Planning and Infrastructure Bill

Lord Fuller Excerpts

2nd reading
Wednesday 25th June 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Fuller (Con)]

My Lords, I speak today as someone who has led a council for 20 years. I have sat on more planning committees than I care to remember. I have been accountable for three local plans, and I sat on the CIL review for the Minister in 2016-17—I have even built a few homes on my own account. I chaired a district council for four years, and established a public sector environmental credits company. I am well qualified to participate in this Bill.

The Bill is defective because it does not remind us that the purpose of planning is to arbitrate between the private and the public interest. Our work is important here. We need to optimise housing and economic growth within the context of optimising the burden of well-meaning regulations. We need to get the public-private balance right.

Let us not be churlish: there are several welcome moves in this Bill. It should not take 10 years to produce a local plan, which is how long the last local plan I was involved with took. However, superficial headlines fail to finger the felons who hold up progress and, most perversely, potentially reward the biggest blockers. This Bill perpetrates the myth that councils and councillors are a block on progress. That is wrong. Local councillors should not be the scapegoats for wider failures in the rest of the regulatory public sector—those who the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, mentioned. It is a pity that he is not in his place because I agreed with every word that he said about silos. Training councillors and emasculating planning committees alone will not deliver millions of homes; that is just wishful thinking.

The Bill has a touching faith that officials can clear away the debris—as if they do not have any prejudices of their own—and get Britain building all by themselves. In my experience, too often officialdom, in its widest sense, is inflexible. It interprets the local plan grounded in data which might be several years old and stuck in the past, rather than addressing the needs of tomorrow. I have sat on enough planning committees to know that, too often, officials and other parts of the state put the black spot on proper proposals.

Too often statutory bodies claim a veto to advance their own narrow interest, and on their own timescales. The Minister will remember when we both worked together to get the Planning Inspectorate to do its job in Stevenage, when it thought that 1,000 days to start an inspection was an appropriate lead time.

If you give someone a veto, do not be surprised if they use it—Natural England, the Environment Agency, the MMO, the Highways Agency and whatever National Rail calls itself nowadays. I want to be charitable here, but often they use overly precious objections, advancing specious science or contested legal opinion, to make their “wait” points. That is before we deal with a whole new set of other regulators—for example, the building fire safety regulator, which acts as if, Canute-like, it can somehow abolish fire. This Bill does nothing to address all those other blockers.

Councillors are not the problem here. In fact, we need elected officials at all levels to arbitrate positively in the public interest, to get through these vetoes and to ensure that those bodies do not use them capriciously.

Turning to Part 3, there has been a lot of NGO shroud-waving, telling us how a cottage industry of well-meaning ecologists has turned into a drag anchor on our economy. We should not ignore them, but we must roll back their veto on environmental protections, because their demands have become disproportionate and detached from reality.

Only this afternoon, I received an email as part of my casework as a councillor. A development in Norfolk has been told, on the basis of Natural England’s calculation, that the cost of installing a loo in a proposed single dwelling in a village not far from where I live will be £32,450. We have to stop this. It is on different continents with regard to value from what is reasonable or achievable.

I am concerned that proposals to give Natural England judge-and-jury powers will effectively nationalise nature. To set mitigation measures at state-run prices is dangerous. To set the price too low would kill the incentive to innovate in an area where the UK has developed some world-leading market leadership. I am anxious that we will undermine innovative local schemes where nutrient neutrality, biodiversity net gain, GIRAMS and SANGS, whatever they are, have been contracted and executed with 80-year tail liabilities. That is completely inconsistent with the 10-year life of an EDP.

On a much more positive note, I broadly welcome the proposals for development corporations in Part 4. But I have concerns over the financial models for the organisations, and it will be important to clarify the relationship between compulsory purchase and the cat’s cradle of responsibilities between the mayor, development corporation boards, planning authorities and the interactions with the money and finance that deliver the infrastructure.

There is much more that I want to say and will later on in the process. For the moment, I welcome the Bill and will do much to improve it, as there is more polishing to be done.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Fuller (Con)]

Will the Minister accept that in many of the cases where permissions are granted, pre-commencement conditions are not yet met and that is the reason these permissions are not executed or completed? In so many cases it is because of the other statutory consultees: it is not the council; the baton passes from the council to the developers at that stage. They are the hold-up, and they are that break between the issuance of permission and commencement on site, and that is really where much of the government effort needs to be.

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

I understand exactly the point the noble Lord, Lord Fuller, is making and there are measures in the Bill which will ease that pressure. We are looking at stat cons and how that process works but, overall, we need to make sure that we get a very smooth process, where we speed up the whole application process, the pre-commencement phase and the build-out phase, because that is what will start delivering housing at pace in this country.

Some noble Lords have mentioned the New Towns Taskforce. It will be reporting this summer, and we will also be publishing a comprehensive housing strategy. I cannot say exactly when; I have that Civil Service phrase “in the not too distant future”, which is frustrating, but I hope it will be very soon.

The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Manchester mentioned the very excellent report of the Church housing commission and the Nationwide Foundation. I was very grateful for that piece of work; it has been incredibly helpful in shaping thinking, particularly on social, affordable and specialist housing.

The noble Lord, Lord Patten, and other noble Lords mentioned that planning is not necessarily the block to growth. It is not the only key to growth, but it too often can be a substantial constraint on it. We want to move that forward as quickly as possible.

I was asked for the number of homes we are going to be building and exactly what the plan is over the years. We are working on that plan, particularly for the social and affordable housing. It was going down— I have mentioned the figures already—and it will ramp up to deliver those 1.5 million homes during the course of this Parliament. It is very important that, as we do that, we deliver the kind of homes we want to see, in relation to design and net zero, and that they do not have a detrimental impact on our environment. My noble friends Lord Hunt and Lady Liddell have emphasised skills and investor confidence as further parts of this picture. They are very important, and I will say a little bit more about those in a moment.

The ambition of the Bill is really transformative. We want to mark the next step in the most significant reforms to the planning system in a generation. We are building on urgent action to unlock development, including: our new pro-growth National Planning Policy Framework published in December; ending the de facto ban on onshore wind; a review of the role of stat cons, as I mentioned to the noble Lord, Lord Fuller; supporting SME builders; and boosting local authority capacity. I have spoken before about the Government’s action on skills. All of this and the Bill will help deliver our Plan for Change, get 1.5 million safe and decent homes built and fast-track planning decisions on 150 major economic infrastructure projects by the end of this Parliament. We recognise the scale of the challenge. I look forward to working with noble Lords in this House to make sure that the Bill facilitates that scale of ambition.

On the specific issue of the reform of planning committees, many noble Lords have mentioned this, including the noble Baronesses, Lady Scott, Lady Coffey, Lady Jones, Lady Miller and Lady Pinnock, the noble Earl, Lord Russell, the noble Lords, Lord Mawson, Lord Gascoigne, Lord Shipley and Lord Bailey, and the noble Viscount, Lord Trenchard, and probably some others that I did not get round to writing down. This is a very important part of the Bill. Planning committees play a critical role in the planning system, ensuring adequate scrutiny is in place for developments and providing local democratic oversight of planning decisions. However, they are not currently operating as effectively as they could be.

We are not taking local decision-making out of local hands. Those decisions will continue to be vested locally, but we want to engage the public and councillors more at the stage of the local plan, where they can really have an influence on place shaping and can influence what they want to see in their communities, as a number of noble Lords have said.

We will be introducing a national scheme of delegation, which will facilitate faster decision-making, bring greater certainty to stakeholders and applicants and effectively utilise the planning professionals, by doing what they are best at. We are also introducing mandatory training for committee members. We have always had compulsory training for planning members in my local authority— I did not realise that it was not compulsory. We need to make sure we do that to get well-informed decision-making and improve consistency across the country.

A number of noble Lords mentioned the role of AI in planning. I met with the digital team in our department this morning, and it is making great strides forward in planning. This is very exciting: it is not just for digitising the planning system and mapping out all the spatial issues we face in the country, including all the nature mitigation that is needed, but it is also to help with consultation. On the local government consultations we are doing at the moment, we are getting hundreds of responses. If you can digitise the assessment of that, it is really going to help with the planning process, though, of course, it always needs human oversight.

The noble Lord, Lord Banner, rightly referred to resources and capacity in the Planning Inspectorate. I reassure noble Lords that consideration is being given to this.

The noble Baroness, Lady Miller, referred to Planning for Real; I remember it very well—just before I became a councillor, I got involved in a Planning for Real exercise. We are hoping to engage and encourage people with those kind of exercises as they draw up their local plans.

The noble Lord, Lord Lucas, spoke about digital twins and AI, which is another thing I have been very interested in. I know that Singapore has a fabulous way of doing this, and it is very important to planning.

I thank the noble Lord, Lord Murray, for his contribution on mediation. We are very supportive of that and are looking at it.

Some noble Lords suggested that reforms within our Bill remove democratic control from local people and restrict the input of community voices in the planning process. That is simply not the case. Engagement with communities is, and will remain, the cornerstone of our planning system and a vital step in the design of major infrastructure. We are currently consulting on the proposals for the scheme of delegation, so everybody will have a chance to contribute to that.

I will move on to wider housing and planning issues, including affordable housing. A number of noble Lords raised the issue of social and affordable housing, including the noble Lords, Lord Cameron, Lord Teverson, Lord Best and Lord Evans, and the noble Baronesses, Lady Jones and Lady Levitt. This is a vitally important issue. The Government’s manifesto commits us to delivering the biggest increase in social and affordable housing in a generation. The spending review confirmed £39 billion for a successor to the affordable homes programme. For the first time in recent memory, we will be able to give providers a decade of certainty over the capital funding they will have to build new, more ambitious housing development proposals. In the National Planning Policy Framework, we have asked local councils that, when they draw up their local plans, they assess the need not just for affordable housing, because that is a very difficult definition, but for social housing. That is critical.

On housing quality and design, the noble Lords, Lord Thurlow, Lord Crisp, Lord Shipley, Lord Carlile and Lord Best, the noble Earl, Lord Caithness, and the noble Baroness, Lady Levitt, all raised this issue. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Crisp, for meeting me to discuss this. We need to ensure that new developments are built to a high standard and the importance of good design, promoting the health and well-being of all those who live there. I apologise to the noble Lord, Lord Carlile, that architects have not been mentioned perhaps as much as he would have liked, but the NPPF makes clear the importance of well-designed, inclusive and safe places and how this can be achieved through local design policies, design codes and guidance. That includes transport, open spaces, and climate change mitigation and adaptation.

I will move on now, because time is pressing on, to the issues that I think were probably mentioned by most noble Lords: namely, the nature restoration fund and Part 3. If your Lordships do not mind, I will not read out all the names, because we would be here most of the evening.

When it comes to development and nature, the status quo is not working. We need to build on the success of policies such as diversity net gain and ensure that we do everything we can to deliver positive development. By moving to a more strategic approach to discharging obligations, the nature restoration fund will allow us to deliver environmental improvements at greater scale, with greater impact, while unlocking the development this country needs. We are confident that the new model will secure better outcomes for nature, driving meaningful nature recovery and moving us away from a system that is at the moment only treading water.

On the issue of regression, I reassure noble Lords that this new strategic approach will deliver more for nature, not less. That is why we have confirmed in the Bill that our reforms will not have the effect of reducing the level of environmental protection of existing environmental law. Through the NRF model we are moving away from piecemeal interventions and going further than simply offsetting harm, as is required under current legislation. We have been clear that environmental delivery plans will be put in place only where they are able to deliver better outcomes which will leave a lasting legacy of environmental improvement. I will not go into more detail on that now but will set it out in writing, because I know that lots of noble Lords are concerned about it.

On irreplaceable habitats, let me reassure everyone that we consider them to be just that: irreplaceable. The legislation is clear that an EDP can relate to a protected site or a protected species, with these being tightly defined in the legislation. As the Housing Minister made clear in the other place, the Bill does not affect existing protections for irreplaceable habitats under the National Planning Policy Framework. While there may be circumstances where an environmental feature is part of both a protected site and an irreplaceable habitat, an EDP will not allow action to be taken that damaged an irreplaceable habitat, as this would by definition be incapable of passing the overall improvement test. I hope that that has provided some reassurance.

I reassure the noble Baroness, Lady Willis, that green space in urban areas is already part of the planning system through the National Planning Policy Framework. A number of noble Lords commented on the capacity and capability of Natural England, and I will write to noble Lords on that, if that is okay.

The noble Lord, Lord Roborough, talked about the impact of the NRF on farmers. I know that that is a very important issue, and many in this House very ably represent the interests of farmers, so I welcome the opportunity to flag the opportunities the NRF presents for farming communities. We want to work in partnership with farmers and land managers to deliver conservation measures which will provide opportunities for them to support the delivery of such measures and diversify their business revenues.

I will write to all noble Lords about EDPs and all the other issues relating to Part 3. I say to the noble Lord, Lord Goldsmith, that he quoted my words back to me very accurately. I have now been to Poundbury, by the way, and seen the swift bricks in action. We recognise that these are a significant tool, and we have made it clear in the revised NPPF that developments should provide net gains such as that. I recognise why many would want to mandate this through legislation, but we think there is a better way of doing that, so we will be consulting on a new set of national policies, including a requirement for swift bricks to be incorporated into new buildings. I hope that that answers the question.

I shall talk briefly about the Gypsy and Traveller housing, mentioned by my noble friend Lady Whitaker, the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Manchester and the noble Baroness, Lady Bakewell. I share their frustrations at how this has been dealt with. As part of the revised National Planning Policy Framework, we have corrected long-standing inconsistencies in the way applications for sites are considered and provided greater clarity. We have revised the definition of Gypsies and Travellers to align with domestic and European law.

I see that I have run out of time. I will not try to cover all the other issues. I have got plenty to say on development corporations, infrastructure and so on, but I will write to all noble Lords who have taken part in this debate and answer the questions I have been asked, including on rural housing, protection of the green belt and so on.

I reiterate my thanks to your Lordships for your engagement with the Bill to this point and give particular thanks to the opposition spokespeople: I have been there, so I know what that is like, and I am grateful to you.

I look forward to working with all of you during the passage of this important and truly ambitious piece of legislation. My noble friend Lord Hanworth referred to the ambition shown by the post-war Government when reconstructing our country. It was that Government who took the pre-war planning inspiration from garden cities and Ebenezer Howard a step further to create my town and other first-generation new towns, with the boost that gave to the economy. We now have the opportunity to take the next step to clean energy, to use artificial intelligence, to have a new clean energy transport infrastructure and to plan the new homes and communities that a new generation will need. I look forward to working with all of you on that over the next few weeks and months.