Planning and Infrastructure Bill (Fourteenth sitting)

Debate between Ellie Chowns and Rachel Taylor

Committee stage
Thursday 22nd May 2025 Public Bill Committees

[Ellie Chowns]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship once more, Mrs Hobhouse. I rise to speak in strong support of a group of new clauses that address a clear and growing risk to public health, quality of life and economic productivity: domestic overheating. It may surprise some—hopefully no one in this room—to know that the risk of overheating in homes is now one of the most severe climate-related threats in the UK. The Climate Change Committee’s independent climate risk assessment identifies overheating in homes as one of the most severe climate risks, requiring urgent action. Over half of UK homes are already at risk of overheating, and that is projected to increase to 90% homes under a 2°C global warming scenario, which unfortunately is a possibility.

This is not some distant hypothetical; the Met Office recorded the UK’s first ever 40°C day in 2022. Already around 2,000 deaths per year in England are attributed to heat waves, a number that is projected to more than triple by the 2050s under even a medium-emissions scenario. This is not just a health issue but an economic one. Evidence shows that overheating in buildings could cost the UK economy £60 billion a year—the equivalent of 1.5% to 2% of GDP—through lost productivity. That is on top of the economic costs of heat-related mortality, estimated to already be £6.4 billion per year in England, which is likely to increase to £14.7 billion per year by the 2050s. These are huge figures.

As highlighted by the Climate Change Committee,

“early adaptation investments deliver high value for money”,

with every £1 invested in adaptation delivering £10 in net economic benefits. That is a huge rate of return and a huge benefit-cost ratio. As heard by the Environmental Audit Committee, passive measures supported through planning, such as installing external shutters, can reduce incidence of heat mortality by around 40%.

Given the urgency, I draw the Committee’s attention to a regrettable decision made more than a decade ago. In 2012, the coalition Government removed references to “overheating” from the national planning policy framework. This left a significant gap in our planning system’s ability to deal with overheating risks—one that has not been adequately addressed since. That is precisely why we need the new clauses. There are five in the group, each of which deals with a particular element that needs addressing, and I will go through them now.

New clause 77 would empower local authorities to impose conditions on planning permissions where there is demonstrable overheating risk, such as single-aspect flatted developments with no cross-ventilation. It is a targeted, proportionate provision that would allow planning authorities to respond to local climatic data with appropriate preventive conditions, and it would undo the short-sighted change introduced by the previous Government.

New clause 78 would introduce statutory guidance on the cooling hierarchy, an approach that is already familiar in London planning policy. The hierarchy prioritises passive design strategies, such as shading and ventilation, before resorting to energy-intensive cooling. This aligns with our net zero goals and ensures resilience, without placing undue burden on developers and the grid. Why would we not ensure that our buildings can effectively cool themselves before going to measures such as installing air conditioning?

New clause 79 would address a significant gap by requiring all full planning applications for residential developments to include an overheating risk assessment, using the established TM59 standard, or its successor, from the Chartered Institution of Building Services Engineers. At present, many new homes are being designed with large, south-facing windows, poor ventilation and inadequate shading. Building regulations alone do not capture this risk at the early design stage, so the planning system must intervene. Overheating is a planning issue, not just a building regulations issue. Building regulations govern how buildings are constructed; planning dictates what gets built and where.

[Rachel Taylor (North Warwickshire and Bedworth) (Lab)]

It is a long-standing norm that building regulations deal not just with the construction of buildings but their thermal efficiency and performance. That is why energy performance certificates were introduced, and there are regulations on windows, glazing and glass roofs all found within the building regulations. Surely these provisions on overheating need to go hand in hand with those provisions on thermal efficiency in housing, and therefore sit far better within building regulations than in this Bill.

[Ellie Chowns]

I do not at all dispute that there is potential to go further and faster within the framework of building regulations to address the risks that I am outlining. However, there is also potential within the planning framework to do it, which is exactly the point that I have made. The removal of “overheating” from the planning framework in 2022 meant that things have got worse. We have an opportunity in the Bill to ensure that we tackle overheating through the planning framework, as well as the building regulations framework. It really is not an either/or. There is scope and need within both those frameworks to address the risks that I am outlining.

New clause 80 would ensure that local plans must consider passive design in residential development, from cross-ventilation to thermal mass. These are well-established strategies that can drastically reduce indoor temperatures during extreme heat events without energy use.

Finally, new clause 81 would ensure that local authorities have access to up-to-date, localised overheating risk data. Evidence-based planning is possible only when planners are equipped with timely, spatially accurate information. Datasets such as these have already been pioneered in places like Bristol, with its Keep Bristol Cool map and local plan policies. Likewise, the Department for Environment Food and Rural Affairs has been developing national data on overheating, and that could form the basis of rolling out such support nationally.

We really must not miss this opportunity. Climate adaptation cannot be an afterthought; it needs to be embedded in our planning framework and how we plan our communities, protect our citizens and shape the homes of tomorrow. These five new clauses offer a clear, practical and urgently needed framework to ensure that our planning system is fit for a warmer world. I urge the Committee to support them.

Planning and Infrastructure Bill (Twelfth sitting)

Debate between Ellie Chowns and Rachel Taylor

Committee stage
Tuesday 20th May 2025 Public Bill Committees

[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.

[Rachel Taylor]

I thank the hon. Member for her lengthy and detailed explanation of zero carbon standards. Does she think it is appropriate to constrain the Minister to bringing forward building regulations within the short period of six months? Would that take longer? Not all of us have the same detailed and intricate knowledge of the standards that would be required, although I understand a great deal about building regulations.

[Ellie Chowns]

In fairness, I did not draft the new clause. I recognise that it says six months, but as the hon. Member for Taunton and Wellington spoke about so eloquently, we had proposals for net zero carbon building standards on the table 10 years ago. This has been in development for 20 years. The sector itself is way ahead of Government on this. A huge amount of work has been done by the Low Energy Transformation Initiative, the Royal Institute of British Architects and all sorts of organisations to develop zero carbon building standards.

Although bringing regulations forward within six months is arguably ambitious, it is not that the work is not available. The missing thing is political will, and political will can be found, as we have seen—we have passed a bill in less than 24 hours in this House within the last few weeks. Where there is political will, things can be done quickly. This is not an unreasonable proposal in this legislation. All the technical work is there; it is political will that is missing to bring forward a zero carbon standard for new homes. I could not more warmly welcome this new clause.