Planning and Infrastructure Bill

Debate between Judith Cummins and Ruth Cadbury

Consideration of Lords amendments
Thursday 13th November 2025 Commons Chamber

[Ruth Cadbury]

My hon. Friend is an amazing ambassador for Shrewsbury—I have learned so much about Shrewsbury since getting to know her. Although it is possibly beyond the scope of today’s debate, she is absolutely right about the need to align transport policies and networks with our wider growth and development aspirations. I know that the Government are listening, and are working hard on that very issue. The point about new towns is also a very good one, and it has been welcome to see a Transport Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Wakefield and Rothwell (Simon Lightwood), sitting alongside the Housing and Planning Minister for quite a lot of this debate—it is a good sign that the important need to break down the silos that built up in Government over the past 15 years is being recognised. We on the Committee corridor really appreciate that.

The Transport Committee considered national networks in 2023, so we do not expect to see that national policy statement again until 2028—we will see what process is followed then, if indeed this change does go through. We published our view on the national policy statement on ports this morning, so it will be 2030 before that is due for revision again. As I said, airports is the only national policy statement that is specific to a particular development, and the Transport Committee expects to address it in the months ahead. Of course, we will be doing so following the Chancellor’s announcement that the Government wish to pursue the development of runway three.

Although we honour the power and role of the Government, I pick up on what the Minister said on Report when he was keen to assure us that the Government’s changes were

“not about eroding parliamentary scrutiny, but about ensuring that scrutiny is proportionate to the changes being made”,

and that the Government

“recognise the value that such scrutiny brings to getting important changes right.”—[Official Report, 9 June 2025; Vol. 768, c. 757.]

Our constituents want to be assured that any changes that have a disproportionate impact on them will be properly scrutinised by this House. I am glad that the Minister has said that the Government will lay a statement in the House, write to the relevant Select Committee and make themselves available, but I want to pick up on the phrase “as far as is practicable”. It is good that he went on to say that

“the Government recognise the importance of Ministers attending Committee to explain the proposed changes”,

and that

“Parliament retains the ultimate say over whether a change should be enacted”—[Official Report, 9 June 2025; Vol. 768, c. 757.],

but Parliament needs time, access to Ministers, and assurance that significant changes will be able to be properly and fully scrutinised. Where a proposed change is significant enough—where it is not a relatively minor change—we must be able to use the full process.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Judith Cummins)]

I call the Minister to wind up.

Planning System Reforms: Wild Belt Designation

Debate between Judith Cummins and Ruth Cadbury

Tuesday 22nd June 2021 Westminster Hall

[Ruth Cadbury (Brentford and Isleworth) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mrs Cummins. I, too, congratulate the hon. Member for East Surrey (Claire Coutinho) on securing this debate on a wild belt in the planning system. I commend her contribution, and those of so many others, about the importance of wildlife and the added value that local wildlife trusts and others provide by increasing biodiversity and protecting nature in their constituencies. We have heard so many good speeches.

The importance of our wildlife, and the need to protect and enhance it, is not in doubt. What has been in doubt is the Government’s commitment to bring forward legislation that will be effective in halting and reversing that decline in the UK, and specifically in the planning system, on which so much of the future of our country’s land is dependent. The Government claim to be protecting native and endangered species, but we need to ensure that the rhetoric and the reality match.

I will not reiterate the facts about the level of the crisis of nature depletion in the UK—I thank the Wildlife Trusts for the excellent briefing—but there is no doubt that the UK is one of the most nature-depleted countries in the world. We failed to meet 17 of 20 UN biodiversity targets, while funding for UK wildlife and environment has been slashed by 30% in two years. We need a serious plan for delivery of the recovery of nature but, unfortunately, we have a Prime Minister who has dismissed those trying to protect our natural environment as “newt counters”. Funding has dropped, particularly to Natural England, where staffing has halved since 2010.

The planning system needs to be at the centre of the challenge. It can and should be shaping a path towards net zero emissions and our work to improve biodiversity and our natural environment across the country. I will not rehearse the concerns expressed by many Members in last night’s debate about proposals to amend the planning system, but there is no doubt that those working in the field say that the existing protections are inadequate to protect wildlife and wildlife sites.

Ministers at the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs have said in the main Chamber that with the Environment Bill, they want to protect the environment and include new species abundance targets. However, the amendments that we have now seen commit only to

“further the objective of halting a decline in the abundance of species.”

In those amendments, there is no commitment to reversing the decline in nature. That is left to the planning system to achieve, and the proposed planning Bill will be crucial.

I will close my remarks with some questions for the planning Minister. Will the forthcoming planning legislation do what the Environment Bill clearly does not? The Government have said that they want to ensure that street trees are planted in every new development. That is a clear and measurable target, and it is to be welcomed. Will they do the same for other natural environment targets? If the Government have given consideration to introducing the status of a wild belt, how will we know that that is binding and a reality, not yet more rhetoric?

How exactly will the Government strengthen planning powers? How will developers be held to conditions once they have gone and future landowners manage the land? The Government intend local plans to be the primary tool for shaping and delivering future development. That will require huge resources and specialist expertise from both councils and non-governmental organisations, particularly if wild belts are to be a factor in all local plans; that is the only time the public will get a say in planning decisions in growth areas, which will cover a fair bit of the country. As it appears as though the public will be excluded from decisions around planning applications in growth areas, how will local wildlife trusts and other community organisations input their concerns and expertise into the decision making on specific planning applications? I leave those questions with the Minister, who may reply now or in writing.

[Judith Cummins (in the Chair)]

I gently remind the Minister that he may wish to leave a couple of minutes for the Member in charge to respond.