Planning and Infrastructure Bill

Debate between Kevin Hollinrake and Danny Kruger

2nd reading
Monday 24th March 2025 Commons Chamber

[Kevin Hollinrake]

I can guarantee that we will support measures that we think will be successful. The hon. Gentleman brings up some of the work we tried to do in the previous Parliament, some of which was successful. Other things were unsuccessful, including our solution on nutrient neutrality, which was blocked by his party by about 100 votes in the House of Lords. The impact of that particular measure is considered negligible. We want to ensure that where any levies are put in place by Natural England, if the impacts are considered negligible, they are also negligible for developers.

[Danny Kruger (East Wiltshire) (Con)]

I very much agree with what my hon. Friend is saying. Does he agree that more could be done to protect irreplaceable chalk stream habitats, particularly in the south of England? Does he also agree that one thing we could do is designate those chalk stream habitats to be irreplaceable and ensure that the Government specify clearly what permissions might be available there?

[Kevin Hollinrake]

We could talk with the Minister for Housing and Planning, the hon. Member for Greenwich and Woolwich (Matthew Pennycook) about making such amendments to the legislation as it passes through Committee.

I have other questions. Is Natural England sufficiently resourced to carry out its work? How long will it be before these plans are in place? Have the Government taken into account the inevitable delays due to judicial reviews of the environmental delivery plans? Is it not the case that the habitats regulations remain in place beneath this new system, so if a development does not show the overall improvement test for each identified environmental feature, as referenced in clause 55, the system will not apply and the developer will still need to build those bat tunnels and fish discos? Indeed, Sam Richards of Britain Remade states that it might set the bar even higher by requiring a net gain for that species. If an EDP covers one element of environmental impact but not others, the developer might have to pay into the levy and build the bat tunnel.

Have the Government also considered changes to section 20 of the Environment Act 2021, which this legislation is subject to? I am interested to hear the Minister’s reflections. Overall, we believe that it will take at least two to three years from Royal Assent for these EDPs to have meaningful effect. I am very happy to seek assurances from the Minister if that is not the case.

There are also understandable concerns about whether the route chosen will even deliver on its objective to protect the environment. The Chartered Institute of Ecology and Environmental Management has stated that the Government’s approach means that our natural capital assets will be destroyed immediately, and it could take decades for any improvement.

Assisted Dying

Debate between Kevin Hollinrake and Danny Kruger

Monday 4th July 2022 Westminster Hall

[Danny Kruger (Devizes) (Con)]

It is an honour to serve under you, Sir Roger, and I welcome the debate. I should declare that I am chair of the all-party parliamentary group for dying well.

Let me start by saying how much I recognise the good faith, integrity and powerful arguments of the hon. Member for Gower (Tonia Antoniazzi), all hon. Members speaking in support of the petition and all the campaigners who support it. I recognise the extreme distress and anxiety felt by families who have been through the agonising death of a loved one who experienced suffering that no human being should go through. I will address the issue of bad deaths in a moment, but first I want to look at the implications of assisted dying as I see them, and what would happen if we did it in this country, based on our experience and that of other countries.

I do not have a suite of powerful personal stories, although I recognise the enormous moral value of them all; I invoke the nameless and numberless people who will be affected if we introduce this law. The main argument for assisted dying is the simple one of autonomy. I think a lot of the support for assisted dying comes from the simple and natural resentment that anybody should try to stop people doing what they want, especially about something as important as this—literally a matter of life and death. But in this case, things are the other way around for many people. In my view, we need to keep assisted dying illegal because, as a matter of practical fact, for many people, it would narrow their autonomy. It would reduce their freedom substantially, because it would put them on a path with only one destination. That is because of the incentives that assisted dying would introduce.

The first incentive would be in our healthcare system. The simple, blunt fact is that it is cheaper for the system to help people end their life early than to care for them for weeks, months or years. That is not an argument we hear for assisted dying, but it is compelling. The cat was let out of the bag rather when the Member of the Scottish Parliament who is trying to legalise assisted dying in Scotland cited research from Canada showing that the health service there has saved hundreds of millions of dollars in care costs. We see, in contraction to a point made by the hon. Member for Gower, that where assisted dying is introduced, investment in palliative care stalls or recedes in comparison with countries where assisted dying is illegal.

Meanwhile, in Oregon, we see people being refused palliative care on cost grounds and then choosing assisted dying because there is no other option. I know we pretend that we do not have rationing in the NHS, but obviously, with finite resources, we do. Do we really imagine that assisted dying will not become an option that doctors and medical managers will not tacitly—even unintentionally—encourage?

[Kevin Hollinrake (Thirsk and Malton) (Con)]

My hon. Friend is making some very interesting points, although I am on the other side of the argument. With such controversial issues, we tend to point to facts on either side of the argument. Would it not be sensible to have an independent inquiry, by the Health and Social Care Committee or otherwise, to look at the points that he raises and the points that others would raise on the other side of the argument?

[Danny Kruger]

I recognise the force of that point, but the fact is that Parliament has debated the topic repeatedly over the last 20 years. We have devoted considerable hours of parliamentary time to it already.