Planning and Infrastructure Bill

Lord Naseby Excerpts

2nd reading
Wednesday 25th June 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Naseby (Con)]

My Lords, it is a privilege to follow the noble Baroness, who raises such an important dimension affecting this Bill. As I listened earlier this afternoon to the Minister, I was pleased at the way he delivered the Bill before us. I think he will have sensed a wish across the House for us to move forward and to help the Government succeed in the objectives they have set. I know that that sense is shared by his noble friend who will be winding up, whom I have talked to about new towns.

I would like to cover just three aspects. First, there is my own experience. I had the privilege to be elected leader and chairman of housing for the London Borough of Islington in 1968, the only Conservative leader of the London Borough of Islington so far. I am the son of an architect, and when we took power, we did a complete review with the borough architect, a man called Mr Alf Head. We looked at a place called The Crumbles, which was run by the GLC—an early Victorian building where the residents had to have the toilets on alternate floors. I said to Mr Head, “Do we really have to continue with buildings of this sort? “No”, he says, “Sir, if you’ve got some vision”—you as councillors— “I have been working on low-level intensive housing.” I invite the Minister to go to Essex Road some time and see the results of his vision and our ability as local councillors to get it built. That was an exciting exercise.

Secondly—and I think this is still relevant today—my wife and I bought a small terraced house in Gerrard Road that had a “sort of” bathroom and, maybe, a kitchen. But there was a process for young couples with a baby, which we had, to get a grant, which we had to match. We did that, and that restored that property for, to the best of my knowledge, a long, long time. That time has come again. I have visited one or two properties which are in a terrible state, and young couples have the energy and desire to bring such properties up to modernity. I actually wrote a pamphlet called The Disaster of Direct Labour, but I do not think the present Government are proposing direct labour in local government—I hope not. Anyway, those are my experiences.

I want to say a few words about new housing, which is vital, of course. One of the biggest problems today is building, or potentially building, on the flood plain. That will get worse, because we know from all the evidence that the level of rainfall is going up by approximately 10% a year, and that the intensity of the rainfall is greater now than 10 years ago. Against that background, frankly, we should not allow any building on the flood plain. That is an important element.

Conversely, I think that we should work with the major housebuilders. I am not one who is critical of the work of the major housebuilders. They have to have planning permission covering at least three years if they are to run a viable business. Although it is quite right to say to new housebuilders, “You’ve got to put on roofing material that will help get solar energy”, I do not think that you can tell them to put heat pumps in every property. That is not feasible. In my early stages with Reckitt & Colman, I worked in Hull, which had row after row of terraced housing. Those properties cannot have heat pumps.

It is against that background that I would like to see us look again at gas being used as a vehicle, with hydrogen, to provide energy for heating and cooking, particularly in areas of major terraced housing. I have done some work with the gas industry and on what goes with it. Basically, it is safe and it works. I should like to see it go forward.

I come, finally, to new towns. I represented Northampton South for 23 years. As a new town, it was not initially welcomed by the local council. I thought a lot about it and said, “No, we need to welcome it. We need more housing in this area. We need proper housing and a mix of housing”. We were getting it from the Commission for New Towns, but in the new towns of the future we must make sure that there are sufficient facilities for sport, libraries, education and all those things. The inquiry recently proposed that the Government should do 12 new towns; in my judgment, at a cost of more than £3 billion each, three or four is more than enough. There are opportunities there, and speaking purely for myself, I would certainly be delighted to work with them on any project they may have and to take it forward.