Planning and Infrastructure Bill

Lewis Cocking Excerpts

2nd reading
Monday 24th March 2025 Commons Chamber

[Angela Rayner]

I gently say to the right hon. Member that it is this Government who have brought forward mandatory local plans, and it was his Government who did not. For too long we have left home ownership to collapse, with homelessness soaring and over 160,000 children in temporary accommodation. This is a country that simply is not working.

The time it takes to secure planning permission for major projects has almost doubled in the last decade, and it now takes more than four years. It is slower and more costly to build big infrastructure in England than in France and Italy. No new reservoir has been built for over 30 years. There are countless other examples, such as the critical new road improvement scheme for Norwich, which would create jobs and speed up journeys yet was held up for two years by unsuccessful legal challenges. We have the ridiculous situation where 139 desperately needed houses were delayed in Bingley because of a row over the speed of balls at the neighbouring cricket club.

The result of such delays has been fewer homes built, higher energy bills, and lower productivity and growth. For 14 years, the country has been crying out for a Government with the will to change that. Successive Tory Prime Ministers promised that change, but when the bold action was demanded they were too afraid to stand up to their Back Benchers.

[Lewis Cocking (Broxbourne) (Con)]

Can the Secretary of State outline what powers in the Bill she will use to take on developers and make sure that they build based on the planning permissions they already have?

[Angela Rayner]

The hon. Member will know as a member of the Housing, Communities and Local Government Committee that we have already made changes through the national planning policy framework, and we have our new homes accelerator programme, which is already providing thousands of homes. The Bill is about building on those powers to ensure that we get Britain building. It was his Government who did not build the houses and the infrastructure that we desperately need and who were too timid to face down the vested interests. This Labour Government are on the side of the builders, not the blockers, and we are saying, “No more.”

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[Lewis Cocking (Broxbourne) (Con)]

I refer hon. Members to my entry in the register of interests.

At his first Prime Minister’s Question Time in July last year, I asked the Prime Minister to reassure my constituents that they would have a meaningful say over the new development in the green belt in their area. He said that the Government “will work with communities”—but this Bill could not be further from that promise. We are seeing housing targets go through the roof in rural areas, as green-belt protections are removed. In my local councils of East Herts and Broxbourne, the targets are going up by more than 20% and within Broxbourne district specifically they are almost doubling. The loss of protections for unrestricted sprawl around the villages I represent is extremely worrying for my constituents who live in those villages of Brickenden, Hertford Heath, Great Amwell, Stanstead Abbotts and St Margarets, as their unique character and historical charm could be lost forever.

At the same time, targets are going down in London, where there is the infrastructure to cope. The plans do not add up. There is something in this Bill on which I can agree with the Government: the explanatory notes state that limited infrastructure delivery is a real cost on the lives of working people. I completely agree. It is far too common for new housing to be built without the increase in public service capacity to match.

[Joy Morrissey]

My hon. Friend makes an excellent point on key infrastructure. Not only are we waiting for GP surgeries in my constituency, but we need a sewerage upgrade across my patch. We cannot even have new homes put in, because they cannot be attached to the sewerage system in its existing state. His point is valid: until infrastructure is put in place we cannot put homes in these new areas.

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[Lewis Cocking]

My hon. Friend makes an excellent point, and she is right that infrastructure must come first. I will come on later in my speech to the fact that there is nothing in this Bill to make developers put that infrastructure in first.

In Broxbourne, we have already had more than our fair share of development. Thousands of new homes have been built in the past few years, but new or expanded infrastructure to take the strain off our already overstretched services is nowhere to be seen, and it is having a serious impact on my constituents. A Health Minister has admitted to me that patients trying to see their local GP in my constituency are more likely than the national average to wait two weeks. Drivers are forced to sit in traffic as roads clog up, and I hear time and again that parents are unable to get their child into the local school that they want.

The Bill before us seeks to make it easier to build major infrastructure. Of course I support building roads, airports and runways more quickly, but what the Government define as major infrastructure is way too narrow. Major infrastructure, to my constituents, is whether they can get a GP appointment or a school place. I see no mention of that in this Bill. There is nothing about providing new powers for local councils to ensure that that kind of infrastructure is in place before new housing is built.

I had to fight extremely hard to get the NHS round the table to say that we desperately need a new surgery to meet the demand from existing residents, but it would not listen to me—and now the Government are forcing us to build even more houses. In December, the Housing Minister said he was

“considering what more we can do to ensure that we get infrastructure for developments up front”.—[Official Report, 12 December 2024; Vol. 758, c. 1068.]

But where is that within the Bill? That is how to get existing residents on side and get people behind the new development that we desperately need in the right location. Local councillors are in fact having more of their powers over and responsibility for planning taken away, which dilutes local accountability and removes the voice of residents in deciding what is built in the local area. That is an attack on local democracy.

The Minister should be taking on developers, not local communities and councils. I have sat on a planning committee, and the reason the process is sometimes so long and—developers would argue—so onerous on the developers is that they try to build utter rubbish. Some of the stuff they put forward is utterly disgraceful. I would not want to live on some of the developments that they bring forward and try to get councillors to approve.

Of course we must have a robust process, because we need to focus more on urban design. Simply making it easier for developers to get through the planning system is putting way too much trust in developers to build appropriate communities, with all the infrastructure that our residents need.

[Bradley Thomas]

Does my hon. Friend agree that with regard to good-quality design, not only society but particularly the Government in their relationship with developers have to shift their mindset away from seeing design as a cost to instead seeing it as an investment that will reap benefits in the form of better-quality placemaking and better quality of life for residents?

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[Lewis Cocking]

I know my hon. Friend is a passionate advocate for urban design, and he makes an important point. Of course we must invest in urban design, because it is the council—and MPs through our casework—that picks up the pieces. If a development is not planned correctly, with the right number of car spaces, for example, there are issues when people try to park their cars. Our inboxes get clogged up with all of those issues and the council is put under extra pressure with antisocial behaviour and so on.

We really have to think about planning the communities, rather than just saying, “Oh, we will give in to the developers—they say it takes too long, so we’ll make it quicker and just rely on them to create places that people want to live.” As I said, I have sat on a planning committee, and I have seen developments come forward that are utter rubbish. We need to change the mindset of developers, and we must ensure that we have good design. The Government are not seeking to change that; they are embracing it by committing to a target that can only be achieved by rushing the construction of low-quality homes with no plans for those who will live there. The Government need to focus more on the communities that we are trying to build within this country, rather than specific targets and house building across the country.

This Bill reveals that the Labour Government have their priorities wrong. Local people should have the largest influence over where new housing development goes and when it happens in their communities, not Ministers in Whitehall.

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

I am surprised to hear the hon. Member for Broxbourne (Lewis Cocking) trashing hard-working local builders in his constituency and calling the homes that his constituents live in dreadful trashy houses. Before I came to this place—

[Lewis Cocking]

rose—

[Rachel Taylor]

I am not going to give way; you have had your time. Before I came to this place—[Interruption.]

[Rachel Taylor]

Before I came to this place—

[Lewis Cocking]

On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. I wish to seek your advice. I have just been cited as saying something in my speech that I did not say. I was merely talking about developers and my time on the planning committee, when developers would come forward and propose utter rubbish. I did not say the houses my residents live in are rubbish.

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

The hon. Member has made his point. It is a matter of debate, but his point is now on the record.

Planning and Infrastructure Bill (First sitting)

Lewis Cocking Excerpts

Committee stage
Thursday 24th April 2025 Public Bill Committees

[The Chair]

We are now sitting in public again and the proceedings are being broadcast. Before we start hearing from the witnesses, do any Members wish to make a declaration of interest in connection with the Bill?

[Lewis Cocking (Broxbourne) (Con)]

I am a Hertfordshire county councillor until 1 May.

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

I was a planning consultant until the general election, but not any more. I am a chartered town planner member of the Royal Town Planning Institute and a chartered architect member of the Royal Institute of British Architects. I am a vice president of the Town and Country Planning Association, but that is an honorary position, so I have no pecuniary interest.

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[Luke Murphy]

Q Very quickly, can you say something about the benefits, in terms of economic growth, of electrifying the economy?

Dhara Vyas: I think it links neatly to the last question around demand. The reality is that we need to decarbonise business in a significant way. Right now, what businesses in this country are paying is among the highest of OECD countries, if not the first or second highest in that group. This is a big part of the discussion with the Department for Business and Trade around the industrial strategy.

Energy and the price of energy is hugely significant to business users, as well as to households. So while we need to be having conversations about linkage with Europe, we also need to be having significant conversations here about how we can speed up demand and connections for demand—and have that conversation for both homes and businesses. More broadly, we also need to be having a conversation about how we support businesses to consider how they can move off their dependence on gas.

[Lewis Cocking]

Q I will follow up with some questions to Ofgem. You said earlier that we are moving from a first come, first served system to one where somebody is going to determine what should take priority and what should come before something else. Who is going to make that determination?

Beatrice Filkin: What has happened to date is that NESO has done some preparatory work assessing options. We have made a decision about how they should go about reordering the queue based on need and readiness —that is the decision we made last week. NESO now needs to implement that decision, which is what they will be doing rapidly over this year to make those choices.

For the reordering of the queue, it will prioritise the projects that were due to connect in the next year or two, first of all, and then the completion of all the projects that are needed for clean power by the beginning of 2026. That is the process. We are not walking away from that. We are regulating NESO, but also working with them on this process. We see this as a very critical enabler of clean power. Working through this year of that process, we will be a partner alongside them. That is also why we very much welcome the provisions in the Bill to provide the legislative security of what they are looking to do.

[Lewis Cocking]

Q It will not be Ministers deciding what projects get priority and come forward; it will be Ofgem.

Beatrice Filkin: We have made a decision about the way in which NESO now prioritises the queue. They are doing that going forward. Our decision-making process was finished last week. That is the process by which they make those decisions. They are now going to implement that decision and do that re-ordering decision—individual decisions—over the year.

[Lewis Cocking]

Q How do you determine what should get priority and what should not?

Beatrice Filkin: We have set out in our decision the way in which NESO should assess the queue. They will use the information that we set out last week—that guidance—to implement and take each individual project, weigh it up against the criteria, decide whether they meet the need and the readiness requirements and use that to sort through the queue. That is a process. They will operationalise our decision of last week.

Christianna Logan: On the practicalities of how that will be approached, NESO’s proposal is that the customers with connections contracts will provide evidence of their readiness to meet the criteria, in terms of things like submission of planning consents and land rights—ways that they can evidence they are progressing their projects at the pace necessary to achieve the 2030 goals and, as Beatrice said, against the strategic alignment of different technology types with the needs of the clean power plan. Customers will put forward their evidence that their projects are best placed. NESO will use that to assess which ones should go forward. Within that, there is some protection for projects that are already well progressed, so that we do not impact investments that are ready to be deployed to hit those targets.

[The Chair]

We have another eight minutes allocated to this panel.

[Lewis Cocking]

Q How will that affect the timeframe? I suppose the Government want projects to happen quickly, but you are now saying that there is another process to go through, so can you explain how that will affect the timeframe of projects?

Beatrice Filkin: What we set out in the decision last week sets off the piece of work that NESO are doing over this year. That helps projects, because as we have talked about, there are a number of projects in the queue that are either nowhere near ready or are not deemed needed for the overall strategic plan. So the process of sorting through the queue will speed up that very constrained access to the network to enable those projects that are needed and ready to join and connect to the network earlier.

[John Grady]

Q I want to ask about coastal Scotland, and I declare an interest: my granddad and several of my cousins were trawlermen in Scotland. Offshore wind represents a big opportunity in Scotland for coastal communities and harbours, which have suffered economic decline over the years. Have I got that right?

Beatrice Filkin: Are you asking whether it provides an opportunity to local communities?

Planning and Infrastructure Bill (Second sitting)

Lewis Cocking Excerpts

Committee stage
Thursday 24th April 2025 Public Bill Committees

[Nesil Caliskan (Barking) (Lab)]

Q I thank the panel members. I would like to dig down a bit on local plans, and to build on Ms Hills’s comments on the need for a chief planning officer. There are two parts to my question. The first is: what do you think about the lack of capacity in local authorities at the moment? It is all well and good having a chief planning officer, but planning and strategic planning does not depend on one person; it depends on a large team. The second part is around local plans. Are strategic planning and growth being hindered by the fact that the majority of local areas do not have an up-to-date local plan?

Victoria Hills: Very briefly, capacity and capability have been a hindrance in local authorities for a number of years. We have lost 25% of local authority planners alone in the last seven years, and that cannot continue. We are working with the Department and many partners; Public Practice and Pathways to Planning are both really important at this moment in time. The chief planner is there to advocate for those resources at the top table of local government and to ensure that they have a statutory basis on which to retain the budget.

Despite everything that everybody is doing to bring in more planners—with private sector money as well; we are working with the British Chambers of Commerce on a new planning scholarship, using private sector money to solve the crisis of lack of capacity—our biggest burning platform at the moment is the uncertainty regarding the level 7 apprenticeship. Some 60% of apprentices in local government come from under-represented groups within the profession. Unless we have urgent clarity soon as to whether or not our chartered town planner apprenticeship can continue, we are seriously worried about the pipeline of planners going into local government. It would be remiss of me not to mention that in the context of your capacity question.

On local plans, of course it is not good enough that only 40% of local authorities have an up-to-date local plan. That is an urgent priority. Of the 25% of local authority planners who have left local government in the last seven years, we suspect the lion’s share were in those local planning teams, and we need to work urgently to put that capacity back in. The apprenticeship will go some way, as will Pathways to Planning and the planning scholarship, but there is no time to waste in ensuring that we put that capacity back in. We think that the statutory chief planning role will not only have the right level of seniority to advocate for it, but they will actually help restore planning departments as a real career choice for graduates coming out of planning schools now.

[Lewis Cocking (Broxbourne) (Con)]

I would like to ask a few questions—

[The Chair]

Order. Please remember to keep it short, because other colleagues want to come in.

[Lewis Cocking]

Q Sorry; yes. We have spoken about local plans and outline planning permission, and I will link those two together. There is a lot of consultation around development that comes forward, and the public in the area buy into it, because it is almost like it is painted in gold. The developers say that they can deliver all the amenities and everything the residents want, and then when they come forward for full planning permission, the proposal is completely changed. The residents have bought into something that they want, in the form of the fantastic development that the developers proposed. But when the developers come for full planning, it is completely different, so the residents are up in arms because they have not really bought into that. Would you make some comments on the differentials there?

Faraz Baber: The outline, as you say, is an outline, but the reality is that any full application that comes forward should be aligned with the agreement on social infrastructure and all the other elements that are required, whether that is the affordable housing, social infrastructure, civil payments or whatever. There was an earlier question: what is planning for? Well, planning is for that—to ensure that those community benefits are derived from development and to ensure that it is inclusive, not just for new residents but for existing residents as well.

I think that is a guardianship point, where the planning team or the local authority have to ensure that what they said they wanted to see from the plan is ultimately delivered. People will go into viability discussions and say, “I can’t afford that and I can’t afford this.” That is a judgment that has to be made about what can be delivered in the public interest. In answer to your question, that is very much where planning sits at the fore, to ensure that the right development with the right social infrastructure comes forward, and that it is fitting for the place it is sitting in.

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

Q I would like to focus again on local planning authorities. I am acutely aware, from my constituency in North Warwickshire and Bedworth, of the under-resourcing of planning authorities, and this Bill enables us to charge increased fees, but I am also aware of the frustration from local developers and businesses about delays in the planning system. Do you think that the ability to charge extra fees will strike the right balance, and should they be ringfenced to make sure that decisions are made in a timely manner?

Victoria Hills: We have been advocating for the ringfencing of fees since time began. It is absolutely essential, and—I am sure that Faraz will pick this point up in a moment for his clients—I have not met a single developer that is not willing to pay for more for a service. The problem is that they are paying more but not getting the service. In some places, they are, but not in others. The opportunity, through this Bill, to strengthen the ringfencing and ensure that the money stays within the planning team to deliver the service cannot come soon enough to help to reduce some of those delays.

Having the opportunity for local areas to work out what good looks like for them is absolutely a sensible way forward within that. Again, we do feel that having the right level of seniority within the department to ensure that the money stays there is going to be a key part of it.

Faraz Baber: Moving towards this ringfencing idea within the planning service is hugely positive, although when I say the planning service, it may extend slightly to the legal side as well, because you have to get those section 106 agreements signed off to make things happen. The key, though, is that it has to stay ringfenced for that resource to happen. We often see that PPAs—planning performance agreements—are paid up front for meetings, and that there is a very uneven balance in how well those deliver, in terms of the service that the clients receive when they pay those large chunks of change for that service. So, developers are right—applicants are right—to get frustrated when they think they are getting a premier service to help facilitate the bringing forward of an application, then find that it does not move the dial one iota.

I think the very basic premise is that instead of the chief executive or the finance director of the council saying, “I’ll take that because I need to put it into social care or into education,” the money actually stays there. Remember, if we keep that money inside the planning service, it will drive the growth that the Government have said that they want to achieve. The devil is in the detail, and we need to see that more, but it is the right direction to take.

Hugh Ellis: I would say that it would stabilise issues for development management, but, for the policy officers who we work with, it would not necessarily support their work.

Also, a piece of heresy, if it is okay: the private sector complains a lot about delays, despite getting 86% of all its applications approved, but I think that there needs to be more debate about competence in the private sector. When a private sector developer applies for a category 3a floodplain development and then complains that the Environment Agency wants it to go through a flood risk assessment process, my blood boils. Planners are doing life-and-death stuff. For example, no house built after 2009 is part of the insurance compact, so if we get this wrong, negative equity will look like a picnic. Planning is trying to do really complicated stuff and it needs time to do that. Statutory consultees are also crucial to that, and they need to be resourced properly to play that role as well.

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[Amanda Martin (Portsmouth North) (Lab)]

Q Very few homes have been built in my constituency in the last decade. Sam, you highlighted how previous Governments failed catastrophically with the amount of time and taxpayers’ money that was put into planning and development across the country. Jack, you said the existing system is “okay”. Is “okay” enough for my constituents who need homes and communities with natural environments around them?

Jack Airey: I think what I said is that the system for securing and spending developer contributions is okay. I do not think the wider planning system is okay. In terms of how you can improve it, a lot of the measures in the Bill are very worth while, and a lot of the changes in the NPPF are incredibly worth while. There are many more things that the Government can do, especially on the national development management policies.

Sam Richards: The system is fundamentally broken. I am sure your constituents are furious that their energy bills are through the roof and they cannot afford the rent, and they are right to be so.

[Lewis Cocking]

Q I want to come back to something you said at the beginning, Jack—I probably should say that I am still a local councillor until 1 May. You basically said that no one engages with the planning system, or that the public—constituents—do not engage with it. What evidence do you have to suggest that? I would slightly push back on such a sweeping statement, so I just want to understand what evidence you have to back that up.

Jack Airey: At Public First we do lots of opinion research. We do public polling, focus groups and something we call immersives. We go and speak to people and ask what they think about things. In some polling we have asked, “Have you engaged in planning applications? Do you get involved in the local plan?” and it is minuscule proportions of people. We go and speak to people about developments that are happening.

There is definitely opposition to development and it is often very intense. Often, if you listen to debates in the building across the road or you look online, it looks like it is totally representative of a local community, but often, if you speak to people on the ground, most do not care about it. They might even support it. While there is some opposition—I am sure you hear it a lot in your constituencies when you go doorstep to doorstep —it is much smaller than it seems. That is the message I was trying to give. It is about engaging those people who need to be housed, if we are talking about housing, just as much as the people who oppose development. We should talk to them a bit more.

[Lewis Cocking]

I do not agree.

[Lee Pitcher (Doncaster East and the Isle of Axholme) (Lab)]

Q From your experience and the best practice out there, where in the system is the best place to engage with local voices and have those voices heard?

Jack Airey: Do you mean geographically?

Planning and Infrastructure Bill (Third sitting)

Lewis Cocking Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 29th April 2025 Public Bill Committees

[David Simmonds]

I rise in support of my hon. Friend the shadow Minister to press the Government on this point. I think the key issue for all of us is what remedy is available where there are concerns about the impact of a decision taken using these new provisions.

In the evidence sessions, there was much mockery of a so-called fish disco at a new nuclear power station. However, the local constituency MP, the local authority or fishing and wildlife organisations would be very concerned about the impact of that development on wildlife, particularly at a location with significant numbers of protected species, some of which are unique in Europe. When the detail of a project emerges and an issue of that nature needs to be addressed, and there is feedback from Parliament, if we have inserted provisions that allow the Secretary of State to say, “I am going to ignore that now,” we lose the opportunity to ensure appropriate remedies and measures to address the impact of that detail, either in planning terms or on the local environment.

I recall a judicial review brought by the local authority where I served as a councillor in respect of a scheme that had been agreed with the Secretary of State. The Secretary of State had written to the local authority and said, “This is what it is going to be. This is the process that is going to be followed.” That Secretary of State was then replaced with another, who said, “I am not going to follow it. Although my predecessor wrote to you last year to tell you this is how it was going to be, I am not going to do it.” The local authority said that was clearly unsatisfactory, because of the impact at community level.

The test that was required to be met for a judicial review to succeed was that we had to be able to demonstrate that the Minister was—what the judge said has always stuck in my mind—“out of her mind” when she told Parliament at the Dispatch Box what she was going to do, on the basis that parliamentary sovereignty was so great. If Parliament had approved the Minister’s actions, regardless of whether they were a flagrant breach of an agreement previously entered into with another part of the public sector, provided they had said that at the Dispatch Box and unless we could prove that the Minister had actually been out of their mind at that point, the decision would stand and would not be subject to judicial review. It could not even be considered, because parliamentary sovereignty has such a high test.

I think the shadow Minister is right to raise the need to get this right. We are all talking about the importance of getting infrastructure and major developments through, and we can understand the desire to drive that forward, but we would not wish to find ourselves in a situation where a key point of detail, which has a significant community impact but which emerges only once some of those detailed elements of a major project are in the public domain, cannot be taken account of and is irrelevant or disregarded in the planning process. It is absolutely critical that we have that level of safeguard to ensure that constituents are assured that the concerns that they might perfectly reasonably have will be properly addressed.

[Lewis Cocking (Broxbourne) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mrs Hobhouse. I draw your attention to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. I concur with my colleagues. I have concerns about removing the response from Ministers to Parliament. We are told that constituents and residents will be kept at the heart of such decisions—they will have some say in the national planning policy framework through consultation on national infrastructure projects when they are in their area. Indeed, I asked the Prime Minister a question on the topic at PMQs. I was not convinced by his answer.

How can the Government, on the one hand, say that we will keep local people at the heart of those decisions and allow local people to have a say on them, while on the other, in this part of the Bill, remove parliamentary scrutiny? That will fill the British people with dread, that they will not have such a say in some of those infrastructure projects in their area.

[Matthew Pennycook]

May I correct the hon. Gentleman? Local people in any part of the country affected by a development consent order will still be able to have their say on it. Nothing in the clause affects that arrangement.

[Lewis Cocking]

My point is, if we remove parliamentary scrutiny, the British people out there watching this will think, “Well, hang on a minute, the Government are saying on the one hand that we will still have a say and feed into that process, but on the other they are removing parliamentary scrutiny from the process, so how do we weigh that up?” When the Bill has been through the full process to Third Reading, how can we and the British people trust that they will still have a say over national infrastructure projects in their area if parliamentary scrutiny is being removed? That is taking with one hand and giving with the other, and it could be perceived that people will not have a say; they might not believe the Government saying that they will have a say. I hope that the Minister will comment on that.

[Matthew Pennycook]

Let me be clear. I appreciate the concerns that hon. Members have expressed. I hope that I can provide some reassurance, but I am more than happy to have further exchanges on this point, which is an important one.

The clause introduces a new streamlined procedure for making material policy amendments to national policy statements, where the proposed amendments fall into four categories of changes to be made since the NPPS was last reviewed: reflecting legislative changes or revocations that have already come into force; relevant court decisions that have already been issued; Government policy that has already been published; and changes to other documents referred to in the NPPS.

A good example is our recent changes to the national planning policy framework—consulted on publicly and subject to a significant amount of scrutiny in the House. If a relevant NPPS had to be updated to reflect some of those policy changes, which have already been subject to consultation and scrutiny on their own terms, as I said, that would be a good example of where this reflective procedure might be useful.

The primary aim of the clause is to expedite the Parliamentary process for updating national policy statements. By doing so, it ensures that amendments that have already undergone public and parliamentary scrutiny can be integrated more swiftly into the relevant NPPS. In enabling reflective amendments to be made, the new procedure will support the Government’s growth mission by ensuring that NPPSs are current and relevant, increasing certainty for developers and investors, and streamlining decision making for nationally significant infrastructure projects.

Hon. Members should be assured that, where applicable, the statutory and regulatory prerequisites of an appraisal of sustainability and habitats regulation assessment will continue to apply to amendments that fall within this definition, as will the existing publication and consultation requirements for material changes to a national policy statement. The clause does, however—this is the point of debate that we have just had—disapply the requirements for the Secretary of State to respond to resolutions made by Parliament or its Committees. We believe that change is necessary to enable reflective changes to be made to NPSs in a more timely and proportionate manner.

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[Matthew Pennycook]

I simply disagree with the hon. Gentleman. It is a matter for the House rather than the Government. On their own terms, we think the changes made through the clause are proportionate and will ensure that the system is more effective. Again, I make it clear that we are talking about reflective amendments to national policy statements in the four specific categories I have given.

[Lewis Cocking]

Will the Minister give way?

[Matthew Pennycook]

I will give way one last time, and then I will make some progress.

[Lewis Cocking]

If we are talking about small, minor changes, surely the consultation period does not need to be that long—it will not take Select Committees long to produce a report to feed into the process if these are only minor changes. I do not see the need for change that the Minister is setting out.

[Matthew Pennycook]

All I would say is that if the hon. Gentleman looked at the history of the response times on some of these matters he would see that in not every instance is there a timely response. It can delay the process quite significantly. We appreciate the concerns, but the procedure cannot and will not be used to bypass due parliamentary scrutiny.

Any court decision change being reflected in the NPS will have been scrutinised by the public and Parliament on its own terms. We are adjusting the parliamentary scrutiny requirements to update an NPS, so that it is more proportionate and enables those documents to be updated more quickly. The process retains scope for Parliament to raise matters with the Government. The Secretary of State is required to lay a statement in Parliament announcing that a review of the NPS is taking place. The Government will write to the relevant Select Committee at the start of the consultation period, and Ministers will make themselves available to speak at the relevant Select Committee during the consultation period, so far as is practical. Finally, the NPS as amended will still be laid in Parliament for 21 days and can be prayed against.

I turn to amendment 8, tabled by the hon. Member for Taunton and Wellington; we have covered many of the issues it raises. In seeking to remove clause 2(3)(a), it is a wrecking amendment, in our view. It would fatally and fundamentally undermine the introduction of a new streamlined procedure for updating national policy statements by requiring the Government to respond to a Select Committee inquiry before being able to lay a national policy statement before Parliament. We will therefore resist it. As I have set out, the new procedure introduced by clause 2 will help to unlock growth in our country by enabling policy to be updated more easily, providing certainty for applicants using the NSIP regime and for decision makers. On that basis, I ask the hon. Gentleman to withdraw his amendment, and I commend clause 2 to the Committee.

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[Matthew Pennycook]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for that question. I want to be very clear about the circumstances in which this measure can be used. As he will appreciate, I will not comment on a specific application, for reasons he will well understand, but, in such a scenario, I struggle to see how that application could feasibly come within the NSIP regime process at all. It sounds like a straight-down-the-line application that would be made by the applicant, across two local authorities, through the Town and Country Planning Act regime.

What the clause seeks to do is ensure that, in cases where, due to the nature of the development, the only route to go down is the NSIP regime via a development consent order, an applicant can apply to have that application determined in a different consenting order if it will lead to a faster, more proportionate and more effective decision-making process. As I say, it will therefore be for the Secretary of State to consider the unique circumstances and impacts of any specific development so that the consenting of certain developments can be undertaken by whatever body the applicant appealing to the Secretary of State says is the more appropriate route. In most instances, I would assume that that would be the local planning authority, but I gave the example of the Transport and Works Acts regime for roads.

We are trying to get at the type of examples where developments need limited consents or may not need compulsory acquisition—in a sense, when the one-stop-shop nature of the NSIP regime may not be the most proportionate means to take that through. The redirection under the clause will not be appropriate for all developments, and, for a direction to be given, the Secretary of State must consider that it is appropriate for an alternative consenting regime to apply rather than the Planning Act.

[Lewis Cocking]

I thank the Minister for giving way. Has his Department done any analysis of how many requests the Government are likely to get under the clause, and how many applications will want to change how they are determined?

[Matthew Pennycook]

I think the thrust of the hon. Member’s question was about a numerical analysis. No, we cannot account for the behavioural change that would come if this clause is enacted. What we do know, from significant engagement with stakeholders in the infrastructure sector, is that lots of applicants would make use of the redirection route and are eager to do so.

The examples I have heard from particular major economic infrastructure providers are where, as I say, they have a constructive and healthy working relationship with a local authority that they are confident is resourced and able to take the decision to approve or reject an application in a timely manner and they do not want to have to take it through the NSIP regime, which is currently their only route.

As I said, section 35 already allows the Secretary of State to pull applications from other regimes into the NSIP regime. This will work the other way, and just provides a necessary flexibility. The point of clause 3, though, is to ensure that any given applicant can make a case to the Secretary of State to go into the regime that they feel is the most appropriate and proportionate for the application in question.

[Lewis Cocking]

I thank the Minister for giving way again. I just want to press him a little more. He is saying that people can choose to go through the Town and Country Planning Act regime, but we were always told by this Government that that is a long, arduous process that developments take a really long time to go through. Why are they suggesting that they might want to put more development through that process if, as they are saying, it is not working?

[Matthew Pennycook]

The Government are agnostic on which route a developer will wish to go down. As I say, developers will have to apply to the Secretary of State and make a case that, in the specific circumstances in which they are operating, there should be an alternative consenting route. The hon. Gentleman will know that we are making significant efforts to speed up and streamline the town and country planning regime. From previous debates, I know that he takes issue with some of that, but if he has had a conversion, I would very much welcome it.

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[Nesil Caliskan]

I was rising to make my speech, Mrs Hobhouse, not to intervene; I apologise. It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship.

A crucial component of the ability to deliver homes across the country will be to deliver transport and other infrastructure projects. The measures in the Bill go some way towards speeding up the statutory processes of consultation in the delivery of infrastructure projects. As I outlined in my speech on Second Reading, the pre-consultation period for infrastructure projects is a major cause of delay for infrastructure being delivered. To echo the Minister’s remarks, the status quo in this country is simply not working to speed up the process.

As matters stand, applicants operate in what I describe as a hyper-risk-averse context. Delays caused to pre-application contribute not only to the length of time that it takes for infrastructure to be delivered, but to the cost. Other Members rightly identified the lower Thames crossing, which impacts my constituency; 2,000 pages and £800 million spent are figures that have served absolutely no one, and certainly not the taxpayer.

[Lewis Cocking]

Does the hon. Lady not agree that getting rid of the pre-planning application consultation completely will disenfranchise residents and constituents from engaging with the process? Sometimes that process can solve some of the issues down the line. I understand that it takes too long—I agree with and have strong sympathy for her points—but should we not be able to speed it up while allowing that engagement to take place?

[Nesil Caliskan]

I thank the hon. Member for his intervention, but I do not think that the change would prevent applicants from continuing to engage with residents and elected Members. All it would do is avoid putting additional onus on a process that is costing the taxpayer a huge amount of money.

I will go further. Having spoken to members of our community, I have heard over and over again that there is consultation fatigue with the endless stream of negotiations. Before we even get to a statutory consultation period, we have had many years of something that has been proposed with no statutory framework. This proposal has the good intention of a material change that will shorten the consultation period.

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[David Simmonds]

I understand the point the hon. Member makes, but part of me thinks, “Well, they would say that, wouldn’t they?” For a business whose profits come from expediting the grant of planning consent as much as possible, removing potential obstacles to that is important.

However, as has been outlined in many of the examples that we have debated, there can be crucial points of detail that either would make all the difference to the level of consent and support in the local community for a project, or would engage other legal obligations that Parliament has placed on the local authorities, either to carry out an impact assessment—an evaluation of what that will mean—or, in some cases, to engage with that process to oppose the development taking place, because it contradicts other legal obligations placed on the authority by Parliament in respect of environment, health or whatever it may be. Clearly, we need to ensure that there is a functional process.

[Lewis Cocking]

Does my hon. Friend agree that removing the pre-planning application consultation entirely places too much trust in developers? Sometimes developers build absolute rubbish. I do not want them to spend too much money on something that does not have some sort of community support, or support from Government agencies. The Bill could jeopardise that, if we remove the consultation completely.

Planning and Infrastructure Bill (Fourth sitting)

Lewis Cocking Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 29th April 2025 Public Bill Committees

[Michael Shanks]

There is always a quote, as they say, and my hon. Friend is always there with the quotes at his fingertips, which is helpful. The truth is that the only way we are going to bring down bills and deliver energy security is the sprint to clean power. This is a crucial element of that, and of how we unlock investment—predominantly private investment—over the next few years as we build that clean power system. Even if we were not doing that, the grid is essential. It is an essential part of how we deliver electricity to homes, businesses and industry and it is critical that we upgrade it anyway.

[Lewis Cocking (Broxbourne) (Con)]

The Minister talks about energy security and bringing down bills, and of course we need to have more renewables online to do that, but we also need to issue new oil and gas licences so that we can produce more energy at home. That would help with what he is suggesting.

[Michael Shanks]

We are straying far from new clause 19, which I am keen to return to, but the hon. Gentleman is simply wrong on that point. Gas traded on the international market is exactly why all our constituents pay more on their energy bills. The answer is to get off gas as the marginal price setter, not to have even more of it.

The hon. Member for Taunton and Wellington made a helpful speech, although I will resist his new clause. We are in agreement about the issue of connection delays and the first come, first served process not working, and it is important that we reform that. We are of the view that our proposals do that, and the National Energy System Operator has worked with Ofgem and is of the view they are sufficient to do that.

The question of local power and local grids is an interesting approach that we are looking at. We take seriously the role of community-owned power—it is in the Great British Energy Bill, recognising our commitment to it—but we do not see it in itself as a barrier to what we are trying to do here. The infrastructure, including for local networks, that incorporates generation and demand is already permitted under the existing system. It can be constructed and operated by distribution network operators, by independent network operators or by a private wire under a statutory licence exemption provision.

We agree about the importance of community energy and are looking at a range of things, in particular at how communities might to sell power locally. They are all important points, and all this is how we will unlock the social and economic benefits of the clean power transition. For the reasons I have outlined, and because we think it is already entirely possible, we will resist new clause 19.

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[Michael Shanks]

Clause 17 will confer a power on Scottish Ministers to make regulations to set and charge fees to electricity network operators for processing necessary wayleave applications that they should make in Scotland. Necessary wayleaves are statutory rights that allow electricity licence holders to install and access their overhead electricity lines and associated infrastructure on land owned by others, and in Scotland they are processed and granted by Scottish Ministers.

The objective of the change is to better resource the processing of necessary wayleave applications by the Scottish Government. It is important to act now.

[Lewis Cocking]

Will the Minister elaborate on why he did not support amendment 80, which we have just discussed, on planning fees going to local councils to resource planning departments? What is the difference between that and him saying to Scottish Ministers under this clause that they can charge a fee, but that it has to go to the resourcing of dealing with these applications?

[Michael Shanks]

Perhaps I misunderstood the hon. Gentleman’s point, but I think that amendment 80 was about forcing Scottish Government Ministers to spend funds on community benefits and other things. This clause is saying that the Government will have the power to raise application fees if they choose to do so. Of course, they could choose not to, but under this clause they will have the power to raise them.

[Lewis Cocking]

It says that the Minister expects that money to be put into the system to make the system better. Why has he done that in this case when he did not support the amendment doing it?

[Michael Shanks]

As I think I have just outlined, that amendment did not just call for the money to make the system more efficient; it called for it to be spent in communities on community benefits. That is quite different. My argument to the shadow Minister in resisting that amendment was that we did not want to tie the hands of the Scottish Government, because we see that investing that money in making the planning system more efficient is probably the best use for it, but it is not for me to tell them that. This clause is about giving them the power to set and charge fees to electricity network operators. I suggest that the point he is making is a slightly different one, but if I have misunderstood him, perhaps he can explain.

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[Lewis Cocking]

Will the Minister give way?

[Michael Shanks]

No, I will carry on answering this point, if that is okay.

We are very enthusiastic about clause 17—who would have thought it? To be clear about this point—I feel as if I am the only Scottish MP on this Committee, but I am not—when this Government increase spending in a particular area, that results in a budget transfer to the Scottish Government, the Welsh Government and the Northern Irish Executive, which they can spend on whatever they see as their local priorities. An increase in NHS spending in England does not lead to the exact same in Scotland. We will not bind the hands of every single decision that is made in this case. This is about conferring a power on Scottish Government Ministers to set and charge fees to electricity network operators for necessary wayleave applications in Scotland.

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[Michael Shanks]

Thank you, Mr Twigg. That is helpful.

[Lewis Cocking]

Will the Minister give way?

[Michael Shanks]

No, I will respond to that point, if I may. I respect the view of the Conservative party and the argument that Conservative Members are making. I completely understand it, but I am trying to make the point gently that this is not about our directing specific decisions that will be made by Scottish Ministers. It is about how—in this case, as it is across wayleave applications in England and Wales as well—fees will be charged on a cost recovery basis in line with UK and Scottish Government policy on managing public money.

[Lewis Cocking]

Let me try a third time. According to the explanatory notes laid out by the Government:

“The objective of this change is to better resource the processing of necessary wayleaves applications by the Scottish government.”

The Minister is therefore directing the Scottish Government to spend the money that they get in through this process on that planning process. How is that different from amendment 80 which we discussed earlier and the Government said they will not accept?

[Michael Shanks]

I am trying to find the exact wording. I will come back to the hon. Gentleman. I think I have outlined to him three times now why it is different. I do not have amendment 80 in front of me at this precise moment, but it had two parts to it, one of which was about community benefits. It was directing the Scottish Government to take funds and direct them to a specific purpose. This Parliament does not do that in any other aspects of devolved policy, because it is devolved to the Scottish Parliament to make those decisions. I think that I have made that point clear, but if not, I will write to the Committee and make it even clearer. [Interruption.] I am grateful. I now have amendment 80 in front of me. It mentions

“consumer benefits packages, or…local planning authorities”.

Neither of those things is in the gift of the UK Government to direct the Scottish Government to do. Consumer benefits packages are ill-defined, if nothing else, but local planning authorities are democratically elected in their own right, and the Scottish Government make budget decisions to local government, separate from any budget decisions that the UK Government make to the Scottish Government. The two are not comparable in any way. In any event, the Committee has already voted down that amendment.

Planning and Infrastructure Bill (Sixth sitting)

Lewis Cocking Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 13th May 2025 Public Bill Committees

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

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship this afternoon, Ms Jardine. I strongly support the clause and was really glad to see that the Electric Vehicle Association England welcomes the change. It will make it easier, cheaper and faster to install public chargers for EVs.

There is a battery assembly plant run by JLR in my constituency. We are making more components for electric vehicles, but my constituents find it really difficult to make the jump to invest in an electric vehicle, because there are just not enough electric vehicle charging points in the town centres around my constituency. Anything that makes it easier and removes the blockages will be extremely helpful.

I echo some of the points made by the Opposition spokespeople. We must make sure that the charging points are installed carefully and thoughtfully, which means taking into account the pavement requirements of pedestrians, particularly those with pushchairs or using wheelchairs. Will the Minister explain how that will be taken into account?

I definitely welcome this change, and it is a huge step forward. Particularly in more rural constituencies like mine, people need to be able to drive their electric vehicles in and out of town centres for work, and to be able to charge them.

[Lewis Cocking (Broxbourne) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Jardine. I support giving consumers choice and making it easier to install electric car charging points. This will be a massive help for people in flats—if they want to make the switch to an EV and cannot charge their vehicle at home, the more public charging points there are, the better—but we need to think about it carefully.

My constituents are fed up with multiple utility companies digging up the roads willy-nilly—sometimes, the same stretch of road. There does not seem to be any logic behind where roadworks will be, and multiple roadworks happen at the same time.

We need to issue guidance. If utility companies, councils and other authorities are going to install loads of charging points, it needs to be done in a logical way. What work are the Government doing with all the different companies and operators in this space? We do not want to see consumers turning up to different charge points that all have different connectors. We need to make this as easy as possible for the consumer, no matter what car they drive.

I reiterate that we cannot just dig up roads willy-nilly. What discussions are the Government having with the companies in this space to make it as easy as possible for consumers to access charge points?

[Luke Murphy (Basingstoke) (Lab)]

It is a delight to serve under your chairship, Ms Jardine. I welcome these proposals. This is a major reform that will allow the Government to speed up the delivery of vital electric vehicle infrastructure, to deliver on our climate targets and ensure that we can meet the growing demand for electric vehicles.

I share the disappointment of my hon. Friend the Member for Taunton and Wellington in the words of the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Hamble Valley, on the future of electric vehicles. The Conservative party’s position is anti-business and anti-investment. Electric vehicles are the future, and they are going to create jobs.

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[Matthew Pennycook]

On that point I should say, although I hope this was implied, that we will set out detailed processes in the regulations. We will absolutely take into account points that have been made today. I give the hon. Gentleman my undertaking that the specific issue that he raises will be fully considered as part of that process.

[Lewis Cocking]

I have a question to gain clarity for local authorities. Will the Minister request local authorities to submit how much they spend on planning currently? If the increase in fees is to go into additional planning service, I would not want to see local authorities moving money out of their planning services now, and then charging additional fees so that the services still had the same budget. I hope I have explained that point sufficiently. Will he ask local authorities to submit how much they spend on planning now, to ensure that the additional fees that they will be able to charge go into additional service?

[Matthew Pennycook]

That is an interesting point. That would be a fairly extreme measure for a local authority to undertake but, if I have understood the hon. Gentleman correctly, it could drain its planning department budget, foreseeing that it would be able to set a fee at an appropriate rate to make up for that, and therefore in a sense evading the clear stipulation that we have here to ringfence planning fee charges to the provision of planning services. I will say a couple of things on that basis.

As I said, local planning authorities will have to consult publicly and test their fee level. As part of that, they will have to consider the benchmarking exercise that we will undertake for the default national rate—so we will have a sense of what different local authorities are charging. However, if the hon. Gentleman will allow me, I shall go away to reflect more fully on how—as I hope is clear we have been thinking today—local authorities without the best intentions might seek to game the system.

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[Jim Dickson]

Just before I speak to the amendment, I will say that I fully support what the Government are doing here. As a former member of a local authority, I have seen good training, but in other contexts I have also seen very poor training for planning committee members. I know that most local authorities have a scheme in place, which is obviously welcome, but it is variable. Having some national guidance and trialling it in legislation is extremely important.

My point on the amendment is that accessibility is vital. I hope it will appear in guidance that the Department produces further to the legislation. We might wish to see a whole range of other considerations in that guidance, too, but I hope this one will be in there. Perhaps the Minister will reassure us that these important issues will be included in guidance. He might make the case that it is much better to have them in guidance because it can be changed regularly, rather than in primary legislation, which is changed via a much more torturous process. It would be interesting to have the Minister’s insights on the full range of the guidance.

[Lewis Cocking]

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

I have a few questions for the Minister. I am pleased to see this clause. When I was leader of Broxbourne council, we changed the council constitution to do exactly what the Government are trying to do here. I want to know how many local authorities will be affected, because I know that many of them already have mandatory training for planning committees in their constitution.

What I have not seen in the Bill is how often council officers will be required to carry out the training—will it be once per term of office, which means once every four years, or annually? I cannot seem to find any detail on when elected councillors will be required to do the training. I would like the Minister to comment on what he envisages as a workable interval. Obviously the training has to be timely, because there are always changes to the national planning policy framework and local plans, but not too exhaustive, so that councils can still make planning decisions.

The Minister speaks about speeding up planning decisions. I would not want councils to fall into the trap of not having enough people with the right certificate, and the right training at the right time, to carry on their quasi-judicial function of planning. I should be grateful for the Minister’s comments.

[Rachel Taylor]

Amendment 152 is well intentioned and sets out a number of matters that planning authorities should take into account when organising training. There are also other aspects of the planning process to consider, including how we make better provision for electric vehicles. The last major piece of planning legislation from 1990—it has endured for 35 years—is very prescriptive about the content of training for members and officers, but it will be extremely difficult to encapsulate everything that is needed.

I certainly think that the requirements for people with disabilities and for climate and nature are sometimes conflicting. I have seen a number of planning schemes where trees are put in the middle of the road or pavement. Although those environments look nice, they do not accommodate people with disabilities, such as sight or mobility problems.

We have to adapt as things move on, and this is exactly the sort of thing that I would ask the Minister to consider in guidance that could be regularly updated, as opposed to it forming part of the Bill. I certainly support the amendment’s intention, and I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley (Anna Dixon) for tabling it.

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[Matthew Pennycook]

A number of points here are worth pulling out. We have just discussed on mandatory training the need to ensure that all elected members across the country who serve on committees are cognisant of planning law and other considerations to which they must adhere.

I would gently press back. We know there are instances where committees take a decision on allocated sites against officer recommendation, out of line with planning law and those considerations, because it is easy to do so in certain instances—they might be responding to pressure from the gallery. I have had direct experience of that. It is deemed a cost-free decision to refuse an application on that basis, but it is not cost-free to the local authority and it introduces unnecessary cost and delay, and all the burdens that come with appeals.

[Lewis Cocking]

Does the Minister recognise the other side of that coin? There are examples, and I can give him some from my local authority, of where officers recommend a planning application for approval, the committee turns it down, it goes to appeal and the planning inspector has agreed with the committee. It is not one size fits all; there are two sides to the argument and there will be examples of both. This measure puts a lot of trust in, and gives even more power to, planning officers.

[Matthew Pennycook]

It does, and we think that is right. We think we should trust and empower expert planning officers. The appeals process will remain in force. I recognise the scenario the hon. Gentleman outlines. Local planning officers do not get every decision right. To gently challenge him, he is making the case for no scheme of delegation at all. Schemes of delegation are in place across the country. We are not saying that we do not trust expert planning officers to make the decisions on any applications. We trust them in lots of local authorities to make lots of decisions. As I said, 96% of applications go through planning officers.

There are two issues at play here, which we will perhaps draw out in the debate. We should be honest about them. Members may reasonably take the view that there should simply be no national scheme of delegation—that providing that consistency on the basis of a uniform national arrangement is wrong in principle. If that is the case, I respect that decision. That is not the position of the Government. We think there is a case for a national scheme of delegation.

Then there is the detail of what should go into that national scheme of delegation. Have we got the balance right in terms of the applications that should come before planning committees and should go to planning officers? We already trust expert planning officers to make decisions on a host of delegated applications across the country. The problem is there is huge variation in how those local schemes of delegation apply.

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[Lewis Cocking]

In the current scenario, local planning authorities can go through their own scheme of delegation, and if there are lots of objections or a significant public interest, they can determine that instead of doing it through the scheme of delegation, they can bring it to the planning committee, which they will not be able to do under the national scheme of delegation.

[Matthew Pennycook]

I refer back to my point: the hon. Gentleman may take the view, which is a perfectly coherent and respectable view, that a national scheme of delegation is wrong in principle. That is not the Government’s view, because we think there are significant advantages to be had from introducing greater consistency and certainty about what decisions go to a committee, so we can have a uniform approach across the country.

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[Olly Glover]

I am conscious that we are reaching that time in the afternoon when we may be feeling a little fatigued, so I shall attempt to keep my remarks concise. First, it is important to bear in mind in this discussion that the Minister’s and the Government’s desire to take action to increase our ability to deliver the housing the country needs is sincere. The debate, of course, is whether the measure is an effective way of doing that.

I say to the hon. Member for Barking that there are many reasons why people decide to become local councillors. However, going by those in my constituency, it is because of a deep passion and care for their community. Major developments, of course, have major impacts on communities—hopefully for good, but sometimes for ill. It is entirely understandable that councillors would wish to have the full opportunity to scrutinise such proposals.

I was encouraged to hear the Minister say that national guidance and context are important for planning officers; I therefore hope that he will be receptive to some of our amendments and proposals in subsequent clauses. We must be clear that we are not attacking planning officers in this debate; they have a difficult role in balancing the national guidance and statutory requirements with strong local sentiments from councillors and residents. But that is why it is so important that councillors do continue to be involved.

One of the challenges is that we make the assumption that more house building automatically leads to more affordability, which sadly is not necessarily the case at all. The issue is all about the type of housing being delivered, and perhaps the current market-dominated approach is not always so effective. For example, in my constituency of Didcot and Wantage, in Oxfordshire, we have seen 35% population growth in 20 years. I have never opposed a housing development—neither in my current role as a Member of Parliament, nor before election. I do not intend to change that, because, yes, we do need more housing.

However, the housing growth has led to the fact that, in the town of Didcot, where I live, the average house price is now 15 times the average annual salary. South Oxfordshire Housing Association highlights a serious shortage of social and affordable housing, particularly for one or two-person households. A fairly small two-bedroom terraced house from the mid-’90s costs nearly £300,000, despite some of the fastest house-building growth rates in the country. So the issue is not just about the volume; it is also about the type.

I will give another example, then conclude my remarks. In Valley Park, to the west of Didcot, an outline permission request for a 4,000-plus home development came before the planning committee in 2021. The planning application was recommended for approval by officers, but the councillors on the committee felt that it did not include any provision for healthcare—something already under pressure in the town—and that cycle and walking provision was also poor. Because elected representatives made speeches during the meeting, outlining the issues, the planning decision was deferred for a couple of months and those things were able to be added in. That is an example of the real value that councillors can add.

Another example is that an application for a Lidl in the town of Wantage was recommended for refusal, but the planning committee and the councillors, having heard from local people, realised that it would be a well-used amenity and granted approval. Those are just two examples of where councillors in my constituency have added huge value.

In this time, when we are seeing a perhaps unprecedented loss of faith in politics—I am certainly thinking of the recent elections and, shall we say, some interesting voting patterns—keeping the local link and making sure that local people are brought into the planning process, and that planning is done with them rather than to them, continues to be very important. Councillors play a key role in that, and that is why they should retain their current positions and influence on planning committees.

[Lewis Cocking]

I am beginning to get fond of the Minister, but we do disagree about clause 46 specifically. It is an attack on democracy. I have already made the point that, within my local authority of Broxbourne, we have a scheme of delegation that delegates some decisions to officers, but there is an ability to change that: if lots of residents are particularly concerned about a development, or even about a dropped kerb, that can go to committee.

I have served on a planning committee and overturned officers’ recommendations, both for approval and for refusal. On one planning committee, after we overturned an officer’s recommendation for approval, the issue went to the planning inspector, who wrote back, saying, “I uphold every reason that the planning committee has given for refusal. I fully support the decision it has made.”

I am really concerned about the lack of accountability because, at the end of the day, whether council tax goes up because of planning decisions made by the council that it then needs to defend at appeal, or bad planning decisions are made, the electorate can have their say at the May local elections. They can say, “Do you know what? We don’t agree with any of the decisions that this council is making, and we can vote for someone else at the ballot box.”

A national scheme of delegation removes councils’ ability to be flexible. This should not be one size fits all. There is also no accountability. We work with some brilliant planning officers, but we also work with some who are not as good in their opinions on planning applications. I have many examples within my own local authority. Speak to one planning officer, and they will say that something is a brilliant idea that fits the national planning policy framework; speak to another, and they will take a completely different view. There is a lack of accountability in what the Government are doing. Let me make a broader point: I do not know what councils have done to offend the Government. They want to abolish lots of them, create super-councils and take away their planning powers.

When we adopted our local plan in Broxbourne, I think it was the second local plan in history to be adopted virtually; because of the covid regulations, we had to meet online. I gently push back on the arguments that councillors at full council—I know that they have to vote on a local plan at full council—have had their say on a development. A local plan is not that specific. It will set out areas for development. It may set out some principles, such as wanting a school or a community centre on a site, but it will not go into detail on design, or the look and feel of the community.

The idea that councillors have had their say on the local plan and now everything will be approved and can go through is nonsense. I have made the point in the House that we really need to think about the communities we want to make. We can approve as many house building targets or applications as we want, but we have to give some thought to the communities.

[Amanda Martin]

Does the hon. Member accept that two thirds of local planning authorities in England—around 206 councils—do not have an up-to-date local plan?

[Lewis Cocking]

Both of mine have a local plan. A number of authorities do not have one; it is a long and arduous process, and I welcome discussions about how we can streamline it. As I said, if a local plan has been approved, a site may have been allocated for development, but the minutiae or detail regarding the design of that development will not have been gone into. I have always maintained that the reason developers struggle to get through the planning system is because they try to build absolute rubbish. If they came forward with lots of really good schemes, councillors would not give them as hard a time as they do.

[Amanda Martin]

indicated dissent.

[Lewis Cocking]

The hon. Lady shakes her head, but I have sat on a planning committee and seen developers come forward and make planning applications in line with local plan allocation on outline, which means that we are just discussing the principle of development, or potentially the numbers or the access, with all the detailed designs left to the full planning application. It is set out in gold. We get everything we want. We get a good 106 negotiation. There will be a new doctors surgery and a new school. Lo and behold, when that same developer comes back with a full planning application, it is completely different, but because the principle of development has been established it is very difficult to then turn down. Developers are taking some councils for a ride, and we need to be careful of that.

[Nesil Caliskan]

The hon. Gentleman will recall that he and I worked very closely: we are part of a small percentage of ex-council leaders who actually saw through a local plan.

[Lewis Cocking]

Hear, hear!

[Nesil Caliskan]

We had to work together on a statutory basis to consult each other’s local authority, so I recognise the points that the hon. Gentleman makes around the pressures of the planning system, particularly as we both have scars on our back, having seen local plans through. However, I ask him to reflect on the fact that a number of the issues that he raises can be effectively dealt with through local guidance and design principles—an authority within the administration that has set out clear guidance, not just for the public in their place but for applicants.

Those are very separate issues from what the Government propose around a national delegation scheme, which is about speeding up the process for what will be a national framework to agree to a number of houses to meet a target. His points are really important, but they would not be lost through what is proposed in the amendments.

[Lewis Cocking]

I have a lot of time for the hon. Lady; we worked closely together as leaders of neighbouring authorities. I would push back slightly. The point has been made before. I do not necessarily think that the hold-up is the planning system. There are lots of unbuilt planning applications out there—I can reference loads of applications in my constituency from when I sat on the planning committee nearly two years ago where a single house is yet to be built. The Government have an ambition to build 1.5 million homes. If they want to achieve that ambition, they should be going after all the planning applications that are yet to be built out.

The hon. Lady makes some valid points on design codes. I would welcome more guidance so that local authorities can use them more effectively—I think lots of local authorities would agree with that—but design is ultimately in the eye of the beholder. Lots of planning officers do not live within the local planning authority in which they work. Local councillors who stand in a local authority area have to, by law, either live or work there. They are part of the community. I am really concerned about removing the power of planning committees and local councillors to determine planning applications in their area.

This works both ways. As I have said, I have voted to overturn where officers have recommended a refusal. Councillors have to be brave sometimes on planning decisions, as the hon. Lady well knows, and as I well know from being on a planning committee. I am really concerned about the attack on democracy and the lack of accountability.

When the Minister sums up, can he comment on how we will hold planning officers to account if they make the wrong or bad decisions? This is not just a policy where someone has stood for election because they want their bins collected on a Monday and not a Tuesday. Once planning permission has been granted and the application has been built out, the result is there for decades. It is very difficult to retrospectively change that if mistakes are made. Ultimately, the public have their say at the ballot box, but with unaccountable officers, they do not. How will the Government hold planning officers to account under this national scheme of delegation?

[Matthew Pennycook]

Let me first say that, for entirely understandable reasons, this has been a passionate debate. People feel very strongly about the local planning system, the role of elected members in it, and the role of residents in inputting to those decisions. That is because local planning is principally a local activity. It is for that reason that we as a Government are putting so much emphasis on ensuring that up-to-date local plans are in place in every part of the country, because we think that they are the best way to shape development in a particular area, but we want to ensure that planning committees function effectively.

I will make a couple of points in response to the issues raised. The first is on outcomes. I slightly chide the shadow Minister, because it cannot be true on the one hand that this is a measure, as he alleges, that we are introducing to build our 1.5 million homes and then, on the other hand, to say that it will essentially make no difference to the current arrangements.

Outcomes-wise, we think this is an important part of the reforms that we are bringing forward, because it will ensure that decisions are made in a more consistent and more timely manner. That is why I gave the example on Second Reading of reserved matters applications. I do not know what the views of Members are, but I certainly do not think that every reserved matters application should come back to committees. I think that often delays the process.

We can discuss many of the other challenges that we face in the planning system. It is absolutely true that there is more that we can do on empty homes; we are giving that consideration. There is more that we can do on build-out—watch this space. There is more that we can do on all these things, but it is still the case that the planning system is too inconsistent and slow, and that there are things we can do about that.

To come back to the point on build-out, and we do need to take action on build-out, it is this Government’s view that we need to oversupply consents into the planning system to ensure that we are building out at the rate that meets the housing crisis, because whatever anyone thinks about the rights or wrongs of this reform, we are not building homes at the scale that we need in order to meet housing need and housing demand. We have to do things differently. In terms of outcomes, we think this measure is impactful.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lewis Cocking]

rose—

[Matthew Pennycook]

But the conversation that we will have to have, because we have the numbers, is what the national scheme of delegation should incorporate, not whether we bring one forward. Three Members want to intervene. We have a few minutes left.

[Matthew Pennycook]

I think it is perfectly appropriate that we introduce a national scheme of delegation, and that we bring forward, through a regulation-making power, those details in due course. Any future Government would have to consult on changes and take them through via secondary legislation, and it would be up for scrutiny.

I am tempted to comment more widely on regulation-making powers, but I gently say to Opposition Members that some of the placeholder clauses that I saw in legislation in the previous Parliament make this one seem very minor, in relative terms. We can debate that more widely, but I think our approach, both in outcomes and in a reasonable balance between democratic oversight and trusting expert local planning officers, which we all do in certain circumstances, is the right one.

[Lewis Cocking]

The Minister has been generous with his time. Could he comment on how we will hold planning officers to account? At the moment, we can call in planning applications democratically. How are we going to hold planning officers to account under a national scheme of delegation?

[Matthew Pennycook]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for reminding me of that point. It is a point well made, and it was also made by the shadow Minister on another clause. I will go away and reflect on what more, if anything, needs to be done in that regard. It is rightly put that, just as we want to ensure consistency in decisions by elected Members, we want consistency in the decisions and recommendations made by expert planning officers at a local authority level. I will happily come back to the Committee on that.

Planning and Infrastructure Bill (Fifth sitting)

Lewis Cocking Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 13th May 2025 Public Bill Committees

[The Chair]

I remind Members that the hon. Member for West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine cannot be here because he is not on the Committee, so he is excused.

[Lewis Cocking (Broxbourne) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mrs Hobhouse. I rise in support of amendment 83, in which the shadow Secretary of State for Scotland sets out a fair and reasonable system as to what benefits people living near new energy infrastructure should be able to get. It is important to note that the House of Commons Library says that the Government are minded to set aside £2,500 a year for 10 years. The Government should be able to find it within themselves to support our amendment, considering we do not even go as far as the provision that they suggested, according to the House of Commons Library. This amendment should be an easy step to get to where the Government want to go.

I do have some concerns. It has been raised in Committee before that this provision cannot be a simple solution to not doing any consultation. We still need a belt-and-braces consultation, and I want to hear some clear words from the Minister to say that this will not replace that—residents will still be able to have their say, and there will still be a full and proper consultation when new energy infrastructure comes forward.

I am disappointed to see in the legislation hardly any detail about what the community benefit scheme will be. I have said before that if we leave too much ambiguity, electricity providers and developers will want to get away with paying nothing at all or as little as possible. We should not allow that to happen. We should allow people—our constituents—who live near energy infra-structure projects to get the best deal possible, considering that they will have to put up with a lot of disruption. I have some constituents who live near large housing developments. There is a lot of disruption during the construction phase, so I want more detail about what the Government intend to set out.

As I have said, a House of Commons Library paper said that the Government were minded to go to £2,500 a year. The Government should therefore have no issue supporting the amendment because it does not go as far as that. It sets out reasonable benefits that everyone should expect across the country, leaving less to ambiguity and putting power into the hands of this Parliament scrutinising this legislation rather than developers and electricity providers because, as I said, they will want to get away with paying as little as possible.

--- Later in debate ---

[Michael Shanks]

I understand the point that the hon. Lady is making, but a transmission line goes through a significant number of communities in a linear way. For a wind farm, you could draw a line around it and benefit all those communities; a transmission line does not work that way, so we would be giving to a significant number of communities who have maybe one or two pylons near them. That is why we think what is most important is that the households closest to the infrastructure get the direct community benefit.

To the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Basingstoke, this is not the only part of the Bill—we will also have a community benefits fund for infrastructure like substations, where if there is one particular piece of infrastructure built in a community, with all the disruption that goes with building that, wider community benefits come from that as well. It is not one or the other; we are doing both, but in a legislative sense, we only have to legislate on the Bill discount scheme, which is what we are talking about in this amendment.

The shadow Minister asked for detail on some important points—including that we should set out in secondary legislation the specific level of benefit and the duration over which it will be paid. Of course, the £250 a year is a “minded to” position that we have come to as a result of the consultation that the previous Government did and the evidence that we have seen, but that will be set out in secondary legislation, which—to the hon. Lady’s point—allows us to alter that over time if the scheme is successful. This is, in some ways, a trial to find out whether the intended policy outcomes result. I hope that for those reasons—I will come to some others—the hon. Member for Hamble Valley might withdraw his amendment.

Clause 22 is about creating a financial benefit scheme for eligible households living near certain new or significant increases in network transmission infrastructure, and inserts new sections into the Electricity Act 1989. It empowers the Secretary of State to establish and determine the overall design of the scheme, including qualification criteria, scheme administration, enforcement, and provisions requiring the benefit to be passed on.

The “pass-through provision” is outlined in new section 38B(2), and is essential to ensure that the right consumers benefit and to ensure that when an intermediary sits between the electricity supplier and the end user—as happens in some cases—the intermediary will be required to obtain the full benefit and then pass it on to the end user. If this is not complied with, new section 38B(3) allows regulations to provide for the withdrawal or recovery of benefits made to intermediaries.

To enforce compliance with the scheme, new section 38C details the enforcement provisions that may be made in regulations, and I hope this answers the shadow Minister’s point around potential fraud in the system and the imposition of penalties that we will make through secondary legislation for instances of regulations not being complied with. Finally, new section 38D deals with provisions around data collection for the purposes of administering the scheme. Overall, it is worth remembering the purpose of this clause: it is to improve the public acceptability of network transmission infrastructure.

[Lewis Cocking]

I appreciate the Minister’s correction of what I said—the Government are less generous than I interpreted, in terms of the £2,500 over 10 years. But can he give us some warm words about this not replacing any consultation and say that it is on top of all of the consultation and residents being allowed to have their say, and that we will not allow electricity companies just to pay some money and then get away without doing any consultation at all? Can he give us some reassurances on that?

--- Later in debate ---

[Rachel Taylor]

I acted for developers before coming into the House, and I know their biggest concern was always delays, not the fees that the local authority charged for doing these things. As a result of the lack of capacity in local authorities, there has been a move to more unadopted roads on small estates, which has its own problems for property owners going forward. I really welcome this provision, because it lays sensible steps toward making it easier for developers to complete their projects sooner, which enables them to make more money.

I think that the offset in costs will be welcomed by small developers. This provision is particularly important in the small authorities that cover large geographical areas, because it will enable them to go out and make visits. To give an example, my client was required to build a pavement but could not do so while there was a vaccination centre up the road. The local authority could not, under the fee structure, find the time to come out and visit the site, which would have enabled it to make a more sensible decision. In general terms, this provision is really welcome and developers, both small and large, will see this as a very positive step forward.

[Lewis Cocking]

I have a few comments, although I support the principle of this provision. There is not enough capacity in some planning departments, so I agree that fee cost recovery and some of the additional fees, particularly those relating to highways matters, are really important for local authorities, but I have a few questions. When will the money be paid? Will it be paid before the development has started, so there is capacity in the system? People sometimes make planning applications and get planning permissions but do not actually build out the development, so will the fees still need to be paid in those cases?

I have some concerns that I would like the Minister to comment on. Some authorities still have section 106 agreements, and I am concerned that developers will just move money from those section 106 agreements—money that is to be put into education or healthcare, for example—by saying in a viability assessment that they now have to pay these fees to the local authorities, particularly around highways. How can we stop it being the same money, just moved around? These fees should be additional to the money from section 106 agreements that the council was already getting, as they are going directly into capacity issues within planning departments. I am worried that developers will try to play games by just moving the same money around the system or cutting the same pie in a different way, which will not help local authorities. I would like to hear the Minister’s response to those comments, but I wholeheartedly support what the Government are trying to do in this specific case.

[Matthew Pennycook]

I welcome both the broad support for the intent behind the clause and the very reasonable questions that have been put to me by members of the Committee. To be very clear, because we have strayed into pavement applications, section 106 applications and other things, this clause very specifically relates to allowing local authorities and statutory consultees to recover the costs that they incur when providing services on highway-related applications only. We may discuss later some of the other matters and the general position of planning authorities and the challenges they face in capacity and capability. I just wanted to make that point.

All the clause does is bring the Highways Act 1980 into line with the cost recovery provisions established under other infrastructure consenting regimes. It is broadly accepted that we need to support local planning authorities and statutory consultees to process applications in a timely manner. We think that will drive high-quality and timely—

[Lewis Cocking]

Will the Minister give way?

[Matthew Pennycook]

I will address the hon. Member’s point, if he will wait, and then he is more than welcome to come back in. As I said, it help to drive timely and high-quality inputs into the process, which will speed up the delivery of highway infrastructure projects and avoid extra costs. This is an important point to make: there are costs associated with the fact that applications are not taken through in a timely manner. If they are delayed or time out, that can result in design changes or the process to reach a decision being extended, which brings extra costs. In general terms, we want to ensure, as with many of the provisions in the Bill, a more streamlined, certain and faster consenting process.

It will be for the Secretary of State and Welsh Ministers to set out in regulations those bodies that are able to charge the fees; they may include bodies such as the Environment Agency and Natural England. Regulations and guidance will set out in more detail what advice and information will be covered by the cost recovery process, as well as other matters, including how fees are calculated, when fees can and cannot be charged and the point at which fees are charged.

We will get into separate issues relating to build out, but to respond gently to the point made by the hon. Member for Broxbourne, I cannot see how a very specific highways-related application will necessarily bleed over into section 106 negotiations. None the less, I will reflect on that point, as we do not want cost recovery provisions in the clause to allow developers to reduce section 106 contributions on the basis that they are having to pay this charge. As I said, delegated powers will ensure that the cost recovery power is future-proofed by ensuring that it is flexible enough to account for changes, not least in inflation, which we have discussed before.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lewis Cocking]

I completely understand where the Minister is coming from on specific applications just for roads. I suppose my comments were related to new towns or garden villages, where there will be lots of facets to those applications—house building, new roads and what have you. I therefore welcome the Minister’s comments on the fact that he will look at those issues that I have raised.

[Matthew Pennycook]

I certainly will do so, and, just to stress the point once again, what we are trying to do here and in a number of other clauses in this chapter is broadly about bringing the processes under the Highways Act 1980 and the Transport and Works Act 1992 into line with other consenting regimes. As I said, in this case, it is about ensuring that cost recovery provisions established under those other infrastructure consenting regimes apply in the case of the Highways Act. However, I certainly will be more than happy to reflect on the hon. Gentleman’s point, and on those made by other members of the Committee. On that basis, I commend the clause to the Committee.

Question put and agreed to.

Clause 25 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 26

Power of strategic highways company in relation to trunk roads

Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.

Planning and Infrastructure Bill (Seventh sitting)

Lewis Cocking Excerpts

Committee stage
Wednesday 14th May 2025 Public Bill Committees

[Matthew Pennycook]

Thank you for that clarification, Dr Huq; we may hear further from the hon. Gentleman on that point. Just to be clear, the Government are driving for universal coverage for strategic planning across the whole of England, so, either individually or in defined groupings, upper-tier county councils and unitary authorities will have to, in some form, be part of producing a spatial development strategy.

As I said, I very much recognise the challenge that the hon. Gentleman posed around resourcing. It is worth pointing out that, in addition to the elements that we discussed yesterday—the £46 million that the Budget allocated to local planning authority capacity and capability, and the measures in the Bill allowing for the setting of fees locally and the ringfencing of those fees—the Government have already identified funding for 2025-26 to support authorities to prepare for the production of spatial development strategies. We recognise the need for core funding and that is being negotiated with the Treasury as part of the spending review for 2026 to 2029.

[Lewis Cocking (Broxbourne) (Con)]

Could the Minister outline what would happen if a unitary council created a spatial development strategy and then became part of a larger, bigger authority under the devolution? What would happen to their specific strategy, and would that new authority, as a bigger authority, have to create a new SDS across the whole area?

[Matthew Pennycook]

Over time, spatial development strategies will have to reflect the appropriate geographies at the point they are renewed and refreshed—if that answers the hon. Gentleman’s point. But as I said, either individually or in groupings through the strategic boards we are creating, we will have to have those SDSs in places, although obviously the geographies will be able to change over time, if that is the wish of the component member authorities.

As I was saying, for the reasons I have outlined the Government believe that the legislation, as drafted, is essential to support the introduction of our strategic planning policy, which is an important means of ensuring our pro-growth agenda and that we are able to deliver 1.5 million homes over this Parliament. As we have argued on many occasions, the introduction of a robust, universal system of strategic planning is a core part of the Government’s reform agenda, and we think that the Bill is required to operate in the way that I have set out. On that basis, I ask the hon. Member for Taunton and Wellington to withdraw his amendment.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lewis Cocking]

Does the hon. Member agree that nothing in this Bill makes developers build the social infrastructure that he is describing, which many communities desperately need, first—or at all?

[Jim Dickson]

The hon. Member is helping me to make my point. The only difference I have with him is that I know that the Government intend to ensure that infrastructure appears at the same time as homes and the Minister will provide reassurance on that. It is vital that that happens, via either a development corporation with those powers, or the spatial development strategies that we are discussing. Let us ensure that we do build the physical and social infrastructure at the same time as homes, with the examples of generally good development we see in Ebbsfleet Garden City reproduced elsewhere, as the Government meet their ambitious plans to build 1.5 million homes during this Parliament.

--- Later in debate ---

[Nesil Caliskan]

The hon. Member gives me the opportunity to make two points. First, the Planning and Infrastructure Bill will allow the Government to spearhead infrastructure delivery in this country in rural areas that do not have the necessary infrastructure. That is why the Bill is so important. With the necessary infrastructure, we will be able to see the delivery of homes not just in urban areas. Secondly, to the point about housing delivery in Barking and Dagenham, the area has some of the most impressive stats for house building in London and the rest of the country. It has been delivering housing at a much better rate than areas not just in London, but in the rest of the country.

My final point is about the threat to the green belt, which the hon. Member for Taunton and Wellington mentioned. The biggest threat to the green belt is not having a strategic approach to planning in this country. If we take the absence of local plans in areas, as it stands, the legal framework means that if a planner says no to a planning application, and there is no up-to-date local plan, then on appeal, the appeal process can enforce such that the development happens in the green belt anyway. We need a strategic approach across the country that not only encourages or, in fact, forces local authorities to have up-to-date local plans, but ensures that house building—alongside infrastructure, which I firmly believe the Bill will help to deliver—is fair in its approach to delivering homes.

We cannot just build in urban areas. We do not have that capacity. It is unfair for those who are already living in overcrowded accommodation. People deserve to have access to open and green spaces, and our rural communities deserve to have the infrastructure necessary for well-connected neighbourhoods. I firmly believe that the Bill supports that, and that the debate around green belt and access is more nuanced than some Opposition Members have set out.

[Lewis Cocking]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Dr Huq. I rise in support of amendments 72, 75 and 82. I await with anticipation what the Minister will say, because surely we can all agree that green belt should be protected and that we should do brownfield first. Sometimes, under the current planning system, green-belt land gets developed on through the back door.

Even if a council has an up-to-date local plan, there can be issues if it does not meet its five-year land supply or housing targets in terms of its build-out rates, which the council has very little control over. The council has control over the speed and determination of planning applications. However, it can approve all the applications it wants—it could approve thousands—but if the developer or developers are not building them, the council then gets punished. Someone else will come along and say, “I want to develop on this piece of green-belt land,” and when that goes to appeal, the Planning Inspectorate will say to the council, “You haven’t got a five-year land supply, and you’re not meeting your build-out rate targets.” It is the community and the council that get punished for developers not building what they have been given approval to build.

[Paul Holmes]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. In relation to previous comments that have been made about building on green belt through the back door, does he agree that these amendments strengthen the case for some of those councils? The current planning appeals system takes into regard national guidelines and national legislation, and these amendments provide a safeguard to stop some of those things happening.

[Lewis Cocking]

My hon. Friend makes a pertinent point, and I completely agree. We should do anything we can to strengthen councils’ hands in protecting green belt. I suspect there is broad support for brownfield-first and protecting the green belt.

I turn to amendment 82, tabled by the shadow Secretary of State for Scotland, my hon. Friend the Member for West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine (Andrew Bowie). A wider failure of the planning system is that it does not account for the cumulative impact of lots of planning decisions. This amendment goes some way to protecting farmland. It may be appropriate for a field to be developed for a specific farming purpose, but if there is lots of development in farming areas in a specific location and the planning committee does not take into account the cumulative impact, there can be negative consequences—for example, where a floodplain is built on and that creates issues for the field next door.

The Government need to grapple with this wider issue of the cumulative impact of lots of development. At the moment, planning committees judge the planning application in front of them and do not necessarily look at the cumulative impact. I hope the Government will support our amendments, in particular amendment 82, which tries to rectify some of those cumulative impacts in order to protect our agricultural land, which is very important for our food security.

[Matthew Pennycook]

I thank members of the Committee for these amendments. I hope I can give them some reassurance that none of them is necessary from the Government’s point of view.

I turn first to amendments 72, 75 and 82, tabled by the hon. Members for Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner and for West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine. These amendments relate to developments taking place on green-belt, brownfield and agricultural land resulting from the introduction of spatial development strategies. While I understand the positive intent behind the amendments in seeking to ensure that safeguards are in place to protect valuable land from development, they are not necessary, as current national policy already achieves the intended aims.

On amendment 72, I fully agree that we must make the best use possible of brownfield land for development. The Government have been very clear that we have a brownfield-first approach to development. That is recognised in national planning policy. We made changes in the recent national planning policy framework update to expand the definition of “previously developed land” and reinforce the expectation that development proposals on such land within settlements should normally be approved.

We are also consulting on our working paper on a brownfield passport, which we are considering through the introduction of national development management policies, as provided for by the previous Government’s Levelling-up and Regeneration Act 2023. The aim of those proposals we are seeking feedback on—lots of feedback has been gratefully received—is to ensure that we prioritise and accelerate the development of previously developed land wherever possible. We are very firm on our brownfield-first approach.

--- Later in debate ---

[Matthew Pennycook]

I thank the shadow Minister for that challenge. On this whole group of amendments, whether they have been tabled on the basis of a misunderstanding of spatial development strategies or Members have just taken the opportunity—I completely appreciate why—to initiate wider debates on the Government’s national planning policy, I will address why I do not think they are necessary.

The Government are in absolute agreement on the point made about brownfield first. In a sense, we want the default answer for planning permissions on brownfield to be yes, unless circumstances necessitate otherwise. The hon. Member for Broxbourne made a very good point about build-out, which I addressed yesterday. The Government are looking to take action on build-out, not least with the introduction of the provisions in the Levelling-up and Regeneration Act 2023, to incentivise the prompt build-out of housing sites, and we are looking to bring those forward in fairly short order.

[Lewis Cocking]

The Minister has just said that he wants a default yes on brownfield sites. Is he concerned that if we give carte blanche to developers and say, “You can build whatever you want on brownfield sites,” some of that development on brownfield sites will not be of the quality that I am sure we both want?

[Matthew Pennycook]

I am not concerned, for the reasons set out in the “Brownfield Passport” working paper, which I encourage the hon. Gentleman to go away and read, if he has not had the chance to do so already. In a sense, we are looking at a set of proposals, and again I emphasise that we have asked for feedback on them and we are considering how that feedback maps on to how we take forward this approach through national development management policies. In effect, we are saying that there is a presumption that the answer to applications on brownfield land is yes, but it has to meet certain criteria and conditions. The various options that we have explored are set out in that note, but it would absolutely not be a free-for-all on brownfield land, so I hope that reassures the hon. Gentleman on that point.

I do not agree that amendment 72 is necessary to achieve the important objective that it raises because, while spatial development strategies will provide for a high-level framework for infrastructure investment for housing growth, they will not allocate specific sites. Strategic planning authorities will be required to have regard to the need to ensure that their spatial development strategy is consistent with national policy. National planning policy, as I have said, already provides strong support for brownfield development, and it is clear that brownfield land should be the first port of call.

It is also clear that authorities should give substantial weight to the value of using suitable brownfield land within settlements for homes and other identified needs. In the event that spatial development strategies do not meet the requirements of the NPPF, the Bill gives the Secretary of State a range of intervention powers to ensure consistency with national policies, and those national policies are clear, as I have argued. I therefore ask that the shadow Minister withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 75 seeks to ensure that spatial development strategies consider other practical options before identifying infrastructure or the distribution of housing within the green belt. To be clear, spatial development strategies cannot allocate land for development. This is a really important point: they can identify broad locations for new development, if the participating members wish to take those forward, and that may include land within the green belt. However, the formal allocation of sites will remain the preserve of local plans and neighbourhood plans.

I am in full agreement that it is crucial to take a brownfield-first approach to development, as I have said, in which the reuse of previously developed land and options to increase density are given priority. I can assure Opposition Members that, when any such green belt review takes place, existing planning policy in relation to the reuse of green belt will still apply. The NPPF makes it clear that, when plans are considering the release of green-belt land, they must demonstrate that they have examined fully all other reasonable options for meeting identified needs, including making use of brownfield land and optimising the density of developments. This is a point that I have made on several other occasions: there is a sequential approach to plan making to green-belt release, and it is very clearly set out what the Government intend in that regard.

Planning and Infrastructure Bill (Eighth sitting)

Lewis Cocking Excerpts

Committee stage
Wednesday 14th May 2025 Public Bill Committees

[Paul Holmes]

I genuinely thank the hon. Lady for that intervention. She has clearly examined the Bill, which is such a big piece of legislation—in the right way. I simply say that an examination of and consultation on the creation of a spatial development strategy would not always have what people want in it, or do not want in it, as its ultimate end goal once the draft has been put together. When a draft spatial strategy has been put together, people should be able to have their say on it.

The hon. Lady will know from her previous career, as I do from mine, that when people want to have their say on something in a consultation that an authority proposes, some will be happy—maybe they are getting what they want from it—but some will never be happy. They will always want to grumble; we have all had a few of those in our inboxes. However, we believe it is right that once something as key and new as these strategies is brought together, local people should be able to have their say.

The hon. Lady is absolutely right that there is a requirement on strategic planning authorities to consult prior and during. We are saying that once the draft strategy is put forward, it is crucial that local people have their chance to have a say. If a strategic planning authority is confident that it has made the right decision on a local development based on the consultations it has already done, it should not be scared or hindered by a consultation to see what happens in respect of the finished product.

[Lewis Cocking (Broxbourne) (Con)]

The shadow Minister is making some eloquent points. Does he agree that if the Government are intent on bringing in a national scheme of delegation, and changing the role of the planning committee and how councillors interact with the planning process, even more consultation should be done at the stages he is describing so that we can ensure that residents still get their say over development in their area?

[Paul Holmes]

Yes. We had a significant debate yesterday on what I said was the Government’s centralising zeal in taking powers away from locally elected politicians. Many Opposition Members agree with me. The Opposition tabled an amendment that would not have allowed to go ahead something as large-scale being put together by a strategic planning authority, created by the Government, but the Minister won. We believe people should be consulted.

As I said to the hon. Member for North Warwickshire and Bedworth, it is vital that when there is a democratic deficit—we fundamentally believe that one is being created by other aspects of the Bill—local people should have the right to be consulted on the end product. That is why I say this to the Minister, slightly cheekily, but with a serious undertone. As I said in a Westminster Hall debate, he is the forward-looking planner of our time, and I know he gets embarrassed about these things—he is blushing—but nobody in the House of Commons is more deserving of the role of Housing Minister. He worked hard on the role in opposition, and he comes from a space of wanting to reform the system. We accept that, but sometimes his reforms have consequences, and if those reforms are so good, he should not be afraid to allow the people who elected him to his place and the Government to their place to have their say on something as radical as this change.

Planning and Infrastructure Bill (Ninth sitting)

Lewis Cocking Excerpts

Committee stage
Thursday 15th May 2025 Public Bill Committees

[Matthew Pennycook]

Let me set out for the Committee the intentions behind the clause, which gives the Secretary of State the power to amend environmental delivery plans in specific circumstances, where it is necessary to do so, and lays out the process that must be gone through.

The ability to amend may be required, for example, to reflect new environmental information or to extend an environmental delivery plan to accommodate additional development. The Secretary of State may amend on their own initiative or at the request of Natural England. It is right that environmental delivery plans can be amended, but our intention is that, where development has already contributed to the environmental delivery plan, any future amendment does not expose such development to requests for additional funding.

In providing a power to amend, we have also included proportionate requirements to consult on amendments. Crucially, however, in making an amendment to an environmental delivery plan, the Secretary of State will be bound by the same overall improvement test and will need to be satisfied that the conservation measures in the amended plan are likely to sufficiently outweigh the negative effect of development on the relevant environmental feature.

If the Secretary of State wishes to amend an environmental delivery plan, other than to amend only the charging schedule, they may first direct Natural England to consult on the environmental delivery plan as proposed to be amended. That allows environmental delivery plans to adapt and reflect changing circumstances, while ensuring that they are subject to sufficient scrutiny and oversight.

Turning to the amendments, I will begin with amendment 11, as set out by the hon. Member for Taunton and Wellington. I recognise the concern he highlights that, in a certain scenario, an amendment could be made that reduces the environmental outcomes and lowers the amount of protection. There are of course many important reasons why an environmental delivery plan may need to be amended, but we recognise that that ability to amend needs to be carefully considered. That is why existing clauses already offer a number of safeguards.

The central safeguard is that, where amended, an environmental delivery plan is still required to pass the overall improvement test. That means that, when amending an environmental delivery plan, the Secretary of State will not be able to reduce the amount of conservation measures without amending the scale of development that can rely on that environmental delivery plan.

[Lewis Cocking (Broxbourne) (Con)]

To clarify, if lots of environmental delivery plans are amended, who checks that Natural England and the responsible bodies in this process recommend the right things in the first place? I assume that we do not expect loads to be amended, but if plans consistently need amending because they are not producing the environmental benefits and the protection of nature they set out to, who will look overall at how many are amended in totality?

[Matthew Pennycook]

It will be for Natural England to determine what conservation measures are in place. There are reporting requirements on Natural England in terms of the overall body of EDPs. On the flexibility that is required—this speaks directly to the amendment from the hon. Member for Taunton and Wellington—it is unlikely that a Secretary of State would be able to reduce the number of conservation measures provided without reducing the development capacity of the plan, as that would not meet the overall development test. But there may be circumstances where the development capacity and the environmental conservation measures need to be reduced, and we need scope to be able to amend plans.

The hon. Member for North Herefordshire pressed me to refer to the concerns highlighted by the OEP about there being no requirement to consult on amended EDPs. As I have said, amendments to EDPs could be for a variety of reasons and could be extremely minor. In such cases, it would not be appropriate to require a consultation in every instance. Instead, there is provision for the Secretary of State to direct Natural England to consult on an amended EDP where expertise is required to inform its decision on the overall improvement test—for instance, if there is a material change to the development included or the conservation measures proposed. We think that that is a more proportionate and tailored approach to different EDPs.

--- Later in debate ---

[Matthew Pennycook]

It is the Chair’s job to say so, but I do not think the hon. Lady can intervene on an intervention. I thank the shadow Minister for his contribution. It would not be the best use of our time if I were to flick through the Bill while on my feet and attempt to find the relevant subsection. I will happily write to the hon. Member for North Herefordshire to set out how the requirements in clause 58 operate.

In designing the legislation, we have sought to avoid situations where the Secretary of State would be forced to revoke an environmental delivery plan where it would still meet the test of securing better outcomes for nature. A practical example of where it would be right to allow such amendment is where an EDP has proposed conservation measures to cover more development than is subsequently expected to come forward. There may be instances where the level of development is reduced, and then it may be appropriate to amend the EDP. In such circumstances, it would be right to amend and to reflect the reduction in the scale of development covered and the corresponding conservation measures. Amendment 11 would prevent that and would force the Secretary of State to revoke the environmental delivery plan or to keep the inaccurate plan in place.

In the event of a substantive change to the environmental delivery plan, both a public consultation and approval by the Secretary of State would be required. That would give the opportunity for environmental groups and local stakeholders to have their voices heard, and for Natural England to present evidence that provides assurance that the overall improvement test would continue to be met. With that explanation, I hope the hon. Member for Taunton and Wellington will agree to withdraw his amendment.

Clause 59 establishes the process for revoking an environmental delivery plan, and the circumstances under which the power will be used. When the Secretary of State approves and makes an environmental delivery plan, they are taking a decision at a specific point in time. However, we recognise the need to retain the ability to revisit this decision if necessary and ultimately to revoke an environmental delivery plan if the overall improvement test is no longer met.

[Lewis Cocking]

On a point of clarity, if the nature recovery strategy includes land or a scheme that is not next to or near the development where the developer has paid into creating that nature recovery strategy, who does the Minister intend to consult when these plans are changed? The people where the proposed nature site is, the residents of the development that contributed to it or both?

[Matthew Pennycook]

As I set out, there is a requirement to go out to public consultation when significant amendments are made. That would be a general consultation, in the sense that we are moving beyond a site-by-site assessment. Again, it is for Natural England to set out how the EDP will function across the whole area. To return to the point raised by the hon. Member for North Herefordshire, we do not think there is a requirement to consult in every instance, when some changes could be minor.

If an overall improvement test is no longer met, revocation is of course an option of last resort, and the Bill includes various safeguards to ensure that we do not reach that point. Those safeguards include the ability to deploy back-up conservation measures if monitoring indicates underperformance of the primary conservation measures, and the option to amend an environmental delivery plan or to reduce the capacity of development under the environmental delivery plan.

If, however, a decision is reached to revoke an environmental delivery plan, the legislation is clear on two fronts. First, development that has relied on the environmental delivery plan prior to revocation is not affected by the decision to revoke. Secondly, the Secretary of State will consider appropriate actions to ensure that the negative effect of development on environmental features, where a developer has already committed to pay the levy before revocation, is suitably addressed. That will provide certainty for developers that they can rely on environmental delivery plans, and certainty for local communities and environmental groups that the environment will be protected in all situations.

That links to Government new clause 66, which provides the Secretary of State with the power to make a compulsory purchase order in fulfilling their obligations when an environmental delivery plan is revoked. To deliver any appropriate conservation measures, it may be necessary to utilise powers of compulsory purchase. The new clause provides the Secretary of State with the necessary powers to ensure that they can fulfil that duty as part of the wider package of safeguards that underpin this new approach.

Similarly, Government new clause 72 ensures that the Secretary of State can take the steps necessary in the event of revocation, by granting them powers of entry when they are delivering conservation measures where an environmental delivery plan has been revoked. We recognise that such powers should be provided only with appropriate constraints, which is why the clause includes appropriate safeguards. With that explanation, I commend clause 59 and the new clauses to the Committee.

I should also touch on amendments 15 and 128. Amendment 15, tabled by the hon. Member for Taunton and Wellington, would raise the threshold for the actions the Secretary of State must take on revocation of an environmental delivery plan. The safeguards I have just outlined already ensure that we secure positive environmental outcomes. In seeking to require the Secretary of State to take actions to “significantly” outweigh the impact of development, the amendment, as per previous debates, would place an undue burden on the state to go beyond the overall improvement that sits at the heart of this new approach and that already delivers more than the current system. I hope the hon. Gentleman is sufficiently reassured on those safeguards and will not press his amendment.

Amendment 128 was tabled by the hon. Member for Keighley and Ilkley, and I hope that, in this instance, it is at least coherent internally, even if it is not aligned with the measures in the Bill. It would require the Secretary of State to seek to return land obtained through compulsory purchase orders, in the event of an environmental delivery plan being revoked.

The important point to stress is that nothing in the legislation would preclude the return of surplus land to former owners, their successors or sitting tenants in accordance with the Crichel Down rules. However, it would not be appropriate to require the Secretary of State to return that land to its former owner whenever an environmental delivery plan was revoked. The land would not be surplus if it were needed to secure conservation measures that may be necessary in the event of revocation. The amendment would reduce the ability of the Secretary of State to use land already secured under the environmental delivery plan to fulfil their obligations in the event of the EDP being revoked. With that explanation, I hope the shadow Minister will agree not to press his amendment.

Planning and Infrastructure Bill (Tenth sitting)

Lewis Cocking Excerpts

Committee stage
Thursday 15th May 2025 Public Bill Committees

[Matthew Pennycook]

Clause 63 forms part of the wider group of clauses that provide the necessary powers to make regulations governing the operation of the nature restoration levy. The clause specifically deals with issues of liability and provides regulation-making powers to set out who is liable to pay the nature restoration levy and when that liability arises. Given the breadth of environmental circumstances and types of development that may be covered by an environmental delivery plan, the detailed operation of the levy is best addressed through regulations, with the powers to make regulations suitably constrained. Technical matters of liability, such as the withdrawal and cancellation of liability, will be set out in the regulations, with the clause providing the relevant powers. To provide certainty and clarity to developers, those regulations will be subject to the affirmative procedure.

Clause 64 is another limb in the group of clauses that will govern the operation of the nature restoration levy. In particular, the clause provides the powers to make regulations in respect of how Natural England calculates and sets the nature restoration levy. Those regulations will, for example, frame how Natural England determines the cost of conservation measures to address the impact of development on the relevant environmental feature and the subsequent levy rate for developers. In doing so, regulations made under the clause will ensure matters of economic viability form part of the setting of rates under the charging schedule.

[Lewis Cocking (Broxbourne) (Con)]

Does the Minister share my concerns? When developments are proposed, there are obviously negotiations under section 106. Although I agree with the principle of the levy, I do not want developers to move money from other 106 obligations —healthcare, roads and education—into it. Has he given any thought to how we can prevent that from happening? This levy should be additional, rather than cutting the pie in a different way.

[Matthew Pennycook]

I appreciate where the hon. Gentleman is coming from. In the correspondence I will send to the Committee, I am more than happy to try to give hon. Members a sense of how the provisions in the Bill do or do not interact with the existing developer contribution system. However, section 106 agreements are a very different proposition from what we are discussing. We are talking about a nature restoration levy payment, managed by Natural England and directly for use on conservation measures that form part of an EDP. So section 106 is an entirely separate issue.

I recognise—I think this is the hon. Gentleman’s point—how issues of viability will be addressed in the calculation of the levy payment. What I would say to that is that this is a regulation-making power; the regulations will come forward with further detail, and we have made them subject to the affirmative procedure. We will have further debate in the House on the technical detail of how those regulations look when they are published. This is just the regulation-making power that will allow the levy to be charged. On that basis, I hope I have somewhat clarified the issue.

--- Later in debate ---

[Matthew Pennycook]

The hon. Member is right that those powers are there. The reason the new clauses are required is to ensure the operability under the nature restoration fund. To provide him with a little more detail, which I hope might be helpful, in respect of the Protection of Badgers Act the new clauses extend which prohibited activities may be covered by a licence to cover what will be needed for an EDP.

The new clauses also provide for a greater alignment between licences granted under the existing Protection of Badgers Act and those granted in respect of other species under the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981 and the Conservation of Habitats and Species Regulations 2017. EDPs will set the terms of a licence, but we need these new clauses to ensure operability under the nature restoration fund. As I said, I am more than happy to write to hon. Members to reassure them on this point, but I do think their concerns are somewhat unfounded and I do not think the interpretation they are placing on the Government is correct.

[Lewis Cocking]

As Broxbourne’s emblem is a badger, I would like the Minister to write to me so I can have some more reassurance that these powers will not be used unnecessarily.

[Matthew Pennycook]

It is late in the day, Mrs Hobhouse, and people are running away with themselves in various respects, but I do want to provide members of the Committee with as much reassurance on this point as we can provide as the Government. I will be able to set out the reasons I think their concerns are unfounded and why I think the interpretation they have put on these new clauses is not accurate, and why, for reasons of operability, we need to ensure they are in place. As part of that, I also commit to write to the shadow Minister on the specific and fairly technical series of questions he has put to us about public bodies in respect of clause 75. With that, I commend the clauses to the Committee.

Question put and agreed to.

Clause 75 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 76 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Schedule 6

Amendments relating to Part 3

Amendments made: 103, in schedule 6, page 156, line 35, leave out

“, as it applies in England and Wales,”

See the explanatory statement for Amendment 101.

Amendment 104, in schedule 6, page 156, line 35, at end insert

“(see also section 95(1A) (extent of this paragraph is England and Wales only)).”—(Matthew Pennycook.)

See the explanatory statement for Amendment 101.

Amendment proposed: 121, in schedule 6, page 157, line 34, leave out paragraph 41.—(Gideon Amos.)

Question put, That the amendment be made.

Planning and Infrastructure Bill (Eleventh sitting)

Lewis Cocking Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 20th May 2025 Public Bill Committees

[Matthew Pennycook]

I welcome the support for the clause that hon. Members have indicated. The integration of transport infrastructure and its timely delivery are essential to delivering large-scale urban developments, and that is what the clause will facilitate.

The shadow Minister and others asked me whether the wording is sufficient to deliver the objectives of the clause. I will reflect on that, as I always do, but we are clear that introducing a duty on local transport authorities to have regard to and co-operate with development corporations—this is our preferred approach in the instance—will facilitate co-operation. Each development corporation will respond to particular and localised delivery challenges, with differences in transport requirements for each development, so it is not possible to specify the nature of the co-operation required in all cases.

In practical terms, officials in my Department will support the development corporation to have those conversations with local transport authorities, try to get a shared understanding and resolve transport challenges in particular circumstances. As a necessary minimum, we will expect local transport authorities to engage constructively with the development corporation’s plans for transport delivery and not unduly block the delivery of transport infrastructure that is necessary to unlock growth in the red line area.

[Lewis Cocking (Broxbourne) (Con)]

I support this clause on development corporations and transport. NHS and healthcare services in the new development corporations are also vital, so why did the Government not include a clause that would make local NHS trusts behave in the way that the Minister wants transport authorities to behave, so that development corporations cater for healthcare needs as well?

[Matthew Pennycook]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his question. We just debated a clause about standardising the list of infrastructure that all development corporations can bring forward, but clause 82 addresses a specific gap in the legislation, which is that development corporations cannot have transport powers and are reliant on local transport authorities to bring them forward. I do not dismiss his point about wider infrastructure—we have debated it elsewhere, and I have taken on board the points that hon. Members have raised—but the clause addresses a specific issue and outlines a way of dealing with it. As I say, the preferred approach is co-operation in the first instance and working with the local transport authority in question.

The ability to transfer transport powers, which is available under the clause, is ultimately a backstop measure, and escalation via direction is an initial measure to address insufficient co-operation. The clause clearly sets out how the escalatory process will work, although it is worth saying that decisions to either direct or transfer powers will be taken on a case-by-case basis and applied only where there is good reason to believe that co-operation on the part of the local transport authority is not forthcoming and necessary transport infrastructure is not delivered.

We think that the backstop is necessary for cases where the local transport authority refuses to co-operate and is blocking necessary infrastructure that the development corporation requires for its urban regeneration and development needs. On that basis, I hope I have reassured hon. Members.

Planning and Infrastructure Bill (Twelfth sitting)

Lewis Cocking Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 20th May 2025 Public Bill Committees

[Matthew Pennycook]

My hon. Friend is right. If we are having a mature conversation about this, we have to recognise that economic circumstances can change and that the costs that developers are having to deal with—build material costs have increased significantly, particularly in London—are factors they do have to weigh in their judgments. On the other side of the coin, it is important, in strengthening the section 106 system, that we are ensuring local authorities can negotiate robustly on those agreements and that we hold developers to the commitments that they make. The Government’s intention is to do both.

[Lewis Cocking (Broxbourne) (Con)]

Will the Minister give way?

[Matthew Pennycook]

I will, but I do not want to lead us down the path of a long debate on viability.

[Lewis Cocking]

I thank the Minister for giving way. He is talking about changes in viability. What does he say to councils that are in the position of having granted planning permission, had a viability assessment and agreed a 106, and the developer comes back a year or two later and says that they cannot do it and will have to put in a new planning application, have a new viability assessment and a new 106, but because the council has determined a planned application on that site, if it went to the planning inspector, there would be a lower bar for that development to get over? That is because the council has already accepted the principle of development on that site under the premise of one section 106 negotiation.

Does the Minister think that, on the second go, the developer should have to start from the beginning, have the same principles to get the development off the ground, and that the same higher bar should apply? At the end of the day it is the community that lose out from the community obligations that the developer is trying to get out of.

[Matthew Pennycook]

The hon. Member tempts me into commenting on hypotheticals. I will instead say the following. There are two things happening here. We have to be aware of the ability for some existing mechanisms—section 73 applications are a good example—to be gamed in terms of viability to drive down the amount of public gain. I am aware of that, and I have been very candid about it. On the other hand, and correspondingly, if a permission such as the one he hypothetically mentioned is in place, I think that is testament to why it is so important that we bring forward measures on build-out transparency and have the powers to be able to say to developers, as the Government are saying to all developers, “If you’ve got a consent, then get on and build.”

The Government are making a variety of reforms to the planning system, which in any number of ways will provide for a more rules-based system, more certainty and will drive down development costs. We are firming up planning policy guidance and expectations. We are making it clearer and easier for developers to put in an application and we should reduce costs as well. Correspondingly, we can ask for more. We are bringing forward measures in fairly short order on build-out and we will turn on the LURA provisions that I have mentioned. On that basis, I ask for the new clauses to be withdrawn.

New clause 76, tabled by the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Hamble Valley, seeks to prevent those who have deliberately undertaken unauthorised development from obtaining planning permission retrospectively. The Government do not condone unauthorised development and are clear that anyone seeking to undertake development should first obtain planning permission where it is required. I therefore very much appreciate the sentiment behind his new clause. I recall debating with a shadow Secretary of State this particular matter in relation to Gypsy and Traveller camps, and I appreciate that across the House there is concern about the use of unauthorised developments.

However, the Government’s view is that there may be circumstances—I am happy to set this out in writing to the shadow Minister—in which unauthorised development, even if it is intentional, may be acceptable in planning terms or may be made so by the imposition of planning conditions. I say that only to make the point that we believe that there is a need for some pragmatism here and that such developments should be considered by the local planning authority. It is already the case that intentional unauthorised development, as he said, is a material consideration. It must be weighed in the balance when determining planning applications and appeals. That approach retains local decision making.

The Government obviously keep this matter under review. I am more than happy to have a conversation with the shadow Minister about the Government’s view as to whether the enforcement powers available to local planning authorities—they have a wide range of powers, with strong penalties for non-compliance—are being used, and if not, why not. I am also more than happy to share with him our understanding of how local planning authorities and inspectors are treating unauthorised development as a material consideration, as they are now required to do. I hope that, on that basis, I have provided him with some reassurance.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lewis Cocking]

Does the hon. Member not agree that, in most local plans—if not all local plans that come forward; I took one through for Broxbourne when I was leader of the council—we do have targets for affordable and social homes? The reason lots of those do not get built out is because of the issues that we discussed earlier around viability. Just having a target does not necessarily deliver what she and I want to deliver: more social homes. We can have that target, but it is about the viability and the costs that developers try to get out of. That is why they do not get built.

[Ellie Chowns]

I thank the hon. Member for his point, which is actually exactly the same point that the hon. Member for Barking made, essentially—

--- Later in debate ---

[Lewis Cocking]

Local plans are done over a 15-year period, so they are over multiple Parliaments. When the Government set the housing targets for local councils—if what the Minister has just said is the Government’s position on new towns—should the situation not be the same as for local plans? Broxbourne has a local plan over 15 years, which is three Parliaments, so all the housing targets given to local authorities will not be done in one Parliament.

[Matthew Pennycook]

The hon. Gentleman makes a fair point. Local plans are set over a longer time horizon. There is an issue, as he knows, with the number of local plans across the country that are up to date. There are other, corresponding issues about the date at which those local plans that are brought forward begin, and whether they are brought forward at all. Our general position—I will not go any further than that—is that we are keeping this under review. It has been our stated position so far that new towns will deliver over and above the targets produced by the standard method.

When a new town might build out will be highly place-dependent; it will depend on the particular circumstances and delivery vehicle. Let us see what sites the new towns taskforce recommends. We are keeping this under review because we recognise that we need the right incentives in place to support proactive local authorities to work with us to bring new towns together. Although we have been clear that the site selection will ultimately be in the national interest, in terms of building these large-scale new communities out quickly and effectively, and ensuring that they are exemplary developments, it will obviously be far easier if local authorities are proactive and constructive.