Planning and Infrastructure Bill

Viscount Hanworth Excerpts

2nd reading
Wednesday 25th June 2025 Lords Chamber

[Viscount Hanworth (Lab)]

My Lords, the Planning and Infrastructure Bill marks a turning point. An intention has been declared by the Government to pursue a major reconstruction of the UK economy. This intention is conveyed by the Bill.

Many years ago, a Labour Government were faced with a similar task of post-war reconstruction. An austere and purposive Government, under the unassuming leadership of Clement Attlee, faced a task of which the difficulties were widely acknowledged. The Government were supported by an able Civil Service. Its skills had been honed by the wartime exigencies. The Ministry of Supply, which had overseen the procurement of wartime matériel, was replete with technicians and staff who had managed a complex supply chain. The ministry oversaw some leading post-war technological projects, including those of the newly established nuclear industry. It also oversaw the nationalisation of the iron and steel industry.

Equal competence was demonstrated by the Ministry of Transport, which oversaw the nationalisation of the rail network, albeit that little credit was given on this account. Thereafter, the Civil Service was rapidly de-skilled. Its traditional amateurism was reasserted by means of its selection board. By the mid-1960s, critics were complaining of the lack of scientific, commercial and manufacturing skills in the Civil Service.

Current circumstances are very different from those of the early post-war years. The Department for Energy Security and Net Zero, which is charged with overseeing our energy policy, has a dearth of technical expertise. One might expect the department to be dominated by scientists and engineers, but there are few of these. Those in charge of the nuclear policy are graduates with degrees in archaeology, history and the social sciences. Although they can be credited with supporting a nuclear renaissance, there is little understanding of the technological imperatives.

In pursuit of net-zero emissions, it will be necessary for small nuclear plants to become close-up and personal to industrial applications and to clusters of population. Reactors are required that embody fourth-generation nuclear technologies that possess inherent safety. Instead, we are developing pressurised water reactors, both on a massive scale and as small modular reactors. Both pose stringent safety requirements, which must keep them at a distance from the consumers of heat and electricity. We have allowed projects that have been pursuing fourth-generation nuclear technologies in the UK to close or to expatriate themselves to more welcoming countries. A ministry staffed by technical enthusiasts would never have allowed this to happen.

The dearth of commercial experience in the Civil Service is as striking as its technological limitations. This deficiency has been gruesomely illustrated by the experience of the HS2 rail project. It seems that successive Governments who were willing to support the project were content to issue vague outline plans and to rely on the contractors to determine the detailed specifications. Governments were inclined to make changes to the plans without regard to the costs of the resulting disorganisation. The HS2 project has been affected by a planning system that is beset by local objections and demands for judicial review. This has severely impeded its progress. The Planning and Infrastructure Bill proposes to reform a sclerotic system.

There is a tendency to envy nations that have a more forceful regime that can override local objections. If we are not prepared to act likewise, then we must resolve to adequately compensate the affected parties. However, in pursuing the construction of new towns, if that is what we intend, we must make provision for the compulsory purchase of land in a way that will allow its enhanced value to accrue largely to the public authorities or to the development corporations. Otherwise, it will accrue to lucky but undeserving landowners.

I will make one final comparison between the past and present. After the war, the nation was fully aware of the parlous state of the economy and the physical environment. Nowadays, the electorate are less aware of the hazards we face. Our leaders should have alerted them to the realities sooner. The consequence is that we will be blamed for each emerging problem. We will be blamed for the failures in the provision of healthcare and social care, for the bankruptcies of local authorities, universities and institutions of higher education, and for much else besides.

We have been willing to listen to the nostrums of pollsters, spin doctors and political strategists, who were responsible for convincing our leadership that it was dangerous, at an election time, to admit that taxes needed to be raised to finance the reconstruction. That was surely a misreading of popular opinion that made no allowance for the possibilities of political persuasion. The consequence is that we have lost time before embarking on the project, and we have lost some credibility.

Planning and Infrastructure Bill

Viscount Hanworth Excerpts

Committee stage
Thursday 17th July 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab)]

My Lords, we come to another interesting clause. In essence, I am trying to find ways to identify those infrastructure developments that are of critical national importance to see whether there is a way in which we can streamline the process of approvals that they have to go through. Also, in picking up the points from the noble Baronesses, Lady Coffey and Lady Pinnock, about the need for democratic legitimacy, I am seeing whether we can use parliamentary processes to help.

I am moving Amendment 47 and speaking to Amendments 48, 49, 52, 53 and 65. The two substantive amendments are Amendments 52 and 65. I have two on judicial review which, because of the mystique of groupings for the first day, should really be grouped with a number of other JR amendments that we will come to later, so I will be brief in speaking on those.

My Amendment 52, in essence, creates a short, abridged parliamentary process to confirm Ministers’ decisions to give development consent for infrastructure projects as a critical national priority. Apparently, until the late 1990s, we had a system of provisional order confirmation Bills, whereby Parliament could confirm orders made by UK Ministers for various proposals, including infrastructure projects. There are many of these on the statute book so it is, in fact, a tried and tested approach that we could use for some projects where we need to speed up delivery but we need to have parliamentary approval as well.

This kind of approach, using a development consent order confirmation Bill, could take only four to six months to go through Parliament, which is nothing like the complexity of the hybrid Bill. We have seen that with HS2, which ultimately failed to satisfy anybody and built in huge delays. We are where we are with HS2. Having said that, the station being built in Birmingham looks pretty good; we can only hope that, one day, a train is actually able to arrive there.

The point about this amendment is to give Parliament a vote. I have very much accepted this point about the need for Parliament to have a say in some of these matters. In a sense, this is another trade-off; I am saying that some projects need to be dealt with in a special way—nationally, by being taken by Ministers, by going through the necessary procedures to ensure that they are appropriate and in being given legitimacy by parliamentary vote. It would give businesses and developers much greater certainty about investment decisions and, as I have said, ensure that we have a proper democratic say in these very important decisions.

Amendment 53 is related to Amendment 52 and would repeal Section 150 of the Planning Act 2008. I well recall our debates on that regime, because I was a Minister involved in it. The NSIP regime was designed with the intention of being a one-stop shop for major infrastructure projects, in terms of the consents required. However, the effect of Section 150 of the 2008 Act has been to stop development consent orders from being as much of a one-stop shop as they could be, because certain regulators have a veto on whether a DCO can roll consents into it that would otherwise have to be obtained separately from regulators. We have already debated the problem of having multiple regulators involved; they do not seem to be able to work together and co-ordinate their response.

I know that there was a debate on a similarly worded amendment that was proposed in the other place. The Government had some concerns about it but promised guidance on how to wrap up other consents in a DCO. However, the problem with that is that the regulators’ veto remains, which is why I argue that it should be moved.

My Amendment 65 can be seen in parallel: I seek to enable the Secretary of State to designate certain classes of development as critical national developments; establish an expert critical national developments task force to advise on each application; and provide that planning permission and any other regulatory consent for such development is deemed to be granted six months after the application is made, unless the Secretary of State issues a written objection within that period or extends the period. Of course, here, I am anticipating the response of my noble friend, because I noted that she was not very keen on my earlier amendment on timelines because different infrastructure developments have different requirements and probably different timelines. This amendment allows the Government to be able to sort of flex the timeline according to circumstances.

I would argue that, at the moment, Ministers lack a coherent mechanism to prioritise and accelerate delivery of critical infrastructure projects. The DCO regime has not really, in the end, delivered what we hoped it would when we took it through Parliament. I hesitate again to mention Sizewell C, but eight years from application to consent is just hopeless, and I must say that on Heathrow too. I support the third runway at Heathrow, because I think that, as the Government have said, this will take place within carbon budgets, but it is just an example of how decisions here can be stuck for decades, and we really have to move on from that.

The amendment I am proposing here would centralise accountability with the Secretary of State. I would align it to my earlier amendment in relation to parliamentary consent. It would bring consents under a single process, introduce a statutory determination deadline and de-risk major investments.

There is international precedent for it. The Canadian Government have also faced great delays in major national infrastructure from fragmented approval systems, environmental litigation and federal/provincial conflicts. Recently, the Parliament of Canada has produced a law with very much the same principles as my amendment, which allows the Canadian Cabinet to designate nation-building projects, as they are called, via Orders in Council.

I refer to my other three amendments. Amendment 47 seeks to remove the requirement for any planning appeals to be considered at an actual hearing. That, in my view, is a streamlining process.

Amendments 48 and 49 are around judicial reviews. I really welcome Clause 12(1), which would restrict judicial review appeals to the Court of Appeal where the High Court decides the application for permission to apply for judicial review is totally without merit. Now, I have already paid tribute to the noble Lord, Lord Banner, for his review; this clause follows that review. We received a very helpful letter from my noble friend the Minister this morning, which gives details about how the Government are going to follow up; that is very welcome indeed, but I just want to probe whether we can go further.

Amendment 48 relates to the reviews of NPSs at least every five years, which I warmly welcome. I take my noble friend’s point about the issue with NPSs that have not been subject to a review and therefore could be considered to be out of date. I just want to make sure that judicial reviews are not used in a way which unreasonably might block progress, so my amendment would remove the possibility of JR in two circumstances: in between the five-yearly reviews, by repealing Section 13(2) of the Planning Act 2008, and in relation to any revisions to NPSs that are solely non-material or are reflective changes—in other words, reflective of published government policy change legislation or court judgments which the Bill is providing for.

I am a strong believer in the judicial review process. My background is mainly in the health service, and the fact is that NHS bodies are sometimes fast and loose with legislation and guidance, particularly when it comes to the outsourcing of services, changes of use, closures of hospitals and the like. There is no doubt that the judicial review process has been necessary to ensure proper transparency. My problem with judicial review is when it is used, essentially, to try to block progress—hence the amendment.

Amendment 49 would bring legal consistency to the Planning Act so that it is the High Court where applications for JR would be made. It is not a substantive change but it would make sure that, in any future event, civil procedure rules cannot be made to divert planning appeals to any court other than the High Court. There is already precedent in Section 63 of the listed buildings Act, which makes it clear that appeals are to be made to the High Court. I think that could flow across the Planning Act.

I hesitate to talk about judicial review when the noble Lord, Lord Banner, is present, but it would be good to have at least some debate as to whether, in the light of his review, we could go further. I beg to move.

[Viscount Hanworth (Lab)]

My Lords, Amendment 52 is of prime importance. Our planning system has become sclerotic. According to the Explanatory Notes that accompany the Bill, the time that it takes on average to secure a development consent order, or DCO, for major infrastructure projects has more than doubled in the last decade to more than four years. The development consent system is beset by objections and pleas and by judicial reviews, with several judicial reviews sometimes besetting the same project. The effects of the delay may be to cause an otherwise viable project to become uneconomic or unaffordable. Nowadays, such delays are often envisaged as a means of defeating a project. The conjunction of lawyers and protesters, which has given rise to a veritable industry, is a modern and unprecedented phenomenon.

Recently, I had good cause to consider such developments. I made a trip by car from London to Ilfracombe in Devon. I had intended to travel on the M4 motorway, which is a major arterial route. However, in consequence of its blockage, I was diverted, on the advice of the Google satnav system, on to the A303. In doing so, I remembered that 303 is the calibre of a rifle bullet. I had hoped to travel at the maximum legal speed, if not at the speed of a bullet. I was pleased to be able to do so until I was brought to a halt. I was then constrained to travel at a snail’s pace for a prolonged period, while passing an ancient stone monument on a single-lane road. I saw the ancient megaliths of Stonehenge on the brow of a hill, which were surrounded by a gathering of druids. I was reminded of their campaign, which has prevented the building of the Stonehenge bypass. They regret the presence of the road and resist the building of a bypass that would encroach upon Salisbury Plain. Some might regard their campaign as a worthy attempt to preserve the dignity of an ancient monument. However, there is another side to the story, which concerns the objections of residents in the neighbouring villages to the diversion of traffic on to their streets. They contend that their villages have an equal claim to preservation.

The legal wrangling has been interminable. The first grant of development consent for a bypass, in 2020, was quashed by the High Court in July 2021. It was then given the green light again, by the Department for Transport, which reissued a development consent two years later, in July 2023. The project was put on hold again, because of another series of judicial reviews, which were dismissed by the High Court in February 2024 and by the Court of Appeal in October 2024. Undeterred by those two defeats, the claimants asked the Supreme Court if they could appeal to it. On 29 January this year, the Supreme Court refused permission to appeal, on the grounds that the challenge did not raise an arguable point of law.

However, this decision was immaterial since, within weeks of taking office last July, the Labour Government had scrapped the plans for a two-mile tunnel that would bypass the monument on the grounds that the cost of the project had become unaffordable. The decision to cancel the project was taken some three and a half years after the development consent order had been issued and after a full and detailed examination of all the issues. In this case, it might be said that the campaigners had won not by virtue of the strength of their case but by dint of endless legal chicanery and delay. However, the same recourse is available to many other parties who, for various reasons, wish to stand in the way of important development projects.