Planning and Infrastructure Bill

Baroness Young of Old Scone Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 9th September 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Krebs (CB)]

My Lords, I will speak to Amendment 127, which I have put my name to, ably introduced by the noble Lord, Lord Ravensdale, and to support the other amendments in this group.

I was glad to hear both the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett of Manor Castle, and the noble Earl, Lord Russell, referring to the work of the Climate Change Committee. It is so important that we understand what the expert advice is from our statutory body, and so I will quote a few sentences from the April report on climate adaptation:

“The UK’s preparations for climate change are inadequate… In terms of adaptation delivery, we do not find evidence to score a single outcome as ‘good’”.


About buildings, it says that

“6.3 million properties in England are in areas at risk of flooding from rivers, the sea, and surface water. This is predicted to rise to around 8 million (25% of all properties) by 2050 … Towns and cities will become increasingly hot, with a large fraction of current buildings at risk of reaching uncomfortable and potentially dangerous temperatures in summer heatwaves”—

a point made so ably by the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett of Manor Castle.

In table 1 of the summary of the adaptation committee’s report, there is a score card for delivery and implementation on the one hand and policies and plans on the other. Under “Planning system prioritises climate resilience”, for delivery and implementation it says, “Unable to evaluate”—there is no evidence—and for policies and plans it says, “Insufficient”. For “Buildings do not overheat”, on delivery it says, “Unable to evaluate”, and under policies it says, “Limited”. For “Buildings are prepared for flooding”, it says “Partial”—that is a good score—for both delivery and for policies and plans. For “Buildings are resilient to other climate risks”, it says “Unable to evaluate” for both delivery and for policies and plans. Here we have it, from the statutory expert advisers to the Government, that we are not doing enough to prepare our houses, public buildings and commercial buildings for the impact of climate change.

For me, the remarkable thing is that none of this is new. I chaired the adaptation committee between 2009 and 2017, and we were saying exactly the same things 15 years ago. Nobody is listening. It would be nice to hear from the Minister that this Government are listening and understand that this is not just some pie-in-the-sky thing for the future but urgent and needs to be addressed now.

Another important point was made in the introduction from the noble Lord, Lord Ravensdale, when he said that things may be written in the NPPF but what we need is to strengthen the commitments by putting them firmly into the statute book. I listened to some of the debate earlier about green spaces, sport and recreation, and all these wonderful facilities in new developments, and we heard reassuring words from the Government. However, when I look at the new housing estates around Oxford, where I live, they are nothing like that. They are simply identikit houses, jammed in as close together as possible, with no green space, no recreation facilities, no climate resilience and no plans to deal with overheating—as the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, said.

There are very simple things that could be done. If you go, as I sometimes do, to the south of France and rent a house, the house will have shutters. In the middle of the day, when it is hot, you close the shutters and they keep the heat out. Why are we not building new houses with shutters as a mandatory requirement? It would not cost much money and it would be a simple, effective tool to reduce the chance of overheating.

I hope the Minister will confirm that the Government have listened to the report of the adaptation committee of the Climate Change Committee and will do something about where it scored “Inadequate” or nul points under the various assessments, and that the Government are minded to firm up what is guidance and make it statutorily an obligation.

[Baroness Young of Old Scone (Lab)]

My Lords, I will speak to Amendments 127 and 216.

Amendment 216, to which I have put my name, was led by the noble Earl, Lord Russell, and concerns the zero-carbon standard for new homes. If the noble Lord, Lord Krebs, feels that the adaptation committee reports are cyclical and the same and getting nowhere then the zero-carbon standard discussion feels like Groundhog Day, to be frank. We got so close to having a zero-carbon home commitment in 2015. We were within two weeks of the commitment coming into effect, at a time when the housebuilders, in spite of some initial grumping, had tooled up to deliver it, when all of a sudden the Chancellor, George Osborne, stepped in at the last minute and summarily cancelled it. It was the biggest letdown for everybody. That meant that, for 10 years, we built houses which could have been zero carbon, significantly contributed to reducing our carbon footprint, helped people have warmer homes and helped the communities have lower bills—but we did not. We have lost 10 years of delivery. We have to now grip that and make sure that we do not lose any more years.

The current policy under the future homes standard requires new homes only to be zero-carbon ready by 2025. That does not go far enough. It also does not require anything on solar panels, which this amendment addresses. I know that there has been a bit of a shift in thinking within government over the last few months on the question of distributed solar. I press the Minister to tell us what improvements we are expecting to see on the future homes standard to reverse the harm that was done by Mr Osborne.

Before I sit down, I commend Amendment 127, in the name of the noble Lord, Ravensdale, which would give clear mitigation and adaptation climate change duties to planning authorities. I very much endorse everything that the noble Lord, Lord Krebs, said. I was honoured to serve, at least for a brief period, on the adaptation committee. I helped get the legislation through this House to create it and then promptly did a runner after I had been appointed to it—as they say, it was a good idea at the time.

The whole role of planning authorities in climate change is absolutely crucial, not just for mitigation but for adaptation to the impacts of climate change. I draw the attention of the Minister and the Committee to a recent Local Government Association report which went out extensively to wide consultation. As a result of that consultation with a whole range of consultees, not only local government authorities, it came back with the proposition that there should be statutory powers and duties for local authorities on action for climate change mitigation and adaptation.

There was a bit of schadenfreude for me in that. When we originally got the climate Act through, it prescribed roles for local authorities. In fact, it had a reporting arrangement for local authorities that meant that they had a statutory requirement to report. That was cancelled very rapidly when the Conservative Government came in in 2010. We are now in a position where, although many local authorities are very committed to the idea of their place in mitigation of and adaptation to climate change, they are under no duress to report on that. The only thing they have to do is that, if they are asked by government to report, they are required to do so—but only if asked. That strikes me as a very strange way of keeping track of delivery on this.

As the noble Lord, Lord Krebs, said, the most recent report by the adaptation committee assessing the nation’s level of preparedness to adapt to the impacts of climate change was very gloomy about the lack of progress, and quite rightly so. Adaptation is the Cinderella, the poor relation of the whole climate change effort. It is not going to get any better; it is going to get worse, with heatwaves, droughts, wildfires and floods—it is being so cheerful at this time of night that keeps me going. Amendment 127, to clarify the climate change mitigation and adaptation duties of planning authorities, or something like it, is very important. I hope that the Minister will consider it seriously.

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab)]

My Lords, very briefly, I support the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Ravensdale; I think it is very important. I want to pick up what my noble friend said: many local authorities are very keen to develop policies in relation to climate change, particularly on this very important issue of adaptation. My noble friend will have seen recently that some local authorities have put into reverse any commitment towards net zero and climate change policies. My question to the House is: what do we do about this? It is not fashionable at the moment to mention climate change, for some remarkable reason, but I think it is the most important and biggest issue we face. What are we to do if local authorities are saying, “No, we’ll turn our backs on this. We’ll commit ourselves to fossil fuels. We will develop policies that are very distinct—in opposition almost—to issues around climate change”? My advice to the Government is that this is not acceptable. If we are really serious about net zero and if we are serious about climate change adaptation as well as mitigation, we have to have a much greater concerted effort, in which local government clearly has to play an important part. That is why I think the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Ravensdale, is so important.