Planning and Infrastructure Bill

Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts Excerpts

2nd reading
Wednesday 25th June 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts (Con)]

My Lords, as they say, follow that. It is a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Rooker. He is always trenchant and always given with verve and determination. I will pick up on the issue he raised of departmental silos in a minute.

I want to make two points, one strategic and the other tactical. I will deal with the strategic one first. This is an ambitious plan for 1.5 million homes while meeting clean power targets and, at the same time, making sure we have an adequate degree of nature recovery, as mentioned by my noble friend Lord Goldsmith. However, it does not deal with the point made by my noble friend Lord Lilley: that, over the next 10 years, we will have an additional 6.6 million people in this country. That is a huge number; it is about two cities the size of Manchester. Manchester covers an area roughly the size of Berkshire. Together, all these issues will have some substantial consequences. For my part, I am concerned that some of them may be unintended. In the short time I have available, I want to draw the House’s attention to one: the growing danger and risk to our food and water security.

When this Bill comes into effect, a lot of agricultural land will be taken out of food production. Partially, obviously, that will be because we are going to have to build houses and the ancillary facilities that go with them. Also, less obviously but still very important, there will be massive amounts of agricultural land lost to solar farms—not just to solar farms but to the production of maize for feeding biodigesters to generate electricity. It is all part of the push for green energy targets.

It is obvious that you cannot eat solar panels. When the Minister comes to wind up—perhaps I could ask the noble Lord on the Front Bench to pass this on to her—could she tell the House how many acres of agricultural land are expected to be taken out of production as a result of this Bill? How will the Government square this with the conclusion of their own national security review, published today, which concludes, as headlined in the Times, that the risk of war on home soil is now the greatest in years?

People tend to forget that we grow just over half our food, about 55%, and we must go on to the world market to buy the balance. It is a question not just of buying the food but of shipping it here. The Russian invasion of Ukraine and the impact of four or five pinch points, such as the Strait of Hormuz, show how vulnerable we are to world events. As an island—an already relatively crowded island—we are particularly vulnerable to these shifts. In the early 1940s, this country was within a few months of starvation until the Royal Navy was able to crack the U-boat threats to our convoys. Today, the threats are much shorter. As mentioned in the national security review, supply chains now run very thin. It is estimated that there are three days of supply for this country in the food chain at any one time. As someone put it, rather overdramatically, we are nine meals away from anarchy. The situation regarding water, as mentioned by my noble friend Lady Coffey, is no better.

If the prime task of the Government is to protect citizens and keep them safe, that must include providing adequate supplies of food and water, but that does not come into this debate because—this was the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Rooker—it falls into another silo. It is important that, somehow, those silos interconnect, communicate and make sure that the implications of one are read into the conclusions and policies of the other.

In my last 30 seconds, I turn to my tactical point. I want to interrogate the Minister about footpaths— I declare an interest as a member of the Ramblers. The UK’s network of footpaths plays an important role in giving people a chance to exercise and to improve their physical and mental well-being, but there are 40,000 miles of footpath which are currently unrecorded and which, under the drop-dead date of the Countryside and Rights of Way Act 2000, will disappear on 31 December this year—gone for ever.

The previous Conservative Government gave an extension. Instead of 31 December this year, they would disappear on 31 December 2030. However, the incoming Labour Government bravely said that we should remove all the drop-dead dates and they should be left to be sorted out over time, but—in the hallowed phrase—when parliamentary time permits. Now, we have parliamentary time, so I hope the Minister will welcome some amendments to give effect to this very important commitment that this Government have given us.