Planning and Infrastructure Bill

Liz Jarvis Excerpts

Thursday 13th November 2025 Commons Chamber

[Mr Perkins]

I thank my right hon. Friend for that contribution. The Lords amendment is sensible and well-intentioned. Even if it is rejected, as the Government are minded to do, he makes an important point: we need to get clarity that, in the majority of cases, the approach would be of this narrower type. The Minister has given us some assurance that, in the event we start seeing certain EDPs misused, we will be able to scrutinise that process, so it will be interesting to hear what he has to say in response to my right hon. Friend’s point.

I welcome the Government’s package of amendments during the Lords stages, including one that specifies that robust scientific evidence must be used by Natural England to develop an EDP. These improvements largely address the original concerns of the Office for Environmental Protection. However, I urge the Minister to consider proactively providing a list of environmental issues that might be considered suitable for EDPs. That would provide reassurance that this new and powerful tool will be directed only towards diffuse pollution issues such as those set out in amendment 40, where EDPs will have environmental benefits and provide the most value for development.

Amendment 39 would embed a brownfield-first approach in the new SDS. Building on brownfield land can help to revitalise towns and cities, as well as avoiding developing greenfield land. However, it can be more expensive: there are often clean-up jobs to be done on site. In large urban centres, brownfield development is often still profitable, but, in smaller towns such as Chesterfield, the additional factors in developing brownfield land can make development unprofitable, so sites sit undeveloped, as the Robinsons site in my constituency has for more than 20 years now. It would therefore be good to hear from the Minister what more the Government can do to promote development on brownfield land.

Both nature and safe, secure housing are enormously important to people, and our constituents deserve both: they deserve to breathe clean air, to live in safe and healthy homes, and for their children to be able to play in a local river, free from pollution, but they also deserve to have affordable housing in the communities in which they live. That is the balance that the Government must strike. Although the EDPs introduced by the Bill are an important tool, they are only part of the answer to solving the housing crisis and to improving our natural environment.

This is an important Bill and is much improved. We need to ensure not only that we get it passed as soon as possible but that the work of protecting nature does not begin or end with this Bill and carries on long after it.

[Liz Jarvis (Eastleigh) (LD)]

I will focus my comments on Lords amendment 38. I have heard from many constituents who are deeply concerned about the potential environmental impact of this Bill and how it might affect the River Itchen, the precious chalk stream that runs through my constituency of Eastleigh. The River Itchen is a site of special scientific interest and a special area of conservation, but despite these designations, it has been subjected to repeated sewage discharges by Southern Water, threatening its delicate ecosystems and putting species at risk. We have incredible natural habitats that are being destroyed because existing protections have failed. Indeed, in the latest Environment Agency assessment, Southern Water was handed a two-star rating after causing a shocking 269 pollution incidents last year, including 15 classified as serious.

According to the 2024-25 chalk stream annual review, 83% of England’s chalk streams are failing to achieve good ecological status, which is disgraceful. That is why Lords amendment 38 is so important to my constituents and to communities across the country who live alongside these extraordinary habitats. There is no reason why we cannot have a thoughtful planning process that protects our precious natural environment and delivers the social and affordable housing that our communities desperately need, with the infrastructure to support it. We have an opportunity to show that development and environmental responsibility are not competing interests, but shared objectives. By embedding these principles in the Bill, we can address the housing crisis while simultaneously protecting our rivers, habitats and green spaces.

Lords amendment 38 would establish much-needed new protections for chalk streams and impose a responsibility on strategic planning authorities to enhance chalk stream environments. I saw the urgent need to address this issue when I visited with representatives of the Hampshire & Isle of Wight Wildlife Trust this summer, when I was able to test the water quality of the River Itchen. With the help of experts, we saw at first hand the very low levels of biodiversity and high nitrate levels. I fully support the proposition that spatial development strategies must list chalk streams in their strategic area, and safeguard them from irreplaceable damage by outlining clear measures to protect from environmental harm.

Greater and appropriate consideration for our chalk streams is long overdue. I welcome the fact that, under Lords amendment 38, local spatial development strategies would vary according to the needs of the particular area, allowing strategies to set different balancing points between local conservation and development needs in different places. It is disappointing that the Government are unwilling to retain the amendment. Will the Minister instead commit to strengthening existing planning mechanisms and ensure that water companies are held to account, so that chalk streams are protected? This is such an important issue for my constituents, and anything less than a cast-iron guarantee is not good enough.

People across the country deeply value and treasure our natural environment. We need to deliver the housing and infrastructure that are vital for our communities, but let us not treat our chalk streams, wildlife and habitats as an afterthought.

[Chris Hinchliff (North East Hertfordshire) (Lab)]

I declare an interest as a vice-chair of the Climate and Nature Crisis Caucus.

At the outset of my contribution to today’s debate on this important legislation, there are a few general points that are probably worth reiterating. There need be no conflict between house building and nature; the real conflict is between greed and the sort of country we want to build. After 20 years of planning deregulation, time and again we see profiteering trumping public need and the protection of the countryside; cost cutting where communities deserve quality; and low-density, high-price housing while families wait for council homes.

Since we last debated the Bill in this place, Key Cities has published a very useful report, which highlights that in a survey of its members, only 6% cited the planning system as the primary obstacle to house building. More than twice that figure pointed to developer delays, so I hope that we will shortly see similarly major Government legislation to tackle the profiteering developers that are blocking the delivery of genuinely affordable housing in this country.

The recent announcement of plans for towns built within a new forest shows that good development and nature recovery can go hand in hand, and we must go further. A democratic programme of mass council house building could easily avoid the clashes that so often mark the developer-led system. What is needed are well-funded councils with the power to assemble land and identify the best sites for new homes—building not grey estates that are shaped by the defeatism of low expectations, but cohesive, thriving communities that are built for life to flourish. That is the solution to the housing crisis and would create a country that puts people and nature before profit.

I welcome the several important amendments tabled by the Government in the other place. In my view, the most important is the stronger overall improvement test for nature recovery, which I campaigned for on Report. It is very good news that these amendments have substantially allayed the concerns of the Office for Environmental Protection. Nevertheless, it is clear that environmental experts and conservationists continue to have some concerns, which the other place has sought to address through Lords amendments 40 and 38 in particular.

Our Labour Government were elected on a clear manifesto promise to reverse the nature crisis in this country, so it is essential we get this right. That is particularly urgent for our endangered species and irreplaceable habitats, including chalk streams such as the Rib, Beane, Ivel and Mimram, which criss-cross North East Hertfordshire and bring joy to so many people’s lives. I genuinely welcome the comments that the Minister has made to allay the concerns of nature experts, and I will dedicate my remaining time to a few short questions that I hope he can address in his wind-up.

First, given the need for legal certainty, can the Minister confirm that the overall improvement test will guarantee that irreplaceable habitats and species cannot be covered by EDPs, and if so, will the Government set out a list of environmental features that they consider would be irreplaceable?

Secondly, can the Minister confirm whether any EDPs are currently under consideration or development by Natural England, or proposed by the Government? If so, will any of them be affected if Lords amendment 40 remained part of the Bill?

Thirdly, will the Minister give confidence to the many constituents of North East Hertfordshire worried about potential impacts on the wildlife we love by once again putting on record that the Government recognise the difference between diffuse landscape issues such as nutrient pollution, where strategic scale action is best suited for nature restoration, and protected sites and species that cannot easily be recreated elsewhere?

Fourthly, given the widespread interest in this Bill shown by many of our constituents and by the wider nature sector, will the Minister consider providing further transparency and accountability through a Government amendment in lieu of Lords amendment 40 to ensure parliamentary approval of EDPs beyond diffuse issues such as air, water and newts?

Fifthly, given that the “Catchment Based Approach” annual review published this autumn found that a third of chalk streams do not have a healthy flow regime, that over-abstraction due to development pressures is one of the main threats facing these crown jewels of our natural heritage and that there are currently no planning policies specifically protecting chalk streams, can the Minister set out in more detail how the Government foresee planning authorities being able to direct inappropriate development away from struggling chalk streams within the process of setting spatial development strategy plans, and would he consider opportunities for this through regulation, if not through the Bill?

Sixthly, will the Minister provide further certainty from the Dispatch Box about ensuring that chalk streams are specifically added to the national planning policy framework as an irreplaceable habitat, and will he set out when this might happen given that an update of those provisions has been delayed since 2023?

Seventhly, as one reason put forward for Lords amendment 40 is that it would mitigate concerns about the weakening of the Protection of Badgers Act 1992, what reassurances can the Minister give my constituents that these iconic animals will not be at risk from widespread licences to kill in EDPs paid for by developers in the absence of Lords amendment 40?

Eighthly, can the Minister confirm whether the Government have assessed the potential impact of proposed biodiversity net gain exemptions on the private finance for nature markets that will be essential for the delivery of EDPs?

Ninthly and finally, can the Minister reassure those who have raised concerns that the current legislation may allow money committed to the natural restoration fund to be redirected to other purposes?