Planning and Infrastructure Bill

Lord Lilley Excerpts

2nd reading
Wednesday 25th June 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Lilley (Con)]

My Lords, it is a great pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Ravensdale. I hope he will not mind me saying that, through the expertise he has brought to this debate, he has illustrated how the hereditary system brings a comparatively youthful expertise of a non-partisan nature into our midst—one which will never come in once the constitutional vandalism this Government are planning has removed such people from this House.

I wholeheartedly support the Bill’s overall objectives of speeding up and streamlining the delivery of new homes and critical infrastructure. The current delays and costs are intolerable. The Lower Thames Crossing has cost £1.2 billion just for the planning process, before a single sod has been cut—if that is what you do to sod. That is more than what it cost Norway to build the longest under-river tunnel in Europe. A 25-mile bypass cost £250 million just for the planning process, and virtually every housing project in my old constituency —and in most other parts of the country—faces objections locally.

In effect, we have created a “vetocracy” in this country. Objectors can impose such costs and delays on project developers that they can effectively veto those projects going ahead. We must find ways of reducing the power of that vetocracy, and I welcome steps in the Bill to do that. We have got to stop local vetoes preventing, delaying and raising the costs of building homes, transport and energy infrastructure.

The noble Baroness, Lady Pidgeon, lauded the French success in building large infrastructure projects. I recall my old and much-lamented friend Nigel, the late Lord Lawson, telling me how, when he was Energy Secretary, he had asked his French counterpart how they were able to build nuclear power stations across France with so little objection. The French Minister, without realising the double entendre, replied, “When you are draining the swamp, you do not consult ze frogs”. But we do have to consult ze Brits in this country.

One less draconian way of undermining democracy is to enable developers to buy off or compensate objectors. This is most relevant in the energy sector, which is my principal concern. We need to access lower-cost and most-reliable energy sources and enable energy to reach the users without imposing extra costs. So I welcome the measures in the Bill which will enable the Secretary of State to establish a scheme to compensate people living in properties near to new transmission network structures by crediting their energy bills. But I cannot see why it should be delimited to those living near transmission networks and certain major upgrades of existing projects—that is what the Bill says at present. Why not extend the scheme so that compensation may be offered to those living near, say, proposed onshore windmills, which are the cheapest form of renewable energy? Better still, why not give companies proposing to drill for shale gas or oil onshore the right to offer compensation? I have heard of one company that would be prepared to offer £1,000 per household to those living within, say, a mile of a proposed well if a majority votes to allow such drilling to take place. It would subsequently offer a reduction in their gas bills, if the well proves successful, for the life of that well. I shall put down amendments to that effect.

Another aspect of the Bill that relates to the energy sector is the section enabling the Government to introduce a cap and floor scheme to finance long-duration energy schemes. The Explanatory Notes make it clear that that is expected to relate to new reservoirs—I mention the Dinorwig existing reservoir—but there are very few potential sites. The notes also refer to your Lordships’ House’s Select Committee report Long-Duration Energy Storage: Get on With It, which was mostly about the development of hydrogen as a form of storage. I again alert the House and the Government to the dangers of pressing ahead and investing in immature technologies prematurely. That technology has not been developed and is hugely costly at the moment, and we should not empower the Government to go ahead with it before it has proved its worth.

I add that, if we are going to build 1.5 million homes—I hope we will, and I will help the Government in their measures to make that easier to get planning permission for—we have to recognise that, at present, 40% of those will be taken up, in effect, by the rate of immigration foreseen by the Office for National Statistics over the next five years. We have to remember that it is about not just supply but demand—but no one will ever mention that.