Planning and Infrastructure Bill (Thirteenth sitting)

Debate between Olly Glover and David Simmonds

Committee stage
Thursday 22nd May 2025 Public Bill Committees

[Olly Glover]

I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.

New clause 30 would require the Secretary of State to conduct an annual review of the capacity of local planning authorities. The Bill’s passage appears likely, given the size of the Government’s majority, but it will impose a number of additional duties and responsibilities on local planning authorities, and meeting the proposals for housing growth will also stretch their capacity. Our new clause would require a review of their capacity and resources, as well as the impact of issues, such as lack of capacity in the construction sector or supply chains, on achieving some of the housing goals that are being put forward.

While this Government have an ambition to build lots of homes, it is important that we pay attention to how that happens. We know that local authorities are already under-resourced. I am sure that the Government appreciate the need to support local authorities in delivering housing and all the accompanying infrastructure, and we feel that this new clause would go some way towards doing that. At the risk of anticipating that the Minister is unlikely to support the new clause, we look forward to hearing what alternative solutions he may have to these challenges in planning capacity.

[David Simmonds]

I briefly draw the Committee’s attention to the Planning Advisory Service. As a result of a long-standing arrangement with the Local Government Association, through a funding set-up whereby local authorities and Government provide resources, both peer-support services and these activities are already provided in partnership with local authorities. For that reason, I would be reluctant to seek a legislative method of delivering something that is already, in practice, working well on a voluntary basis. There will always be a debate about whether local authorities feel that their resources are sufficient, but in supporting them to undertake the capacity assessment and build their capacity by working with their peers, that arrangement has been in place and working well for several decades.

Planning and Infrastructure Bill (Second sitting)

Debate between Olly Glover and David Simmonds

Committee stage
Thursday 24th April 2025 Public Bill Committees

[Olly Glover]

Please expand.

Rachel Hallos: I am not convinced that there is clarity on the balance and calculations. If you take such land out of production, what imbalance does that create with production elsewhere? If you move environmental goods from one area of land on to another, what imbalance is being created there? If we are going to go down an accounting route, what is the cost-benefit of doing it—whether it is food production, homes or environment? I am not sure that is in the Bill, and I think it needs to be to make sure that the right decisions are being taken in the right places.

As an organisation representing farmers, and as a farmer myself, I know that what we do on our land is a long process, whether it is producing food or managing the land for environmental goods. This is not a quick fix; we cannot move a dial and have something change overnight. We need to make sure that the right decisions are being taken in the right places, and we also need to recompense the people who are taken along with it as they go.

Paul Miner: We broadly agree with Rachel. Overall, the Bill needs to strike a better balance between the various objectives that the planning system seeks to fulfil. It is not just about facilitating development but about mitigating and adapting to climate change, as well as helping to secure nature recovery. We think that the Bill can do more to give the wider public and ourselves confidence that, in future, we will get better plans and decisions that will look to achieve a vision for getting more sustainable development, as well as meeting our climate change targets and our very ambitious nature conservation targets.

One element that has not come up in questioning so far, which we are particularly keen to raise, is clause 22 on householder payments for electricity transmission lines. We do not think that making payments to householders is the way to go. Instead, we should really focus on building on the good practice that we already have for onshore wind farms, where we consult and involve communities in community benefit schemes, and also look to achieve community benefit schemes that help communities, in turn, address climate change, get more rooftop solar on people’s homes in rural areas and improve the energy efficiency of rural housing. It seems to us that giving payments to householders completely goes against working in any kind of public interest, and we urge parliamentarians to look at that clause of the Bill again.

[David Simmonds]

Q I would like to ask you both about the interaction between green-belt and farming areas. In a constituency such as mine, which is on the edge of London, as well as a lot of edge-of-city constituencies, there is land that is both in the green belt and farmland. That has significant implications for the landowner because the hope value is significantly higher than farmland might be elsewhere, but it also needs additional protection because it is ancillary to the existence of the city. It sometimes provides a source of food and leisure, as well as the environmental benefits of it being a green space.

I am interested in your view on whether the Bill sufficiently addresses the balance between green belt and agricultural use. What improvements would you want to see on compulsory purchase processes to ensure that landowners in those locations have appropriate recourse? Also, where it is clear that the land in question provides a broader public benefit, as opposed to simply being a business standing on its own, how can we ensure that the broader public benefit can be accounted for in the reckoning up of the value of that land?

Rachel Hallos: It is almost like having ransom strips next to urban conurbations. That green belt gets sucked into that urban conurbation and, all of a sudden, it becomes a brown belt—I think “grey belt” was also considered at one stage. The reality is, when you are in that situation—I can completely understand, although some of my members would not; that is the leadership role that we have to take—that that land is of national benefit through development. That is because it increases the size of the town, the infrastructure—the whole thing. On what the Bill needs to do, again it goes back to doing the number crunching. What is the long-term benefit of this?

We also have to remember that when we compulsorily purchase land from a farmer who is running their business and living there, they have every right to make a decision to restart their business elsewhere. What if the land value goes up and they are being paid just the flat agricultural rate? Everybody wants that land, because guess what? Everybody wants land right now. Everybody wants land for everything, so land prices are creeping up anyway. There is then artificial inflation of the land price in that area because everybody is after it.

That bit also needs to be taken into consideration when it comes to recompensing anybody who has land taken away from them. It is a complicated formula, but the Bill really does need to look at that if we are to go anywhere near rebuilding confidence and trust between the agricultural community and Government. Especially if we put it in the package of everything else that is going on, we are very much in danger of having it go “bang” again. This has to stop. We all have to get on with life. We all have to get on with what we do—produce food, infrastructure or growth for the country.

Paul Miner: Green belt is a planning policy, but as you have rightly pointed out, green-belt land often has a wide range of public benefits and meanings for people who live in the towns and cities that the green belts surround. We strongly support the Bill’s provision for spatial development strategies, because you need effective strategic planning in order for green-belt policy to work effectively.

Also, from our perspective, we should not just be looking at how the planning policy should work. If we accept that the vast majority of green-belt land will not become grey belt in the future but will remain designated green belts, we need to think about how we can better manage that land. That is why it is really important that in spatial development strategies and in the Government’s land use framework, we have policies for improving the management of green-belt land. Until now, green-belt land has been relatively poorly served by successive Governments’ environmental land management schemes. There is relatively low take-up in green-belt areas. We urge the Government, as part of the land use framework but also with spatial development strategies, to seek to improve the quality of green belts for nature and for climate.

Rachel Hallos: May I add one last thing to that? Sorry to be rude. When it comes to the spatial development strategies, LNRSs and all the different things that are going on and are being consulted on at the moment, there is no legal requirement to consult the land manager. That worries me. It is just wrong.