Town and Country Planning (Crown Development Applications) (Procedure and Written Representations) Order 2025

Lord Jamieson Excerpts

Thursday 30th October 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Pinnock (LD)]

My Lords, I tabled a regret Motion on this statutory instrument well before the Planning and Infrastructure Bill, now making its way through your Lordships’ House, had even had its Second Reading. Many of the issues I am still concerned with in this order have been debated during the progress of the Bill.

However, I make no apology for once again making the case for community involvement in developments that affect their locality. The Town and Country Planning (Crown Development Applications) (Procedure and Written Representations) Order 2025 fundamentally alters the planning landscape in England. While this instrument appears to be merely procedural, it is in fact a key mechanism for cementing a significant power grab that threatens local accountability and transparency.

The SI we are debating is one of three other statutory instruments that implement the new routes for Crown development, which, to be fair to the Government, were introduced by the Levelling Up and Regeneration Act. During the debate on the Levelling Up and Regeneration Bill, I argued that there had to be community involvement in planning applications, in particular those on behalf of the Crown. Unfortunately, what this statutory instrument does is put central expediency over local democracy and due process in regard to Crown planning applications.

To give a bit of an example, the central purpose of this route for Crown development is to allow government departments—the “appropriate authority”—to apply directly to the Secretary of State for planning permission, bypassing the local planning authority entirely. The rationale provided by the department is that

“Government departments have faced challenges securing planning permission”

through the local planning authority route. This has resulted in delayed decisions for

“nationally important planned projects such as prisons or defence facilities”.

My argument is simple: challenges are the bedrock of a vibrant democracy and, in particular for planning, a vibrant local democracy. When a local planning authority scrutinises a development, it is ensuring that the project is in line with community needs and environmental standards, as well as the national need. By shifting the power of determination from local authority to the Planning Inspectorate, which acts on behalf of the Secretary of State, the local checks and balances are being sacrificed for the sake of speed of decision.

One of the most startling issues I noticed in the Explanatory Memorandum for this SI is that there has been no public consultation on the instrument. The department claims this is due to the “technical nature” of the SI. Yet this technical instrument results in a major policy shift, affecting potentially every community in England.

While the statutory instrument sets out procedures for standard Crown development, the legislative package also covers urgent Crown development. For this, the department has indicated that the need for community engagement will be assessed on a case by case basis, meaning that the Secretary of State appears to have it almost entirely in their discretion whether local engagement is needed at all. If they have this discretion, obviously it puts in peril the public’s right to engage with nationally important projects that could drastically alter their neighbourhood.

The entire system hinges on the concept of a development being defined as “of national importance”. The statutory instrument uses the words “Crown development”. So can the Minister provide an explanation of what is defined as Crown development? Is it any development, whatever size is applied for, that takes place on Crown land?

Article 5 of the instrument allows for the Secretary of State to direct that information related to an application can also be defined as “sensitive information”. If the Secretary of State deems that information relates to national security or security measures and its public disclosure would be contrary to the national interest, the provisions requiring public disclosure will not apply. I can accept that sometimes this is the case. However, in the modern world, nothing is secret and nothing stays away from the public gaze. While sensitive projects may require limited disclosure, this provision actually provides a broad mechanism for withholding crucial information from the public under the umbrella of national interest.

The Government propose that this package of reforms will bring benefits to the public sector, enabling faster planning decisions and potential cost savings to capital programmes—but at what cost? This statutory instrument and the supporting ones undermine the very principles of local planning. They centralise power, sidestep public consultation, rely on vague criteria and restrict transparency. We are being asked to accept an instrument that accelerates government projects by silencing local voices.

I urge the Minister to consider the long-term impact on local governance and planning democracy, as I have done throughout the passage of the Planning and Infrastructure Bill, and to consider enabling communities to have their voice heard before the process is concluded. You can guarantee that local voices will be raised at some point. How much better that those voices are heard during deliberations on a planning application on Crown land, and not after the deal is done? I beg to move.

[Lord Jamieson (Con)]

My Lords, I declare my interest as a councillor in central Bedfordshire. We on this side of the House believe in local democracy. It is why I proposed an amendment to the Planning and Infrastructure Bill that would ensure local democracy where there are valid planning grounds, and why I was pleased that my noble friend Lord Lansley’s amendment on ensuring affirmative procedures for delegated planning powers was passed.

However, there is a need for balance. Today, we are seeing a government programme for the early release of prisoners. While this is, in large part, due to a failure to manage the prison population and deport foreign-born criminals, the lack of prison capacity is a factor. Importantly, the lack of prison space hampers prison rehabilitation—a matter that I know the Prisons Minister, the noble Lord, Lord Timpson, is much vexed about. As my noble friend Lady Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist raised last night, the huge impact that the delays to and additional costs of the UK nuclear programme is having on the cost of energy is a major issue for struggling families and industry. It is therefore right to have a balanced approach.

Section 109 of the previous Conservative Government’s Levelling-up and Regeneration Act added two new sections to the Town and Country Planning Act, creating new routes for Crown development. These provisions allow for an appropriate authority to apply to the Secretary of State for planning permissions, rather than the local planning authority. The intention behind this change was clear: to prevent delay or obstruction to vital national development, such as prisons.

As I have said, we are sympathetic to the concerns raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, but these powers are proportionate and balanced. It is our understanding that the Town and Country Planning (Crown Development Applications) (Procedure and Written Representations) Order 2025 concerns development applications on Crown land that are deemed to be of national importance. The instrument sets out the procedure for such Crown development applications, including applications for planning permissions and approval for reserved matters. Crown development refers to applications made by the Crown bodies for development of national importance.

As so often in matters like these, the key issue is balance between local voice and national need, and between the principle of localism and the imperative to deliver key national infrastructure efficiently. We stand by the intentions of the Levelling-up and Regeneration Act, which expands local voices in the round, taking them seriously by strengthening the role of local plans, creating new opportunities for communities to shape development in their areas and ensuring that decision-making is rooted closer to the people it affects. The Act sought to make planning more transparent, more accountable and more responsive to local priorities. It was never about sidelining local democracy but about creating a system capable of delivering both local consent and national progress.

The provisions on Crown development sit within that broader context. They are not a retreat from localism but a recognition that, on occasion, public interest requires a more streamlined route for developments of genuine national importance. As ever, the challenge is to strike the right balance, to protect local accountability while ensuring that the machinery of state can deliver where delay would carry a wider national cost. That principle underpins this instrument and the Levelling-up and Regeneration Act itself. It is right that we reaffirm it today.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (Baroness Taylor of Stevenage) (Lab)]

My Lords, perhaps it is due to the many hours we have spent in the Chamber debating the Planning and Infrastructure Bill, but I agree with what the noble Lord, Lord Jamieson, just said.

I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, for bringing this debate, and I thank her and the noble Lord for their contributions. I must admit that I was a bit surprised to see the noble Baroness’s regret Motion on the agenda, as she herself had requested—through her Amendment 87E to the Planning and Infrastructure Bill—a streamlined planning process for asylum processing sites. However, she has explained that her regret Motion was tabled before we started debating that Bill.

In May, we brought forward the regulations subject to this debate, along with a wider suite of regulations to bring both Crown development and urgent Crown development routes into force. These are the Crown development route for developments that are considered of national importance and the urgent Crown development route for a nationally important development that is needed as a matter of urgency. Some noble Lords in attendance today will remember when we debated these regulations earlier this year. As I said then, these routes are crucial to ensure that there is a more timely and proportionate planning process for nationally important public services and infrastructure that the state directly delivers; for instance, new defence facilities, prisons and border control—issues that we debated in this House a very short time ago and which are essential for the effective running of this country.

Recent experience, including the response to Covid, exposed that the existing route for securing planning permission for urgent Crown development, which was introduced in 2006, was not fit for purpose. In fact, it had never been used. Further, government departments have historically struggled to secure local planning permission for some nationally important public service infrastructure, such as prisons.