Planning and Infrastructure Bill

Lord Cromwell Excerpts

Report stage
Wednesday 29th October 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

My Lords, it is absolutely pointless voting for this, because Natural England cannot do the job it has at the moment. Unless it is better resourced and has better structure, it is completely pointless giving it any more jobs. However, I stand here in the throes of two very strong emotions. I signed 38 Conservative amendments—I have never done anything like that before. I committed to something that I thought that the Conservatives were going to do, and they did not do it. They let us all down: they decided not to try to take out Part 3. That is shameful. If you are in opposition, why do you not oppose? What they have just done is playing politics. This is why politicians have such a bad reputation.

My second emotion is fury, which I normally mostly reserve for the Government. Part 3 absolutely stinks, and there should be no effort to get it through this House. It is a terrible piece of legislation. It completely ignores the fact that we need nature. We depend on nature, and the Labour Government are so eco-ignorant that they completely avoid the plot.

Going back to the Conservatives, they are not to be trusted. If they cannot oppose the Government when they know the Government are wrong, why on earth are they sitting here? Why are they bothering? There are some noble Lords on this side—I use the word “noble” advisedly—who, if I had moved Amendment 123, having cosigned it, would have supported me. I am very touched by that, and I thank them. However, we are allowing these amendments to go through. We are trying to improve them, but it is like putting lipstick on a lamppost. I am not going to say “pig”—I like pigs. It is like trying to tart up something that does not need it because it should be thrown out. I ask noble Lords not to vote for this and not to trust the Tories on any amendment they put forward from now on. They are playing politics. They are not trying to do their best for Britain: they are just thinking about themselves.

[Lord Cromwell (CB)]

My Lords, that was great fun. I hope the noble Baroness feels better for her confession of how many Conservative amendments she signed. It is a surprise to us all, I am sure.

I take a slightly different view. I do not know why we did not vote on Amendment 123; I wish we had, because I certainly would have supported it. I support all these attempts to improve the Bill. Why? Because the Government say that we should follow the science. They make great play of the evidence that should be underpinning all these EDPs. The amendments in this group, essentially, are about providing proper evidence, and surely that is not controversial. The best evidence is frequently referred to and proper reporting is required. I cannot understand why anybody would be against any of that.

I agree that Part 3 is a disaster, but we are trying to improve it. I do not know about lipstick on a lamp-post: I think we are just trying to improve it a bit, given what we have been given. I support these amendments, for what they are worth, and I think that castigating the Opposition does not really help greatly. They are trying as hard as they can to improve this.

[Lord Lansley (Con)]

May I just say—not least to the noble Baroness, Lady Jones—that, as it happens, I support the view that it would be wrong to take out Part 3 at this stage? I say that for procedural reasons. If we took out Part 3, in effect, we would send it back to the other place without Part 3 in it and it would reinstate it. I fail to see at what point we would be able to do all the things that we have just been talking about and will go on to talk about, which is to revise Part 3 so that we can do our job, which is to take all the most harmful aspects of Part 3 out and put improvements in.

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[Lord Cromwell (CB)]

My Lords, this is Report, so I will indeed be brief. Yes, the case is well made for cavity-nesting bird bricks, and I shall just speak briefly to Amendment 138. Those who heard me in Committee will remember that I gave a bit of a treatise on ragwort. I have had endless Members come up to me and thank me for the learning they acquired; I have had only one offer to come and help me pull it out, and I thank the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, for that, in his absence.

It is not the non-native aspect that gives me a hard time. As I pointed out, roses and apples are non-natives; both come from central Asia. It is the invasive nature that is the problem, and I would love to see these EDPs and all the other acronyms have an element of responsibility for dealing with invasive and injurious weeds—injurious is the word in law—because under a lot of the current environmental schemes, you have a margin along a field which is entirely yellow with ragwort and is of very little environmental value, unless you happen to be a cinnabar moth.

[Lord Krebs (CB)]

My Lords, I rise with some trepidation to speak against Amendment 245. In so doing, I emphasise that I have the greatest respect for the noble Lord, Lord Goldsmith, and his superb work as Environment Minister in your Lordships’ House, as well as respect for the other signatories to this amendment. My opposition may be surprising if your Lordships recognise that I am an emeritus professor at the Edward Grey Institute of Field Ornithology at Oxford University —which is arguably the world’s leading ornithological research institute—as well as being a life member of the RSPB. So why am I against swift boxes? I am absolutely in favour of measures to halt the decline in swifts and in other species I will come to in a moment; my objection to this amendment is that it simply will not work.

The amendment refers to fitting swift bricks on houses or buildings over five metres tall. Let me describe the basis on which I suggest that this will not work. The Edward Grey Institute is home to the longest-running study of swift populations anywhere in the world: it has been running for 78 years. The first thing to say about this long-running study is that the swifts nest in the tower of the Oxford University Museum of Natural History, which is not five metres tall but 58 metres tall. I will explain why that is important in a moment. I do not want noble Lords to think that this is my opinion alone. I consulted my colleague, Professor Christopher Perrins, who ran the swift study for many years and is a former director of the Edward Grey Institute. What he points out, and I agree, is that swifts are very specialised aerial feeders and flyers. They are superb flyers, and one consequence of their specialisation for flight is that in order to get into their nest, they need a very long, exposed flight path: like a jumbo jet landing at an airport, they need a long entry point. Equally important, when they leave the nest, they need a very large drop space in order to come out of the nest, drop and start flapping their wings to take off. That is why, when nesting in the tower of the university museum at Oxford, which is 58 metres tall, the swifts prefer to nest at the very top. Even boxes that are 15 or 20 metres from the top are not used by the swifts; only the ones at the very top.

This is a very well-intentioned idea, and I am all in favour of measures that will help reverse the decline in swift populations, but I do not think this is the right one. So what is the cause of the decline in swift populations in this country? We have to look at the fact that it is not just swifts, but other bird species that are aerial insect feeders: house martins, sand martins and swallows are all in steep decline. They all have very different nesting requirements. The swift is the only one that nests in a hole, as the swift brick amendment would suggest, or under eaves.

The real cause of the decline of these bird species is the decline in aerial insect populations. We all know, and it is an oft-repeated fact, that in the good old days when even I was young, if you drove down a country lane at night, your windscreen would be spattered with insect corpses. Now you drive down a country lane at night and your windscreen is completely clear. Yes, we should tackle the problem of declining aerial insectivores —swifts, house martins, sand martins and swallows—and declining insects, but swift boxes are really a bit player in this whole question. Although I support the intention of the amendment, I do not think it would deliver what is claimed and therefore, reluctantly, I do not support it.

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In preparing an EDP that relates to a protected species, the Bill will also already require information about the population in order to describe its conservation status and to explain how the EDP will contribute towards achieving favourable conservation status, having regard to the best available scientific evidence. With the reassurance that these matters are already provided for elsewhere in the Bill, I hope the noble Lord feels able not to press his amendments.

[Lord Cromwell (CB)]

Before the Minister sits down, can I ask him in plain English to clarify a couple of questions? First, am I right to understand that unspent levy money paid by a developer will not be returned to them but will just be kept by Natural England to spend as it sees fit? Secondly, could there be a situation where a developer paid the levy and then was compulsorily purchased and his or her own money was then used to buy the land off them under compulsory purchase? That seems somewhat inequitable to me.

[Lord Wilson of Sedgefield (Lab)]

I will write to the noble Lord on those two issues, if that is possible.

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[Lord Curry of Kirkharle (CB)]

My Lords, I shall speak to Amendment 182A, but, first, I want to support the other amendments in this group, particularly Amendment 178A tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Roborough.

As the Minister is aware, the majority of farmers are keen to engage in delivering environmental benefits and are increasingly collaborating geographically on landscape schemes. It would be entirely appropriate to use this expertise to deliver environmental services, building on existing commitments. Who is better qualified to provide value for money than those with local knowledge and an existing track record of delivering environmental goods?

Let me enlarge on the reasoning for tabling Amendment 182A—and I thank the noble Lords, Lord Roborough and Lord Cromwell, for their support for it. The amendment seeks to amend Clause 76 on the administration, implementation and monitoring of EDPs. I thank Ministers for their helpful letter of 13 October. I read it a number of times before deciding whether to table the amendment. Was I satisfied that the assurances given in the letter, that they would expect Natural England to preferentially adopt competitive procurement approaches for EDPs wherever possible, were adequate?

I concluded that this requirement should be in the Bill and not just advisory. Let me try to explain why I am concerned. The purpose of the Bill, as we have heard a number of times, is to speed up the planning and development process to enable the Government to deliver their housing ambitions and critical infrastructure plans. There is, however, a deep cynicism and suspicion that to throw Natural England into the mix, into the planning and development process, will absolutely not speed it up.

I am afraid I do not share the confidence of the Minister. It is not a criticism of Natural England, but the involvement of an arm’s-length public body, any public body, will, due to its culture and accountability, lead to layers of bureaucracy that did not exist before, as the noble Baroness, Lady Willis, stated earlier. The spades might start digging a few days earlier, but there will certainly be a delay in the delivery of the EDPs. It is inevitable.

As I mentioned at Second Reading, most responsible developers have now established relationships with consultants, ecologists and contractors who understand the current obligations and requirements in regard to local nature strategies, biodiversity net gain, et cetera. That may not have been the case a few years ago, but it definitely is today. Why disrupt a model that has been established and is now working well? This amendment will almost certainly guarantee that the process will speed up, because those involved in market solutions will be determined to prove that they have a solution before Natural England gets its sticky hands on the development, imposes a levy and increases the costs involved.

I have another, broader concern that has been referenced before. The Government and Natural England have tried to reassure us that Natural England will be adequately resourced to carry out this additional function. It will be able to siphon off the levy, which of course will add to development costs. I will be very surprised indeed, in view of the very serious pressure on the public purse, if the Chancellor does not bear down on expenditure in her Autumn Budget, including arm’s-length public bodies.

This amendment is an attempt to improve the Bill by insisting that Natural England allows and indeed encourages private market solutions to prove that they have a solution to deliver the conservation and ecological measures necessary before NE takes it in-house, with all the bureaucracy that will then entail. I look forward to the Minister’s response, but may wish to take this amendment further.

[Lord Cromwell (CB)]

My Lords, I have added my name to Amendment 182A, which has just been so ably introduced by the noble Lord, Lord Curry, and have very little to add, other than to say that I support all the amendments in this group, particularly Amendment 178A, as he does.

Implementation and monitoring of this very ambitious project need a proper, open tender process, for two basic reasons: value for money and the fact that the private sector locally, including farmers, is going to know the land, the systems and the available resources far better than the rather uncharitably described “sticky fingers” of Natural England—but then I suggested earlier that it might “run amok”, so perhaps I should not be too bold. Natural England’s engagement in direct delivery, if it can actually deliver it, which is a question mark, should surely be the last resort, and it will almost certainly be considerably more expensive. I thoroughly support my colleague the noble Lord, Lord Curry, in his amendment.

[Lord Fuller (Con)]

My Lords, I will talk briefly in support of Amendment 182A in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Curry. This Bill should be shaping how private operators will address the market for mitigation; instead, we have Natural England becoming a monopoly supplier of mitigations in a drive to nationalise nature and, in so doing, potentially drive out private initiative.

In an earlier group, I touched very briefly on the distinction between permitting and licensing. In my view, licensing is the way to go, because it prevents the derivative secondary markets that enrich the speculators at the expense of delivering the outcome. We cannot afford to create by way of permitting a new milk quota disaster—for those with long memories—where the mitigation industry just became a collateralised asset class that had everything to do with speculation and nothing to do with nature recovery.

That is not an argument against private involvement, but it is an argument for channelling and regulating a fast-developing industry where we have global leadership, the encouragement of which will enrich our economy. We just need to avoid the Wild West I have seen emerging among some chancers who are taking the money and spending it on Ferraris rather than laying it down to provide mitigations for the entire liability period.