Planning and Infrastructure Bill

Lord Berkeley Excerpts

Committee stage
Thursday 4th September 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Young of Cookham (Con)]

My Lords, my noble friends Lady McIntosh, Lord Parkinson and Lord Banner have made powerful cases for their amendments. I will briefly take survivors of LURB back two years to Amendment 235, which I had proposed in Committee, and which was proposed on Report by my noble friend Lady Pinnock, and which effectively did what is now in Clause 48. Crucially, it enabled or authorised local authorities to recoup the costs of their planning department, but it did not require them so to do. I take the point that my noble friend Lady Scott made in her speech as to why the words “and require” were not in the original request by the local authorities. On Report, the Government resisted the amendment. They were defeated, and I confess that I played a modest role in that defeat. To the Government’s credit, they then accepted it in the other place and it came through.

The crucial question—one touched on by my noble friend Lord Banner—is whether this is going to be enough to solve the crisis in our planning departments. Reforms to the national planning policy introduced by the last Government are still working their way through the system. Earlier this year, only a third of local authorities had adopted a plan in the last five years, while 291 had plans of more than five years old, and they have to get those plans up to date. The moment they have done so, they are then confronted by local government reorganisation, with smaller units turning into larger, unitary ones. The Government have then said that, where reorganisation occurs, new unitary authorities are expected to promptly prepare a local plan covering the whole of their area. So they basically have to start again.

At the same time, the Government want to reduce all the current delays in processing planning applications so that we can get on with infrastructure, and a large majority of applications are not processed within the statutory timescale. Shortly, we will come to Chapter 2 of this part of the Bill, which introduces spatial development strategies. Again, under the Bill, the planners in these new strategic authorities must produce spatial development strategies providing strategic policies for the use of land in their area.

In a masterly understatement, the Government said:

“We are aware that areas undergoing local government reorganisation and devolution will experience a transition period where responsibility for spatial development strategy might transfer between authorities”.


The crucial question that the Government must answer is whether planning departments will, even with these reforms, be able to respond to the Government’s requests. If planning departments were fully staffed with the necessary skills, they might rise to the challenge. However, there is an additional problem in that many planning officers will have to reapply for their jobs. Some may well take redundancy as a consequence of the merger of local authorities. The LGA workforce survey found that 62% of councils have difficulties recruiting planning officers and 45% have difficulties retaining planning officers, many being tempted by higher salaries elsewhere—a point mentioned by my noble friend Lord Banner.

Finally, we are going to have new town development corporations. They will need planning departments. When the Minister replies, I hope that she can reassure the Committee that there will be the capacity within the planning system to respond to the Government’s ambitious agenda.

[Lord Berkeley (Lab)]

My Lords, I am not a planner, but I do have the joy of owning a small property in Cornwall, which is part-listed. I took a lot of advice when I wanted a new kitchen at the back of the building on whether I needed listed building consent. The answer was, “If it’s in Cornwall, yes, but if it’s in London, no”. There are many differences between areas of this country, which we have not talked about this morning but will come into the assessment of how the criteria are done.

In Cornwall, they are trying to keep the villages and towns looking good and beautiful, which is fine. However, you then hear comments from people like a friend of mine who wants to put a summer house at the far end of the garden, away from the listed house, and must get listed building consent. Everybody is moaning about that and the cost. On the other hand, if you do not have some criteria like that, you will have a mess. On Amendment 97, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Parkinson, it is a great idea to say that these charges should be waived, but an awful lot more needs to go into it. Frankly, the amount of money needed to pay for listed building consent for the average small house is not that great. Therefore, I do not support Amendment 97. I hope that we can accept that there will be pros and cons but that the need to have listed building consent in a reasonable way overturns everything.

[Lord Cromwell (CB)]

My Lords, I support Amendment 95. Nobody likes to see fees going up, and I totally support the noble Baroness, Lady Scott, in her concern about calculation and control. I also support the noble Baroness, Lady Thornhill, in her very well-reasoned cry for support for the SME builders.

I want to put my weight behind Amendment 95, because quite often in this House I have said how much we like to make legislation and how little we then resource the enforcement of it. This Bill seems specifically to exclude money for enforcement. I cannot let it pass without asking the Minister to explain why and to lend my support to Amendment 95.