Planning and Infrastructure Bill

Lord Best Excerpts

2nd reading
Wednesday 25th June 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Best (CB)]

My Lords, I declare my interest as a vice-president of the Town and Country Planning Association and of the Local Government Association, an honorary member of the Royal Town Planning Institute, and an honorary fellow of the Royal Institute of British Architects.

My interest is in the Bill’s vital mission to get the homes and infrastructure built that this country needs so badly. We have a very real housing crisis, with increasing numbers of families placed in temporary accommodation at huge public expense, simply because there are not enough homes to go around. This objective will require proper resourcing of planning departments, and Part 2 of the Bill recognises this necessity.

A key question hanging over the ambition to build 1.5 million more and better homes is: who will the nation entrust to get this job done? For many years, the answer for most housebuilding has been, “We will let the volume housebuilders acquire the sites, come up with the plans, design and build the homes, and make their profits while we try to require them to allocate a modest proportion of their output for affordable housing”.

This reliance on the large housebuilders has not produced the quantity or quality of homes we need. It has seen development of expanses of greenfield land in preference to small sites and brownfield schemes that can regenerate whole neighbourhoods. It has put SME builders out of business—down from building 40% of new homes to just 10% since 2000. It has not created apprenticeships and a trained workforce, and there has been little innovation or use of modern methods of construction. It has led to so-called “fleecehold” sales to home buyers and to uniform, soulless design, and there has been little attempt to provide the green spaces and community facilities that are the making of any place. The housebuilders have worked at a pace that suits themselves—a build-out rate that ensures no reduction in house prices.

The housebuilders can reply that they are profit-making businesses with shareholders to satisfy and they cannot be expected to work for public benefit—for the common good. But surely, now is the time for a model that is driven by what is best for the place in question. This leads us to the really positive Part 4 of the Bill, which promotes new development corporations. This is the model that will be used for the eagerly awaited new generation of new towns, but which can operate everywhere else: arms-length to local authorities, but publicly accountable; and sometimes created by mayoral and other combined county authorities. Development corporations acquire sites ahead of planning consent and capture the increase in land value, if necessary using the CPO powers much improved by Part 5. Development corporations commission the necessary master plans and parcel out sites to a range of providers—to housebuilders, large and small, but also to housing associations for social housing; to providers of homes for later living; for student accommodation; for self-build and custom housebuilding; and for all the vital social infrastructure.

The Planning and Infrastructure Bill enables the use of this development corporation model for any major development, introducing an alternative to the failed business model of the oligopoly of volume housebuilders. Here is the breakthrough the Bill could achieve.

So, in commending Part 4, I ask the Minister whether the necessary backup—guidance, governance, finance—is being prepared by the Ministry for Housing, Communities and Local Government for the creation of many new development corporations for urban extensions, major regeneration projects and desirable new developments that will contrast with the arrangements that have let us down for the last 30 years or more.

Planning and Infrastructure Bill

Lord Best Excerpts

Committee stage
Thursday 4th September 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Shipley (LD)]

My Lords, I will speak in support of Amendment 162 in the names of the noble Lords, Lord Lansley and Lord Best, as well as mine. As the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, has rightly pointed out, this is an issue of professional leadership. It also underpins the delivery of the Government’s objectives with this Bill.

I add my support on the importance of comprehensive training for those involved in making decisions on planning matters. There are some very wise additional proposals in Amendments 99A to 102, and the case made by all those amendments is overwhelming. Someone in a local planning authority has to manage the training process, which has to be done at a senior level. That is one reason why I support the statutory requirement for local planning authorities to have a chief planner—but there are other compelling reasons, as the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, has identified.

Yesterday in Grand Committee, there was a statutory instrument to devolve housing and regeneration powers to Buckinghamshire, Surrey and Warwickshire councils. It was most welcome, it was approved, and it is a decision by the Government in their drive to devolve more decision-making to a local level, but it will succeed only if the capacity is there to deliver the desired outcomes. That capacity relates to the number of planning officers, their status and the training they have received. As we have heard, in recent years there have been rising levels of complaints about the planning system, its complexities and its delays. As we have heard also, one major cause is the lack of qualified planning staff and the downgrading of the status of planning, given the low number of chief planning officers reporting directly to the chief executive of a local authority.

We should recognise that Scotland has, for a year, had a requirement for statutory chief planning officers to be appointed by local authorities. I submit that we should do likewise if the planning system is to be speeded up in England and if the Government are to deliver their devolution agenda.

[Lord Best (CB)]

My Lords, I support Amendment 162 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, supported by the noble Lord, Lord Shipley. It calls for every local authority to appoint a chief planner, and I thank the Royal Town Planning Institute for championing it. I must declare various interests as I have not already contributed in Committee: I am an honorary fellow of the RTPI and a vice-president of the Town and Country Planning Association and the Local Government Association.

--- Later in debate ---

Moved by

[Lord Best]

114: After Clause 51, insert the following new Clause—
“Gardens Trust to be statutory consultees for planning applicationsIn Schedule 4 of the Town and Country Planning (Development Management Procedure) Order 2015, after paragraph (zf) insert—

“(zg)

Development likely to affect historic parks or gardens

The Gardens Trust””

[Lord Best (CB)]

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Inglewood, had to leave, so I am moving Amendment 114 in his place, with the support of the noble Baronesses, Lady Freeman of Steventon and Lady Pinnock, and the noble Lord, Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay. The amendment would make the Gardens Trust a statutory consultee for planning applications that are likely to affect historic gardens and parks.

In sponsoring the amendment, the noble Lord would have declared his interests, which are also his credentials. He is the owner of a listed garden of some consequence and the park around it, and he has been involved with other owners and trustees of historic and particularly important gardens and parks. He is president of Historic Buildings & Places, previously the Ancient Monuments Society, and he is a member of the Gardens Trust, which I will come back to in a moment.

The working of the town and country planning system is buttressed by the various national amenity societies, which can bring to bear their very often specialist expertise in respect of some of the most sensitive sites in the country. These national amenity societies are essentially focused on buildings, but it is increasingly recognised, not least in the many debates on place-making, and I have been part of a lot of them, that the setting of buildings may be at least as important as a building itself. This relates both to the views in and to the views out.

Equally important are open spaces, which may have no buildings at all—for example, public parks and historic gardens. Expertise in these matters is not necessarily found among the established national amenity societies or planning authorities. The Gardens Trust, which was previously called the Garden History Society, has the expertise in this area, the same as national amenity societies in relation to buildings. It has evolved its work over time as the scholarship on this matter develops. It has been suggested that these matters do not require a statutory consultee because they can be dealt with through local plans, but local plans cover only about a third of local authorities and this is often about the detail. It is the devil in the detail that matters here.

I hope it is possible for government to add another statutory consultee in respect of gardens, parks and the planning applications that are likely to affect historic gardens and parks. I believe that consultation is under way and may lead to this happy outcome, but it would be great to hear the views of the Minister. I beg to move.

[Baroness Thornhill (LD)]

My Lords, I am in a similar position to the noble Lord, Lord Best, with the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, who expected a 7 pm finish, having gone for a train. I will try not to make a dog’s breakfast of her notes.

I will speak to Amendments 118 and 119 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock. The Liberal Democrats accept the aim of the Government in their desire to ensure that decisions on planning applications are made in a considered and timely way. The proposals in the Bill appear to neglect the notion of a considered and inclusive approach to planning decisions. Planning decisions matter hugely to communities because decisions can have a lasting impact on that community. The aim must surely be to get the balance in favour of enabling decisions to be made with the communities affected. Failure to do so can lead to long and acrimonious disputes between communities and developers. I can vouch for that.

Pre-application consideration of an application supports the needs of both a developer and the community affected. Pre-application consultation is most relevant for larger domestic and commercial applications, but may be of use in small but controversial ones, and here is why: a comprehensive pre-application stage allows for issues to be identified and resolved at the earliest opportunity, preventing costly delays and complex disputes later in the process. For example, at a pre-application consultation with residents on an application for a large housing estate, residents were able to provide vital information to the developer on the siting of historic mine workings. The precise information as to the location was not available from historical records, but residents whose families had lived in the area for many years knew. The pre-application meeting saved the developer from extensive works to find the shaft.

Another major commercial application, which cost the developer more than £100 million in preparation fees, was refused on grounds that would have become very clear if residents had been consulted before the application was submitted.

The pre-application process is currently good practice, and Amendment 119 in the name of my noble friend Lady Pinnock is designed to make this a mandatory process. The pre-app should include, as the word suggests, an opportunity for councillors in the ward and residents to have details of the planned application, to ask questions and make suggestions about it—crucially, before a more formal application is submitted, when it becomes much more difficult to make changes. It empowers communities to be able to influence an application that will change their neighbourhood. This collaborative approach builds trust, ensures that proposals are fit for purpose and fosters greater public acceptance of vital infrastructure.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lords who tabled these important amendments and their two substitutes for speaking to them. I thank all noble Lords for their patience in a very long Thursday Bill session; I am grateful to them all.

Amendments 114 and 118, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Inglewood, and the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, seek to designate the Gardens Trust and the emergency services as statutory consultees within the planning system. I begin by acknowledging the contributions these organisations already make across a range of functions. When you have been involved in planning, you know how important that expert advice is on significant environmental, transport, safety and heritage issues to make sure that we end up with good decision-making.

However, on 26 January the Chancellor announced a pause in the introduction of new statutory consultees, pending a broader review of the current framework. The Housing Minister subsequently issued a Written Ministerial Statement on 10 March, setting out the Government’s intention to reform the system to ensure that statutory consultees can provide timely and expert advice that supports high-quality development. The Government will be consulting on those proposed reforms shortly.

The Statement also set out our intention to consult on the impact of removing certain statutory consultees, including the Gardens Trust. This reflects a desire to streamline processes and address duplication, as Historic England already holds statutory responsibilities for higher-graded parks and gardens. This is a consultation only, and no decision will be made until we have fully considered the feedback on potential impacts.

The Government also intend to consult on their approach to the introduction of new statutory consultees, recognising that risks and responsibilities of course evolve over time. This consultation will reflect the fact that there must be a high bar to creating new statutory consultees if we are to avoid exacerbating current issues of uncertainty, bureaucracy and delay. We should be requiring consultation on a case-by-case basis only if it is not possible to address matters strategically. Input is often effectively secured through local plans, including engagement with the emergency services, such as designing out crime; and where case-by-case engagement is warranted, local authorities already have the discretion to consult these bodies on a non-statutory basis.

Furthermore, in considering potential additions to the list of statutory consultees, it is essential that the roles of existing statutory consultees should not be duplicated, and that functions already addressed through other regimes, such as building regulations, should not be duplicated either. The fire and rescue service, for instance, already must be consulted on relevant plans as part of the building safety regulations, while the Building Safety Regulator oversees and approves work for high-risk buildings. Meanwhile, the Health and Safety Executive operates a hazardous substance licensing regime and is a statutory consultee on development applications which may be impacted by this.

Finally, although we deeply value the insights provided by a wide range of organisations during public consultations, statutory consultee status carries with it a legal obligation to respond within prescribed timeframes. That is a very significant responsibility, and sometimes even existing consultees—sometimes even upper-tier councils if you are in a district council—face challenges in meeting the requirements. For this reason, we believe the threshold for granting such status must remain appropriately high.

As I have set out, we intend to consult on these matters soon. If decisions are taken to introduce new statutory consultees, this can be done through secondary legislation under existing powers.

Amendment 119 proposes that the Secretary of State consider how community consultation has been carried out when deciding whether an NSIP application should be accepted for examination. It suggests specifically that the Secretary of State must consider whether the application has sought to resolve issues, enabled interested parties to influence the project during the early phases, obtained relevant information about the locality, and enabled appropriate mitigation through consultation.

We agree that engaging communities can support applicants to improve their applications by enabling them to identify issues important to the local community, to understand the likely impacts of the scheme, and to consider potential mitigations. However, as we have seen over our time debating these clauses, we know that the existing statutory tests related to consultation do not achieve that in a proportionate way.

We know this because evidence shows that existing statutory pre-application consultation requirements, the scale and specificity of which have been unique to the NSIP regime, have led to unintended consequences. Developers, keen to avoid risk, produce overly complex documentation aimed more at legal compliance than genuine engagement. They are reluctant to adapt their plans in response to feedback, fearing that they will need to reconsult if they do so, which slows down delivery and drives up costs—which in turn frustrates the UK’s ability to plan and deliver essential infrastructure.

I remind the Committee that, since 2013, the pre-application stage has doubled in length. Our proposals could save businesses up to £1 billion over the lifetime of this Parliament by reducing delays across projects. That is why we have proposed removing statutory consultation requirements at the pre-application stage, including the adequacy of consultation test in Section 55 of the Planning Act 2008. Instead, we are introducing a clearer, more practical acceptance test: is the application suitable to proceed to examination?

This new test allows the Secretary of State to make a balanced judgment about the quality of the application and recognises that the NSIP planning process is a continuum from pre-application through to decision. I reassure the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, that the changes that the Government are proposing do not undermine the importance of consultation and engagement on applications, as my honourable friend Matthew Pennycook made clear in his ministerial Statement on 23 April. Applications are unlikely to be of sufficient quality to be granted consent if meaningful engagement has not been undertaken on them.

Instead of statutory requirements, the Government have now issued a consultation on guidance which will seek to help applicants understand what good engagement looks like. That consultation is open until 27 October, and we are looking forward to receiving responses. The Planning Inspectorate’s advice will also continue to emphasise the value of early issue resolution. With those reassurances, I hope that the noble Lord will feel able to withdraw the amendment.

[Lord Best (CB)]

My Lords, I hope that the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, is satisfied with the comments of the Minister. In relation to the Gardens Trust becoming a statutory consultee, I note that there is a review of the whole process and, indeed, of the individual components within that, and that if it is going to be possible to have a new statutory consultee, secondary legislation could take care of that. At the same time, I also noticed a certain reluctance to be enthusiastic about this amendment. We will hope for the best, and I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 114 withdrawn.

Planning and Infrastructure Bill

Lord Best Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 9th September 2025 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Lord Best]

122: After Clause 51, insert the following new Clause—
“Delivery of affordable housing(1) The Secretary of State must by regulations make provision for ensuring that when planning permission is granted subject to requirements for the delivery of affordable housing schemes on the relevant site, such requirements are fully implemented.(2) The requirements for the delivery of affordable housing schemes referred to in subsection (1) shall be satisfied only if the percentage of the total housing constructed let as social rent housing exceeds the percentage set out in the authority’s affordable housing threshold or twenty per cent, whichever is higher.(3) In subsection (2) ‘social rent housing’ has the meaning given in paragraph 7 of the Direction on the Rent Standard 2019 together with paragraph 4 of the Direction on the Rent Standard 2023, as modified by paragraph 8 of the Direction on the Rent Standard 2023.”Member’s explanatory statement
The amendment is intended to ensure affordable housing is actually delivered where this is the subject of planning consent, and the proportion of social rent housing is at least 20 per cent.

[Lord Best (CB)]

My Lords, I rise with some trepidation after that terrific debate on green spaces to speak to Amendment 122, together with Amendments 141 and 151, all of which address the issue of affordable housing delivery.

Amendment 122 introduces a free-standing new clause which provides for regulations to ensure that affordable housing gets delivered where it is a condition of planning consent, usually through a so-called Section 106 agreement. We are all only too familiar with the problem that affordable homes for local people are expected from new development but fail to materialise. With the excuse of viability, housebuilders back out of delivering all or most of the affordable homes that they promised. They say they have discovered site conditions they had not expected or have encountered problems with subcontractors or higher interest rates or building costs or something else, and now they may not be able to make a 20% profit from the development.

They insist that it is the affordable housing element that must take the hit. Despite affordable housing being a condition of planning consent, precious few such homes may appear. The price that the housebuilder pays for the land should reflect their obligations to provide affordable housing and related infrastructure. It should never be acceptable to claim: “We had to pay so much for the land that now we cannot honour our agreement to build the affordable homes”. The Government’s planning practice guidance explicitly states:

“Under no circumstances will the price paid for land be relevant justification for failing to accord with relevant policies”,


yet this continues to be exactly what happens.

The amendment recognises that the level of affordable housing in every development, the Section 106 agreement, is subject to complex negotiation between two unequal parties—the local planning department and the housebuilder. As a report from the National Audit Office set out in June of this year, there is a serious imbalance between these two, with local planning authorities being hopelessly under-resourced while large developers can employ expensive consultants and legal experts to find ways of negotiating their contributions down.

The Government, commendably, are finding ways of better resourcing local planning authorities. This amendment would add support for planners by cutting down on the imbalanced and interminable arguing over affordable housing numbers. The affordable housing element would become non-negotiable. Amendment 121 would empower the Secretary of State to ensure that developers deliver the affordable homes that were a condition of planning consent. The amendment would add a further detail by obliging the housebuilder to provide a minimum of 20% of the homes for social rent or the percentage that is set out in the local planning authority’s policy framework if that is higher. The definition of social rent housing is that used by the Regulator of Social Housing in its rent standard.

How important is this contribution by the house- builders to affordable housing? Over recent years, the obligations on the housebuilders have produced nearly half, 44% last year, of the total programme of affordable homes. However, according to the National Audit Office, the value of the contributions from developers for both infrastructure and affordable housing fell from £6.4 billion to £5.5 billion last year. We cannot afford for this vital programme of affordable homes, funded by developer contributions, to be depleted by housebuilders reneging on their planning obligations.

Amendment 122 keeps it simple. It dismisses the specious arguments about what is viable and what is profitable. It would require straightforward fulfilment of the planning obligations accepted by housebuilders, which have too often escaped their responsibilities and have reduced or scrapped the quota of social homes that they were obligated to deliver. It would introduce a baseline of 20% of new homes for social rent in all relevant developments. I know that the Minister recognises the problem which this amendment seeks to address. I hope that she will find it acceptable.

Amendments 141 and 151 are also in my name and again supported by the noble Baroness, Lady Thornhill, and the noble Lords, Lord Young and Lord Carlile, whom I thank. These two amendments go together and back up my earlier amendment. While the earlier amendment is just about developer contributions to providing affordable homes, these two amendments relate to all developments that will be covered by the spatial development strategies outlined by the Bill. Amendment 141 expands on the Bill’s current wording, which stipulates that spatial development strategies can specify or describe the amount of affordable housing, as well as other kinds of housing. This amendment spells out that the affordable housing should be mostly for social rent rather than, for example, shared ownership or middle-market renting.

Amendment 151 defines social rent as in Amendment 122, stating that social rent is the accommodation rented according to the rent standard specified by the Regulator of Social Housing. This is the rent level that applies to most existing council and housing association properties. It is based on a measurement that combines earnings data with property values. It represents the form of affordable housing, which helps those on average incomes or less. Using the common definition that rents are only affordable if they absorb one-third or less of the incomes of the occupiers, the current arrangements are producing pathetically small numbers of new homes for those in the bottom half of the income distribution. If the 1.5 million new homes planned for the course of this Parliament were to contain a quantum of social rented homes similar to the current arrangements, then as little as 8% of all the new homes would be affordable to those on, or below, average incomes. This does not sound like a very fair distribution of all the new homes that we are planning to build.

Fortunately, the Government are determined to see more social rented housing created. This amendment chimes with that intention. The Government have stated that, of the 300,000 affordable homes a year to be funded by the spending review’s £39 billion for Homes England to provide its social and affordable homes programme, 180,000 homes—60% of the affordable homes—should be for social rent. If achieved, this would represent a significant rise in the proportion of homes that are genuinely affordable.

Amendments 141 and 142 would greatly improve the Government’s chances of delivering this outcome. Amendment 141 would establish that a majority of the affordable housing within each spatial development strategy must be for social rent, defined by Amendment 151. This requirement would cover affordable homes in the publicly subsidised housing programme, as well as those affordable homes that are built by the house- builders in fulfilment of their planning obligations.

The amendments accord with the Government’s ambitions and give greater relevance to the new spatial development strategies. They would ensure that a meaningful proportion of the 1.5 million new homes will be for those in that half of the population who cannot otherwise afford a decent home. I know that the Minister will be sympathetic to these amendments. I beg to move.

[Baroness Thornhill (LD)]

My Lords, I will speak to my Amendments 137 and 171 and give wholehearted support to the amendments so eloquently and coherently proposed by the noble Lord, Lord Best, which I and other noble Lords have signed.

It is interesting that this group of amendments demonstrates all too clearly the overwhelming need for many more homes for social rent. It is deeply troubling that the number of homes in that category being built has fallen significantly—despite the Government’s stated ambition to tackle the housing crisis and for a significant amount of those homes to be for social rent. We all know that social housing provides stability, dignity and opportunity for those who are in most need. Yet year after year we see promises outstripped by reality, leaving rising numbers of families trapped in temporary or unsuitable accommodation. Currently, there are 130,000 families, which have 169,000 children within them, in that accommodation. I regard it as a national scandal.

Following welcome funding announcements from the Government, the main issues genuinely now appear to be delivery and affordability, which are both deep and entrenched problems. In a small way, the amendments in this group seek to be part of the solution. Without urgent action on both fronts, all our aspirations remain little more than warm words while communities across the country continue to feel the harsh consequences of inaction.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Best (CB)]

My Lords, this has been another really good debate; I am grateful to all noble Lords who participated. The noble Baroness, Lady Thornhill, supported the amendment and made the point that, after the deduction of the social rented homes we lose each year, the net increase of social rented homes—the most important and in-demand of all forms of social and affordable housing—is down to around 700 each year, given that right to buy and other mechanisms see a loss of social renting, making the case even more desperate.

The noble Lord, Lord Young, whose support I have relished over so many years, pointed out that the CPRE had sampled a range of schemes and discovered that, instead of the 34% affordable housing that was expected from those developments, only 18% actually emerged. This is the developers outwitting the planners. Funnily enough, 34% is, I think, the percentage of affordable homes in Poundbury, where they have not reduced the number in subsequent negotiations but maintained the figure they started with, thank goodness. None the less, that is a demonstration of the homes we are currently losing, and which we so desperately need.

I was fascinated to hear the noble Lord, Lord Young of Cookham, talking about housing benefit taking the strain and the policy that went behind that, and how he now does not hold to the view that that is the way to do it—for the rent to be a market rent and for benefit to take the strain. Better to produce social housing with a grant up front and have a lower housing benefit bill for the years to come, with all the other advantages that go with that.

The noble Lord’s points on security of tenure were taken up by one or two others. Amendment 152, which is coming up later, is all about people moving from underoccupied council and housing association homes into something more suitable, accessible and manageable for them, while freeing up a social rented property. That may to some extent satisfy the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Young. The noble Lord, Lord Carlile, mentioned the anti-competitive actions and legal cases he has been involved with—

[Lord Wilson of Sedgefield (Lab)]

May I respectfully ask the noble Lord to move on to deciding whether he will withdraw his amendment?

[Lord Best (CB)]

There is eager anticipation as to whether I will withdraw the amendment. Suffice it to say, the support around the Committee has been almost complete, and I am deeply grateful for it. The Minister mentioned the many good things the Government are doing, but I fear that leaving it to local authorities to decide, when there is such an unequal tussle between them and those who wish to reduce the amount of affordable and social rented housing, is not going to work. It has not worked so far, and we may need to return to this. In the meantime, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 122 withdrawn.

Planning and Infrastructure Bill

Lord Best Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 9th September 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Lansley (Con)]

My Lords, I want to say a word or two about self-build and custom housebuilding, in support of my noble friend Lady Coffey—although I also want to ask a question about the precise terms in which her amendment is phrased.

I declare an interest, in that my nephew is seeking to build his own family home and has been on the register in Tandridge for a number of years now. He has received nothing from Tandridge by way of an offer of any plot anywhere, although he is entirely eligible, including being a locally connected person and so on.

I remember that we discussed this during the Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill—I remember talking to Richard Bacon about the provisions. My noble friend is absolutely right: we put a regulation-making power in with the objective of trying to ensure that the development permissions that were granted for self-build and custom housebuilding were genuinely for that and not for something else. The question to Ministers is whether, at this stage, they will use this power and how they will they use it.

The phraseology in my noble friend’s amendment, in so far as it says that only the specific development permissions that are referred to are to be treated as meeting a demand, may have the benefit of excluding some things that should not be treated as such but may have the disbenefit of excluding some things that should be treated as such, including people who bring forward their own plots for this purpose that do not form part of a wider development. It is rather important that we bring in what should be part of development permissions that meet demand for self-build and custom housebuilding and exclude those that do not and get the structure of it right.

Where we need to think more, if I recall correctly, is about what we do in relation to local planning authorities that have persistent unmet demand on that basis for self-build and custom housebuilding. There is an enormous potential benefit here. Look at other similar countries that have very large numbers of self-build and custom housebuilding. If the Government are looking for an opportunity to add to the extent of building, and indeed to support small housebuilders, this is absolutely the right territory to be working on.

To return to a familiar subject for me, the use of national development management policies in relation to decisions on planning applications for people who wish to build for themselves may well be one of the routes that the Government might like to consider for taking this issue forward.

[Lord Best (CB)]

My Lords, I support Amendment 135, proposed by the noble Baroness, Lady Coffey. I piloted the Self-build and Custom Housebuilding Bill through your Lordships’ House in 2015, so I have an ongoing vested interest in the progress that this has made. I am grateful to the noble Baroness, not just for a full account of where this has come from and where it might be going to but for the technical detail that she explained very fully, which saves me struggling to do the same.

I can add two things. One is this: why should the Government be interested in this? The self-build and custom housebuilding sector has so much merit and is so undeveloped. It does the following things. It adds additional homes toward the 1.5 million target. It introduces diversity and competition to the speculative housing model that has let us down on so many occasions. It brings back the small and medium housebuilder. It makes use of small sites that are of no interest to the large-scale developers. It supports the fledgling modern methods of construction—or MMC—sector. It enables people to create the homes they really want, not what is served up to them by the volume housebuilders. It does so many good things all at once and it is certainly worthy of support, especially as it does not cost the Government anything to provide that support, which is a rarity.

The Government initiated an equity loan scheme, through Homes England, which enabled people to borrow on preferential terms. That finished in April of 2025, leaving the sector without any real extra support or governmental backing. This amendment would be one helpful step forward for a sector that is providing between 5% and 10% of all the homes we are creating, so it is not insignificant in its scale.

If this particular amendment is not the way by which the Government could be more helpful in the future, is there any intention in government to do anything at this stage that would support the self-build and custom housebuilding sector? It is deserving of a bit more backing. I support the amendment.

Planning and Infrastructure Bill

Lord Best Excerpts

Committee stage
Thursday 11th September 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Jackson of Peterborough (Con)]

My Lords—

[Lord Best (CB)]

My Lords, possibly it is suitable for me to go next, because I shall speak also to Amendment 184, just to conclude the debate on that.

Amendment 184 is in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Thornhill, who has presented it in such an engaging way that I hardly feel it worth any of the rest of us saying anything. She was nobly supported by my noble friend Lord St John and the noble Lord, Lord Banner. Centrepoint, the promoter of the amendment, is a highly respected homelessness charity, and its ideas for creating stepping-stone accommodation are innovative and imaginative.

When asked to support the amendment, I raised three queries and received some helpful responses that I will share with your Lordships, as others may have had similar thoughts to mine. First, I noted that the scheme depended on the young renters moving on to permanent homes in due course to make way for the next young person. But what if the acute shortages of affordable homes made this move-on impossible? The clogging up of short-term supported housing has been the undoing of many earlier such projects. In response, I was assured that these tenants would be supported by a visiting tenancy sustainment worker, who would not only help the young people to pay their rent and maintain their home but would help with move-on options.

Secondly, I pointed out that living in 24 square metres would not normally be regarded as tolerable. The national minimum space standard for a flat is 37 square metres, which is over 50% bigger. Was there a danger that this might be the thin end of the wedge, leading to more exemptions from the norm over time? Experience of the abuse of permitted development rights for property conversions into tiny slums shows us where this might lead. In response, it was pointed out that the circumstances in which the amendment would permit the much-reduced space standards exclusively for otherwise homeless young people were very tightly circumscribed, defined and limited—and I note that they get the seal of approval from the noble Lord, Lord Banner.

Finally, I wondered whether it would be more companionable for the young renters to be in a shared flat with three or four others with their own room but sharing a bathroom and kitchen diner. The reply was very convincing: Centrepoint had consulted widely with young people and those who had spent their time in local authority supported housing with communal areas and shared facilities, and they wanted space that was entirely their own responsibility. Small developments of 12 to 36 studio flats would mean young people living alongside each other while learning to live independently.

It would be up to local planning authorities as to whether any stepping-stone schemes emerged, but this amendment would make them a possibility. Centrepoint and maybe other charities should be enabled to take their model forward to its next stage, no doubt with further pilot schemes to test the concept. With these comments, I support the amendment and look forward to the response from the Minister.

[Lord Jackson of Peterborough (Con)]

My Lords, I am delighted to have the opportunity to contribute to the Committee’s deliberations. I say at the outset that Amendment 184 from the noble Baroness, Lady Thornhill, and my noble friend Lord Banner is eminently sensible, and there appears to be a strong consensus in its favour. I therefore that my Front Bench but also the Minister will give it a fair hearing and possibly support it, because it seems to be a great compromise.

I was fortunate when serving in the other place to support a very good charity called Hope into Action, with local churches banding together to buy residential properties for those in the most acute need, sometimes ex-offenders or people who were just generally down on their luck economically. However, I understand that that is very much a niche activity and it is not possible to buy freeholds outright, so you need this intermediate accommodation in order to give people a chance to get back on the employment or education ladder. So I strongly commend that amendment.

Principally, I want to support the amendment moved by my noble friend Lord Gascoigne. I am old enough to remember when the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 got Royal Assent. I declare from the outset—practically everyone declares this in this Committee—that I am another former vice-president of the Local Government Association, although quite some time ago. I was also a London borough councillor, and I had the good fortune to serve on the planning committee.

It should be remembered that the purpose of Section 106 was very much benign and supported by the community. It was essentially about whether expenditure was necessary, directly relevant to the planning application, and proportionate. It was absolutely the right thing to seek to ameliorate some of the impacts of residential development by providing community facilities such as schools, GP surgeries, community centres and transport infrastructure. Obviously, there was a distinction between the community infrastructure levy and Section 106. Of course, when I was a Member of Parliament and member of the borough council, those financial contributions made in support of affordable housing were very important. They obviously made a big contribution to the provision of decent housing in our borough and in my constituency.

The reason why I think this is an excellent amendment is that not all local authorities are the same. One of the frustrations is that, unless you are focused every day on trying to find the audit trail of funding from Section 106, when you have multiple stakeholders, landowners, local councillors and council officers—who often change over time—it is very difficult to follow the money in terms of what was actually delivered.

You often found in my experience that residential developments ended up with groups of homeowners or local residents who were very unhappy at, for instance, being members of a limited company and responsible for the management of their community areas. They did not want to do that; they just wanted a children’s playground, a bus shelter or a bus route, or a post office, for instance. Therefore, the openness and transparency that this very laudable amendment would give rise to would allow the distinction between good authorities which are putting much-needed money into local communities in a timely way, and those local authorities which are dragging their feet.

I accept that there is a distinction between preparing a local development plan and a county structure plan, et cetera. That is much more of a legalistic exercise, which has to be undertaken under various pieces of legislation. This is about keeping the faith and the trust of the local people you are interested in providing with very good local services, using what is effectively a tax—public money. Having the imperative of publishing that information on a regular basis would allow you in real time to account for why you have not spent that money, what priorities have changed and what the needs of the community as they evolve might be.

I cannot really see why there would be a reason not to do this. Irrespective of party in local government, whether it is independent, Liberal Democrat, Reform, Conservative or Labour—I think that is everyone; unless you are in Epsom and Ewell, and then it is ratepayers, bizarrely—everyone has an opportunity to make sure that that money is spent effectively and in a timely way.

For that reason, I support the amendment. I hope that, if the Minister rejects the amendment, she explains clearly why it is not possible to support it and incorporate it into the Bill. It is long overdue; it is what transparency campaigners in local government want, what local councillors want and probably even what planning officers want, providing clarity on expenditure. It would be a very good development, and I hope the Minister will support it.