Planning and Infrastructure Bill

Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay Excerpts

Committee stage
Thursday 24th July 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Lansley (Con)]

My Lords, I am very glad to speak to my Amendment 55 and in support of the noble Baroness’s Amendment 54. Clause 41 provides for the “Disapplication of heritage regimes”. I declare an interest as the owner of a two-star listed property and a member of the Listed Property Owners’ Club. As this is my first substantive contribution on the Bill in Committee, I also declare that I have a registered interest as chair of development forums in Cambridgeshire and Oxfordshire. But, as noble Lords would expect, all the views I express will be my own and not those of any particular forum members. Like the noble Baroness, I thank the National Trust and the Heritage Alliance for their briefing on this issue.

The Explanatory Notes to this clause state that it

“would provide an alternative to an applicant having to apply separately to each relevant consenting authority”.

The consenting authorities referred to are, respectively, the local planning authority in respect of listed building consent and conservation areas and the Secretary of State—in practice, the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport—in respect of scheduled monument consent. The structure of the clause is not simple, so if I may, I will explain how I think it is intended to work but raise questions thereby for the Minister.

The clause replaces Section 17 of the Transport and Works Act 1992. That section inserted a new Section 12(3A) into the Planning (Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas) Act 1990, which enabled the consenting process to be referred to the Secretary of State where it forms a part of an application for a transport and works order under Sections 1 or 3 of the Act—Section 1 being on transport and Section 3 being on waterways. Such an application is a Section 6 application under the Transport and Works Act. The assimilation of the applications for consent for listed buildings and scheduled monuments into a concurrent application is provided for in the Transport and Works Applications (Listed Buildings, Conservation Areas and Ancient Monuments Procedure) Regulations 1992.

That is why Clause 41 notes Section 12(3A) and the relevant Welsh legislation and goes on to say in subsection (4) that Section 12(3A) continues in force. To my reading, this means that if listed building and other heritage consents are required, they can continue to be included in a Section 6 application and, in consequence of Section 12(3A) of the Planning (Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas) Act, would be automatically referred to the Secretary of State.

If noble Lords are staying with me, that raises the question of why Clause 41 is needed. My point is very simple. It is already possible not to send relevant consenting authorities separate applications since they can be assimilated in a concurrent application, which goes to the Secretary of State for a Section 1 or Section 3 order. Therefore, the purpose is not simply to streamline the consenting process by routing them to the Secretary of State; it is more substantial and significant. The new Section 17 will mean that where an order is made which would presently require a heritage consent, that requirement is done away with. As a consequence, the provisions in heritage legislation which attach conditions or considerations to the consenting process are also done away with.

That is why I tabled Amendment 55, and I am grateful to my noble friend Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay for signing it. The key reference there, or the operative point, is the reference to Section 7 of the Planning (Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas) Act 1990, which prohibits

“the demolition of a listed building or for its alteration or extension in any manner which would affect its character as a building of special architectural or historic interest, unless the works are authorised”.

There will be a similar provision in relation to scheduled monuments. The latter is distinctive in so far as it also has a requirement for advice from Historic England in relation to a scheduled monument consent.

Amendment 54, moved by the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, also rightly highlights that the making of a transport and works order may involve the demolition of, or impact on, listed buildings and ancient monuments without a requirement for consent. So, when such an order is being made, where is the advice from Historic England? Where are the statutory guardrails around the preservation of our built heritage and its setting? Where are, at the very least, the “must have regard to” provisions in relation to our heritage, including all the issues set out in the amendment in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock?

I look to the Minister to use this Committee debate to tell us where those safeguards are. If they are presently linked to the consenting process, on the face of it they would no longer apply. Why, given the scope already available to bring the consents together in a single Section 6 application, is it necessary to apply the consenting regime and its safeguards for heritage assets?

In the absence of reassurances, which do not appear to be in the clause itself or available in existing legislation that I can find—indeed, they are not referred to in the Explanatory Notes at all—I hope that those protections can be inserted into the Bill on Report.

[Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)]

My Lords, as my noble friend Lord Lansley says, I signed his Amendment 55, but I am also broadly supportive of Amendment 54, in the names of the noble Baronesses, Lady Pinnock and Lady Pidgeon—I thank the former for the way she opened the debate on this important set of amendments.

My noble friend Lord Lansley set out very powerfully the concerns that many of us have about Clause 41 and its potential consequences. His Amendment 55 seeks to remedy that by making sure that the provisions regarding listed buildings and conservation areas can continue to be applied. Of course, Clause 41 also applies protections for scheduled monuments, which is why I have tabled my stand-part notice on whether Clause 41 ought to stand part of the Bill at all; my noble friend Lord Lansley asked much the same question.

Like my noble friend and others, I have discussed these amendments and this clause with organisations including the Heritage Alliance and the Heritage Railway Association, which I thank for their time and insights. As the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, outlined, Clause 41 would sweep away the need for listed building consent, conservation area consent, scheduled ancient monument consent, and notices for works on land of archaeological importance for projects carried out under the terms of the Transport and Works Act 1992. As she said, it makes no distinction between the sites that are protected. She raised the horrifying example, for me, a Northumbrian, of Hadrian’s Wall, which is not just a scheduled monument but a UNESCO world heritage site. I know that the present Government take a different view from the previous one on another world heritage site, Stonehenge, and the suggested changes to the A303 there, but I am sure that the Minister and his colleagues share our belief in the importance of the protections that allow people to raise their concerns about the scheme proposed in that instance.

Planning and Infrastructure Bill

Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay Excerpts

Committee stage
Thursday 4th September 2025 Lords Chamber

With those few remarks, I repeat my request to the Minister. Will she see fit to support this modest and humble amendment and insert a very simple measure in the Bill or the implementing regulations that will no doubt follow—it seems to be an omission, more by default than by design—to ensure that these mitigation or resilience measures will be installed adequately and can be included in the fees?

[Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow my noble friend Lady McIntosh of Pickering. Her Amendment 95 may be modest but it is very sensible, and I congratulate her on the way she outlined it. I also congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Thornhill, on the way she outlined her amendment in this group. As well as speeding up the delivery of the provision of more houses, making it easier for small and medium-sized enterprises is a way of making sure we can deliver the sorts of smaller developments that are popular in local areas and that match the local vernacular rather than imposing a sort of identikit, sprawling housing estate on every part of the country with no reference to local design.

I have Amendments 96 and 97 in this group, and I am grateful to my noble friend Lord Harlech and the noble Lord, Lord Inglewood, who signed the second of these, as well as to my noble friend Lady Scott of Bybrook for the support that she outlined and her kind comments in her opening speech. Clause 48 would allow the Secretary of State to subdelegate the power to set fees for planning applications to local planning authorities, allowing them to set their own fees to reflect the actual costs that are incurred in dealing with applications and other relevant planning functions, and with that income ring-fenced so that it could be spent only on those specific functions. In many ways that is a welcome and sensible provision; I can understand why local authorities would welcome it. But for it to be truly welcomed, a great many people would like to see some further details and to hear some reassurance about this proposed change.

As is so often the case with legislation nowadays, those details and that reassurance are not in the Bill but are to follow. The Government have said that they intend to consult on the precise arrangements for localised fee setting later this year, and in Committee in another place the Minister stated that detailed processes would be set out in regulations. But it would be very helpful if the Minister could make clear today that this new provision will not include the potential for local authorities to introduce fees for listed building consent. That reassurance would bring great relief to organisations from across the heritage sector, and indeed to the very many ordinary people who happen to own listed properties and who are worried about the detrimental effect on our shared heritage and the potential financial penalties for the people who are the custodians of it.

Under current legislation, obtaining listed building consent is a cost-free process. Consent is required for works that affect the special architectural or historic interest of a listed building under the Planning (Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas) Act 1990, in addition to any planning permissions that might be required.

Listed status is a badge of honour—a mark of our collective appreciation for buildings of particular significance—but it brings with it burdens in the form of conservation and maintenance that are in the public interest, not just for those of us who are alive today but for future generations too, and owners of listed buildings cannot opt out of these obligations. This issue affects a very large number of home owners, not just the grandest stately homes but ordinary family homes in every part of the country. The UK has the oldest housing stock in Europe, as my noble friend Lady Scott said, with around two-fifths of homes built since the end of the Second World War and one-fifth since the end of the First World War. There are some half a million listed buildings across the United Kingdom, many of them owned by people of modest and increasingly stretched means. Ensuring that this service remains free of charge to the people we ask to look after these historic buildings for posterity is hugely important. I am not the owner of a listed building but should perhaps declare a non-financial interest in that I am a trustee of the Cambridge Union, which has its own grade 2* listed property. This issue affects many charitable and civil society organisations as well.

Adding a fee for listed building consent would strongly discourage desirable work to listed buildings, especially work such as decarbonisation and conservation repair, which are often financially unrewarding to the generations that carry them out. Imposing a new fee would also discourage compliance, increasing the already considerable amount of work that goes ahead without the proper consent, risking harm to our cherished buildings and headaches when they come to be sold.

It is also worth noting that a high proportion of listed building consent applications mirror corresponding full planning applications, which already incur a cost. The introduction of fees for listed building consent would in effect be a duplication of costs for applicants when the applications are handled as a pair by the local planning authority. Even in cases where planning application is not required, having to make an application for listed building consent already carries substantial costs in the forms of obtaining drawings, which would not otherwise have been required, professional fees for analysis of heritage significance and potential impacts, and the cost of often lengthy delays. That is why a huge array of organisations across the heritage sector—the Listed Property Owners’ Club, Historic Houses, the Heritage Alliance, the CLA and the Government’s own statutory advisers, Historic England—have said that the applications for listed building consent should remain free. If the Government agree with them and with all this, and do not want to see local planning authorities introducing new charges for listed building consent, they could put that beyond doubt by adopting my Amendment 97. I hope the Minister will say that they are minded to do so.

Separately, in addition to the above, it is important that the consultation and regulations to follow the Bill recognise that many local planning authorities obtain their archaeological and other heritage advice from another local authority under service level agreements. For instance, county councils often provide such services for the district councils and national parks in, and sometimes even beyond, their own administrative area.

My Amendment 96 would ensure that guidance which goes out to local planning authorities about assessing the correct level of charges includes a reminder or recommendation that inputs from other authorities should be included to ensure that external services are correctly funded in this way. I hope that the Minister will look favourably on this amendment.

[Lord Banner (Con)]

My Lords, I will speak to Amendments 98 and 99, tabled in my name, which would enhance the existing statutory power under Section 303ZA of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 to charge fees for planning appeals to the Planning Inspectorate. That existing statutory power has never been used. There is currently no charge to submit an appeal to the Planning Inspectorate against the refusal or non-determination of a planning application. That contrasts with the position in relation to planning applications, where applicants for major developments pay application fees of tens of thousands of pounds, and sometimes more.

A huge amount has rightly been said in the context of this Bill and planning reform generally about the importance of ensuring local authorities are fully resourced to improve the speed and quality of planning decision-making at local level. That is of course right, but the same applies to the Planning Inspectorate, which performs a critical role in scrutinising local authority decision-making and plan-making. The inspectorate is already overworked and underresourced. This has consequences for its ability to deal as effectively as it would like with its existing case work, and for its ability to attract the widest possible range of candidates to become planning inspectors, including from the private sector. A couple of years ago, many inspectors went on strike due to what they said was unacceptable pay, which in most cases is significantly less than that of a First-tier Tribunal judge, which is, broadly speaking, the equivalent of a planning inspector in other aspects of the justice system.

With the expected uptick in planning appeals and local plan examinations resulting from the new National Planning Policy Framework, as well as the Government’s promised 150 development consent orders and a raft of new spatial development strategies which inspectors will need to examine, the demands on the inspectorate’s resources are bound to increase. Given the constraints on the public purse, an obvious solution is to introduce appeal fees for some or all types of appeal. I have advocated this publicly and privately for a long time—indeed, longer than I have been in this House. I have been reliably told that a key blocker to introducing this has been that, under the existing power to charge fees, any money charged by the inspectorate could not be retained by it but would go to the Treasury.

Amendment 98 is designed to address this by providing that, if the power to charge appeal fees is implemented in future, the fees received will be ring-fenced for the inspectorate. That mirrors the existing provision in Clause 48 for local authority planning application fees to be ring-fenced for planning. I must stress that this is only an enabling provision. The effect of Amendment 98 would not be to introduce appeal fees; it would simply ensure that, if the existing power to introduce such fees were to be implemented in future, the inspectorate could keep the fees. I find it very hard to see what policy objection there can be to that, particularly given the Bill’s existing provision for fee ring-fencing at local level.

Amendment 99 goes further and would make provision—again, this is only an enabling power—for an optional fee that appellants could pay for a fast-track, bespoke appeal process, a bit like one can pay extra for a fast-track passport or a fast-track visa. Ask any developer or land promoter what their biggest concerns about the planning appeal system are at the moment and they will tell you four things. The first is unpredictable delays in the process, particularly the time taken between when a planning appeal is submitted by the appellant and when the Planning Inspectorate validates it and issues a start letter.

The second is the lack of a right to a public inquiry, where the local authority’s refusal or non-determination of their planning application can be subjected to detailed scrutiny through cross-examination. The appeal statistics persistently show that inquiry appeals have the greatest success rate—they are the form of appeal that delivers more homes and more growth—yet there is no right to the inquiry. The Planning Inspectorate chooses the process and, given the constraints on its resources, there are only so many cases it can allocate to the inquiry procedure. More and more often, I personally have seen cases for substantial schemes involving issues of real complexity being allocated against the appellant’s will to the hearing process, or even written representations, which are much lighter-touch processes and, in my view, in the light of that have a markedly lower success rate.

Thirdly, there is the inability of the inspectorate to recruit from the widest possible range of backgrounds in the planning profession due to the pay constraints. There are, I must stress, many really brilliant planning inspectors, but there could be many more. Fourthly, once a planning appeal is started by the inspectorate, often after weeks of delay since the appeal was submitted by the appellant, inquiry or hearing dates are then imposed on the parties at relatively short notice, which can have the effect of depriving them of expert witnesses or legal representatives who have been on the project for years and are integral to its conception and formulation.