Planning and Infrastructure Bill

Dan Tomlinson Excerpts

2nd reading
Monday 24th March 2025 Commons Chamber

[Gideon Amos]

We would support that, as we did in a Westminster Hall debate very recently. We should be hearing such voices in the planning system, not shutting them out of the planning system.

On energy infrastructure, we welcome support for battery storage and improving access to the grid. Transmission connections are a huge source of delay—one of the biggest bottlenecks for renewable energy. But if we are to unblock that infrastructure, we need to go much further. All large-scale infrastructure projects, not just electricity transmission, should give people direct community benefit. Whether wind farm, solar farm, battery array or gas-fired power station, those living nearby should benefit through local investment or lower bills.

We also support the ambition to streamline planning for major projects, with exceptions on taking category 3 people out of compulsory purchase consultations. Let us note again who the real blockers were on these really big projects. They were not the people. It was nothing to do with local communities or the planning profession—I declare an interest as a member of the planning profession—and it was not councils. It was Ministers who left decisions lying on their desks, wrecking the timescales scrupulously followed by other parties in the process, so let us not blame people for politicians’ failures.

There are things to welcome in the Bill, but it hits the wrong target in many important areas, and this is where I must raise some more serious concerns. The detail provided in the changes to national infrastructure projects is good, but it is in real contrast to other areas of the Bill. There are many Henry VIII clauses that give sweeping powers to the Secretary of State and a democratic deficit is becoming a serious concern. For all that we welcome the aim to deliver homes, the Bill takes aim at communities, when we should be encouraging and empowering them to deliver and create the homes and places we want to see. I say again that racking up permissions—we already have a staggering 1.5 million homes without permission—will not ensure a single one gets built. We need to tackle the failure to build out of permissions granted by taking back the land or further limiting the lifetime of permissions. “Use it or lose it” needs to be the message.

Unless we deal with the supply chain issues and the lack of skills, we will have even more blockers on development.

[Dan Tomlinson (Chipping Barnet) (Lab)]

How does the hon. Gentleman square his support for getting more homes built and helping children who are living in temporary accommodation with his opposition to 250 new homes in his constituency, which he announced online just this month?

[Gideon Amos]

I am absolutely delighted to be supporting thousands of new homes across my constituency. The population of my constituency has gone up almost 10% over the past 10 years and I have supported thousands of those new homes, as have my Liberal Democrat colleagues on the planning committee who voted through all those permissions. If occasionally a smaller development in the hon. Gentleman’s constituency is not right, I would expect him to oppose it, just as I would in my constituency. I believe Members across the House have done so.

By giving more powers to communities, a community-led approach could actually increase supply. It is time, for example, to give councils the power to end Right to Buy in their areas. They cannot fill the bath, in terms of providing council houses and social homes, if the plug is taken out and they are forced to sell them off as they have done over the preceding decades. Through proper planning, we also want communities in control of how many holiday lets are allowed in their area, so that homes are not swallowed up that could otherwise increase the supply of affordable housing. That is not in the Bill and should be.

Mandating renewable energy such as solar panels on roofs, as my hon. Friend the Member for Cheltenham (Max Wilkinson) articulately argued for, would put people and local communities in control of the bills coming from their pockets.

Growing our economy, sustaining nature and building new homes are not mutually exclusive. They can work together. There are so many examples of how they can work together. For example, decent gardens have more biodiversity than many rural areas. Community-led decisions very often bring the best results, with residents’ infrastructure needs addressed and development shaped around green spaces and sustainability. To unblock homes, the Government need to do two key things instead of taking aim at ordinary people: first, unlock the infrastructure we need, including GPs, transport, green spaces, green infrastructure and water connections; and, secondly, fund the social homes that have been so sorely lacking. Since social housing disappeared as a meaningful proportion of housing supply and social housing targets fell away, this country has never been able to keep pace with demand. Our target is 150,000 per year. I hope the Government will provide a target of their own for social homes; so far, nothing has been said on that either. Invest in those two things, as history has taught us, and the number of homes we could provide would be almost unlimited.

Meanwhile, in communities like my own—where the 2,000-home Orchard Grove development in the west of Taunton, which I support, is taking shape—the reality is that while many people want to see new GP surgeries, developments are held back by the fact that we often cannot get GPs to staff the surgeries where they are being built.

We want to see a Bill about communities leading in planning and development. Instead, the Bill is part of a growing trend that is taking powers away from local communities. It takes a big step in that direction by allowing the Secretary of State to override planning committees and enabling national schemes of delegation that allow Whitehall to dictate who makes decisions on a local council—another Henry VIII clause, giving Whitehall unlimited power to rewrite the standing orders and constitutions of councils up and down the country. That cannot possibly sit right with anybody who values our proud tradition of local government that is independent of central Government. Consultation is sidelined elsewhere, too. Sport England will no longer have a voice to protect playing fields, and people subject to compulsory purchase orders will no longer have the voice they had before.

If the Government believe that local is the problem and that planning committees are the blocker, let us take a quick look at the actual figures. Councils approve more than 85% of planning applications, with some studies putting that figure even higher—closer to 90%. Councillors of all parties are not blocking development; they are enabling 90% of permissions to go through.