Planning and Infrastructure Bill

Debate between Gideon Amos and Geoffrey Clifton-Brown

2nd reading
Monday 24th March 2025 Commons Chamber

[Gideon Amos]

If the hon. Gentleman is so interested in our debates, he should please come and join our next party conference. We would be delighted to debate whether our targets should be 150,000 social rent homes per year or 300,000 general needs homes per year. Of course, we need both, and that was the conclusion of our very thoughtful and timely conference debate.

I congratulate the Minister for Housing and Planning and the Secretary of State—the Deputy Prime Minister—on lifting that cap, on bringing strategic planning into the Bill and on the changes to national policy statements. I also congratulate them on the new nature restoration fund, where it provides support in relation to issues such as nutrient neutrality. As was pointed out by my hon. Friend the Member for Glastonbury and Somerton (Sarah Dyke), that is holding back thousands of homes in Somerset, and we welcome the change.

Friends of the Earth has welcomed the nature restoration fund, but points out that it is very unclear how the nature restoration levy will work alongside other regimes. In that respect and many others, the Bill is short on the key principles. It is big on powers for the Secretary of State, but short on how those powers will be exercised. The Bill does not just lack details; it lacks some really big and important principles, including how that will work with other regimes. The funding of the nature restoration levy needs to be up front, so that nature restoration work begins straightaway.

We ask the Minister and the Government to enshrine in the Bill the principle that, on each site, development should first no do harm. That principle needs to be guaranteed its place at the top of the hierarchy of mitigation when it comes to protecting our environment.

[Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown]

On the point about not doing any harm to nature, would the hon. Member’s party support the water companies becoming statutory consultees so that we can ensure that, with any new housing, not a litre of extra sewage goes into our rivers?

[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.