Planning and Infrastructure Bill (Fourteenth sitting)

Debate between Ellie Chowns and Gideon Amos

Committee stage
Thursday 22nd May 2025 Public Bill Committees

[Ellie Chowns]

I thank the Minister, and look forward to discussing this with him further. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the motion.

Clause, by leave, withdrawn.

New Clause 94

Considerations when deciding an application for development consent

“In section 55 of the Planning Act 2008 (acceptance of applications), after subsection (4) insert—

‘(4A) When deciding whether to accept an application, the Secretary of State must have regard to the extent to which consultation with affected communities has—

(a) identified and resolved issues at the earliest opportunity;

(b) enabled interested parties to understand and influence the proposed project, provided feedback on potential options, and encouraged the community to help shape the proposal to maximise local benefits and minimise any disbenefits;

(c) enabled applicants to obtain relevant information about the economic, social, community and environmental effects of the project; and

(d) enabled appropriate mitigation measures to be identified, considered and, if appropriate, embedded into the proposed application before the application was submitted.’”—(Gideon Amos.)

This amendment to the Planning Act 2008 would require the Secretary of State to consider the content and adequacy of consultation undertaken with affected communities when deciding an application for development consent.

Brought up, and read the First time.

[Gideon Amos (Taunton and Wellington) (LD)]

I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.

I will be brief, Mrs Hobhouse. Earlier in the progression of the Bill, we debated the removal of the pre-application requirement—all the statutory requirements for pre-application consultation under the Planning Act 2008. It may be wishful thinking, but it seemed to me that it was a generally held view that a qualitative test of some sort was needed for the consultation carried out by applicants before a DCO NSIP application is accepted for examination. That is certainly the opinion among the Liberal Democrats.

We therefore drafted the new clause, which repeats the four key paragraphs on the requirements for good consultations, which are in Government guidance, and places them on the face of the Bill as something to which the Secretary of State should have regard when considering whether to accept an application for development. In other words, in simple terms, when an application comes in, the Secretary of State and the inspector should consider the extent to which the applicant has consulted people and how well they have consulted people. That seems to be a basic, straightforward and simple requirement. I am sure the Government will have many complicated reasons for why this cannot be done, but to my mind it seems a straightforward way of dealing with it: introducing a qualitative test for Government to apply, given that they are removing all the pre-application consultation requirements from the primary legislation.

I have a quotation from Suffolk county council. As many will know, Suffolk has had more than its fair share of nationally significant infrastructure projects, far more than anywhere else in the country, starting with the Ipswich rail chord a number of years ago, with which I had some involvement. Suffolk is the site of numerous offshore wind farms, solar farms, Sizewell and huge numbers of cable routes and substations so, as the council describes it:

“Suffolk County Council has been involved with the delivery of projects under the Planning Act…since 2010”.

It states:

“The proposed replacement of a statutory requirement, by statutory guidance alone, is therefore, neither sufficient nor robust.”

I will not continue the quotation in the interests of time. I am sure that the Committee gets the gist. We offer the new clause as a way of securing sensible test, so that there is proper pre-application consultation, and that that continues to occur despite the removal of all the requirements under the Act.

Planning and Infrastructure Bill (Thirteenth sitting)

Debate between Ellie Chowns and Gideon Amos

Committee stage
Thursday 22nd May 2025 Public Bill Committees

[Ellie Chowns]

I beg to ask leave to withdraw the clause.

Clause, by leave, withdrawn.

New Clause 16

Refusal of planning permission for countryside development close to large electricity pylons

“(1) If an application is made for planning permission or permission in principle relating to large scale housing development in the countryside which—

(a) may lead to affordable housing being built within 100m of the centreline of any high voltage overhead electrical transmission system; or

(b) may lead to any new residential dwelling or new residential garden being within 50m of the centreline of any high voltage overhead electrical transmission system

the local planning authority must refuse the application.

(2) This section applies to any planning permission for large scale housing development in the countryside for which a decision notice has been issued by a local planning authority since 11 May 2022.

(3) If planning permission has been granted for development to which this section applies which contravenes subsection (1), that planning permission shall be revoked.

(4) The revocation of planning permission for the carrying out of building or other operations shall not affect so much of those operations as has been previously carried out.

(5) In this section—

‘large scale housing development’ means any development which includes more than 500 houses;

‘countryside’ includes any predominantly agricultural, rural or greenfield land;

‘may lead to’ includes plans for housing shown in any outline or illustrative masterplan;

‘high voltage overhead electrical transmission system’ means any overhead electrical transmission system at or over 275kV.”—(Gideon Amos.)

Brought up, and read the First time.

[Gideon Amos (Taunton and Wellington) (LD)]

I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.

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[Gideon Amos]

I beg to ask leave to withdraw the motion.

Clause, by leave, withdrawn.

New Clause 20

Swift bricks and boxes

“(1) It must be a condition of any grant of planning permission that there must be a minimum of one swift brick or nest box per dwelling or unit greater than 5 metres in height.

(2) Swift bricks integrated into walls are to be installed in preference to external swift nest boxes wherever practicable, following best practice.

(3) A planning authority may grant planning permission with exceptions or modifications to the condition specified in subsection (1) in exceptional circumstances, where possible following best practice.

(4) Where a planning authority grants exceptions or modifications, it must publish the exceptional circumstances in which the exceptions or modifications were granted.

(5) For the purposes of this section—

‘swift brick’ means an integral nest box integrated into the wall of a building suitable for the nesting of the Common Swift;

‘swift nest box’ means an external nest box suitable for the nesting of the Common Swift and

‘best practice guidance’ means the British Standard BS 42021:2022.”—(Ellie Chowns.)

This new clause would make planning permission for buildings greater than 5 metres high conditional on the provision of a minimum number of swift bricks. Swift bricks and boxes provide nesting habitat for small urban birds reliant on cavity nesting habitat in buildings to breed.

Brought up, and read the First time.

[Ellie Chowns]

I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.

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[Gideon Amos]

I am grateful to the Minister for correcting the numbering. When I referred to new clause 26, I meant to refer to new clause 23. I spoke only briefly on that, so I understand why the Minister is not responding to that detail.

[Ellie Chowns]

I welcome the Minister’s warm words regarding the protection of swifts—I am glad to hear them. I do not, however, feel that he has made a strong case against this new clause. If the Government are serious about protecting swifts, why not vote for it? It contains the ability to make exceptions and is an opportunity to drive forward this agenda.

As the Minister has recognised, swifts are still in terrible decline. Although I acknowledge that this measure alone will not in itself magically resolve the full issue, as well as the point made by the hon. Member for Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner that there are also other necessary measures and required species, there is something unique about swifts because they are dependent on these breeding sites.

It is true that they need food, but without breeding sites they are completely stuck, and those sites must be in our buildings. I will be pressing this new clause to a vote, and if the Government vote against it I hope they will come back with an amendment in their own words at Report to achieve exactly the same outcome, if the Minister is genuinely committed to saving and safeguarding the future of these iconic birds.

Question put, That the clause be read a Second time.

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[Gideon Amos]

I have nothing further to add. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the motion.

Clause, by leave, withdrawn.

New Clause 35

Prohibition of development on functional floodplains

“(1) No local planning authority may grant planning permission for any development which is to take place on a functional floodplain.

(2) The Secretary of State must, within three months of the passing of this Act, issue new guidance, or update existing guidance where such guidance exists, relating to development in flood zones and the management of flood risk.”—(Ellie Chowns.)

This new clause would prevent local planning authorities from allowing developments on functional floodplains.

Brought up, and read the First time.

[Ellie Chowns]

I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.

--- Later in debate ---

[Ellie Chowns]

I beg to ask leave to withdraw the clause.

Clause, by leave, withdrawn.

New Clause 36

Internal Drainage Boards to be statutory consultees

“In Schedule 4 of the Town and Country Planning (Development Management Procedure) (England) Order 2015, after paragraph (zf) insert—

[Gideon Amos]

I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.

Planning and Infrastructure Bill (Twelfth sitting)

Debate between Ellie Chowns and Gideon Amos

Committee stage
Tuesday 20th May 2025 Public Bill Committees

[Ellie Chowns]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his genuine question. He highlights a case that arguably represents complexities that the Government employ lots of lawyers to fix. I do not think it would prevent a new clause such as this from progressing. The intention is to prevent land banking, and if lawyers need to tweak the language a little bit, so be it.

I will move on briefly to new clauses 15, 25 and 60, which are all about ensuring that affordable housing is actually built. New clause 60 would set a lower bound on the amount of affordable housing that was due to be constructed. New clauses 15 and 25 are intended to ensure that the affordable housing commitments that developers make in their initial applications are not subsequently chipped away at or eroded by arguments about viability.

Fundamentally, if there are issues around viability, the Government and local authorities should prioritise the building of affordable housing, not the safeguarding of developer profits. The new clauses are therefore intended to ensure that when developers commit during the planning process to building affordable houses, they stick to those commitments. I commend the new clauses to the Committee, and I look forward to the Minister’s response.

[Gideon Amos]

I rise to say a few words about new clause 1, but I will principally speak about our new clause 55, which is a mechanism to incentivise the building of housing developments that have lain unbuilt and undeveloped for three years.

On new clause 1, I am very sympathetic to the proposal made by the hon. Members for North Herefordshire and for North East Hertfordshire—we are only missing Hampshire—but, frankly, we prefer our approach. There is a long-standing principle in planning law that the person of the applicant is not a relevant consideration, and by and large we wish to stand by that. There is scope for the new clause to be used to prejudice particular applicants.

There is also a practical consideration. Land changes hands very quickly and, whoever owns it, different applicants can make applications. I am reminded of the famous case in Oxford of university students applying for a nuclear power station on Christ Church meadow, because a person can apply for anything on any land, whether they own it or not. In fact, the Town and Country Planning Association applied for permission for an airport on Maplin Sands, even though it was probably not going to be able to build it. Those bizarre examples demonstrate that the person of the applicant is not a relevant consideration.

Under new clause 1, a different applicant with a different name or a different agent of the same landowner could immediately come forward, so I have practical concerns about it. Our approach is to introduce a “use it or lose it” principle into the planning system. Specifically, where a development of 100 homes or more has been granted permission but not started within the applicable period—usually three years—the land will transfer to the relevant local authority. We expect that in those circumstances, the usual provisions of the Land Compensation Acts and the principles of fairness in compulsory acquisition, which I referred to in a previous debate, would apply.

We accept the principle that developers and house builders need a pipeline—a plan for their land—but three years is a significant amount of time. The recent moves to encourage the build-out of homes that have not been built have not succeeded. We have had a reduction from five years to three years in the lifespan of planning permissions, but there has not been a significant change in the build-out rate, so we need significant measures if we are to make these major schemes happen.

This is not about penalising people; it is about dealing with an issue that is clearly undermining our ability to tackle the housing crisis. Across the country, there are permissions for 1.5 million new homes that have not been built—13,000 in my authority area of Somerset alone. Those homes could house thousands of families. Research from TerraQuest, which operates the planning portal—not a particularly radical or out-there organisation —shows that a third of all homes given planning permission since 2015 have not been built. Ten years on, that shows that unbuilt permissions are an enduring problem that needs to be tackled. If all those permissions had been built out, the Government would have hit their annual 300,000 homes target in eight out of the last 10 years, and yet the approach so far focuses almost entirely on allocating more and more permissions in the hope that that will result in more homes being built.

There is no lack of planning permissions; the problem is that developers are not building out the ones they already have, because the current system does not penalise delay. Two big things could be done to improve housing supply: funding social housing and funding infrastructure. If those things were funded in a range of areas around the country, there would be almost unlimited build-out rates on stalled sites.

Developers clearly, and I think reasonably and rationally, will only build out at a rate that sustains the price of their product and their viability. They have fiduciary duties to their shareholders, and they need to maintain the viability of their companies. So they will not build out at a rate significant enough to flood the local market with housing and depress the price. We cannot blame them for wanting to make a profit—that is what we expect them to do—but we need to fund social housing publicly, as it was funded in the past, to get out of that bind. That is why I believe we need a stronger lever than we currently have.

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[Gideon Amos]

It is a privilege to continue to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Jardine.

New clause 5 would require building regulations to be made that require new homes to meet the zero carbon standard and to include renewable energy. Back in 2006, the then Labour Government rightly set out plans to achieve zero carbon in new housing. The same Government made a commitment in the carbon plan that there would be a regulatory requirement for zero carbon homes from 2016, which was the key date. That 2016 commitment was renewed by the coalition Government in 2011 and was included in the 2014 Infrastructure Bill. However, all the commitments to on-site efficiency standards and allowable solutions—the extra bit to make new homes zero carbon—were cancelled by the incoming Conservative Government in 2015, in a shocking retrograde step in addressing carbon emissions.

We came so close to achieving the zero carbon homes standard back then. A cross-sector ministerial taskforce had been in place from around 2008. Two preparatory upgrades to building regulations had already been made—by the Labour Government in 2010, and by the coalition Government in 2013—and regulations were drafted for the 2016 upgrade that would have delivered zero carbon homes.

Labour housing and planning Ministers who are now in the Cabinet—I will not name them in case they do not want to be named—chaired the ministerial taskforce and took the programme forward. Under the coalition Government, a predecessor of my hon. Friend the Member for Hazel Grove (Lisa Smart), Andrew Stunell—to whom I pay tribute, and who introduced his first Bill on this subject back in 2004—continued the zero carbon homes programme as a Minister until 2015.

We then had the complete cancellation of the programme in 2015. The Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit has estimated that, had the zero carbon standard been reached, residents would have paid £5 billion less in energy bills since 2016 as a result of living in better insulated and more energy-efficient homes.

My noble Friend Baroness Parminter tabled a zero carbon homes amendment to the 2015-16 Housing and Planning Bill on Report, but the then Government did not support it. The Minister at the time in the Lords said that the Government would

“introduce nearly zero energy building standards”.—[Official Report, House of Lords, 25 April 2016; Vol. 771, c. 925.]

Of course, that falls well short. Undeterred, the Lords voted in favour again; the then Government ultimately tabled their own amendment that committed to reviewing energy performance requirements under building regulations, but they never did so—and, again, that fell a long way short.

Almost 20 years on, we still do not have a zero carbon standard for new homes. It was, and still should be, a cross-party and cross-sector issue. There is a legal commitment to reduce carbon emissions in this country, and mandating zero carbon new homes would ensure that we do not make the task even harder for ourselves than it already is. Zero carbon homes insulate households not just in terms of energy but from fluctuations in energy prices. They reduce demand for electricity from the national grid and obviously reduce carbon footprint.

Much more recently, my hon. Friend the Member for Cheltenham (Max Wilkinson) tried again to acquire a degree of solar generation on new homes with a private Member’s Bill—his sunshine Bill. When the Minister responded to that debate back in January, he said that

“the Government already intend to amend building regulations later this year...that will set more ambitious energy efficiency and carbon emissions requirements for new homes.”—[Official Report, 17 January 2025; Vol. 760, c. 652.]

I am not sure why I am quoting the Minister to himself, but he will no doubt recall saying that rooftop solar deployment will increase significantly as a result.

We look forward to a response on the new clause, which moves us towards and helps to deliver zero carbon homes. It would give the Government six months to set out regulations, and it merely seeks to hold the Minister to his word on the topic. The Minister ought to emulate once more the forward-looking approach of the Labour Government back in 2006, who committed this country to a trajectory of zero carbon homes. Almost 20 years on, we and many others want the certainty of a legislative provision to secure a zero carbon future for British housing and bring the benefits of solar generation to all residents.

After all, we could have avoided building an entire new power station had this standard been introduced in 2016, as was proposed through cross-party agreement at the time. It is now almost a decade since the first zero carbon homes plan would have been introduced. This will be a lost opportunity if Parliament does not commit, finally, to taking that last step to make all new homes zero carbon.

[Ellie Chowns]

I warmly welcome the new clause tabled by the hon. Member for Taunton and Wellington. I refer colleagues to the fact that I have proposed a private Member’s Bill on exactly this topic—the Carbon Emissions from Buildings (Net Zero) Bill—and my very first Westminster Hall debate was on environmental building standards, so I am fully behind the new clause.

It is essential that we build new housing to the best possible standards, and that we build new homes that are fully fit for the future. We know that doing so has social, environmental and economic benefits. It has social benefits, because it reduces people’s fuel bills and tackles issues such as mould in homes. It has environmental benefits, because, of course, there are huge energy efficiency advantages. It has economic benefits, not least because it is much more economically efficient in the long run to build houses effectively at the start so that we do not have to retrofit them years down the line. We already have a huge retrofit challenge in the coming years, so the very least we can do is to ensure that all new houses are built to zero carbon standards.

The new clause refers specifically to solar power generation on roofs. I warmly welcome the Government’s announcement—I believe it was on local election day—that they are moving in that direction. However, in zero carbon design, other factors are much more important, including building orientation, design around transport and fabric first. I would like to discuss another factor, namely embodied carbon. I have tabled new clause 91 on the subject, but I am not sure that we will get there. When we talk about zero carbon, we need to recognise both the operational carbon, which is the carbon produced by a building during its lifespan—over the next, say, 80 years—and the embodied carbon in buildings, which is becoming a larger factor in the construction industry. We will soon be at the point where embodied carbon is half of the carbon associated with a building during its lifetime.

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[Gideon Amos]

New clause 9 concerns healthy homes, and would ensure that national and local government plans are designed with a clear and explicit aim of improving the physical, mental and social health and wellbeing of people in those homes.

We cannot afford to keep building homes that make people ill. It is instructive to recall that the original planning system and the original planning Act emerged from the garden city movement, the public health movement and the desire to enable people to escape from slums. The first planning Act was the Housing, Town Planning, etc. Act 1909, which was mainly concerned with public health. We need to re-establish the link between planning and health if we are going to improve our health outcomes, prevent health inequalities and address the sicknesses in our society.

Right now, 3.5 million homes, which are lived in by around 15% of households, fail to meet the decent homes standard. That is not just a housing issue; it is a public health issue. According to the Resolution Foundation, poor-quality housing doubles the likelihood of someone experiencing poor general health. It costs the NHS £1.4 billion a year to treat to treat and costs society an estimated £18.5 billion, because it damages productivity, education outcomes and life chances. If we are serious about levelling up and addressing health inequalities, we must start with the homes that people live in.

We know that deregulation has not worked. The extension of permitted developments under the last Government allowed the conversion of offices and shops into substandard housing, flats without windows, and rooms too small for someone to stretch their arms out without touching the walls. Those were “homes” in name only. If the Government enact any further changes to permitted development rights, they should at least adopt this new clause to ensure that those homes are healthy, regardless of how they are built.

Even the revised national planning policy framework, while nodding towards health inequalities, includes no effective levers to address them or to force those making development decisions to consider health outcomes. A vague instruction to have regard to local health inequalities is simply not enough.

Similarly, while the decent homes standard refers to health outcomes, it deals only with fixing the dangers in the existing rental stock. We need to consider health outcomes during the development stage to prevent dangers, rather than considering them only when they have already become a problem. This new clause would do that. It is about designing out risks from the start and embedding health into the DNA of planning once again, and into development policy.

This new clause is backed by the Town and Country Planning Association, which says it will establish clarity on housing standards and wider development quality, setting a level playing field for industry. That is fundamental for promoting positive health outcomes across all new homes and communities.

Surely, it is time that we moved from building homes quickly and at any cost to building them well and making them healthy for the people who live in them. I urge the Committee to support new clause 9.

[Ellie Chowns]

I rise to speak to new clauses 14 and 41, which have been grouped with new clause 9 and address the same question of what the purpose of planning should be. To be clear, new clause 14 has the support of the Town and Country Planning Association, and new clause 41 has the support of the Royal Town Planning Institute. Indeed, there is a widely held view in the planning sector that it is necessary to have a clear statutory purpose for planning, both to guide planning decisions and to make it more publicly understandable what planning does and what it is for.

The suggestion in these new clauses is that the Planning and Infrastructure Bill should take the opportunity to set out a clear purpose for planning, based on the UN’s sustainable development principles, to which, of course, the UK Government are a signatory and make fairly frequent reference. That would offer an opportunity to build consensus around the purpose of planning in all its diverse glory—not just in plan making, but in decision making.

What we have seen with the Government’s emphasis on reframing national planning policy in the NPPF as being all about economic growth is not just bad for the environment but risks missing out on the opportunity to ensure that all planning policy and decisions are good for people, as the hon. Member for Taunton and Wellington just explained.

Creating a statutory purpose for planning would give a clear foundation for national planning policy and would help to prevent the sudden shifts in national policy direction that have been a feature of the system since 2010. As it currently stands, planning law has only an exceptionally weak duty:

“to contribute to the achievement of sustainable development”.

That duty is limited only to plan making and does not extend to decision making. That existing duty contains no definition of sustainable development and makes no reference to the internationally recognised framework of the sustainable development goals.

I feel that in framing a vision for our future development, as outlined in new clause 14, a specific requirement should be placed on the Secretary of State to have special regard for the wellbeing of present and future generations in planning. Planning decisions are, by definition, long term. The world we inhabit today is shaped by planning decisions made decades in the past, so it can only be right that we explicitly recognise the needs of children and young people in both plan making and decision making.

Although new clauses 14 and 41 have slightly different wording, their intention is effectively the same, which is to ask the Secretary of State to use the Bill as an opportunity to set out a statutory purpose for planning that specifically frames all planning decisions around the broad concept of sustainable development, as very clearly articulated in the SDGs and elsewhere.

Planning and Infrastructure Bill (Tenth sitting)

Debate between Ellie Chowns and Gideon Amos

Committee stage
Thursday 15th May 2025 Public Bill Committees

[Ellie Chowns]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship again, Mrs Hobhouse.

The amendment relates to the mitigation hierarchy. As previously, I refer to the advice from the Office for Environmental Protection, which called particular attention to the weakening of the mitigation hierarchy in the wording of the Bill. The OEP advice to Government mentioned that specifically in relation to clause 50. My amendment relates to clause 61, but it refers to precisely the same issue.

The mitigation hierarchy is a tool that delivers for nature and for development. It has done so for many years. The omission of the hierarchy from environmental delivery plans will therefore undermine their effectiveness as a means of delivering nature recovery and smooth development progression. The Minister has been at pains to reiterate his view that nature protection and development can happen hand in hand. I completely agree, but if the mitigation hierarchy is removed entirely—as, in essence, it is by the wording of the Bill—unfortunately that will not happen.

To be specific, the mitigation hierarchy directs development plans to prioritise actions to avoid harm to nature first, then to minimise harms and, as a last resort, to compensate for the impacts of development on biodiversity. The hierarchy is avoid, minimise and mitigate, and compensate or offset.

The “seeking to avoid damage first” principle is enormously important for nature. Natural habitats and species populations take a really long time to build up; some damage can take decades to be replaced or repaired by mitigatory action. I have already spoken about irreparable habitat damage. Such damage to what is known as irreplaceable habitat, and the species that rely on it, cannot be repaired.

For example, ancient oaks grow over hundreds of years to create complex ecosystems with species that have evolved alongside the oaks and need those ecosystems to thrive. Research suggests that 326 species in the UK can only survive on established and ancient oak trees, so the destruction of an ancient oak, such as the one tragically felled in Whitewebbs Park in Enfield a few weeks ago, or—even worse—of a whole swathe of ancient woodland, means the destruction of the only home possible for reliant species in that area, in effect signing their death notice. Any replacement woodland would take centuries to become an ancient woodland ecosystem, even if the conditions were perfect. That delay is so long that species cannot survive it, making the replacement effectively redundant.

Without the mitigation hierarchy, there is no decision-making framework to prioritise avoidance of such fatal damage to irreplaceable habitats such as ancient oak woodlands or to other habitats, and of threats to the future of reliant species. That gap in the framework causes problems for development as well as for nature. The famous bat tunnel, mentioned previously, in part stemmed from a High Speed 2 failure to apply the mitigation hierarchy properly at the start of the process, at the point of design. Had that hierarchy been applied early and in full, avoidance to damage to an ancient woodland, home to a large number of threatened species, including the extremely rare Bechstein’s bat, would have been prioritised—avoidance would have been prioritised—preventing the need for clumsy attempts at mitigation measures such as the tunnel.

Swift and effective use of the mitigation hierarchy at the start of a proposal can nip development problems in the bud. Given the effectiveness of the mitigation hierarchy as a development planning tool, therefore, it is deeply concerning that clause 61(3) will, in effect, disapply the mitigation hierarchy from environmental delivery plans. That was confirmed in a recent answer by the Housing Minister to a parliamentary question, where subsection (3) was described as enabling a “flexibility to diverge” from the mitigation hierarchy.

Departure from the mitigation hierarchy risks environmental delivery plans, permitting the destruction of irreplaceable habitats and causing damage to other habitats and reliant species. It also threatens bumps in the road for EDPs as a development progression mechanism and, if EDPs permit measures that would destroy irreplaceable habitats, they will lose the confidence of nature stakeholders and local communities and be more open to challenge, potentially to the extent of a replacement being required and development delayed across whole areas.

My amendment would head off those risks by applying the mitigation hierarchy to EDPs, just as it applies to other planning decisions under paragraph 33 of the national planning policy framework. It would instruct Natural England to accept an application to pay a nature restoration levy for a development only if the developer has first taken reasonable steps to apply the mitigation hierarchy.

The requirement to demonstrate consideration of the mitigation hierarchy created by my amendment would not be a heavy one. Compliance with the requirement could be demonstrated by the developer explaining how development proposals have been informed by efforts to prioritise the avoidance of harm to environmental features.

As part of the explanation, the developer could, for example, propose planning conditions being used to secure onsite measures to reduce harm, such as including green infrastructure; many developers will already be looking to integrate these features anyway because they recognise the wider health and wellbeing benefits that green infrastructure in developments can deliver. The use of the words “reasonable steps” in my amendment would also help to ensure that developers’ consideration of how to apply the mitigation hierarchy would not be onerous. The amendment has been drafted in an effort to reinforce commitment to the mitigation hierarchy without creating unreasonable expectations.

The consideration of the mitigation hierarchy would be a matter of factoring in environmental considerations and efforts to avoid irreparable damage into early development plans and demonstrating to Natural England that that has been done, rather than any lengthy assessment process. Much of the work should already have been considered and recorded as part of the initial process of identifying development sites, designing a development and assessing biodiversity net gain requirements.

The amendment also provides an extra degree of protection for the most precious sites and irreplaceable habitats, about which I have already spoken in this Committee, by allowing levy payment requests to be accepted for developments that would damage these rare sites and habitats only when there is an overriding public interest for the development to proceed. That would apply to only a very small number of developments, as the most precious sites and irreplaceable habitats are sadly small in number and, as I have emphasised, irreplaceable. There is a reason why the mitigation hierarchy has been used since the 1980s—almost my entire life—as a decision-making framework in UK planning and why it still has a central place in the revised NPPF: it works for nature and development alike.

The amendment would ensure that EDPs benefited from the mitigation hierarchy as other parts of planning do. It would ensure that they were able to catch and delay costly development mistakes before they happened and prevent EDPs from becoming a rubber stamp for the destruction of irreplaceable habitats. I call the attention of the Committee and the Minister to page 5 of the annexe to the Office for Environmental Protection’s advice to us. It emphasises that

“Mitigation hierarchies are an important component of existing environmental law”

and calls attention to its concern that the effect of the current drafting of the Bill could allow a protected site to be harmed in a way contrary to existing environmental law and the stated purpose of the Bill. I hope that the Minister will warmly consider my amendment.

[Gideon Amos (Taunton and Wellington) (LD)]

It is a privilege to continue to serve the Committee with you back in the Chair, Mrs Hobhouse. The mitigation hierarchy is incredibly important. In fact, the Liberal Democrats were aiming to put down an amendment very similar to this one, but the hon. Member for North Herefordshire beat us to it—congratulations to her on that.

Clearly, the mitigation hierarchy is an important feature of the playing system, which has endured for a long time. One of the principal concerns with EDPs is that they will not ensure that oversight measures are taken first and foremost. The principle of “first do no harm” must guide everything we do in protecting the environment and in dealing with development that may affect the environment. We will support the amendment.

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[Gideon Amos]

I will be reasonably brief—the Committee will be pleased to know that I have been striking sections out of my speaking notes as the Committee days wear on. [Hon. Members: “Hear, hear!”] Louder!

Amendment 9 would ensure that funding was available up front from the nature restoration levy and to provide mitigation on development sites. It is important, in terms of the effectiveness of any mitigation provided, that it happens up front, and not later on or after works have happened.

In terms of nature and biodiversity, the UK is one of the most depleted countries in the world. One in six species is threatened with extinction. In partnership with our pump-prime funding amendment—amendment 6 to clause 67—the amendment seeks to ensure that the levy, upon receipt by Natural England, is used as soon as possible, in order that the nature recovery fund can go some way towards ensuring that overall species abundance is increasing, rather than decreasing, by 2030. It would not be legitimate for money to sit unused in Natural England’s coffers when there is an ongoing crisis and action urgently needs to be taken.

Amendment 10 is consequential on new clause 18. It would ensure that nature restoration levy money is reserved for future expenditure—it “may” be reserved, but again that is very uncertain. That funding needs to be there and it needs to be protected. In line with our amendment to ensure that the nature restoration fund levy is not unreasonably delayed, amendment 10 would ensure that the money is put to use as soon as is reasonably practicable and is reserved for planned future expenditure.

[Ellie Chowns]

I fully support this.

Planning and Infrastructure Bill (Ninth sitting)

Debate between Ellie Chowns and Gideon Amos

Committee stage
Thursday 15th May 2025 Public Bill Committees

[Ellie Chowns]

rose—

[Gideon Amos]

rose—

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[Gideon Amos]

It is with great excitement that we move on to another clause. I will speak briefly, but this is an important amendment. In the same way that protests from developers, in another part of the planning system, about viability end up affecting the outcomes of planning applications by, in particular, reducing social housing numbers, we are concerned that protests from developers could lead to calls to change EDPs. If EDPs are to be changed—this is a very simple point—that should not mean a reduction in the environmental protection therein.

Amendment 15, also tabled in my name, is in line with our amendments 14 and 11, to which I have already spoken, which were about strengthening the environmental tests. The Government have made it clear that they seek to achieve a win-win here, but in our opinion that will not happen without that additional wording and strengthening.

We have heard from the Minister that his point of reference, like ours, is to improve the status quo. At the moment, we are not convinced that the status quo will be improved. I am grateful to him for being extremely generous with his time on all the clauses by accepting numerous interventions, and for his assurances that he will reflect. I am sure that he will do so, but for such a, dare I say, common-sense amendment—that changes to an EDP should not mean a reduction in environmental protection—he might do even more than reflect: perhaps reflect positively on it. We feel that the amendment is entirely pragmatic, sensible and difficult to refute, although no doubt attempts will be made to do so.

[Ellie Chowns]

Will the Minister explicitly address the concerns expressed by the OEP, in its advice on clause 58, about the fact that there is no requirement to consult? The Secretary of State “may direct” Natural England to consult on an amendment, but does not have to. There is also no mandatory requirement to initiate a review or to update an EDP if there is evidence that it is failing to achieve its intended effects.

Planning and Infrastructure Bill (Eighth sitting)

Debate between Ellie Chowns and Gideon Amos

Committee stage
Wednesday 14th May 2025 Public Bill Committees

[Gideon Amos]

It is a pleasure to serve with you in the Chair, Mrs Hobhouse. I rise to speak to amendments 88 and 89, which together relate to spatial development strategies and their content. The important point is that spatial development strategies should provide properly for climate change mitigation and adaptation. Currently, the Bill says that they “may” provide for those matters. From the Liberal Democrats’ point of view, spatial development strategies must provide for tackling climate change.

Amendment 89 seeks to change the Bill’s current wording so that instead of saying that spatial development strategies may consider mitigation “or” adaptation, it says that they must consider mitigation “and” adaptation. It seems perverse that it should be one or the other. That may not be the intention, and no doubt the Minister will have a lengthy explanation as to why the Bill is drafted as it is, but our position is that climate change must be tackled in spatial development strategies. It is not an either/or in terms of adaptation and mitigation: it needs to be both.

[Ellie Chowns (North Herefordshire) (Green)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mrs Hobhouse. I speak in support of the amendments tabled by my colleague, the hon. Member for Taunton and Wellington, and also in support of amendment 79, on social infrastructure.

Amendment 79 is a probing amendment, emphasising the importance of social infrastructure such as parks, libraries, community hubs and sports facilities. These elements of the public realm are so important for community cohesion and strong communities. There are many communities that are doubly disadvantaged: they are economically disadvantaged and they lack the social infrastructure that is a key catalyst for development, social cohesion and wellbeing locally. We have a real opportunity in the Bill to specify the importance of social infrastructure—the elements of public space that enable people to come together to make connections and strengthen communities, and that act as the springboard for prosperity.

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[Ellie Chowns]

I beg to move amendment 93, in clause 47, page 66, line 18, at end insert—

“(6A) Where a spatial development strategy includes a Smoke Control Area or an Air Quality Management Area, the strategy must—

(a) identify measures to reduce air pollution resulting from the development and use of land in that area, and

(b) outline the responsibilities of strategic planning authorities in relation to the management of air quality.”

This amendment would require spatial development strategies which cover Smoke Control Areas or Air Quality Management Areas to consider air pollution and air quality.

This amendment would require that, where a spatial development strategy includes a smoke control area or an air quality management area, the strategy must identify specific measures to reduce air pollution from the development and use of land, and must outline the responsibilities of strategic planning authorities in managing air quality.

Currently, over 10 million people in the UK live in smoke control areas: zones where restrictions are placed on burning certain fuels or using specific appliances to reduce particular emissions. Likewise, more than 400 air quality management areas have been declared by local authorities under the Environment Act 1995 in locations where air pollution exceeds national air quality objectives. These are places where we are really not doing well enough on air pollution. Despite the formal recognition of these zones, they are often not meaningfully integrated into spatial development strategies, so this legislation gives us an opportunity to ensure that new housing, transport and infrastructure projects, when approved, must fully account for their cumulative impacts on already poor air quality.

Construction and land development are direct contributors to air pollution through increased traffic volume, emissions from building activity and the removal of green space that helps to filter pollutants. In many cases, strategic planning authorities are not required to take those factors into account when drafting or approving development strategies. The amendment would close that gap by ensuring that air quality is treated not as a secondary consideration, but a fundamental part of sustainable planning. Perhaps I should declare an interest as an asthmatic, like huge numbers of people in the UK.

The amendment also strengthens the accountability of strategic planning authorities, by requiring them not just to assess air quality impacts, but to work out what they are going to do—to define their roles—in addressing them. That would help to prevent the recurring issue where the responsibility for mitigating air pollution falls between Departments or different levels of government, central and local. It would ensure that development strategies are consistent with the UK’s broader legal commitments to air quality, including the targets that we set under the Environment Act 2021 and the national air quality strategy.

From a public health perspective, the case for the amendment is clear. Air pollution is linked to an estimated 43,000 premature deaths annually in the UK. That is a huge number and contributes to a range of serious health conditions, particularly among children, older adults and those living in deprived areas. The economic cost of air pollution, including its impact on the NHS, is estimated at a whopping £20 billion a year. Embedding air quality considerations directly into spatial planning is a proactive and cost-effective way to address the crisis before further harm is done to human health.

I believe that the amendment provides a clear, proportionate mechanism for ensuring that planning strategies support our clean air objectives. I strongly urge the Minister to consider warmly the amendment.

[Gideon Amos]

I very much sympathise with the amendment. Indeed, I have air quality management areas in my constituency of Taunton and Wellington, including two that breach the lawful limits of air pollution. We desperately need the bypass for Thornfalcon and Henlade, which would solve that particular issue.

In brief, I feel that the approach in amendment 93 is not quite right, because it would be better directed at local plans. As I understand it, spatial development strategies are not site-specific or area-specific in their proposals. We do not feel that the amendment is quite the right approach, but we are very sympathetic to the hon. Member for North Herefordshire’s motivation for tabling it.

[Matthew Pennycook]

Once again, I understand the positive intent of the hon. Member for North Herefordshire’s amendment. Of course, improving air quality is a highly important issue in many parts of the country, not least in my own south-east London constituency. It is part of the reason why, many moons ago now, I established the all-party parliamentary group on air pollution. It is a public health issue and a social justice issue, and the Government are committed to improving air quality across the country. Amendment 93, however, is another example of trying to ask SDSs to do things that they are not designed for, and replicating existing duties and requirements that bear down on authorities in an SDS.

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[Gideon Amos]

I rise to speak to amendments 90 and 91—hon. Members will be pleased to hear that I will be brief. We have significant concerns about community involvement in consultation and about many of the points that have just been made. I have more to say on all that for the next group, in which we have tabled an amendment to make those points.

Amendments 90 and 91 would simply ensure that disabled people are consulted in the preparation of spatial development strategies. The Equality Act 2010 includes a public sector equality duty: a duty on public authorities to advance equality and eliminate discrimination. That implies that disabled people should be consulted on spatial development strategies in any case. The Housing, Communities and Local Government Committee’s report on disabled people in the housing sector said:

“Despite the cross-government effort to ‘ensure disability inclusion is a priority’…we have found little evidence that the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities is treating disabled people’s needs as a priority in housing policy.”

We need to make sure that the voices of disabled people are heard in the preparation of spatial development strategies.

[Ellie Chowns]

I rise, briefly, to support the substantive point about the necessity of public consultation on something as important as a spatial planning strategy. As new section 12H of the Planning and Compulsory Purchase Act 2004 is entitled “Consultation and representations”, it is disappointing that there is actually no provision for consultation. There is provision only for the consideration of notification, which is inadequate for strategies that will be as important as these. I urge the Minister to consider going away and aligning the text of his clause with the title of his clause.

Planning and Infrastructure Bill (Seventh sitting)

Debate between Ellie Chowns and Gideon Amos

Committee stage
Wednesday 14th May 2025 Public Bill Committees

[Gideon Amos]

Amendment 29 would give effect to the Liberal Democrat target of building 150,000 new social homes per year by introducing such a requirement into spatial development strategies. It is a commitment set out in our manifesto, alongside a funding commitment of £6 billion per annum of capital investment—above current levels of affordable housing programme spending—to get to that level of provision over the course of a Parliament.

In contrast, the Government’s commitment of £2 billion in affordable housing programme funding for 2026-27, for up to 18,000 homes, is welcome but, in our view, does not go far enough. For too many people, a decent home has crept out of reach. The National Housing Federation and Shelter both make it clear that at least 90,000 new social homes are needed per year, given the loss of 20,500 social homes in 2023-24. According to the New Economics Foundation, 2 million council and social rent homes have been lost to right to buy since the 1980s, but only 4% of those have been replaced—a massive sell-off, leaving far too many people out in the cold when it comes to their housing aspirations.

A bath cannot be filled if the plug has been taken out. We need to end the current system of right to buy and allow councils the power to do so. As the University of Glasgow has shown, the building of private homes—even at the rates the Government advocate—will not mean any significant reduction in house prices. We should not rely on the private sector to build those low-rent and social rent homes we need. Private sector homes are built for profit. We need private market housing, and we have consented to thousands of new homes in my Taunton and Wellington constituency. However, those homes will never be released on to the market at a rate that will diminish prices or bring rents down to the levels that most people can afford. For all those reasons, we need to build 150,000 social rent homes per year, and that is the target that this amendment seeks to install into spatial environment strategies.

[Ellie Chowns]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Dr Huq. I rise to speak to amendments 17 and 94. Can you clarify this is the correct time to do so?

Planning and Infrastructure Bill (Third sitting)

Debate between Ellie Chowns and Gideon Amos

Committee stage
Tuesday 29th April 2025 Public Bill Committees

[Gideon Amos]

This set of amendments is, at first sight, very sweeping and broad, as it will remove large sections of the Planning Act 2008. However, we have some sympathy with the Government. Provisions were put into the Act to proscribe dangerous commissioners who might make decisions without proper scrutiny. Given that the decisions reverted to the Secretary of State in 2011, it seems that a number of them may not be needed.

None the less, it is important to ensure that consultation is meaningful and of high quality. In place of the Planning Act provisions, we want a consultation test on the face of the Bill; if the machinery of the Committee so allows, we would like to table an amendment along those lines. If there is no test at all for meaningful consultation in NSIPs, these amendments would simply remove a great number of requirements for consultation without putting anything in their place. We should be moving from a set of sections in the Act that are about the mechanics of consultation to a qualitative test: consultation should be meaningful, and people should have had the opportunity to be consulted.

We would like to see the key principles in the guidance on the face of the Bill. That is the spirit in which we will respond to the amendments. We hope to be able to bring forward proposals for the Committee to consider.

[Ellie Chowns]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mrs Hobhouse, as I should have said earlier. There are three reasons why I, too, have concerns about new clauses 44 and 45 and the removal of the requirement for pre-application consultation.

First, pre-application consultation is often a very useful process, as a way of highlighting and addressing issues between developers and other stakeholders before we get to the formal, structured, legalistic processes. There was a case in Suffolk in which engagement between the Wildlife Trust and National Grid resulted in the trust’s concerns being addressed in such a way that they did not have to be raised in a more legalistic way later in the process. Pre-application consultation is useful and productive for all parties. It is not for developers to decide whether pre-application consultation will be useful in a particular case, but there should be a statutory requirement for key stakeholders, such as local authorities, to be consulted in that way.

My second concern is that the replacement guidance requirements set out in new clause 45 do not provide sufficient clarity for developers, communities and other stakeholders, or for the Planning Inspectorate, on what pre-application engagement is required specifically, because the wording is too vague to provide sufficient clarity. “Have regard to” is a relatively weak duty, while

“what the Secretary of State considers to be best practice in terms of the steps they might take”

is very vague language. It would be open to interpretation and potentially to contestation, which could be unhelpful to speeding up the process in the way we seek.

My third concern, notwithstanding individual examples of processes that might have been held up, is that generally speaking pre-application consultation and public engagement is not the main constraint on the rapid processing of such applications. I understand that research conducted by Cavendish in 2024 looked at DCO consent times from 2011 to 2023. It found that for the first 70 projects going through the DCO process up until 2017, the response time was pretty reasonable. What changed in 2017? It was not the pre-application consultation requirements, which remained the same throughout the process.

Political chaos is what caused the change. Cavendish’s report identifies that it was political turmoil and manoeuvring that caused delays to happen once projects reached the Secretary of State’s desk—I see my Conservative colleague, the hon. Member for Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner, nodding. Who was in government at that time? We had the turnover of Prime Ministers, Ministers and so forth. Bearing all that in mind—the fact that pre-application consultation is a very useful way of deconflicting issues of contestation, the fact that the replacement guidance is so vague as to be unhelpful and itself probably subject to test, and the fact that this is the wrong solution to the problem of delays—I am concerned.

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[Ellie Chowns]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention. I would observe that generally speaking the way oral evidence sessions work is that the Government decide who they want to come and give evidence to support the arguments that they wish to put forward in Committee, so I am not all that surprised that we might have heard that evidence. I am not discounting what the witness said, but I am suggesting that there are other ways to look at it. A blanket removal of the pre-app consultation process with stakeholders who have a huge stake in applications, such as local authorities, is an excessively blanket position to take.

[Gideon Amos]

Would the hon. Member support a test in the Bill of the quality of the consultation carried out, in place of the mechanistic requirements in the previous Act? They do not actually exist in the Town and Country Planning Act, for example, and normal planning processes.

[Ellie Chowns]

Indeed, and I noted the hon. Gentleman’s comments about bringing forward a proposal about meaningful consultation. I would very much welcome looking at that. I think that would help to address the concerns being raised here.