Planning and Infrastructure Bill (Sixth sitting)

Debate between Lewis Cocking and Rachel Taylor

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?

--- Later in debate ---

[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.

Planning and Infrastructure Bill (Fifth sitting)

Debate between Lewis Cocking and Rachel Taylor

Committee stage
Tuesday 13th May 2025 Public Bill Committees

[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.

Planning and Infrastructure Bill (Second sitting)

Debate between Lewis Cocking and Rachel Taylor

Committee stage
Thursday 24th April 2025 Public Bill Committees

[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.

Planning and Infrastructure Bill

Debate between Lewis Cocking and Rachel Taylor

2nd reading
Monday 24th March 2025 Commons Chamber

[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.