Planning and Infrastructure Bill

Lord Mackinlay of Richborough Excerpts

Committee stage
Monday 1st September 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Mackinlay of Richborough (Con)]

My Lords, I support my noble friend Lord Swire’s application that these things should be buried. I am the director of the Global Warming Policy Foundation; that is not relevant to this debate, but it is somewhat relevant to the discussion about renewables.

My noble friend raised a few points about how previous Governments over the last 30 years have been somewhat deficient in managing the grid. The grid was perfectly adequate when we had large, central power stations, whether coal, gas or nuclear. Of course, our nuclear fleet is diminishing and nearly all those stations will be turned off by the end of this decade—probably before any of the new ones are turned on. We have obviously closed down all our coal power stations now, and gas is rather intermittent; it has to be put on stream when renewables fail us, which unfortunately happens more and more regularly. The old system worked when we had centralised, big power stations. The problem now occurs because we have decentralised that.

We could put that right by going down a domestic gas route, which I would recommend to this nation as a means to bridge the gap before nuclear is properly on stream. We could put small modular reactors in the places where old gas and coal stations used to be, because we have the huge grids, supplies and existing pylons that served that old infrastructure, which is now a redundant and dead infrastructure.

We are being asked to despoil our countryside because of the dash to renewables, in trying to link up offshore and onshore wind farms. Each of those produces fairly small amounts of energy, but we need new pylons to get it into the grid. I agree entirely with my noble friend that the required cables should be underground. I have never believed that some behemoth of an aluminium and steel platform to carry cables can be that much cheaper than an underground cable, which does not require such support. I recommend that the Government ask for some independent advice on what these things really cost.

I am very surprised to have had a discussion—started, again, by my noble friend Lady Coffey—about Christmas trees. I will discuss Christmas trees at the appropriate time, because my family was very involved with Christmas trees and, as a young lad, every winter I bore scars all the way up my arms from selling them. I hope to discuss that in the future.

The whole concept of electrification and the problem of serious storms was raised very well by my noble friend Lady McIntosh. I do worry. As I said at the time, if you live in that part of the world—and I think another storm hit Scotland at almost the same time—you rely entirely on electricity cables to run your internet, which runs your telephone, as the old 50-volt copper system is being wound down. You obviously need electricity for the internet generally, and one will need electricity to power one’s car, if the Government have their way and traditional cars are put on the scrap heap. One will also need electricity to heat one’s home. Storms go through parts of this country with some regularity, and I have always made the point that you can lend a neighbour a bucket of logs but you cannot lend them a bucket of electricity.

I agree with the amendment that was put by my noble friend Lord Swire. I request that the Government look at this rather more carefully, rather than say flippantly that “Thou shalt have dirty great pylons”. Norfolk and Suffolk in particular will be hit by this massively. I think my noble friend who is following me will make some similar observations about what will be hitting parts of Kent, including those that I used to represent.

[Lord Fuller (Con)]

My Lords, I support Amendment 79A in the name of my noble friend Lord Swire about the presumption in favour of burying cables as the default method. He spoke of insanity, but I did not think I was going mad—I believed and agreed with every word he said. Not only is burying cables less visually intrusive but, storms notwithstanding, as we have seen in the Ukrainian conflict, surface infrastructure is more vulnerable to malign and military disruption. I have not seen any calculation anywhere that takes that national security angle into account. That is an omission that should be corrected, and would be if my noble friend’s amendment is accepted.

I do not stand entirely shoulder to shoulder with those who accept the construction of pylons in any circumstance but I am not the Luddite who is in denial about the difficulties of strengthening and hardening the grid. We all need to be realistic about what it takes for the lights to come on when you flick that switch, with fluctuating renewables on the one hand and new demands from electrical vehicles on the other. But that should not give National Grid a right to be judge and jury in its own court and carte blanche to ride roughshod.

My interest in the amendment has been piqued because I have experienced at first hand the process undertaken by National Grid when it seeks to promote a new pylon power line, in this case from Norwich to Tilbury to transport electricity from the wind farms off the Norfolk coast down to the smoke. At that time, I was leader of the South Norfolk Council, an area to be bisected across its entire height by new HV power lines. What I experienced was institutional arrogance from National Grid and its agents. It thought that a single consultation event, offered at short notice on an afternoon in a remote village hall for an area of 400 square miles, was sufficient. It had a boneheaded refusal to accept that burying was even an option—even just in part across the picturesque Waveney Valley or the Roydon Fen county wildlife reserve.

National Grid exhibited a steadfast refusal to demonstrate or explain why the option of providing a future-proof offshore ring main, connecting the existing infrastructure that used to serve the redundant Bradwell nuclear power station, was even a possibility. The suggestion that offshore was impractical was wholly disproven by the offshore link that is currently proposed from Sizewell to the Richborough marshes—I am stood next to the noble Lord, Lord Mackinlay of Richborough, and I expect him to intervene in a moment to say how wonderful that part of the world is and how it should not be despoiled.

National Grid had unevidenced assertions relating to the unaffordability of burying lines, as opposed to having them overhead, without either explaining or quantifying the quantum of those extra costs for the whole line or just per kilometre. There was a failure to consider parallel running to the existing pylon line to minimize visual impact, with the result that the wonderful and historic market town of Diss is now proposed to be fenced in on all four sides by huge steel pylons to an unacceptable degree. This lack of understanding, further, that the mooted community compensation schemes for overhead lines, but not for buried cables, might undermine the business case for pylons now turns out to be the case because it stands as part of Clause 26 of the Bill. There were other questions to answer, which I will not detain the Committee with.

Now, of course, there may have been good reasons why National Grid might be right on all the points I mentioned, though I struggle to see how, but with friends like these, who needs enemies? National Grid has gone out of its way to pick fights rather than bringing people together. As a council leader, I met officials from National Grid and put the points privately, to try to have a neutral forum where it could make an improved case for the proposals and build consensus. That olive branch was spurned, so it is little wonder that there is now widespread resistance to new pylon routes. Opposition has been carelessly and recklessly whipped up by a ham-fisted approach from the people who need all the friends they can get.

I like this amendment in the name of my noble friend Lord Swire because it would set the default expectation that new lines will be buried. Of course, that does not mean that they must be buried, but for the operator to go above ground as the preferred option, he will need to make the evidential case and have it scrutinised, and to build friendships and not enemies. That is a much better approach and balance of power, literally, between the parties than the regrettable and aggravating behaviours that we have seen thus far, where the lazy overhead option is chosen and everybody else be damned.

Planning and Infrastructure Bill

Lord Mackinlay of Richborough Excerpts

Report stage
Wednesday 22nd October 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Jamieson (Con)]

My Lords, it is pleasing to hear support for local democracy from around the House, which I can only endorse.

Amendment 63, tabled by my noble friend Lord Lansley, concerns the first set of regulations made under the proposed national scheme, which, as drafted, would determine how local planning decisions are to be made in the future. My noble friend’s amendment seeks to ensure that these initial regulations are subject to the stronger form of parliamentary scrutiny, the affirmative procedure. That requirement is important, as the national scheme represents a major structural change in the planning system. It alters fundamentally the balance between decisions taken by elected planning committees and those delegated to officers.

Such a shift in decision-making authority carries significant implications for local accountability, democratic oversight and public confidence in the planning system. Given the scale and significance of these reforms, it is only right that Parliament should have the opportunity to consider, debate and explicitly approve the first set of regulations before they take effect. Therefore, my noble friend’s amendment seeks not to delay progress but to strengthen legitimacy, to ensure that this House and the other place have a proper role in scrutinising the framework through which these changes will be implemented. In short, the affirmative procedure would provide a vital check and balance at a moment of genuine structural transition in the planning system. I hope that the Government will look favourably on my noble friend’s sensible and proportionate proposal.

Amendment 76, tabled in my name, aims to ensure that the vital role of local democracy in the determination of planning applications continues, while ensuring that spurious call-ins are avoided, by requiring the head of planning and the chair of the planning committee to confirm that the objections are on valid planning grounds. This reflects best practice in many authorities today.

We believe in local democracy because we believe in local people. That means ensuring that the right homes are built in the right places, with the consent and confidence of the communities they affect. Committee chairs and chief planning officers are well placed to judge when wider scrutiny is needed. Retaining their discretion in this way would ensure transparency and trust, without dismantling the efficiency of a national delegation scheme.

Ministers may argue that the amendment would undermine the purpose of national delegation by allowing too many applications to go to committee, but that is simply not the case. It requires the agreement of both the professional planner and the elected chair, and only when the objections rest on valid planning grounds. That is a proportionate safeguard, not a free-for-all. This is about balance and maintaining efficiency in the system, while giving communities the confidence that genuine concerns will be heard and scrutinised. That is how we build trust in planning and how we deliver development that truly has local consent.

Finally, I will briefly speak to Amendments 62A and 87F, tabled by my noble friend Lady Coffey. Amendment 62A is in a similar vein to my own, as it proposes that an officer should not determine an application outside of an adopted local plan. Amendment 87F looks to the issue of the failure to build out, so can the Minister say why the Government have not moved forward with the parts of the Levelling-up and Regeneration Act that sought to address that?

[Lord Mackinlay of Richborough (Con)]

My Lords, my noble friend Lord Jamieson was quicker to his feet than I was. I will make a few comments on Amendment 87F, standing in the name of my noble friend Lady Coffey.

I served as a councillor for eight years on the unitary Medway Council, working for some of that time on planning, and had the benefit of representing a constituency in Kent in the other place. I am very aware that whenever a substantial planning application is put to the local community there is generally uproar and a lot of concern. There may be a lot of consultation and a lot of money spent by the developer. There are presentations to the local public and local councillors, and everything else that goes with that. It can be quite upsetting for local communities. In my experience, the Liberal Democrats are very adept at exploiting that concern, usually for political advantage.

Having gone through that process, we find that a lot of the planning applications never actually get built out—and at a time when we have a huge demand for housing. Developers then look again at somewhere a bit simpler to develop out. It is not for us in this place to dictate the market—that is obviously for developers—but the terms that my noble friend Lady Coffey has proposed are right. Perhaps we should start to recognise some of the names among the bigger developers that seem to be going for applications and not building them out. We hear, obliquely, about hundreds of thousands of planning applications that have been approved that are yet to be built out. I do not know the exact figure —I do not think that I have ever known it—but we are told that it is in the many hundreds of thousands.

If my noble friend Lady Coffey’s amendment were to be adopted, it would be very refreshing to know those numbers regularly. It could give local people some pressure to knock on the doors of the developers and ask, “Are you going to do this or not?” In addition, other authorities would be able to look at neighbouring authorities elsewhere in the country and, if they see similar developer names, they might start to wonder what those developers were doing.

[Lord Blencathra (Con)]

I am grateful to my noble friend for giving way. When I looked at the figures last year, I found that 1.1 million homes were approved that were not built. That is quite a few hundreds of thousands.

[Lord Mackinlay of Richborough (Con)]

I thank my noble friend for his clarification. As I said, I was only guessing that the figure was in the hundreds of thousands; I am glad to have the clarity that is 1.1 million. There we have it: there is the potential for the growth that we are looking for and for the supply of housing within a local plan, yet we seem to keep hearing calls for new land and new development. The answer, however, is in our lap. It would be nice for this to be rather more transparent, so that we could consider it more closely.

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

My Lords, that was an interesting debate on these amendments. Believing in local people also means building the homes that they need and the infrastructure to support those homes. This problem with buildout did not commence in July 2024; it has been there for a long time, and this Bill is trying to do something about it.

I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Coffey, for Amendment 62A, which would require applications for development not included in the local plan, or for a housing density lower than that specified in the plan, to be determined by committee. I appreciate the sentiment behind the amendment; however, it is common for applications to be submitted for development that do not accord with the local plan. That does not mean that all those applications are controversial or that they require committee scrutiny. To bring all such applications to committee would undermine the whole point of Clause 51. I therefore ask the noble Baroness to withdraw her amendment.

Amendment 63 from the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, seeks to make initial regulations relating to the national scheme of delegation subject to the affirmative procedure. As I mentioned in Committee, it is common practice across planning legislation for regulations of a detailed and technical nature such as these to be subject to the negative procedure. The Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee has published its report on the Bill and has not raised any concerns about either this power or the proposed procedure.

I recognise that the noble Lord has altered his amendment so that it applies only to the first set of regulations, but I still do not believe that the revised amendment is necessary. We already consulted on our proposed approach in May this year. The Secretary of State, under the Bill’s provisions, will be required to consult appropriate persons before making the regulations and the subsequent changes to them. That means that the Government will conduct another consultation on these very regulations before they are brought into force. In practice, this means that key stakeholders, including local planning authorities, will be able to respond on the detailed proposals set out in the regulations to ensure that they will work effectively in practice. They are the practitioners, after all, so I look forward to hearing their comments.

Amendment 76 in the names of the noble Baroness, Lady Scott, and the noble Lord, Lord Jamieson, seeks to give the chair of a planning committee and the head of planning the discretion to allow any planning application to be determined by committee where there are objections on valid planning grounds. Noble Lords will recall that we debated an identical amendment in Committee, and I can confirm that the Government have not changed their position on this issue. The intention of the amendment undermines the introduction of a national scheme of delegation. Valid planning objections are a frequent occurrence on planning applications—anyone who has ever been on a council will know that only too well. This amendment would therefore mean that almost any application would be capable of being referred to committee. That is clearly something we would not want to support. However, I repeat that the intention behind the national scheme of delegation is not to undermine local democracy. It is simply to allow planning committees to operate more effectively in the interests of their communities.

I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Coffey, for Amendment 87F relating to the buildout of development, which is a key issue. The amendment seeks to improve the transparency of buildout data by requiring the Secretary of State to publish information on a quarterly basis about the number of planning consents granted where building has not started or completed in each local planning authority. I start by reaffirming to the noble Baroness, as I did in Committee, that I fully support the aim of improving buildout and the rate of residential development. The Government remain committed to making sure that all planning permissions are translated into homes. That said, I remain of the view, as I have previously set out, that we do not need this amendment to achieve that.

When we debated buildout in Committee, I highlighted our publication in May of an important working paper, which sets out a more effective and comprehensive approach to speeding up buildout. It includes greater transparency of buildout rates, new powers for local planning authorities to decline to determine applications from developers that have built out more slowly and greater emphasis on mixed-use tenures, as well as exploring a potential delayed homes penalty as a last resort. The working paper also emphasised that we want to make it easier for local authorities to confirm CPOs, which will help unlock stalled sites and make land assembly easier when this is in the public interest. We have also set up our new homes accelerator, which will help to unblock some of those stalled sites and find out what is causing the problem that is slowing down buildout. We are now analysing the responses to that working paper, and we will set out our next steps in due course. I reiterate that the measures set out in the working paper will make a real difference to the buildout of residential development that we all want to see. Therefore, given our strategy to support faster buildout, I hope the noble Baroness will not move her amendment.