where has that sense of common purpose gone? Why are we not still considering the idea that for major infrastructure projects where the whole nation will benefit communities will need to accept that for the benefit of everybody, as was done in the past?

In their press release, the Government state categorically that it is rural communities that will see huge financial benefit from the scheme. Obviously, I do not have any argument with that, but I question the argument for compensating residents in those communities now when communities with infrastructure constructed in a different generation were not. Can the Minister explain, for example, whether the compensation will be extended to the Yorkshire GREEN scheme, which is upgrading existing infrastructure down the spine of Yorkshire to enable more green infrastructure to be linked to the grid? It is an upgrade of older infrastructure. Will those communities benefit from this scheme?

Planning and Infrastructure Bill

Baroness Pinnock Excerpts

Committee stage
Thursday 4th September 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Pinnock (LD)]

My Lords, I do not envy the Minister having to respond to this very cogent debate, which at first sight seemed important but not as in-depth as it has turned out to be. We on these Benches strongly support the amendment in my noble friend’s name, and she made a very strong argument for its adoption. Other key points have been made and we have broad agreement with them, dependent on the detail that will come, I guess, from the Minister.

First, on listed building consent, which is currently free—not the project itself but the actual listed building consent—we would support that remaining free of charge for the owners of those listed buildings. The noble Lord, Lord Parkinson, clearly made the very strong case for its continuation. I hope that the Minister will be able to give us a categorical reason for its retention.

Secondly, on enforcement and appeals, it seems to me that the legislation that enables costs of appeals to be made ought to be enforced and enacted, and the money should go to where it belongs—not to the Treasury but to the Planning Inspectorate. Again, that was a strongly made argument with which we have broad agreement.

Finally, the issue raised by the noble Lord, Lord Young of Cookham—which he and I raised during the long debates on the levelling-up Bill—has come back again. He rightly raises the issue, as I did at the time, that councils ought to have a local plan and, without it, the planning system falters or, indeed, often fails. It would be good to hear from the Minister what actions the Government intend to take to encourage and enforce the idea of all councils having a local plan, albeit within the context of further reorganisation of local government, which will put such concentration of energy on to a strategic planning system for local councils in jeopardy.

This has been a really good debate, and we have broad agreement with all the points that have been made.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (Baroness Taylor of Stevenage) (Lab)]

My Lords, that was a very interesting, wide-ranging, detailed and thoughtful debate around many planning matters, including some of the amendments that had been tabled. I am very grateful to all noble Lords who have taken part. As a planning geek myself, it is never a trouble to listen to these types of discussions. I will answer some specific points, but I would like to make a couple of general comments first.

In introducing her amendment, the noble Baroness, Lady Scott, asked for a more radical approach to planning. The noble Lord, Lord Young, set out the radical approach even better than I could myself. I have, of course, heard completely opposing views on the Planning and Infrastructure Bill before us, with one set of people saying that it is too radical and another saying it is not radical enough. I always think that if you get to there, you are probably in about the right place, but your Lordships will be the judge of that.

The Bill is a step in driving forward the infrastructure planning and changes to planning that we want to see in order to get economic growth going, but it is not the only step. As the noble Lord, Lord Young, outlined, as we continue with our planning for new authorities, there will be further change in introducing the strategic plans—that is coming forward in the English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill. I look forward to debating those changes with noble Lords in due course.

The noble Lord, Lord Young, also mentioned the investment that is needed in planning. We are very aware of the fact that the cuts to local government funding that we all experienced over a couple of decades have meant that the investment in planning was not always there. We have already put £46 million in to try to improve the investment in planning and the quantity and capacity of planning departments. We will continue to work on that.

The noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, raised the issue of local plans. We are already making progress on that. The Secretary of State has made it very clear to local authorities that she expects to see local plans in place. You jeopardise the whole process of development in this country when you get an out-of-date local plan, and developers can ride roughshod over local wishes because there is no local plan in place. It is a very important part of the process. The noble Lord, Lord Young, raised the issue of how these local plans will be reconstructed when we get new authorities in place. Of course, much of the work will have been done. We will not need to redo all the studies; they can be aggregated into those wider plans. But it is important that those plans will be in place.

To pick up a point that is not in these amendments, I say to the noble Lord, Lord Fuller, that I am aware of the issue with level 7 apprenticeships in planning. I was very keen on planning apprenticeships and having that route to good quality and more capacity in planning teams. I am discussing that with colleagues in the Department for Education and will comment on that further when I have had more discussions with them.

Turning now to Amendments 94FB and 94 FC, tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Scott, I understand the importance of ensuring that local planning authorities or the Mayor of London are not burdened with unnecessary obligations, particularly in relation to fee setting. That is why I want to be very clear. The Government’s intention is to pursue a local variation model. The approach will not require local planning authorities or the Mayor of London to set their own fees but instead provides those authorities with the option to vary from a national default planning fee where they consider it necessary to do so to better meet their costs.

However, we believe it is important to retain a flexibility within that power. The inclusion of “or require” preserves the ability to mandate local fee setting should there be a compelling case for it in the future—for example, to improve service delivery or address disparities in performance. Removing that flexibility would risk constraining our future ability to evolve the system. The noble Lord, Lord Lansley, talked about how we will monitor planning performance. He will know very well that an extensive planning monitoring regime in already in place, which local authorities have to meet. Keeping an eye on this, as well, will help with that. I hope the noble Baroness will agree that retaining this power in its current form represents a balanced and prudent approach and that she will agree to withdraw her amendment.

I am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Thornhill, for tabling Amendment 94G. I am entirely in accord with her on the importance of ensuring that fees are proportionate to the nature and size of the planning application. In her very clear explanation of her amendment, she rightly highlighted the importance of our SME building sector, which we also saw highlighted, as she will remember, in the report of the Competition and Markets Authority. I share her intent to do all we can to support SMEs. Indeed, it was a local SME builder who helped me kick off my housing development programme when I was a council leader. It was a mutual arrangement—we helped support them and they helped support what we were doing. There can be very good arrangements locally.

However, the Bill already provides a clear and robust framework to ensure that planning fees are proportionate. The noble Lord, Lord Fuller, and the noble Earl, Lord Lytton, mentioned the proportionality issue. As I just mentioned, the Government intend to introduce a local variation model under which a nationally set default fee, developed through benchmarking and public consultation, will serve as a baseline, as is currently the case with planning fees. To answer the noble Baronesses, Lady Thornhill and Lady Neville-Rolfe, this will account for variations in the size and nature of sites.

The model ensures both consistency and transparency in fee setting while allowing local planning authorities the flexibility to depart from the nationally set default fee where circumstances warrant. The Bill requires that any locally set fee must not exceed the cost of delivering the relevant service—I hope that picks up the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Lansley—and that local communities must be consulted on proposed changes. Importantly, the Secretary of State will also retain the power to intervene where fees are considered inappropriate, thereby providing an important safeguard to uphold consistency and equity across the system. I am therefore confident that the Bill already addresses the concerns that this amendment seeks to resolve.

On Amendment 95, tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh, I agree that well-resourced planning departments are essential in enabling the development that our communities need, but also for safeguarding those communities from unauthorised or harmful development. We appreciate the intention of the amendment in supporting the resourcing of enforcement activity but, as planning enforcement serves the wider public interest, it is appropriate for local authorities to allocate funds to support these services. Allowing planning authorities to raise planning fees to cover enforcement costs could result in disproportionately high fees. We are concerned that that may deter development at a time when we are committed to accelerating housing delivery and getting Britain building.

To answer the noble Baroness’s question directly, this was not an oversight in drafting the Bill; we did consider it. More broadly, the Government have, as I have already mentioned, committed to the £46 million package of investment to support the capacity and capability of local planning authorities.

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Moved by

[Baroness Pinnock]

103ZZA: Clause 51, page 67, line 21, leave out “by regulations require” and insert “issue guidance that requires”
Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment and others in the name of Baroness Pinnock change the provision of regulations in Clause 51 to guidance issued by the Secretary of State.

[Baroness Pinnock (LD)]

My Lords, we now turn to the mechanics of making planning decisions. I accept the Government’s purpose in Clause 51 to drive greater consistency and expectations of the process by developers. There is a great diversity of the ways in which planning decisions are made across the country. The Government have obviously had their ear bent and are trying hard to understand that and to come to some arrangements by which planning applications are dealt with in a similar way across the country.

However, a drive to do so through regulation removes what I assert is absolutely vital local flexibility. Setting regulation by, for example, the size of application, number of houses, by hectare or, worse still, by local plan site allocation only, as may be the case, absolutely ignores local geography and the existing local built environment. Unduly restricting publicly taken decisions on planning issues may well feed the lack of trust in public institutions, which we surely all want to avoid.

That is why my amendments—there is a whole string of them—are designed to ensure that local decisions remain with local people and their elected representatives, where that is determined by local policies and by a combination, as we heard on the previous group, of local chief planning officers and the planning committee chair. People care passionately about the places where they live, and they care about the changes that are made to them. They want to be included in helping influence decisions about those changes—for example, new housing sites.

Enabling residents to take part in planning decisions is vital. At the moment, there are two ways in which residents can do so. The first is by formally objecting to an application through the planning portal and hoping that that will be taken into account in a decision. But, if that is a decision made by an officer, there is no report that will include those objections and the reasons why they may have been overturned. So one of the benefits of having decisions, particularly and mainly about controversial developments, is that the objections made by local residents can be heard in public and seen in the report that the planning officer has to make for the planning committee, which will include a summary of the objections and the reasons for them. Restricting the number of applications that are heard in public, as the regulations will do, is totally detrimental.

I will give one example of why that may be the case. A planning application near where I live is bounded by a busy main A road, the M62, a cricket field and a residential road. There are a lot of constraints on this small housing development of 20-odd houses that have to be taken into account and will conflict with one another—dealing with the motorway noise, the cricket field, the busy main road, access and safety and all the rest. A lot of issues have to be considered. Under these regulations, it is very likely that that planning application would be determined by officers. There would be no ability, as there is currently, for local councillors, in conjunction with the committee chair and the chief planning officer, to make a decision. There are so many controversial and conflicting issues that that decision is best taken through an open decision-making process in the committee. We ought to be proud of that as a country—that is how we make decisions. It is democracy, and we need to strengthen it, not pull the rug from under it.

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[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

We trust planning officers, but we do not want to undermine that scheme of delegation.

Amendment 135HZF seeks to ensure that any applications by the council itself or any of its employees or councillors where there are no objections do not need to go to committee. While I understand the noble Lord’s reasons for tabling such an amendment, I again think that this is a matter best dealt with in the regulations rather than in the Bill. Indeed, the recent technical consultation on planning committees sought views on the treatment of such applications. I can therefore assure the noble Lord that we will consider his suggestion alongside the formal responses to that consultation.

To conclude, I assure noble Lords once again that Clause 51 is not about taking away local democratic oversight. It is about improving the system to allow planning committees to operate more effectively in the interests of their communities and to give them the time to focus their attention where it really matters.

I now turn to a series of amendments tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, which seek to remove the requirement to create regulations needed for the framework for a mandatory national scheme of delegation and would replace this requirement with a power to make statutory guidance. They would also remove the ability for the Secretary of State to control the size and composition of planning committees.

The Government have been very clear: we want to see a national scheme of delegation introduced to ensure greater certainty across the country and to speed up decision-making to support the delivery of 1.5 million homes during this Parliament. I emphasise that these reforms are a real priority for this Government. We need to ensure that the legal framework for the national scheme of delegation is robust and clear, and that is why we need to legislate for it through regulations. Statutory guidance is not sufficient to provide the certainty and consistency that we want to see.

I also disagree that we should not legislate to control the size and composition of planning committees. I fully accept that many planning committees have slimmed down in recent years and are nearer the optimal size for effective engagement and debate. However, there are still too many which are unwieldy, undermining the quality of decision-making. We firmly believe that there remains a strong case to have powers to regulate the committees’ size and composition. With these explanations, I kindly ask noble Lords not to press their amendments.

[Baroness Pinnock (LD)]

My Lords, I thank everyone who has spoken in this debate about the practicalities of planning application decision-making. I thought the most telling point that the Minister made was in her introductory remarks, when she said that the Government want councillors to focus on local plan making. Local plan making is an absolutely vital building block to planning decision-making, because it sets the local policies within the framework of the National Planning Policy Framework, and it sets out and, in theory, agrees sites for development by business, commerce or for housing—or institutions of various sorts.

In my long time as a local councillor, I have taken through, I think, three or four local plan-making processes, and all my experience tells me that it is very difficult to get local people to engage in the theory of site allocation and what it will mean for them. And that is why I have made the case I have today. Yes, local plans are vital and set the foundations for a plan and for place making for an area, but, equally, we need the flexibility within that for local people to have their say. If local people do not have their say, that essential safeguard, that essential safety valve of an open public discussion about an issue which is controversial, will be taken away, to the detriment of local democracy and national democracy.

However, with those points, and thanking everybody who has contributed to the debate, because it has been a good one, I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.

Amendment 103ZZA withdrawn.

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[Baroness Coffey (Con)]

It is reflective of what is proportionate to the local community. My noble friend Lord Framlingham will be aware of the legal judgments of the past few years where some large-scale accommodation sites were deemed unlawful. As my noble friend Lord Jackson of Peterborough said, the current Government are trying to work this out and balance it as well. It is not a straightforward action, so I will not criticise them for it. However, it is certainly valid to have this debate about whether these hotels need a separate planning class, recognising the decision that was made last week in the Court of Appeal.

Houses in multiple occupation require both planning permission and a licence. I do not want us to get into the situation of having to license hotels. However, HMOs have both because the accommodation is being used in a perhaps non-traditional way compared to its original intention. Therefore, extra conditions are put on by the local council or there is deliberate consideration, recognising the change in impact that the transfer of traditional uses of accommodation to others can have on the local community. Therefore, while I expect that the Government will probably brush this aside, it is important to understand the temperature, but also what we have done in the past to recognise when things have changed significantly, in order to make sure that decisions are made carefully, considerately and competently when addressing this type of situation.

[Baroness Pinnock (LD)]

My Lords, the sheer hypocrisy of those on the Conservative Benches seems to know no bounds. As we have heard, it was in 2020 that this scale and number of hotels being used for asylum seekers began in earnest. It seems that it has taken five years for Members on the Conservative Benches to come to the conclusion that it may have been necessary for the use of these hotels to require planning consent. What on earth has triggered their sudden interest in planning issues for hotels harbouring asylum seekers? I am struggling to think what the issue could be. What I do know—

[Baroness Laing of Elderslie (Con)]

I will give the noble Baroness one brief answer to her question. An asylum seeker who was living at the Bell Hotel in Epping has been found guilty of the sexual assault of a young girl. That is just one small reason.

[Lord Teverson (LD)]

That was a somewhat desperate contribution—seriously so.

[Baroness Pinnock (LD)]

The intervention by the noble Baroness, Lady Laing, seemed to distance where somebody lives from their behaviours. The intervention she made was irrelevant. The fact is that the previous Conservative Government started using hotels for temporary accommodation for asylum seekers and made no effort to increase the speed of assessment for those asylum seekers, so that they could have certainty in their lives and local accommodation would not be put under undue stress. It was not only a failure of public policy by the previous Government; it was inhumane. It surprised me that the noble Baroness, Lady Scott, for whom I have high regard, has seen fit to bring these amendments. It is out of character for her to do so. Perhaps on later reflection, she will regret bringing them.

[Lord Fuller (Con)]

This is the Planning and Infrastructure Bill—the opportunity to have this sort of wider debate on asylum, borders and infrastructure was yesterday with the borders and asylum Bill. What we are trying to do here is focus on the very narrow point about when there is a change in the planning status. As my noble friend said, when there is development, should the rules that cover planning and development be engaged and, if so, to what extent? I think my noble friend’s amendments—I am sure she will say something aligned with this when she winds up—would establish the principle that, when development happens, we cannot just pick and choose which bits are subject to planning law and which are not. When development happens, local people should be able to have their say.

It pains me to do so, but I ask the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, directly: is it her position that local people should not have a say when development happens and there is a material change of use, either from a hotel to an HMO or from an HMO to a hostel? If it is, we need to know.

[Lord in Waiting/Government Whip (Lord Wilson of Sedgefield) (Lab)]

I ask the noble Lord to get to the point of his question.

[Baroness Pinnock (LD)]

I will continue. Why has it taken five years for the Conservatives to wake up to the fact, as they seem to think now, there is a principled planning issue associated with using hotels for temporary accommodation for asylum seekers? That is the question.

[Lord Banner (Con)]

My Lords—

[Baroness Pinnock (LD)]

No, I am not taking any further interventions.

The failure of this approach is that, if hotels are not used, what other temporary accommodation is going to be used for asylum seekers? That is where we are with the attempt made by these amendments.

Planning and Infrastructure Bill

Baroness Pinnock Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 9th September 2025 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Baroness Pinnock]

120: After Clause 51, insert the following new Clause—
“Register of planning applications from political donors(1) A local planning authority must maintain and publish a register of planning applications in its area where—(a) a determination has been made by the Secretary of State responsible for housing and planning, and(b) the applicant has made a donation to the Secretary of State responsible for housing and planning within the period of ten years prior to the application being made.(2) A register maintained under this section must be published at least once each year.”Member's explanatory statement
This new clause would require a local planning authority to keep and publish a register of applications decided by the Secretary of State where that Secretary of State has received a donation from the applicant.

[Baroness Pinnock (LD)]

My Lords, I too will miss the noble Lord, Lord Khan, on the Government Front Bench. He always managed to respond to any questions I had with a smile. I even forgave him for living in Lancashire. We wish him well from these Benches and I hope the Minister will pass those messages on for us. We look forward to the noble Lord, Lord Wilson, also responding with a smile.

Amendment 120 in my name seeks to ensure transparency in decision-making in the planning process. The integrity of the process is vital. From my own experience, I know that objectors to a planning application can readily feel that, if they do not get their way, it is because shady deals have been done. Transparency helps to cure any such allegations.

Unfortunately, there is a recent example of a senior national politician who became far too closely involved with a developer and made hasty decisions based on pressure from the developer regarding funding and costs. The example that I have in mind is that, in 2020, the Housing Secretary, at that time Robert Jenrick MP, accepted that he approved a £1 billion housing development in the east of London unlawfully. The 1,500-home development on the Isle of Dogs was approved on 14 January, the day before the community infrastructure levy charges placed on the developments were increased. The timing of the decision

“meant Conservative Party donor Richard Desmond avoided paying around £40m”.

Mr Jenrick eventually accepted that his decision was indeed unlawful after the Government’s own planning inspector

“advised against the scheme saying it needed to deliver more affordable housing in what is London’s poorest borough”.

The inspector described the 44-storey high buildings as harming the character of the area, but, despite the clear direction from the planning inspector,

“Mr Jenrick rejected that advice and approved planning permission for the project”.


Obviously, planning permission was later rescinded following the legal challenge made by the local council. I have quoted largely from the BBC report of that event.

It is clear from this example alone that safeguards are needed. Amendment 120 in my name and that of the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, would require local planning authorities to maintain and publish a register of planning applications where the applicant has donated to the relevant Secretary of State within the preceding 10 years. This proposal aims to increase transparency regarding potential conflicts of interest in the planning process.

The amendment will mandate local planning authorities to create and publish a public register. The register will list planning applications that have been determined by the Secretary of State for Housing and Planning—or whatever the name is at any point—and the applications included would be those from applicants who have made donations to that Secretary of State within the past 10 years. That is not much of an ask, but it is yet another safeguard in the planning process. Whenever applications reach the Secretary of State, it means that they are very controversial and have been called in following referral to the planning inspector.

The planning system absolutely depends on public trust if people are to believe that the process is a fair one. Given that, I look forward to the Minister welcoming greater transparency and a very simple process to throw light on some of these more controversial decisions. I beg to move.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, and to commend the noble Baroness for introducing a practical, sensible and necessary amendment to the Bill. Before I get to that, I want to join the chorus and give my very sincere thanks to the noble Lord, Lord Khan, who, like others, we in the Green group have found was very approachable and extremely hard-working, and he will certainly be very much missed—I want to put that on the record.

This amendment aims to ensure that a planning authority maintains a register of applications in its area where the Secretary of State has made a determination over it and where a political donation has been associated with it. As the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, said, this might be called the Jenrick amendment. I will just leave that there—I will not go back over that ground.

I will make a very serious point. The noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, spoke about this as safeguarding the planning process. I think this is about something more important and central than that. This is about safe- guarding, or at least making a step towards restoring, trust in the political process. That is far more important and crucial. I do not think there is anyone in this Chamber who would disagree that we have a huge problem with trust in politics.

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[Lord Wilson of Sedgefield (Lab)]

On this particular issue, they do take training, and it is deemed at the moment to be necessary, but obviously all this stuff is kept under review.

[Baroness Pinnock (LD)]

My Lords, I thank all—well, nearly all—who have taken part in this short debate that has raised the issue of how important transparency and trust are in the planning process. It is important for the reason the noble Lord, Lord Carlile, gave, which is that often considerable sums of money are involved in planning applications; and the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, raised the point that if you do not have a transparent process, social media certainly takes over, and then it is really difficult to ensure that the truth is out because you have no evidence to support it.

All I am going to say to the noble Lord, Lord Fuller, is that methinks he doth protest too much. I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Scott, for her support and her suggestion that maybe this could be incorporated into the overview of the government department, whatever we call it these days.

Finally, the Minister in his reply said that it is okay because we take care of all this stuff already and it is already recorded. All I can say is that, in the case that I gave recounted, it took a legal challenge by Tower Hamlets Council to overturn that decision when it was declared unlawful, which drew me to think about ways of getting greater transparency into the process. I would like us to think again about that and maybe take up the idea of the noble Baroness, Lady Scott, of somehow including it in a government process if it were not possible to do it at local government level. With those comments, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 120 withdrawn.

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[Baroness Grey-Thompson (CB)]

My Lords, I declare an interest as president of the LGA and chair of Sport Wales. While recognising the devolved nature of planning, it would be remiss of me not to mention that the social return on investment for physical activity and sport in Wales is £5.98 billion a year.

The noble Baroness, Lady Bennett of Manor Castle, raised the Well-being of Future Generations Act. It is an incredibly important lens through which to make decisions on things like sport and physical activity.

We have a chance with these amendments to really cement opportunities to be active in our communities. We do not get the chance to talk about sport that much in the Chamber. We are in the middle of an exciting moment in women’s sport this summer. We have had the Women’s Open in Porthcawl, the Euros, and the Women’s Rugby World Cup, but sport is a small part of activity, which we really need to concentrate on.

All the people who played in these amazing tournaments started somewhere, but to be good at sport—and the nation is generally supportive of our sportspeople—we need to have lots of people being physically active. To be physically active, you need access to play, but you also need a place to do it.

I thank the all-party parliamentary group on sport, which met this afternoon. We had representatives from the Sport and Recreation Alliance, and from cricket, tennis, Sport England and the FA, who talked about what we are already missing. On current demand, we already need 12,000 extra grass pitches, let alone after this summer of sport, when we will hopefully get thousands more young women who want to play sport.

We are a nation that loves sport, but we are also a nation that needs to be more active. I happened to be chair of ukactive when it produced a number of reports, the first of which was called Generation Inactive; there was also Turning the tide of physical activity. They highlighted the challenges that need addressing. We have a generation of young people who are more likely to die before their parents because of inactivity. People are hitting frailty in their 40s and living with that for decades. This is both costly for society and bad for the individuals, because it excludes them from society. Around one in eight children in England between the ages of two and 10 is obese, according to an NHS survey published in September 2024.

Approximately 39% of all sports facilities in England, including sports halls, studios and pitches, are located behind school gates and often remain inaccessible outside school hours. There is a need to open them, and we cannot afford to lose any more than we currently have.

I was delighted that my noble friend—in sport— Lord Moynihan talked about swimming pools. We have seen through Covid the challenges of keeping them open. Again, this is not sport for sport’s sake. The Royal Life Saving Society estimates that 328 UK and Irish citizens lose their lives to accidental drowning each year, so keeping swimming pools open is incredibly important. If we do not protect these facilities, we are dooming another generation to a lack of opportunity. It is going to have an increasingly negative impact on their health.

Looking back to the summer of sport, we are seeing amazing players like Georgia Evans in rugby and Alessia Russo in football. They provide a moment of inspiration, but we have to do more than that. We have to provide the right facilities, whether you want to make the elite pathway or just not be very good at sport. We should channel Wales’s Well-being of Future Generations Act and look at the legacy we are leaving the boys and girls who follow, who desperately need somewhere to play.

[Baroness Pinnock (LD)]

My Lords, this is the second of two debates we have had this afternoon on the link between health and well-being on the one hand, and planning laws on the other. The second one, relating to the link between creating healthy homes and sport, is fundamental to creating healthy communities.

As a councillor who represents an area where healthy living beyond the age of 60 is at one of the lowest levels in the country, I support totally all the amendments in this group, including the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Crisp. He pursued it during consideration of the levelling-up Bill, but unfortunately it was mostly resisted by the then Government. The noble Lord, Lord Moynihan, has clearly made the point about access to areas of play.

I will, at this point, mention one example. One of the most deprived towns in this country, Dewsbury, has had its swimming pool and leisure centre closed and it is not going to be replaced. When that occurs, you know we are in trouble as a country. I urge the Minister to respond positively, as she did to earlier amendments, to all the amendments in this group as they will make a difference now and in future.

Planning and Infrastructure Bill

Baroness Pinnock Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 9th September 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Fuller (Con)]

I had not realised what the noble Lord was going to say from the Dispatch Box, but I wish to support his Amendments 135HZG and 135HZH What he could have said—but did not—was that there is almost an interaction with the previous group, in that sometimes there is a perverse incentive to add delay to a process to run down the clock. However, in this case, the noble Lord could have said that, as a result of those delays, a whole series of new studies would need to be remade. For instance, ecology studies may last for only two or three years so may be triggered once more, and they in turn can only be created at certain times of the year—in the spring, for example. The combination effect, in respect not just of the previous group but of this group, means that the delays could be even longer, so I strongly support the noble Lord. Finality and certainty are important, and I support him not only for the reasons he gives but for the avoidance of interference with the previous set of amendments.

[Baroness Pinnock (LD)]

My Lords, my noble friend Lord Teverson has raised an important aspect of the planning process in his amendment on planning enforcement. Planning enforcement can be a neglected part of the planning system, partly because it is not a statutory function but a discretionary one, and as such is not necessarily funded to the extent that it ought to be. Effective enforcement is vital in the planning process so that everyone—the developer, the council and local people—can have trust that what has been agreed will be fulfilled.

I will give noble Lords one example from my role as a councillor, when I was contacted about a housing development which is adjacent to a motorway. A resident raised the concern that the developers were not adhering to the agreed siting of units. Planning enforcement went on site to investigate and discovered that the construction was undermining the motorway banking, which would have had catastrophic consequences if it had continued. A stop notice was issued and the matter resolved; I should say that this was a major housing developer.

Enforcement is key for the integrity of the planning system, for the conditions that are applied to a planning application when it is given consent and for residents who have asked questions about its impact. It is therefore key to retaining the trust of residents, as my noble friend has said, and so that democratic decision-making can be relied on to check that planning conditions are properly fulfilled. That requires adequate funding. I would like to hear from the Minister whether the Government are of a mind to make a move from a discretionary function to a statutory one, which would then be adequately funded for the very important role that planning enforcement plays.

[Lord Wilson of Sedgefield (Lab)]

I thank the noble Lords, Lord Teverson, Lord Lucas and Lord Jamieson, and the noble Baroness, Lady Scott, for their amendments. I turn first to Amendment 131, which would place a duty on local planning authorities to take enforcement action in relation to certain breaches of planning control and introduce a system of penalty payments.

The Government recognise the frustration that many people feel when they see development carried out without planning permission. We understand therefore that effective enforcement is vital in maintaining public trust and confidence in the planning system.

While I can appreciate the sentiment behind this amendment, it represents a fundamental change to the enforcement system and it is not something which could be introduced without very careful and detailed consideration, including consultation with interested parties. Furthermore, I believe that the current approach to enforcement represents the right balance. It gives local planning authorities discretion about when and how they use their enforcement powers. This flexibility is important, as local planning authorities are best placed to consider the circumstances of each case and reach a balanced and informed decision. While, as I have said, I think the current approach is the right one, I assure the Committee that we will keep the operation of the enforcement system under review.

Planning and Infrastructure Bill

Baroness Pinnock Excerpts

Committee stage
Thursday 11th September 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Banner (Con)]

My Lords, I will speak on Amendment 167, which stands in my name. It would require future neighbourhood plans to be consistent with national planning policy, in particular the National Planning Policy Framework. Neighbourhood plans, once made, form part of the statutory development plan in accordance with which planning decisions must be made, unless there are other material considerations indicating to the contrary.

Typically, for their first five years, neighbourhood plans attract the protection of paragraph 14 of the NPPF. Even if the tilted balance in paragraph 11(d)(ii) applies, the proposed development is consistent with the NPPF and there is a lack of a five-year housing land supply, a development that conflicts with the neighbourhood plan will fail to get permission, so they carry real force in the plan-making and development control system. The problem with this is that, under the so-called basic conditions against which new neighbourhood plans are examined, a neighbourhood plan has only to have regard to national policy, not be consistent with it. There is a world of difference between the two. I am sure that the Minister will have regard to everything that we say in this debate, but I dare say that not everything in her response will be consistent with it. There is a world of difference.

Neighbourhood plans of course have a role to play in what my noble friend Lord Jamieson called the “pyramid” of planning policy, in giving effect to national and district policy, but they should not be able to undermine it—yet that can happen currently. From my experience at the coalface of planning decision-making, as an advocate in planning proceedings, I know that happens with real regularity. For example, a neighbourhood plan can have regard to NPPF policies on greenfield development but then impose more restrictive criteria, making it harder than national policy envisages for developers to get permission on greenfield sites. Neighbourhood plans can self-impose a housing requirement for their area that is not consistent with the NPPF’s standard method for assessing local housing need, thereby downplaying local needs within their area and stifling necessary growth.

With the greater direction on planning policy from central government under this Government—something with which I have more sympathy than perhaps some other colleagues on this side of the House—the risk of neighbourhood plans undermining national policy is even greater. This tends, in my experience, to be particularly prevalent in those areas where parish councils or other neighbourhood planning authorities are well resourced: areas which are wealthy, where the affordability gap is perhaps greatest and where the need for new affordable homes is particularly severe. It is in those kinds of areas where neighbourhood plans tend to have the most deleterious effect on delivering necessary growth.

My Amendment 167 would eliminate this issue by putting neighbourhood plans in their proper place in the hierarchy of planning policy—not letting the tail wag the dog, as so often happens. I agree with my noble friend Lord Lansley that bringing Section 98(3) of LURA into effect would also help in relation to national development management policies, but that would still leave a lacuna in relation to the NPPF. I urge the Government to consider this proposal very carefully. I also endorse the comments of my noble friend Lord Jamieson on his Amendments 150ZA and 150ZB.

[Baroness Pinnock (LD)]

My Lords, I have Amendment 185M, which proposes a vital duty to ensure due consideration of neighbourhood plans. I am delighted that, in discussions on the Bill, we are spending time considering the importance of neighbourhood plans, because they represent the heart and soul of local communities’ aspirations for their areas. They are often painstakingly developed by local people, often without much in the way of expert advice, and the plans reflect the needs, the character and the priorities they want for their areas. However, without adequate statutory backing, these plans risk being marginalised by larger-scale development decisions.

If adopted, Amendment 185M would achieve two important outcomes. The first would be that a planning authority, including the Secretary of State, would have to give due consideration to any neighbourhood plan or, indeed, any draft neighbourhood plan when making a decision on an application for planning consent. If that happens, the voices of local residents, as expressed through their neighbourhood plans, will not just be there but be factored into major development decisions. Maybe that is where I differ from the noble Lord, Lord Banner, and others in this group of amendments.

The other outcome of the amendment would be that the Secretary of State would permit a variation to a neighbourhood plan only if the variation were clearly justifiable and unlikely to compromise the overall intention of the neighbourhood plan that has been proposed in a clear manner. The amendment would safeguard the integrity of neighbourhood plans, preventing arbitrary or poorly considered alterations that could undermine their community-driven objectives.

I suppose that, in the end, it depends how we look at planning. We have had two analogies today: a planning hierarchy from the noble Lord, Lord Banner, and a pyramid from the noble Lord, Lord Jamieson, and I wonder whether using those images makes us think that the important bit is the apex. I would use a different analogy: our road system. The big NPPF, strategic plans and local plans are like major roads and motorways, but what gets us from one place to another are local lanes and byways—and that is the neighbourhood plans. Those are the ones that matter to people. Once we start thinking of pyramids and hierarchies, I think we tend to think that the top of the pyramid is the important bit, but actually it is the foundations. I have probably said what I need to say about that.

I am in broad agreement with the amendments in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Lansley. We went through all of them during the passage of the Levelling-up and Whatever Bill, now an Act. It is important that public bodies are made to assist with plan-making. If you do not, where does that end? The issue that the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, is trying to get us to think about is that frequently, in my experience, local people engage in planning only when it comes to a practical application on the table for a planning decision on a housing site, a commercial development or whatever it is.

Unfortunately, my starting point is that as a local councillor I often have to say to people that a housing site is already in the local plan and therefore the principle of development has been determined. Often, they will say, “Well, where was our say in this?” I will go through what I and others tried to engage with them and let them know what the proposals were. The difficulty that people often find is that this is a theoretical plan at a strategic level with great big sort of proposals for transport infrastructure, commercial development or housing. It is theoretical, as is local planning, even when it is allocation of sites. People often struggle to engage at that level. In this era of thinking about the creation of strategic planning and local authority local plans, we need to think very carefully about how that information is transmitted to the public.

Amendments in an earlier group on this Bill, probably two or three days ago, were about digital modelling. I think that would bring to life for people land-use planning and the allocation of sites. So that is my only difficulty with the argument made by the noble Lord, Lord Lansley.

The collective impact of all these amendments would create a more integrated and responsive planning system. If we want to put local communities at the heart of engaging with and taking part in responsible decision-making about what happens where they live, neighbourhood planning must be at the heart of that, because it enables proper democratic participation in making decisions about their area for their future. I hope that the Minister will give that a positive nod.

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

My Lords, all the amendments in this group concern the interaction between spatial development strategies, local plans and the neighbourhood planning system. I absolutely take the point that this must be a coherent system. To pick up the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Jamieson, about the scars on our backs from local plan delivery, we in Stevenage found ourselves in the crazy situation of having had three years of consultation on our local plan and a three-week public inquiry, which is quite unusual, and then having the plan held up for 452 days on a holding direction. That is exactly the kind of thing we are talking about; we have to get over these delays and glitches in the system.

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[Baroness Andrews (Lab)]

My Lords, I am intrigued by this exchange, because the thought had occurred to me that, by introducing a principle of proportionality into the legislation, we would then open the floodgates to contention about what is proportional. The question of JR seems to be immediately rearing its head. Therefore, I cannot see how, rather than simplifying the system, it would not add a layer of complication.

The argument about the CIL in relation to small developments is a different one. There is some merit in that because of the flexibility one needs for small builders. However, that is only part of an ancillary argument to the broader and slightly dangerous argument brought forward by the noble Lord, Lord Banner, in favour of over-complicating the planning system in the way he suggests.

[Baroness Pinnock (LD)]

My Lords, proportionality is in the eye of the beholder; it depends on your perspective. These ideas—proportionality, reducing bureaucracy, speeding up small developments and reducing costs—are seen from the perspective of the developer. Those are fair arguments to make, but, equally, if we are to be proportionate, we need to see the other side of the balancing scales: the perspective of those on the receiving end of the development. For example, taking away the importance of bats, badgers or whatever might reduce costs and bureaucracy and speed up development, but it would anger local people.

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[Lord Banner (Con)]

There is a definition in proposed new subsection (4) of the amendment:

“The principle of proportionality in planning means that the nature and extent of information and evidence required to inform the determination of any permission, consent, or other approval within the scope of the Planning Acts shall be proportionate to the issues requiring determination, having regard to decisions already made … and the extent to which those issues will or can be made subject to future regulation”.


Proposed new subsection (5) then says:

“The Secretary of State may publish guidance”.


It is spelled out and would be eminently capable of being applied.

[Baroness Pinnock (LD)]

My Lords, it is about “having regard to”. We have had that debate on other groups.

[Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)]

My Lords, I thought that everybody would be in favour of this. I begin by thanking my noble friend Lord Banner for tabling Amendment 166 and bringing this important issue before the House. The principle of proportionality deserves to stand alone in this debate, for it goes directly to the heart of the speed, efficiency and accuracy of our planning system.

As ever, my noble friend has presented the case with his customary clarity and intellectual weight; I thank him for that. He has shown that this principle is not only desirable, but essential. His amendment would embed proportionality firmly within the planning process, giving decision-makers, applicants, consultees and indeed the courts confidence that less can sometimes be more. It would allow for decision-making that is sharper in focus and public participation that is clearer and more effective.

I accept that this is a technically complicated clause, but it is also a vital one. At its core, it states that the information and evidence required to determine any planning application should be proportionate to the real issues at stake, taking into account decisions already made at the plan-making stage and recognising where issues could be dealt with later, whether through planning conditions, obligations or other forms of regulation. It is important to be clear about what this amendment would not do. It would not dilute or weaken the responsibility of local planning authorities to justify their decisions, particularly when refusing or withholding planning permission. Rather, it would ensure that planning does not become mired in an endless accumulation of unnecessary reports, assessments and duplications that add little value but cause delay and frustration.

That is why this apparently technical definition is in fact deeply needed reform. It would be a practical safeguard against a system that too often risks becoming paralysed by its own complexity. If we are serious about unblocking progress and enabling the timely delivery of new homes—1.5 million in the next three and a half or four years—and, with them, the wider infrastructure and investment our communities require, principles such as this must be at the heart of a modern planning system. The Government would do well to accept this amendment. In doing so, they would signal that they are not just merely managing a process but are serious about reforming it, serious about tackling the barriers that hold us back and serious about delivering the homes and the growth that this country so urgently needs.

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[Lord Gascoigne (Con)]

My Lords, if my noble friend Lord Banner is doing reverse declarations, I should probably just check; I think I have made them at this stage, but just in case, I declare that I am a director of Peers for the Planet, although I speak entirely independently of them on this and on all the amendments I have tabled to the Bill.

It is a pleasure to kick-start this group and speak to Amendment 170. I express my gratitude to my noble friend Lord Parkinson, who, sadly, is unable to speak to this amendment today but has assured me of his continued support despite his absence. I am grateful to all the other noble Lords who have spoken to me of late to support me on this and to the external organisations that have been in touch too.

The amendment has a series of parts to it. First, I will set out the context of why I feel something is necessary before talking through what the amendment seeks to do. The amendment relates to two aspects of planning law where a local authority receives funds through development. These are Section 106, which is part of the planning law that allows councils to negotiate money from developers in exchange for granting planning permission to offset the impact of new development and fund specific improvements in the area, while CIL, the community infrastructure levy, is a charge for infrastructure in the broader area.

For background, I first became interested in support of these forms of investment many moons ago when I worked in London City Hall alongside another noble friend who is sadly not with us, my noble friend Lord Udny-Lister. It was amazing to see, alongside many other developments across the capital, things that were being delivered through this funding. In particular, I was always struck by the work that was taking place in Vauxhall Nine Elms and the extension to the Northern line, and how that unlocked the wider development in that area.

I was blown away only recently when the Bill started when someone mentioned in passing that, last year, the Home Builders Federation did an analysis in which it calculated that around £8 billion-worth of unspent money is sitting in local authorities across England and Wales. I say that again: £8 billion. I know in today’s age of Monopoly money that may not mean much to some, but it certainly means a hell of a lot to me. Within that, there is money for affordable housing, which could unlock around 11,000 affordable homes, and an estimated £1 billion for highways and roads—I know we have elections next year; let us just dream of all those leaflets where we could have candidates pointing at the potholes being filled. There is £2 billion-worth to go towards schools and education and an estimated £850 million that could go towards recreation and play areas. In the same report, the HBF estimates that

“the total amount of unspent Section 106 contributions has more than doubled”

since the year before, suggesting a growing backlog of undelivered infrastructure. I think everyone would accept that obviously it takes time to deliver and build, but it is worth noting that

“around a quarter of the unspent contributions have been held for more than five years”,

and some councils

“admit to holding on to funds for more than 20 years”.

How did HBF get that information and is it easy for any of us to gather? It is not, and that is another part of the problem. There are, as I am sure the Minister will say, the infrastructure funding statements that each receiving authority has to publish annually. Much of the information is mandatory and some information is advisory, but it could be clearer and more transparent. The statistics that I have used earlier, where there is a breakdown, do not have to be sought through the FoI process, which is what the HBF had go through. The same goes for how long the funds have been held and why there has been a delay. In today’s data age, there is no reason why this information could not be readily accessible and available. 

Turning specifically to the proposed new clause in the amendment, noble Lords will see that it contains a number of parts tackling the challenges I have laid out. The first relates to transparency, and seeks to ensure that the data which is published through the infrastructure funding statement has even more information—information which the local authority will already have—setting out the purpose of the original funding, the amount which has been unspent and the reason for it not being spent. If there is readily accessible information, the public can see what is expected and not have to put in FoIs to understand why it is not happening.

This in itself can help the local authority deliver, but I want to explore what more can be done. The second part relates to delivery. If the government department deems that the local authority has not done enough to attempt to deliver this improvement, the Secretary of State would be able to require an authority to get on with the job, or at least make steps to deliver what has been agreed. I am pleased to see the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, nodding—I will come to her in a moment, but it is good that I have her support already. This in itself is not radical. It says only that the local authority should be doing what it said it would do. For the public, it would mean additional accountability.

Finally, the third part would require that, if the developer’s funds have not been spent during a previously agreed timeline, the local authority must contact the developer to ensure that it is possible to work together to deliver this service. I did contemplate, when I was drafting this, including another line in the amendment which would effectively mean that, if a local authority had failed to deliver the agreed improvement during the agreed timeline, the funds would be handed back to the developer, as I know has happened in some circumstances. I took it out in the end because, ultimately, I thought that it would be the local communities who would be losing out on the benefit and it would let the local authority off the hook. I hope that the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, would agree with that, given her Amendment 220.

I am pleased to see the noble Lord, Lord Best, and my good and noble friend Lord Lansley sat here. This was, I think, touched on two days ago, when we last convened on this Bill. As ever, my noble friend made the customarily brainy observation that, ultimately, this is a contract with the developer. Further, it is something that the National Audit Office looked at in only the last couple of months.

I want to be clear that I am moving this amendment not because I want us to debate the virtue or otherwise of such measures on development. I am not suggesting that we change how these charges are levied, or indeed whether they should be reduced or made higher. Most people would say that we need to be acutely aware of not making development so burdensome and costly that it happens even less than it already is. I am merely trying to find a better way to deliver what is in the existing law.

From every aspect, this seems to me to be an absolute no-brainer. For example, many developers say that they want something like this—they want people to know not just about the development that they have built but that they are contributing something to the community. Local people too want it; rather than the money sitting in a council—perhaps they do not even know about it—and gathering dust in someone else’s account, local people would actually benefit from it.

Some may think that this would put additional pressures on the local authority to deliver when it is, as we all know, facing many pressures. Obviously, we respect everyone who works in a local authority, from the leader down. I just need to look around the Chamber to know that we recognise on all our Front Benches the importance of local authorities. But these funds should be spent as they were intended. It cannot be right, to my mind, that up and down the land £8 billion pounds is sat there when it is meant to be for the people.

Without adequate information, it is not possible to ascertain why this money has not been spent in every location. In some cases, it has been made clear that it is for a multitude of reasons, but there should be an element of pressure on an authority to deliver. If it does not, it should be compelled to go back to the developer to explore what else is possible to make it happen. I am not suggesting that the developer should therefore contribute even more again. The authority should have secured enough to deliver in the first place. It may be that the agreement needs to be revised, or it could be that the development can deliver something in collaboration with the authority, or that the intended amenity is no longer required as previously intended. While that money is in limbo and not being spent, it is not delivering for the people who felt the impact of the original development in the first place.

I start from the position that growth and development are good. We need good-quality homes, more business and the economy to grow. I know some do, but I do not see growth as a bad thing. At the same time that we say that growth is good and we need it, we must say that need people to see the benefit. Yes, there will be more people buying things in shops and milling around, with more money going into the general pot.

Equally, people in those communities will have had some upheaval with the development that was there first. As a result, people may be concerned about the extra demands on local services and that their trains and roads may be busier. At Second Reading, everyone said that they broadly support growth and development. If the Government are serious about changing the public’s views on growth and development then giving communities better visibility of the benefits of that development is essential. Recent polling from Public First, published in the last few days, found that 55% of people generally support development in their area. Some of the reasons for that are that they want to see regeneration, jobs, investment, and more shops and amenities. But by far the biggest reason for people opposing development is concern about pressures on local infrastructure. That is what I am trying to fix.

This amendment is not political—it is certainly not party political. It would help the Government, as they would be able to demonstrate that growth is good and that they are on the side of the people. It would not be onerous because it would not put anything additional on to a developer. It would not stop development; in fact, I genuinely think that it would be good for development and would improve accountability and transparency. Because of that, I want it to be there for people, to deliver what they expect and deserve. I beg to move.

[Baroness Pinnock (LD)]

My Lords, Amendments 185K, 185L, 218 and 220 in my name follow on well from the amendments tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Gascoigne, which these Benches fully support. The noble Lord is absolutely right to highlight the importance of community benefits coming from development and ensuring that they are delivered. The amendments in my name would add to those that the noble Lord has just introduced.

Amendments 185K and 185L would insert new clauses after Clause 52 providing a duty to compel a complete local infrastructure. Amendment 185K seeks to make legally binding agreements associated with development consent orders or SDSs. Community benefits are the elements of a consent order that will be the last stage, almost inevitably, of implementation of a scheme. Without legal enforcement, it is possible for developers to significantly delay that implementation. Amendment 185K would empower local planning authorities to resist such moves and ensure that community benefits are fulfilled.

Amendment 185L would provide a further safeguard for local communities where a developer has signed a Section 106 agreement for the provision of a local amenity. If the amenity has not been built, the relevant local authority will have the power under this amendment to take over that responsibility but, crucially, will not be able to use that land for any other purpose, and neither will the developer. Those amendments relate to development consent orders and SDSs.

Amendments 218 and 220, although they have identical wording, relate to later parts of the Bill concerning compulsory purchase orders. Amendment 218 seeks to insert a new clause after Clause 106, relating to compulsory development orders. It would require the Secretary of State to conduct a comprehensive review of land value capture. This is a policy concept and a way of raising funds, where public authorities recover the unearned increase in land value, often created by public investment in infrastructure or planning permissions, then reinvest it in public services and projects. This ensures that the benefits of public development—I emphasise that it is public development—are shared with the community, rather than solely accruing to the private landowners. That seems fair to me.

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[Lord Jamieson (Con)]

My Lords, we have already debated some complex topics in Committee and the issue of land value capture certainly continues in that vein.

[Baroness Pinnock (LD)]

Yes, it does.

[Lord Jamieson (Con)]

Yes—maybe we need a review of the Committee stage of this Bill.

I thank my noble friend Lord Gascoigne for his amendment and agree with the spirit of his proposals. Greater transparency is positive, and most good authorities would have that information readily available. I can say that, for my own council, I could phone up and get a spreadsheet of exactly how much each development has contributed in my ward.

As an ex-chairman of the LGA, I just want to say something in defence of councils and the fact that there is a considerable sum, so to speak, sitting on the balance books. As an ex-leader, I know how difficult it is to get these big projects over the line. Even a good secondary school can cost £25 million or £30 million; you will be reliant on four or five different Section 106 payments for that, you will be waiting for grants, and you will have to get the land. These things can take three, four, five or six years. To go on to the topic of bypasses, that is an entirely different timescale. We should look not just at the quantum of money but at how difficult it is to pull these sums together and get things going.

I come to the amendments from the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, where I think that review might even address some of these timescale issues. The noble Baroness has raised a number of important issues, particularly around the delivery of infrastructure promised through development agreements, the use and protection of land set aside for community purposes and the broader question of how the public might benefit when land values increase sharply. I hope that the Government will reflect seriously on the principles raised and, in that spirit, I want to put a few questions to the Minister, which I hope she might be able to respond to today; if not, perhaps she could come back at a later time.

First, what assessment have the Government made of the effectiveness of existing mechanisms, principally Section 106 agreements and the community infrastructure levy, in ensuring that local communities receive the schools, highways, GP surgeries and other facilities promised? Too often, we hear of permissions granted on the basis that there will be improved infrastructure and then, over time, it is slowly whittled away and we find new housing without that infrastructure and communities having to cope with more traffic on the roads, more crowded GP surgeries, schools with portakabins and so forth. If residents see new developments going up without the infrastructure that they were promised, they will lose confidence in the planning system and will therefore fight every single development, which some of us do find. We need reforms that get trust back in the system.

Secondly, does the Minister agree that there is a risk that infrastructure commitments can in practice be watered down or renegotiated, leaving communities without these services?

Thirdly, on land value capture more broadly, does the Minister believe that the current system allows sufficient benefit from rising land values to be shared with the wider public, or does she see scope for reform, as envisaged in Amendment 218?

Fourthly, will the Government commit to reviewing international examples of land value capture—for instance, models used in parts of Europe or Asia—to see whether there are lessons that might be drawn for a UK context?

Finally, how do the Government intend to balance the need to secure fair contributions for infrastructure and community benefit while ensuring that development remains viable and attractive to investors? I appreciate that these are difficult issues, but it is important that we resolve them.

Moving on, Amendment 148 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Thornhill, raises a really important issue. We have a housing crisis and we need to look at all solutions that may resolve it. I commend her for once again placing the needs of young people at the centre of our deliberations. The question before us is a delicate but important one. It concerns whether planning authorities should be permitted to approve high-quality transitional accommodation for young people leaving supported housing or at the risk of homelessness in circumstances where our national space standards would otherwise disallow such provision. The case for doing so is strong. The housing crisis is not abstract; it is a real matter facing the young of today. Too many of them find themselves renting late into life, sofa surfing or returning to the parental home, not through choice but because there are no realistic alternatives. At precisely the stage in life when young people should be gaining independence, putting down roots, building families and contributing to the wider economy, instead they face barriers at every turn.

We are all familiar with the macroeconomic challenges of house prices that have outpaced wages, a lack of genuinely affordable starter homes and, in certain parts of the country, rents which are, frankly, extortionate. That is why the noble Baroness is right to highlight the importance of stepping-stone accommodation, a flexible transitional model that can bridge the gap between institutional supported housing and permanent independence.

But, as ever in this House, we must balance principle with practice. I support wholeheartedly the spirit of the amendment, but I sound a note of caution. Our space standards were developed for a good reason. They exist to prevent the return of poor-quality housing, of rabbit-hutch flats, of homes that compromise health, dignity and long-term liveability. If we are to disapply such standards in certain cases, we must do so with clear safeguards in place. So, I urge that, if this amendment is taken forward, it is accompanied by precise definitions, strict planning guidance and a rigorous framework, to ensure that genuine transitional high-quality schemes can benefit from the flexibilities proposed.

Planning and Infrastructure Bill

Baroness Pinnock Excerpts

Committee stage
Monday 15th September 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Hodgson of Abinger (Con)]

My Lords, I am afraid that I am not completely in tune with my noble friend Lady Coffey, for which I hope she will forgive me. While I agree that maintenance and repairs are essential and should not be held up in any way, I urge caution about some internal changes.

In recent years, a minimalistic approach has gained popularity. In the case of grade 2 listed buildings, this may mean ripping out features of historic importance and changing floor levels, ruining the proportions and character of beautiful, old buildings. While I acknowledge that there is a balance to be struck, as sometimes, with modern living, removing a wall or making small changes can be beneficial, I would urge that this is not done without oversight.

I draw the House’s attention to the fact that buildings of 1850 and before receive pretty much automatic listing. However, there are many lovely houses that are built after this, especially Victorian houses from 1850 to 1900, and they do not qualify because they are not considered special. They have no real protection. Even where those houses fall in a conservation area, it will mean that only the façade is preserved.

We are losing internal features of many historically interesting buildings. We need to put a brake on this, because once gone, we will never get them back.

[Baroness Pinnock (LD)]

My Lords, the whole purpose of listed building legislation is to ensure the integrity of the listed structure. The requirement to apply for listed building consent is in order to protect the building from inappropriate changes which would compromise the listing. Many people in civic society care deeply about retaining and protecting listed buildings. As listed building applications are free, as we debated on an earlier day in Committee, that helps those who own listed buildings—there is no cost to it. Heritage planning officers know that some buildings need a fundamental change of use if they are not to lie empty and decay. That is okay, as long as it goes through a listed building consent application.

I know that these are large changes, but I will give one example. In my own town, there is a grade 2* listed building which is a former united reformed chapel—there are lots of great methodist, congregational or united reform chapels in the north. It was altered to become an Indian restaurant, allegedly the largest in the world, with room for 1,000 people. Subsequent alterations to the access, inevitably with lots of stairs to reach the front, were given permission, but the listed building consent application enabled local people to know that a treasured building was not being changed without the appropriate permissions. Even if such changes are relatively minor in comparison to the structure as a whole, constant minor changes could nevertheless add up to a big change that would not be appropriate and compromise the integrity of the listing.

As your Lordships can perhaps tell from the comments I have made, I am not a supporter of the amendment proposed by the noble Baroness, Lady Coffey.

[Lord Jamieson (Con)]

My Lords, my noble friend Lady Coffey raises an interesting issue on exemption for listed buildings for internal repairs and renovations. I understand the desire for a lightening of the regulatory burden and that this a probing amendment, but there is also a need for balance. I look forward to the Minister’s response.

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In conclusion, together these amendments embrace both print and digital distribution, meaning that councils can maximise transparency, strengthen their relationships with local media and fulfil their statutory obligations more effectively. A modernised system would serve residents better, support journalism where it is most needed and ensure that public notices achieve their purpose in today’s media ecosystem. Noble Lords will notice that I have gone to some lengths to establish that these notices should be placed in quality outlets. I have done so by requiring regulation by IPSO and Impress and requiring that they have a substantial local presence. There may be other and better ways of doing this but, at the end of the day, we are asking councils to exercise their own judgment as to how best to get this information out to their local population. I beg to move.

[Baroness Pinnock (LD)]

I am amazed that no other Members of your Lordships’ House want to speak about local news and newspapers. I broadly agree with the amendments in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Lucas. He is absolutely right that the question we have to ask ourselves is: with the sad decline, as I see it, of printed local news, how best do we make sure that important public notices, as defined in legislation, that are currently placed only in printed news outlets, get a greater reading and more information about them spread by including them in reputable or quality online news outlets?

I agree with the noble Lord that it should be both, because a number of people still read a paper version of a local newspaper. I am amazed that there are people where I live—they contact me—who read these public notices and ask, “What on earth is going on here?”, even though they are printed in font size 6 or 7, so you need a magnifying glass to read them. I wonder whether the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, has considered that public notices in the print media are very tightly printed, and how they can be accessible online. Sometimes, you get a whole page of public notices. I generally agree that we have to do something to make sure that more people have access to important information.

My understanding is that currently there is a public notice portal—public notices are gathered from the print media and put on to this portal. It would be interesting to know whether the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, is thinking about enabling councils, through legislation, to choose whether to publish directly on to that public portal.

Generally, I more or less support the noble Lord, Lord Lucas. We have to have reform and your Lordships’ House and others have considered this in detail, so the question is how we set about it. With those remarks, I look forward to other comments on this group of amendments.

[Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)]

My Lords, the amendments in the name of my noble friend Lord Lucas highlight and reaffirm the importance of local news publishers. Increasingly, these are online, but not always. Some areas still have quite successful newspapers that have print runs, sometimes daily but now often weekly, but this differs in local areas, so I think that local authorities are best placed to decide what medium they use for advertising all things planning.

On this side of the Committee, we support the existence of local news publishers across the United Kingdom. As we have heard, they serve as an important conduit between local people and their authorities and are crucial for upholding community engagement and local democracy, values which I hope all noble Lords will join me in supporting. Indeed, the importance of local news publishers is even more significant when we consider it in context of important planning and development decisions. Local people are those most affected by such decisions and it is important that their voices are heard and meaningfully listened to. Local news publishers play a vital role in making sure both that local people are represented and that the relevant information is disseminated to them. I hope that the Government will take these amendments seriously and I look forward to hearing how they will be addressed.

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Moved by

[Baroness Pinnock]

209B: Clause 105, page 147, line 8, at end insert—
“(za) in subsection (2), at end insert “unless the acquiring authority states that the whole of the land is being acquired for the purpose (or for the main purpose) of provision of sporting or recreational facilities in which case subsection (5) shall not apply.”” Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment would enable hope value to be disregarded in calculating the compulsory purchase value of land, where it is being purchased for recreational facilities.

[Baroness Pinnock (LD)]

My Lords, this amendment relates to removing—or “disregarding”, to use the legislative term—hope value from recreational land that is to be purchased for public use.

The principle of hope value was debated at length and in detail during consideration of the then Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill in your Lordships’ House. It was agreed by the Government of the time that hope value could be disregarded by acquiring authorities for a number of purposes—including for schools, for example. However, hope value for public recreational uses was not included in the list of categories where hope value could be disregarded.

So Amendments 209B and 209C in my name seek to add the disregarding of hope value by acquiring authorities into the legislation. The reason for that is fairly straightforward and obvious. On a previous day in Committee, we had a debate on the importance of recreational land. My noble friend Lord Addington and the noble Lord, Lord Moynihan, made a strong case for better planning and more openness to planning applications for sporting use. These two amendments seek to add to that.

The importance of the availability of public recreational land cannot be overstated. In days gone by, children could go out of their front door and play in the street without risk. Now that is not possible because of the obvious influx in terms of every household having a car. So, in order for them to play outside, children have to be taken somewhere. If there are not enough “somewheres” to go to—somewhere to kick a ball in a local recreation area; a park, somewhere to go and walk round a lake; or somewhere to play on playing equipment that is provided—it is a huge loss to the development of young people.

Sport, such as the World Athletics Championships—I am an athletics fan, although I could not get to Tokyo—is really important to this country, so it is important that all children have opportunities for play. If local authorities wish to extend the use of recreational areas, it is best if the cost of that land is not added to by hope value.

Those two simple amendments have the same purpose: to enable local authorities to buy land for recreational use without hope value attached to it. I look forward to hearing about the other amendments in this group, and will respond to them when I reply to the Minister. With those short but, I hope, strong messages showing that this is an important issue, I beg to move.

[Lord Roborough (Con)]

My Lords, I shall speak to Amendments 210 and 211 in my name and Amendment 227G in the name of my noble friend Lord Sandhurst. I refer the Committee to my register of interests, as I have previously disclosed on this Bill.

When we say that the Conservative Party is under new management, we mean it. We are rightly proud of much of the work that went into the Levelling-up and Regeneration Act 2023, but we are also clear about areas where improvement is needed. I have tabled Amendment 210 to address one such issue, an issue that sits uncomfortably with our core principles of property rights and fair compensation. We believe deeply in the right of individuals to own property, and that such ownership should not be disturbed lightly. When it is, compensation must be fair and transparent and reflect the true value of what is being lost. That includes hope value.

Hope value is not a vague or abstract notion; it is a well-established component in the valuation of land and property, used not only in sales but in inheritance tax assessments and a wide range of commercial transactions. It reflects the possibility that land might in future obtain planning permission for a more valuable use. It is the very element that allows developers and others to bring forward land for development, persuading reluctant landowners to sell by recognising the future potential of their land.

To disregard hope value is to ignore how the market works. It risks undermining confidence in the land market and creating new barriers to development rather than removing them. The valuation methodologies underpinning hope value are well understood, professionally governed and economically rational. They are consistent with option valuations in financial markets, although I am not sure they go so far as to use the Black-Scholes option pricing model.

If a site has no realistic prospect of future development, its hope value will naturally be nil or negligible. However, where a site has a reasonable expectation of future change in use, reflected in prices agreed between buyers and sellers, we must ask why the Government or local authorities should be entitled to disregard that. In doing so, they risk ignoring market signals and distorting resource allocation. If the market values a piece of land as having the future potential for residential development but the authority wants to use it for a different, potentially less efficient use, that should prompt reflection, not concealment.

In a helpful Written Answer following Second Reading, the Minister set out the intended application of these provisions. That response included reference to land for educational and health purposes but also to housing, and not necessarily affordable housing. That gives little comfort. The noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, has moved her Amendment 209B, which seeks to expand this to recreational facilities. Needless to say, we do not support that.

We are told that the powers will be used to support affordable housing schemes, but in practice the drafting is broad, the safeguards are weak, and I see no mechanism that protects landowners should the purpose of the CPO change after acquisition. Could the Minister clarify? Would these provisions still apply if the land were no longer used for the original purpose stated in the CPO? Clear guidance—or, better still, an amendment to the Bill—could help to avoid costly litigation in the years to come.

The Minister’s letter also cited examples where removing hope value might help to bring forward certain sites, such as brownfield land where viability is an issue, infill plots, and allocated sites that have not yet come forward, but that analysis does not hold. If viability truly is an issue, the hope value will already be low or nil, and on infill or allocated sites it is not the price that delays development but the length and complexity of the planning process and the delays caused by responses from statutory consultees and agencies.

I hope I have persuaded the Committee that removing hope value does not unlock land or accelerate housing delivery. On the contrary, it undermines property rights, weakens trust in the planning system and may ultimately deter landowners from bringing land forward.

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[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

I cannot give the noble Lord that reassurance this afternoon. I am sure that he will understand that that is not included in the Bill at the moment—he may want to consider something on that later—but I understand the reason that he is saying it. We have, however, said very clearly that there will be the possibility for the private sector to contribute to EDPs. We are encouraging our colleagues in Natural England to develop that further.

Amendment 325, tabled by the noble Lady Baroness, Lady Hodgson, would restrict Natural England’s ability to use CPO powers to purchase land that is in use for the grazing of animals or is high-quality agricultural land. As I have just set out, there is an extremely high bar for the compulsory purchase powers under the NRF, with the Secretary of State having to approve any use of these powers. As I said in my response to the amendments of the noble Lord, Lord Roborough, there is a clear need to ensure that CPO is available, albeit with this very high bar. The use or future use of land will of course be taken into consideration by the Secretary of State, and I set out earlier this afternoon the consideration in both the land-use framework and the NPPF that land in other use must be considered before resorting to agricultural land. The Secretary of State will take that into consideration when considering whether to allow the CPO, and will ensure that sensible choices are made that align with the Government’s wider objectives, not least in respect of food security, which is a discussion we have had many times in your Lordships’ House. With this explanation, I hope that the noble Baroness will not press her amendment.

Amendment 227G, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Sandhurst, relates to the use of compulsory purchase powers and compatibility with the European Convention on Human Rights. It seeks to place a requirement on the Secretary of State to lay before Parliament, within one month of the Bill receiving Royal Assent, a report assessing whether the rights of individuals under the European Convention on Human Rights are adequately protected in the exercise of compulsory purchase powers by local authorities.

The power to compulsorily acquire a person’s land is a draconian power which engages the ECHR and raises questions of common-law fairness; I think the noble Lord, Lord Sandhurst, referred to that himself. A fundamental principle of the compulsory purchase process is that the confirming authority should be sure that the purposes for which a compulsory purchase power is proposed justify interfering with the human rights of those with an interest in the land affected. Acquiring authorities must demonstrate to the confirming authority that such an interference is so justified. When making their decision on whether there is a compelling case in the public interest for each individual CPO, the confirming authority must always give consideration to the provisions of Article 1 and, in the case of a dwelling, Article 8 of the ECHR and the impact of the proposed CPO on the individuals affected.

The compulsory purchase process also enables the exchange of written representations and the holding of inquiries and hearings into objections conducted by an independent inspector, reporting to the Secretary of State, whose decision is subject to legal challenge to uphold the rights enshrined in Article 6 of the ECHR. When justifying their CPOs, the Government guidance on compulsory purchase is clear that acquiring authorities should address the potential harm to private rights and how the impacts on human rights from the respective order have been considered. The compulsory purchase process already provides protections to the rights of individuals affected by compulsory purchase and, for these reasons, I ask the noble Lord not to press his amendment.

[Baroness Pinnock (LD)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for her very detailed response to this group of amendments, but I am rather disappointed that the Government did not feel able to add a public recreational use to land that is to be disregarded for hope value by acquiring authorities.

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[Baroness Young of Old Scone (Lab)]

My Lords, I briefly remind the Committee, and also the Minister, that much of this could be avoided by implementing the land use framework approach to land use, which is a method and tool intended entirely at various scales—national, local, regional and on individual land holdings—to balance all these competing demands for land. I am very much looking forward to it coming out, hopefully before this Christmas, but noble Lords have heard my Christmas speech before.

[Baroness Pinnock (LD)]

My Lords, the noble Baroness, Lady Young, has made the point that we on these Benches would wish to make.

[Lord Roborough (Con)]

My Lords, I speak in support of Amendment 214 in the name of my noble friend Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts and thank him for bringing forward what is, I believe, a thoughtful and timely intervention. The amendment seeks to ensure that the Government provide annual updates on agricultural land lost as a result of the Bill, along with any consequent risks to the UK’s food and water security.

We have heard, both in and beyond this Chamber, growing concern about the pressures being placed on agricultural land—particularly the cumulative effect of development, including infrastructure and renewable energy projects, on land that has long supported our domestic food production. This is not an abstract concern. Recent debates around the siting of solar farms on high-grade best and most versatile agricultural land have brought this issue into sharp relief. Although renewable energy is vital for our long-term sustainability, it must not come at the cost of food security.

Food security is a strategic national interest. The experience of recent global shocks, from the pandemic to the war in Ukraine, has reminded us just how important it is to maintain a strong, resilient domestic food supply. Once high-quality agricultural land is lost to development, it is not recovered. We must therefore be careful stewards of this finite resource, particularly the best and most versatile land, as my noble friend Lord Fuller pointed out.

My noble friend’s amendment rightly presses the Government to monitor and report on these risks with due seriousness. The principle of ensuring that we do not undermine our food and water security through planning reforms is one that I believe all sides of this House can support. If I may provide some reassurances to my noble friends, global food production has grown at 0.7% on average per annum for decades, in line with global population growth. That is on stable acres, with lost acres in some regions of the world balanced by other regions, such as Brazil. Acres of land that are lost in this country to development are most likely being replaced by the Cerrado, and possibly even rainforest, being cleared in Brazil. There is a serious leakage issue when we lose our agricultural land. On that, I highlight my register of interests, including as a shareholder of SLC Agrícola in Brazil.

I look forward to the Minister’s response to this amendment and to hearing how the Government intend to safeguard these critical national interests as the Bill progresses. I also support the comments of the noble Baroness, Lady Young, on the land use framework.

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[Lord Cromwell (CB)]

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Cameron of Dillington, and the noble Earl, Lord Lytton, have added their names to my amendment; they both apologise for being unable to be present in the Committee today.

This amendment would introduce a code of practice for compulsory purchase. It is widely accepted that, provided it is carried out appropriately, the state should have the right to acquire people’s homes and businesses in the interests of the nation. Noble Lords will be relieved to know that this amendment will not reopen the whole debate around that issue—I hope that buys me a few extra minutes.

Compulsory purchase was established on three assumptions: that it would be a quicker way to acquire land in the public interest; that it would make it possible to do that at a cost below market rates; and, importantly, that it would be a last resort if a voluntary sale could not be agreed—or so the theory went. However, anyone who is familiar with the process and practical realities of compulsory purchase will know that it is not at all quick or cost effective, with timelines running into years and with the costs of public inquiries, surveyors, lawyers and other actors on both sides.

It is widely acknowledged by professional agents—regardless of which side they work for—that, contrary to the original theory of compulsory purchase, the costs are always considerably higher if the party is being forced to sell rather than doing so on a voluntary basis. A consensus is often achievable, but only if the acquirer’s agent works with the seller rather than acting, frankly, as a bully boy for the Government.

The related issue of hope value was addressed in an earlier group. I will not cover it again beyond saying that the ability to compel property to be given up—I will not use the word “sold”—at well below its market value is, of course, attractive to those with the compulsory power but brutally costly and disruptive to those on the receiving end.

So how does this work in practice? The actual exercise of compulsory purchase powers has been devolved by the Government to a growing number of agents. These powers enable the agents to force people to leave their homes, to give up their businesses and their land, and to do so below market prices. Agents receiving these aggressive powers are commercial entities governed by financial and time-related performance targets.

Perhaps inevitably, these incentives and the imbalance of power between government-backed agents and ordinary citizens have created a real, growing problem around the behaviour of agents acting for the acquiring government authorities. Agents’ ability to compel a sale means all too often that they ignore normal conveyancing practices and refuse to recognise the justifiable concerns and interests of those whom they are forcing to sell, who are all but powerless and cannot realistically afford to challenge them. Noble Lords should be under no illusion: the lack of proper constraints means that a culture has widely grown up of the strong-arming and intimidation of those who are forced to sell by government-appointed agents.

There is also the profiteering practice that agents and authorities are sometimes shy of talking about, some of which has been referred to by others, of the acquiring authority then selling on the land for commercial purposes as a whole or in parts at full market value and pocketing the profits—with the agents, of course, paid to arrange the disposals.

To make the situation more real to anyone struggling to believe what I am saying or who is not involved in compulsory purchase, here are three quick live cases that I am aware of and, for clarity, in which I have no interests to declare. In the first case, both sides of a transaction had already agreed voluntarily to sell one field and give a right of access over an adjacent one. But at exchange the agent for the acquirer presented out of the blue a plan that included further land that was not part of the agreement. When this was pointed out, the acquirer’s agent immediately cut off communication and went to use compulsory purchase on all the land.

In the second case, a farmer was approached by an infrastructure provider for initial surveys. As the land was designated ecologically sensitive, he instructed an agent to prepare a bespoke licence agreement to give access to the provider. The infrastructure provider abruptly cut communications partway through the drafting process with no reason given and served a compulsory notice for access. The notice, and the developer’s subsequent trespass, then went on the wrong property and was not subject to discussion. Legal proceedings followed, which were inevitably costly for both sides and created substantial delays.

Case 3 is a simple quote from one forced seller:

“The bypass went straight through the middle of our farm taking 36 acres and all the buildings. Eight years after the bulldozers went in, we are still owed £136,000. When that is eventually paid, we will have to pay capital gains tax (at the new increased rate) on that compensation. How can it be fair that the government can destroy our farm and pay us in return a fraction of what it’s worth? … capital projects need to be built for the benefit of the nation, but surely in a decent, fair country, those concerned should be compensated with 100% of the value of the asset taken and paid before the land is occupied”.


I remind noble Lords that they were still waiting eight years later. I underline that there are many similar stories across this country.

Finally, I cannot resist mentioning HS2. Even on the northern section, which was cancelled two years ago, farmers still have barren strips of land through the middle of their farms, commandeered by HS2 but still not yet handed back. Matters are made worse with HS2 by the splitting of responsibilities between the Treasury and Department for Transport, with neither taking responsibility for the poor behaviour of agents. There are cases where farmers are not being paid for years and householders, having been given three months’ notice to get out, then not being paid for up to nine months. As one affected party put it—this is a different case—

“7 years after they unilaterally took our land we are still waiting for payment at just 70% of the value of the land and the matter is now being dragged through the courts”.


So what rules are there? The Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors has published baseline standards that it considers should apply to people acting for the acquiring authorities and the claimants. While I urge the Minister to look at and publicly endorse these standards, RICS has jurisdiction over its members only—not, for instance, over a non-member profession or a project management team.

Furthermore, crucially, these and other existing guidance rules do not cover two things that loom large in practical compulsory purchase experience: defining and preventing bullying tactics, and failure by agents or the acquiring bodies themselves to make prompt payment when due. We cannot go on in denial of this problem. That is why this amendment proposes the introduction of a proper code of practice for compulsory purchase: to negotiate and agree values et cetera in good faith, with the possibility of compulsion genuinely as the last resort rather than the starting point, and to pay full value in advance of taking possession, as is systematically the case in the commercial world.

I pose two questions to the Minister. First, does she share my belief that no one should be expected to give up their house, land or business only to find themself with no money to buy another house due to non-payment by the acquirer, or to have part or all of their business forcibly removed from them before payment? Secondly, does she agree with me that the Government’s announcement that they will issue financial penalties to persistently late-paying businesses should include penalties on late-paying agents and other authorities when exercising the powers of compulsory purchase on behalf of the Government?

This amendment, by making the conduct of compulsory sequestration of land subject to an agreed code of practice, would provide a check on the current abuses and the practical problems that I have outlined. As noble Lords will know, I am always concerned not just about our making laws that make us feel happy but with enforcement, and it will therefore come as no surprise that part two of the amendment addresses this squarely.

I look forward to the Minister’s reply to my two questions, and I ask the Government to accept this simple but urgently needed and positive amendment, particularly before handing out additional compulsory purchase powers to Natural England. Finally, I should mention that this is very likely to come back on Report. I beg to move.

[Baroness Pinnock (LD)]

My Lords, before I introduce my amendment in this group, I say that the noble Lord, Lord Cromwell, has raised some very challenging aspects of compulsory purchase, particularly that of late payment. I will wait for the Minister to respond to that. There is no purpose in having this balancing act, which the noble Lord explained, between individuals and the state if the state does not play fairly by the rules.

Amendment 219 in my name and cosigned by the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb, is on the face of it quite radical. In fact, however, all it would do is put pressure on housebuilders to fulfil the planning permissions they have obtained. Planning consents already have a standard three-year period in which to begin construction. Where development is seen to be more challenging, a longer period of five years is sometimes available. Those time periods are not unreasonable. If a housebuilder is seeking to develop a plot of land, they have three years in which to implement or at least to start construction.

Members on all sides know that there is a desperate need for more housing. All political parties have made the case for more housing, in different numbers per annum, but this is not about the numbers game; it is the building of them that is important. The ONS has estimated that there are already 1.2 million outstanding permissions for housing units, as yet unbuilt. I will not use the term “land banking” because there are plenty of arguments out there, and investigations have been made by public lobby groups to point out that land banking is too broad a term for what is going on. Obviously, the reasons are quite varied. Some depend on national and local economic outlooks; nevertheless, 1.2 million units have not been built when we need new homes.

Planning and Infrastructure Bill

Baroness Pinnock Excerpts

Committee stage
Wednesday 17th September 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Coffey (Con)]

My Lords, I forgot a sentence in my contribution. I should have said that what we were informed of the other day completely explains how the Bill has been drafted. If it had been the Secretary of State for Defra definitively doing this, a lot of the clauses would not be needed, with the exception of compulsory purchase powers. I tabled this amendment in anticipation of raising the issue at this point.

[Baroness Pinnock (LD)]

My Lords, these Benches totally agree with the two amendments tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Young of Old Scone, because the depth and range of the changes encompassed in this Bill are significant and substantial. Throughout the Bill are references to the regulatory changes that will be made in secondary legislation; therefore, it is vital to retain understanding by the communities that are going to be affected and to help them with transparency on what the Government are doing to keep them on side rather than in complete opposition, at every turn. If, as the noble Baroness, Lady Young, proposed, there is super-affirmative secondary legislation, the details of those changes could be properly scrutinised in draft form and then through the affirmative process. That seems an important route to take.

I am grateful to the noble Baroness for raising this and hope that the Government Benches, for once in this Bill, as we approach the end, will give us the affirmative nod.

[Lord Roborough (Con)]

My Lords, we support these amendments tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Young of Old Scone, and my noble friend Lady Coffey. I will start with Amendment 356 in the name of my noble friend.

I am sure it was not lost on the Minister that, when she informed your Lordships that the Secretary of State for MHCLG would be the directing and reporting SoS for Natural England on the nature restoration funds and EDPs, there was a huge collective intake of breath. What a sigh of relief it was this morning to hear that this had been reconsidered. I would be most grateful if the Minister could indicate the circumstances under which it may not be the SoS for Defra, as she mentioned earlier.

The amendments in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Young, Amendments 351A and 351B, seek to ensure that the super-affirmative procedure is adhered to for any regulations to amend existing acts or assimilated law under Section 89(2). A super-affirmative procedure would result in both Houses having the opportunity to comment on proposals put forward by the Minister and to recommend refinements before amendments are tabled in their final form. I am sure that all noble Lords are of the firm belief that scrutiny of legislation and delegated powers are important principles and a staple of any democratic system. I therefore very much welcome the spirit of the amendments and look forward to the Government’s response.

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However, I fear that some elements of the Bill, such as the enhanced powers for Natural England, will slow planning down, and I remain very worried about the resourcing of planning departments faced by so many changes and rules. Can the Minister head off the blockage that this amendment puts on the commencement of the Bill by listing the provisions that will speed things up, alongside those provisions that will lead to further delay, and convince me and this Committee that the net effect of the Bill is very positive, as the Government have claimed? I beg to move.

[Baroness Pinnock (LD)]

My Lords, SME builders play a very important role in the housebuilding sector of the country because they are able to build on small sites that often need to be redeveloped or are in villages or small townships. We need to encourage SME builders, because they add variety to the range of housebuilders that we rely on in this country. It does seem that, throughout this Bill, there has been too much emphasis on the major house developers—on the basis, I guess, that they are the only source of the very large numbers of housing units that the country requires.

I know that throughout the Bill the Government have attempted to support SMEs, although I am not sure that that has been sufficient. The noble Baroness, Lady Neville-Rolfe, has important points to make about SMEs. As always in planning, it is the balance—between encouraging SMEs, maybe at the expense of some of the regulations regarding environment, and relying too heavily on the major housebuilders, which will be able to cope with the growing need for consideration of environmental responsibilities. I look forward to what the Government are going to say about this; encouraging SME builders is really important.

[Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)]

My Lords, we are nearly there. I thank all noble Lords from across the House for their contributions to the Bill. Over long and often intricate debates, sometimes stretching well into the night, your Lordships have engaged with candour, with insight and with seriousness befitting the weight of these issues. The cross-party spirit of scrutiny and the diligence shown in Committee has, I believe, genuinely strengthened our deliberations.

Amendment 361, tabled by the noble Earl, Lord Caithness, is sound and reasonable. I shall not detain the Committee with another extended rehearsal of why Part 3 is, in our view, both damaging and unnecessary. But let me be clear: despite the Government’s determination to plough ahead with this part of the Bill, the opposition to it will only crystallise further on Report. Part 3 needs to go. At the very least, there must be an independent oversight of its administration. Without that, the concerns raised in Committee will only deepen.

The two thoughtful amendments tabled by my noble friend Lady Neville-Rolfe are practical and considered proposals that go right to the heart of the issues we have debated throughout Committee. Amendment 363 would ensure that the Secretary of State updates all national policy statements before the Act can be commenced. This is vital; out-of-date national policy statements do not provide the clarity or certainty required for developers, planners or communities.

Meanwhile, Amendment 364 would ensure that the Secretary of State publishes an analysis of how each section of the Bill will affect the speed of the planning process and construction before any provisions are commenced. If the central purpose of the Bill is, as Ministers insist, to accelerate planning and speed up delivery, it is only fair to ask how it will achieve that objective in practice. Will it, for example, make any real progress towards the former Deputy Prime Minister’s target of 1.5 million new homes, a promise which, under this Government, looks ever more distant as housebuilding rates continue to decline?

I conclude by returning to the point that I made at the start of Committee. This Bill does not go far enough. It makes adjustments to processes, to roles, to fees and to training. But it leaves untouched the fundamental framework of planning—the very framework that needs serious, bold reform if we are to unlock the scale of housebuilding that this country so urgently requires. We now hear rumours of a second planning Bill to come. If that is true, what your Lordships’ House has been asked to consider is not reform but merely a prelude.

The Government have missed an opportunity with this Bill. They had the chance to set a clear vision for the planning system that delivers for communities, supports growth and tackles the housing crisis head on. Instead, they have brought forward a piecemeal piece of legislation more about tinkering at the edges than about grasping the real challenge. The Government have chosen to use up their remaining political capital on Part 3 rather than building more homes, and the Minister will soon realise that she and her department have wasted their energy on this Bill.

I repeat my thanks to all the staff in the House: the doorkeepers, the technical staff and Hansard have all had to work very hard on nights when we have sat late on this Bill, and I thank them very much for that.