Planning and Infrastructure Bill

Baroness Thornhill Excerpts

Committee stage
Thursday 4th September 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)]

My Lords, I start by reiterating our view that the Bill does not go far enough. It tweaks processes, roles, fees and training but leaves the fundamental planning framework—the very framework needed to unlock genuine house building—without the proper reform that Ministers promised. We now hear in the media that a second planning Bill is expected. The Government have missed an opportunity with the Bill.

Amendments 94FB and 94FC in my name seek to probe the Government’s intentions behind the powers given in Clause 48 to local planning authorities and the Mayor of London to set specific fee levels for planning applications. Fee setting must strike a careful balance between national consistency and local flexibility. Planning authorities operate in vastly different contexts, from rural districts handling modest, small-scale applications to major cities building highly complex developments. That diversity and its differences must be respected; a one-size-fits-all approach risks overlooking the practical realities faced by local authorities on the ground.

As currently drafted, Clause 48 enables the Secretary of State not just to permit but to require that these bodies set fee levels. While enabling authorities to set fee levels is one thing, which would potentially support greater local flexibility, requiring them to do so raises important questions: first, in what context would the Government require a local authority to set a specific fee?

My Amendment 99ZA is also a probing amendment. In tabling this amendment, we are seeking to understand how subsection (6) will work in practice. Can the Minister please explain the process Ministers intend to use in calculating appropriate surcharges, and how the duty to have regard to relevant costs will work in practice? It will also be helpful to know whether Ministers intend to consult local planning authorities going forward to ensure that the fees imposed do not exceed the relevant costs incurred.

I will now briefly set out our view on the other amendments in this group. We agree with the principle behind Amendment 94G from the noble Baroness, Lady Thornhill. Of course, all fees should be proportionate. That said, delivering it through an amendment to the Bill may be more challenging. Therefore, will the Minister please address the principle of proportionality and how the Government intend to ensure that fees are proportional as well as responding to the amendment itself?

I move on to Amendment 95, tabled by my noble friend Lady McIntosh of Pickering. As drafted, Clause 48 explicitly excludes enforcement. She makes a strong case for her amendment, and I hope that the Minister will reply constructively. In particular, we would like greater clarity on the “polluter pays” principle. Will the Minister please explain why enforcement action has been left out of this fee-raising power? Is it because the Government feel that it would be inappropriate for applicants acting within the rules to pay a higher fee to cover the cost of enforcements against bad actors? I hope that the Minster will be able to give an unequivocal answer to that question.

Furthermore, Amendments 96 and 97, tabled by my noble friend Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay, address two important aspects of the planning system: transparency and heritage protection. Amendment 96 would ensure that guidance to local authorities includes references to archaeological and other services, so that external services are correctly funded. I know that my noble friend has a wealth of experience on heritage issues, and he was a truly excellent Minister for the arts and heritage. We would appreciate a clear assurance from the Minister on this issue.

Amendment 97 would rightly preserve the very long-standing policy of not charging for listed building consent. This is a vital protection for owners, who often invest significant time and resources in maintaining some of England and Wales’s most treasured heritage assets. Although policymakers in the socialist tradition and the owners or prospective owners of heritage properties may not be natural bedfellows, our historic houses have an important role to play in our housing stock.

The UK has the oldest housing stock in Europe; almost four in 10 houses were built before World War II, and two in 10 were built before World War I. Too often, historic houses are left empty to wither and decay because of the costs and complexities of taking them on, yet every historic property that is restored is an empty home returning to use. We must encourage more people to take on the challenge of restoring our heritage properties, both as a practical step in driving down the number of empty houses and as a gift to future generations. Our historic houses are part of our great island story, and my noble friend is right to seek assurance from Ministers that listed building consent will remain free of charge. Can the Minister give him a cast-iron guarantee on this issue?

I turn to Amendments 98 and 99, tabled by my noble friend Lord Banner. These proposals represent sensible and pragmatic reforms to our planning appeals system. We see the merits in the case that he makes for the introduction of differential fee levels based on the type or complexity of an application. His amendments reflect the practical realities of casework and seek to ensure that the system better aligns with the demands placed on it. Likewise, the proposal to allow the planning inspector to charge appeal fees and, importantly, to retain that income, is a constructive measure. It would enhance the inspector’s operational resilience and reduce their reliance on central funding.

Amendment 99 goes further by proposing a fast-track appeal process that is optional, fee-based and designed to deliver quicker decisions where appropriate. This is clearly a constructive proposal that Ministers should take away and consider carefully. I hope the Minister will engage positively with this amendment.

In conclusion, this group of amendments raises essential questions about the funding, fairness and functionality of our planning system. I look forward to the Minister’s response. I beg to move.

[Baroness Thornhill (LD)]

My Lords, I shall speak to my succinct and simple Amendment 94G, and in doing so draw attention to an issue—planning fees—that might seem a bit techy on the surface and perhaps even boring, but in reality strikes at the very heart of fairness, opportunity and the future of our housing market. I recognise and acknowledge that this Government are trying to address the concerns of SME builders in different ways; thus I believe that this amendment is in line with their thinking. It seeks a simple fix to a gross unfairness within the planning fees regime.

The reality is that the way our planning fees are currently structured disproportionately penalises the very people we need most—the small and medium-sized enterprise builders, the SMEs who once formed the backbone of housebuilding in this country. Our high watermark was the 1960s and 1970s, when SMEs delivered almost 50% of our homes. But now, there are just 2,500 SME builders, down from just over 12,000 in the late 1980s.

When the large developers apply for planning permission, they can absorb the cost of these fees—dozens, or even hundreds of units. For them, the fee for a major scheme is just a fraction of their overall margin. It is, if you like, just one more line on a long spreadsheet. But for the SME builder, often working on only one site at a time, sometimes building just a handful of homes, usually locally in the community where they live, the same planning fee represents a very different calculation. Proportionally, it is far higher—sometimes eye-wateringly so—relative to the potential return. For some, it can make the difference between a scheme being viable or never getting off the ground.

Let us not forget that many SME firms operate on tight margins—it is just a fact of the market today—and have limited access to capital. They do not have the balance sheets of the volume builders, nor teams of in-house planners and consultants to smooth the path. They are nimble, creative and often willing to take on small and difficult sites—precisely the kind of brownfield or infill plots that larger developers might overlook. In that sense, they perform a vital public service, delivering homes in places where others cannot or will not. If the Government are serious about reviving the role of SME builders, whose share of new homes has plummeted to barely 10% today, we cannot afford to ignore the structural barriers that hold them back. Planning fees are one such barrier, and it is entirely within our power to address them in this Bill.

My amendment addresses this issue without costing the Treasury a single pound. I am not suggesting that planning departments should be starved of resources—quite the opposite: we all hope that they will be even busier in the future. We all know they need proper funding to recruit and retain skilled staff and to deliver timely decisions, but surely there is a case for a more proportionate, graduated system—one that recognises the scale of development, the number of units and the genuine impact on the planning service. Without such reform, we risk reinforcing the dominance of volume housebuilders, who are of course essential; this is not a downer on them but a recognition of the role that SMEs can play in increasing innovation and diversity. They bring local knowledge and understanding to their role. By ignoring this, we weaken our ability to deliver the variety of homes this country so desperately needs.

The reason for my amendment is that planning costs are probably the most significant disparity, with SMEs facing costs that are over 100% higher than their plc counterparts. In fact, planning fees at the moment are £626 per home for the first 50 units, and only £189 per home thereafter. Therefore, a 50-home scheme pays three times more per unit than a 1,000-home scheme. This is where it creates a real structural disadvantage for SMEs, deterring those much-needed smaller developments and slowing delivery on small and medium sites. Under the Bill, fee-setting powers are being devolved to local authorities and/or mayors, so there is a genuine opportunity to fix the imbalance.

This is not about special pleading; it is about fairness, proportionality and the kind of housing market we want to create. Do we want one dominated by a handful of big players, or one where smaller, local builders have the chance to thrive? I urge the Government to look again at the planning fees regime and at how it might better support our SME builders. Without them, our housing crisis will only deepen. My amendment would help ensure that SMEs are not burdened with excessive costs; and, over time, alongside other government measures, it might reverse their sad decline. I am pleased to note that it also chimes with Amendment 98 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Banner. I hope the Minister agrees.

[Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con)]

My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend Lady Scott for opening this small group of amendments and for lending her support to my Amendment 95, to which I will briefly speak.

As drafted, the Bill leaves out the question of enforcement measures being recovered from the fee. I put a very simple question to the Minister: was this a wilful omission or was it omitted by default? As my noble friend Lady Scott said, it would be helpful to know why the question of enforcement measures not forming part of the fee that can be recovered has been left out.

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[Lord Fuller (Con)]

My Lords, I will make two brief points. This debate has shown us that we need to charge fees for planning permission, and one has to understand the purpose. It is common ground that there is a lack of planners in this country, which is one of the reasons why the fee arrangement has to change.

One reason why we have insufficient planners in this country is not that we cannot charge enough. My authority, South Norfolk, has an advanced programme of upskilling planning technicians to become fully qualified planning officers, on a work release scheme, by using the apprenticeship levy that all councils and large employers put into the system. However, this Government have stopped that, because those sorts of people, who have made their way for a few years and have shown expertise and enterprise, are no longer able to be upgraded by using the apprenticeship levy. That has been cast away and it is an omission. I ask the Minister whether she might consider revisiting that rather short-sighted decision to stop upgrading these planners, which would start to address this.

I have huge sympathy with the point raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Thornhill, about proportionality in planning fees, but I need to explain that, although the planning fee is important, it is just a single sliver of the total cost that developers, particularly small developers, have to pay. For example, there is the complexity of Section 106. As a council leader, I had to review a Section 106 agreement of which 15 banks were cosignatories. Can your Lordships imagine the cost not just of the applicants’ but of everybody else’s fees? The bespoke nature of many Section 106 agreements is really onerous. Some planning authorities require the use of only their particular lawyers, at a full rack rate. I will not go into nutrient neutrality, although that has an additional level of fees, or building control and so forth.

I know that we are in Committee, and I sympathise with what the noble Baroness, Lady Thornhill, said, but, if she is minded to bring this matter back on Report, we might have a full idea of all the layering so that proportionality can be taken into account in the round.

[Baroness Thornhill (LD)]

I will see what I can do.

[The Earl of Lytton (CB)]

This group of amendments raises several interesting areas about which I, as a chartered surveyor and an occupier and co-owner of listed buildings, feel strongly. I welcome the opportunity to discuss these and the question of proportionality referred to by several noble Lords and by the noble Lord, Lord Fuller. It relates to how the costs are built up and into what particular categories, pigeonholes or whatever one wishes to put them.

The noble Baroness, Lady Thornhill, referred to this question of the preponderance of very large developments in terms of their cost, and how the same metric applies to smaller SMEs and indeed, one could say, to individual householders with really quite small-scale things. She could perhaps have referred to the fact that the way in which large developments end up setting the tone and the content that goes into planning applications therefore raises the expectation. Whether deliberately or inadvertently, it creates that rather awkward but historically well-known feature of a barrier to entry by the very nature of where you have to get to, what boxes you have to tick and what expense you have to underwrite to get there. This principle is as old as economics, but it is one of the things that is particularly germane to this discussion.

Of course, if we are getting into the situation referred to by other noble Lords of some sort of cross-subsidy from the application fee to issues of enforcement or covering other things, for instance the general costs of the legal department dealing with gruesomely complicated Section 106 agreements—I have seen some gruesomely complicated ones and am very glad to say that I have never had to draft one myself—that rather raises the question: is that right, or should we be subdividing, for instance, the costs of enforcement as a separate charging entity and the costs of dealing with a particular Section 106 agreement dealt with as part of that process? We have to worry about the degree to which there is this cross-subsidy approach, because without a set of rules for that, almost any sort of charging process can be set in place. That might be manifestly unsatisfactory for all sorts of reasons.

I very much welcome Amendment 97, spoken to by the noble Lord, Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay. I can relate to it as an owner, and in the past a professional adviser on heritage properties, although I would not really claim to be a heritage expert. We have heard that listed building applications are an addition to the need for development consent generally. Because they may revolve around matters that involve the historic character of the asset in question, it then becomes a matter of what is the character and what is the effect. These are often largely subjective considerations. That inevitably results in a sort of precautionary reaction in the eyes of local authorities. Inevitably, if that precautionary reaction takes root, all sorts of assessments and justifications may then be demanded of the applicant. Whether in fact they are reasonable is often in question. Given that, for owners who happen to live in or own listed buildings—putting aside badges of honour, in my case, several have been listed during my lifetime and ownership gratuitously imposed without consultation—I think it fair that the listed building element should not attract an additional fee.

It is important that we get this in context, and I observe that many local planning authorities do not have their own trained heritage officer. Many used to but no longer have one. In my experience, it is often outsourced to a private firm for so many days a month. Again in my experience, even where the external contractor so appointed makes a sensible recommendation, further conditions quite often get added by the local planning authority itself, in some instances displaying quite woeful failure to understand the practicalities of carrying out the work proposed. I will not go into further details on that, but I have several examples. It is therefore a matter of concern that defensively preventive or precautionary permitting practices and a lack of in-house officer competence—and, indeed, confidence—lie behind the added costs. Added to this, of course, is the citation relating to listing of buildings. In many cases, it is so cursory as to prevent a clear understanding of what features are actually important in terms of its character.

I agree with the comments of the noble Lord, Lord Mann, that something needs sorting out on a much wider scale here. I certainly would commend the Minister to take this away and see if we cannot, in the context of the Bill, produce something more cohesive going forward.

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[Baroness Thornhill (LD)]

My Lords, this has been a very interesting debate, with many different points made. Clearly, training is important to us, as is the status of planners, but I want to touch on issues that, much to my surprise, have not been mentioned. They have been hinted at very slightly by the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, who came close.

I have attended and delivered planning training to councillors. You can take a councillor to training, but you cannot make him think or learn or go back into a committee room and act any differently from how he or she did before. To be perfectly honest, I have been shocked by the arrogance, attitude and behaviour of some councillors at meetings, which I was obliged to observe as part of my role within that council. What bothers me is that there seems very little ability to sanction or take to task. Often it is individuals. Within councils, they know who they are—but they still put them on the committee the following year. That cannot be ignored. It was not just lack of understanding or wilfully not wanting to understand or genuinely not understanding, but sometimes it was the tricky and thorny issues of probity and ethics within the whole area of this and public standards.

Talking to planners, which I still do, with their work on the ground, I know that they say that the following issues are the rotten aspects of the job. There is hostility from the public—aggression, the way that they are spoken to. You have set up a positive consultation meeting with everything that you think they want to know and sometimes it deteriorates into some really quite shocking situations. They feel like they are piggy in the middle.

The other side of that coin is the politicisation of planning. There is no doubt that this has happened. I said years ago that we have turned nimbys into BANANAs—build absolutely nothing anywhere near anybody. Even in my local area, I find that my local environment group, which I was very proud to get well and truly established, is objecting to developments miles away which could not possibly have any impact on them. It seems to be the new form of activism and we cannot ignore that.

Planners hate their decisions being overturned by councillors, because they are professionals. They understand their role, but there are times when they just feel ignored, overruled and put in this position. They too need training in that regard.

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The timing could not be more pressing. Our cultural infrastructure remains fragile, threatened by rising property values, changing consumer habits, and ongoing digitalisation. As the noble Earl has said, without legislative intervention, we risk losing irreplaceable cultural assets before communities can mobilise to protect them. This is a balanced and pragmatic proposal, respecting both community needs and property rights, while safeguarding the places where Britain’s cultural future is being written. I urge the Committee to support both amendments and to give cultural assets the recognition and protection they deserve.

[Baroness Thornhill (LD)]

My Lords, I was not going to say anything on this but, as noble Lords can see, I have been deserted so it has fallen to me. However, after listening to everyone, I will say a few words. As I will wax lyrical on another day about permitted development rights, I feel that I probably should stand and support the amendment from the noble Baroness, Lady Coffey, really because I believe in the planning system. I believe that many developments would still be built but, if they had planning permission, they would be built far better. I have a faith in the planning system to do what is right.

Interestingly, it took me back to my own experience of the 2011 community assets Bill. We had loads of rows about the interpretation of it. I remember being in the monitoring office, really at loggerheads. There was a vociferous campaign to keep a Taekwondo space that was in the basement of a derelict factory and designate it as of community value. Believe it or not, all the parents joined in and the grandparents, but we designated for 60 social homes. You can imagine where the Mayor of Watford’s priorities lay on that.

I wrote to the Minister and got what I would call a very typical ministerial reply saying it was a local decision, but I was given a little line that gave some leeway to say that political choice and discretion could come into it. In that instance, I took a leaf out of what the noble Earl, Lord Clancarty, said, and just offered a replacement. It was as simple as that. We managed to juggle things around. We got the social housing and they got a replacement, but it showed how difficult that interpretation was. Has any work been done on what has happened to those assets of community value and how successful they have been?

I think the venues issue a really tricky one, and I have every sympathy with what both noble Lords have said. I believe that, in the end, communities come up with ideas and innovations to make things happen differently when things are threatened. In my experience, music venues do not disappear quietly; they disappear very noisily. We had a particular pub, Taylors, and my son was one of the musicians who played there. There was a great hoo-ha when it closed. Guess what? Something like it popped up somewhere else and a little bit of support was given to help it to do that. I absolutely understand what the noble Lords are saying but I do not believe that outmoded, deteriorating buildings that are underused should necessarily be protected for sentimental reasons.

I am also pleased to tell the noble Earl that another of our grass-roots music venues, which we thought had really gone, has just been given a new lease of life. It was in our local newspaper last week, and the message from the people taking it over and taking a risk with it was: if you do not use it, you lose it.

I would also like to tell the noble Earl the saga of a very old building in Watford that had been the scenery store for the Palace Theatre. When I visited our “asset”, I christened it a pigeon graveyard. That is how derelict it was and, as somebody who is feather phobic, I did not stay in there very long, but I was determined to get it into community use, which we did. It was used for many years as a space for dance, Pilates—you name it—and as rooms for charities to do their admin. But that fell off, it was not used and we were in a dilemma. The current mayor has just redone it and done a redeal with the Palace Theatre for a rehearsal space, so it has gone the full circle.

I do not see any reason why a good council would not and should not list its assets and know what matters to it. We have a wonderful pump house that is many years old. It is difficult to maintain, but I am sure there would be massive protests if that were to close. These amendments are worth considering, even though I think it probably is something that should be in local plans and be built locally from the ground up. What they provide is a moratorium on a sale or a demolition, which is important, and give a window for the community to have their say and perhaps appreciate what they might lose. We know from experience that when libraries were under threat the community stepped up and many libraries and other facilities are used within communities and have new life. There are lots of examples of that.

I am interested in what the Minister has to say and thank the noble Lords for prompting me to say something and realising that it was something quite close to my heart. It was not my amendment to speak on, but I hope that that was okay.

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[Lord Best (CB)]

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Inglewood, had to leave, so I am moving Amendment 114 in his place, with the support of the noble Baronesses, Lady Freeman of Steventon and Lady Pinnock, and the noble Lord, Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay. The amendment would make the Gardens Trust a statutory consultee for planning applications that are likely to affect historic gardens and parks.

In sponsoring the amendment, the noble Lord would have declared his interests, which are also his credentials. He is the owner of a listed garden of some consequence and the park around it, and he has been involved with other owners and trustees of historic and particularly important gardens and parks. He is president of Historic Buildings & Places, previously the Ancient Monuments Society, and he is a member of the Gardens Trust, which I will come back to in a moment.

The working of the town and country planning system is buttressed by the various national amenity societies, which can bring to bear their very often specialist expertise in respect of some of the most sensitive sites in the country. These national amenity societies are essentially focused on buildings, but it is increasingly recognised, not least in the many debates on place-making, and I have been part of a lot of them, that the setting of buildings may be at least as important as a building itself. This relates both to the views in and to the views out.

Equally important are open spaces, which may have no buildings at all—for example, public parks and historic gardens. Expertise in these matters is not necessarily found among the established national amenity societies or planning authorities. The Gardens Trust, which was previously called the Garden History Society, has the expertise in this area, the same as national amenity societies in relation to buildings. It has evolved its work over time as the scholarship on this matter develops. It has been suggested that these matters do not require a statutory consultee because they can be dealt with through local plans, but local plans cover only about a third of local authorities and this is often about the detail. It is the devil in the detail that matters here.

I hope it is possible for government to add another statutory consultee in respect of gardens, parks and the planning applications that are likely to affect historic gardens and parks. I believe that consultation is under way and may lead to this happy outcome, but it would be great to hear the views of the Minister. I beg to move.

[Baroness Thornhill (LD)]

My Lords, I am in a similar position to the noble Lord, Lord Best, with the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, who expected a 7 pm finish, having gone for a train. I will try not to make a dog’s breakfast of her notes.

I will speak to Amendments 118 and 119 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock. The Liberal Democrats accept the aim of the Government in their desire to ensure that decisions on planning applications are made in a considered and timely way. The proposals in the Bill appear to neglect the notion of a considered and inclusive approach to planning decisions. Planning decisions matter hugely to communities because decisions can have a lasting impact on that community. The aim must surely be to get the balance in favour of enabling decisions to be made with the communities affected. Failure to do so can lead to long and acrimonious disputes between communities and developers. I can vouch for that.

Pre-application consideration of an application supports the needs of both a developer and the community affected. Pre-application consultation is most relevant for larger domestic and commercial applications, but may be of use in small but controversial ones, and here is why: a comprehensive pre-application stage allows for issues to be identified and resolved at the earliest opportunity, preventing costly delays and complex disputes later in the process. For example, at a pre-application consultation with residents on an application for a large housing estate, residents were able to provide vital information to the developer on the siting of historic mine workings. The precise information as to the location was not available from historical records, but residents whose families had lived in the area for many years knew. The pre-application meeting saved the developer from extensive works to find the shaft.

Another major commercial application, which cost the developer more than £100 million in preparation fees, was refused on grounds that would have become very clear if residents had been consulted before the application was submitted.

The pre-application process is currently good practice, and Amendment 119 in the name of my noble friend Lady Pinnock is designed to make this a mandatory process. The pre-app should include, as the word suggests, an opportunity for councillors in the ward and residents to have details of the planned application, to ask questions and make suggestions about it—crucially, before a more formal application is submitted, when it becomes much more difficult to make changes. It empowers communities to be able to influence an application that will change their neighbourhood. This collaborative approach builds trust, ensures that proposals are fit for purpose and fosters greater public acceptance of vital infrastructure.