English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill

Earl Russell Excerpts

Thursday 5th March 2026 Grand Committee

[Lord Lucas (Con)]

My Lords, I welcome Clause 73; it is an excellent development. I want to take advantage of the opportunity to debate its inclusion in the Bill to press the Government further on Amendment 241E from the noble Baroness, Lady Freeman, which urges that, along with the general power of competence, national parks be granted a stronger place in spatial development strategies.

National parks are big beasts. Between them and national landscapes, they cover about 25% of our landscape. They play key roles in areas such as climate and 30 by 30, as well as looking after communities and economic development. Relegating them to second-class status and just making them consultees is a recipe for tension rather than collaboration.

In her reply to Amendment 241E, the Minister briefly referred to the provision of guidance to support early and effective engagement with national park authorities. I would be very grateful if the Minister could provide further clarification. Is this a commitment to provide guidance, or just an intention? If the guidance is provided, will it ensure that engagement goes further than mere consultation? What further details might be available regarding the timelines for this guidance, given the speed at which mayoral devolution is moving? All six of the selected areas currently on the fast track contain either a national park or a protected landscape. I would prefer to have a detailed letter before Report rather than a brisk verbal response now, but that is obviously up to the Minister.

[Earl Russell (LD)]

My Lords, very briefly, I support the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, on these matters. Our national parks are now in their 75th anniversary year. Some 10% of our land and most of our SSSIs are part of our protected habitats in national parks. National parks are key for protecting our ecosystems and adapting to climate change, and they provide untold social, health and cultural benefits to the nation. They are an extremely important part of national cultures and psyche. I support the noble Lord; we need further clarity on these matters. I absolutely support his call for the Minister to provide greater clarity and guidance on these matters between now and Report, so that we can properly examine them between now and then.

[Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)]

My Lords, I will speak briefly to my noble friend Lord Lucas’s opposition to the question. His intention is not to frustrate the purpose of the legislation but to probe an important constitutional question: how powers exercised by the national park authorities will intersect with those newly empowered devolved authorities. National parks occupy a distinctive position within our public framework. As devolution evolves, and as mayoral and combined authorities acquire broader strategic competences, clarity of responsibility becomes ever more important.

We would therefore welcome the Minister’s reassurance on two points. First, how do the Government envisage disputes of competence being resolved where priorities differ between the national park authorities and devolved bodies? Secondly, how will the statutory purposes of national parks be safeguarded within the new governance structures? This is not a question of resi1sting devolution but of ensuring that, in our enthusiasm to devolve, we do not dilute clear lines of accountability or the protection afforded to some of our most precious national landscapes.

This are sensible probing clause stand part Questions, and we are most grateful to my noble friend for raising them today. I look forward to the Minister’s response.

--- Later in debate ---

My amendment seeks to fix this by requiring the Government to flesh out how they will roll out local area energy plans across the country—not forgetting that this has already been done in Wales—ultimately leading to a statutory requirement. Baked into that is taking learning from successful programmes, such as the Nottingham one I just mentioned. I hope that the Minister will consider this light-touch amendment. It would help to drive a consistent approach to local area energy plan rollout across England, with all of the benefits for ensuring that we bring that local knowledge into the energy transition, embed that in the broader governance picture—including the regional energy strategic plans—reduce costs and ensure that we have that local area buy-in to the process. I beg to move.

[Earl Russell (LD)]

My Lords, I support Amendment 241 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Ravensdale. I should have put my name to it and apologise to the noble Lord for not having done so, but I very strongly support this amendment; it is a very well-reasoned and proportionate response. As the noble Lord said, we worked together on a similar amendment to the Planning and Infrastructure Bill, so it is good to come back to this issue.

For clarity, local area energy plans—LAEPs—are data-driven spatial plans, led by local authorities, that map out how a place will decarbonise its buildings, transport and local energy infrastructure over time. They identify which low-carbon measures—such as heat pumps, heat networks, EV charging and local renewables —should go where, when and at what cost, using a whole-system approach. They create consistent, place-based and evidence-based guides for regional and national decision-making on the energy transition, helping to align local plans with network investment and regulation.

They are important because they turn our national net-zero targets into locally specific, cost-effective investment pipelines and give network operators, investors and communities a shared, evidence-based plan for the energy transition. They are the spearhead of the energy transition delivered at the local level in a way that is particularly suited to local needs. In energy terms, we are undertaking the biggest energy revolution since the start of the Industrial Revolution. For this to work, we need to work in conjunction with our local communities to empower them. Their empowerment is the key driver of this success.

The amendment is an important but measured enabling amendment that would help us move from high-level ambition on net zero and warm homes to the practical local delivery plans at ground level that we require. This amendment would not force the Minister’s hand but would require the Government to assemble the evidence, confront the barriers and set out a pathway for local area energy plans across the country. The energy transition is fundamentally a place-based endeavour and it needs to happen at the local level. Although the Government are acting—we recognise that and we welcome the warm homes plan, the energy systems catapult and the regional energy strategic plans—my worry remains that this landscape is still quite confused and not as joined up or as focused as we feel it needs to be for the delivery of these plans.

Decisions about where to reinforce electricity networks, where to zone for heat networks, where to focus on insulation or heat pump installation, and where to roll out EV infrastructure cannot sensibly be taken in Whitehall alone; they depend on the fundamental character of our local housing stock, patterns of local industry, levels of fuel poverty and the capacity of local grids. LAEPs are exactly the emerging tool designed to answer all these questions and help deliver these needs. In Wales, they are being rolled out and deployed at national level and they are the go-to choice for helping with the transition. Many local and combined authorities are also taking this initiative but my worry is that, despite some progress being made, it is patchy and uneven. What we have is really a postcode lottery when it comes to these local area energy plans.

This amendment fundamentally addresses that head on and asks the Secretary of State, within 18 months, to publish a report that would do four simple but important things. First, it would take stock of which combined, strategic and local authorities have developed LAEPs and which have begun to implement them. Secondly, it would identify the barriers, the funding gaps, the skill shortages, the data and any co-ordination problems. Thirdly, it asks for options to move, within a year of the report, towards a statutory requirement for LAEPs, so that local energy planning becomes the norm, not the exception. Finally, it would require proposals for the funding, technical support, training and capacity building needed to make these plans real, with clear criteria for how success will be measured.

This last element is really important and key to the amendment. Without support on skills, data and project development as a statutory requirement, this could be an underfunded mandate and lead to underdelivery. By requiring clear evidence criteria and successful metrics, it would ensure that Parliament, Ministers and local leaders can track which LAEPs are delivering lower emissions, lower bills and greater systems resilience. Without this, we risk moving to a piecemeal, scheme-by-scheme approach. We need to know where to go first, how to phase interventions and how to co-ordinate them with local energy systems, which is precisely what this system does. We have the warm homes plan with a lot of money going into it, but it is just not clear how these plans will integrate and work together.

This amendment is really asking the Government to do what a good Government should be doing: to understand what is happening on the ground, to identify what is getting in the way, to set out options for a clearer, consistent framework and to match any new expectations placed on local government with the right support. It is modest in its ask but potentially transformative in its consequences. I hope the Minister will see Amendment 241 not as a constraint on the department but as a constructive tool to help deliver our shared goal of achieving the energy transition.