National Infrastructure Projects: Devolution

Lord Birt Excerpts

Wednesday 9th September 2026 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

Data centres are a useful example of why the planning system needs flexibility. Some data centres will go through the local planning routes and some will be NSIPs because of their scale, power requirements, economic role or resilience applications. The noble Baroness makes a very valid point around how we use grey water and so on, and how we can use the heat output from data centres for use in residential or commercial applications.

[Lord Birt (CB)]

My Lords, I worked at No. 10 some 20 years ago, when the decision was made in principle to build a national high-speed rail network in the UK. As we know, that network now goes just from Birmingham to Euston, is not yet open and is 140 miles long. At exactly the same time that that decision was made, the Chinese started building their high-speed rail network. Twenty years later, it is 31,000 miles long. What conclusion does the Minister draw from that?

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

I will not make any points about the nature of Governments that can move without fear of having to be re-elected, but we have to get better at this. That is why all this work has been done since our Government came into power to make sure that we improve both infrastructure planning and the process for delivering infrastructure. We need not only to get the planning system working more smoothly but to have far better ways of making sure that the project management of these schemes is working effectively and smoothly. The first step is to get these things through planning without having years and years of hold-ups in the courts and elsewhere.