Planning and Infrastructure Bill

Viscount Trenchard Excerpts

2nd reading
Wednesday 25th June 2025 Lords Chamber

[Viscount Trenchard (Con)]

My Lords, I declare my interest as a trustee of the Fonthill Estate in Wiltshire, and I thank the Minister for introducing this Bill today.

Everybody recognises that we have to get more new houses built, although the failure of all Governments in recent years to control both legal and illegal migration has clearly exacerbated the shortage. However, in my view, the Bill goes too far in removing councillors’ powers to vote on local planning applications. Does the Minister really think that central government knows better than local councils when it comes to decisions on which proposed developments will improve their communities and which will be harmful and ought to be refused? This will be damaging to local democracy and will discourage talented people from seeking election as councillors, because they will be allowed to do less than they are at present.

Can the Minister tell the House how the proposed scheme of delegation is going to work, and how the Government are going to demarcate those decisions which are to be taken by civil servants from those which will be left to local planning committees? Surely, such important details as these should be in the Bill. On the other hand, there are areas where the Government could provide much more encouragement to house- builders, by removing legacy EU habitat regulations, which offer a ridiculous amount of protection to bats, for example, and other EU legacy red tape, which both the last Government and this one have been too slow to abolish.

Noble Lords may remember that, during the passage of the Levelling-Up and Regeneration Bill, some of us worked hard across the House to obtain a consensus for providing a separate and recognised status and level of protection for Britain’s wonderful chalk streams. My noble friend Lord Benyon at that time introduced a government amendment that achieved that, and it is deeply disappointing that, in Committee in another place, Labour MPs voted against Amendment 148 to this Bill, which would have mirrored the levelling-up Act by providing equivalent and necessary protection for chalk streams in this Bill. Would the Minister commit to introducing a government amendment to replicate the protection afforded to chalk streams in that Act?

I also question why the Government are prioritising building in rural areas rather than urban ones, nearer most of the jobs, where new houses are most needed. I would also ask the Minister to explain why the Government have decided to remove hope value from the value that they place on land being compulsorily purchased from farmers and landowners. It seems particularly unfair to farmers, who have already suffered enough from cuts to agricultural subsidies and changes to NICs, especially when the purpose of compulsory purchase in such cases is obviously to develop the land for housing or energy infrastructure.

Currently, local authorities can purchase land compulsorily and then pass it to parish councils for some purposes, including building affordable homes. The Bill, as drafted, stops hope value applying to this power if it is used to deliver affordable homes. The removal of hope value would also apply to the loss payments, which are additional payments based on the property’s value, designed to cover the cost and emotional burden of having to move out of and replace the property. In general, I accept that measures in the Bill are in line with the Labour Party’s pledges for planning reform, but they miss the opportunity for an enhanced recognition of rural areas within national planning policy, particularly regarding the rural economy and rural housing.

As the CLA has pointed out, the National Planning Policy Framework does not acknowledge the differences between the sustainability credentials of a rural area versus an urban area. This negatively impacts decision-making for proposals in rural areas. The Bill introduces new environmental delivery plans—EDPs. They will set out how damage to protected species, or features of protected sites which are likely to be negatively affected by development, may be mitigated. I worry about the extensive powers being extended to Natural England, including whether it is appropriately skilled or resourced to handle this extra responsibility. What does the Minister think about this? In particular, does she really think it is proportionate to provide Natural England with compulsory purchase powers to deliver the EDPs?

Lastly, I look forward to hearing the Minister’s winding-up speech and, in particular, I hope she will answer my noble friend Lord Hodgson’s question about the number of acres being taken out of agricultural production for solar energy schemes.

Planning and Infrastructure Bill

Viscount Trenchard Excerpts

Committee stage
Thursday 24th July 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, it will probably not surprise the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, to know that I oppose his amendment. It is well known in your Lordships’ House that the Green Party opposes new nuclear power plants. Proponents of new nuclear power should be careful what they wish for and consider the whole issue of public consent and concern.

I commend the noble Lord on managing to get this amendment considered at an extremely timely moment, given that this week the Government are seeking to go ahead with Sizewell C. As the Financial Times notes, it is

“the costliest nuclear reactor in the world”

and will see the UK taxpayer bearing huge costs and risk, with government loans of £3.8 billion and a £36 billion loan from the National Wealth Fund.

I declare an interest in that I know many of the people who have opposed the Sizewell C project and, I have no doubt, will continue to do so. There are many reasons why they oppose it. Cost is the obvious one, but there are also the local environmental impacts and concerns about future security, sea level rise and water use—a whole list of things. Safety is a big issue that people have continuing concerns about with nuclear power; it is no wonder when you consider the list from Chernobyl to Fukushima to the continuing concerns regularly highlighted by the International Energy Agency about Zaporizhzhia in Ukraine. The public are very much concerned about trust and safety.

Many in your Lordships’ House are undoubtedly familiar with the phrase “policing with consent”. When we were discussing physician associates, I spoke about regulating with consent. What has happened since with the Leng review and the many concerns expressed showed that there was a problem when the previous Government went ahead without real consent and clear understanding within the health sector. If you are looking at nuclear power, those who propone it would want to see that there is construction with consent and reassurance of security. Taking away regulatory justification is not going to play very well.

[Viscount Trenchard (Con)]

My Lords, I listened with interest to the remarks of the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, and I can assure her that, having heard last week from both the chairman and the chief executive of the Office for Nuclear Regulation, who appeared before the Industry and Regulators Committee on which I serve, I was very satisfied that their regulatory process and policy would more than satisfy the consumers and residents of the area of Suffolk near the Sizewell nuclear power station.

The secret of the amendment tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, is in its title:

“Removal of duplicative regulatory justification decisions”.


We do not need duplicative regulatory justification decisions if, in the singular, they protect the safety of the public to a sufficient degree. I was very satisfied by the answers to questions on safety that we received in our committee last week from the senior management of the ONR. I strongly support the amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Hunt.

Planning and Infrastructure Bill

Viscount Trenchard Excerpts

Committee stage
Thursday 11th September 2025 Lords Chamber

This is not the first time we have talked about chalk streams in this Chamber. We come to them every time there is an environment Bill. They are really important not just from an environmental point of view but, as the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, said, from a cultural and heritage point of view. If the Government are serious about showing that they really want protections for the environment, now is the time to accept the amendments on chalk streams.

[Viscount Trenchard (Con)]

My Lords, I support my noble friends Lord Blencathra and Lord Bellingham—who will I think speak later in this group—and other noble Lords in their Amendment 146. I agree with everything that has been said.

Your Lordships may wonder why I am also so keen to support Amendment 147, in the name of the right reverend Prelate, the Bishop of Norwich, my noble friend Lord Caithness and the noble Baroness, Lady Parminter, who has just spoken most effectively. I declare an interest as the owner of a short stretch of the River Rib in Hertfordshire. I hope the Minister will not suggest that the right reverend Prelate’s Amendment 147 is not necessary and will instead consider the arguments for special protection for chalk streams, as was accepted by the Government and supported by your Lordships’ House in the Levelling-up and Regeneration Act. Two years ago, during the passage of that Act, I introduced an amendment designed to support a chalk stream recovery package and provide protection for our beautiful chalk streams as a specific, unique and precious natural resource.

I was delighted at that time that the noble Baroness, Lady Taylor of Stevenage, put her name to my amendment and spoke in support of it. I hope the Minister will not mind if I quote what she said:

“I am lucky enough to have spent my life living in the wonderful county of Hertfordshire. For those of you who are not aware, Hertfordshire contains over 20% of the world’s unique and special, natural and precious chalk streams.”

She continued:

“If our chalk streams were buildings, they would be UNESCO heritage sites. Let us protect them as though they were”.—[Official Report, 18/7/25; col. 2269.]


Like the noble Baroness, I was brought up in and live in Hertfordshire, and I was delighted that she appreciated the special and distinct needs of chalk streams, which have disproportionately suffered from pollution and excess abstraction. My noble friend Lord Caithness also supported my amendment. We successfully persuaded my then noble friend, the noble Lord, Lord Benyon, to introduce a government amendment which broadly achieved the same purpose.

Can the Minister now confirm whether the Government intend to set explicit outcomes regarding the protection of chalk streams as specified in the Levelling-up and Regeneration Act? The previous Government had endorsed the “one big wish” put forward by the catchment-based approach initiative, CaBA, for statutory protection and priority status for chalk streams. Can she also say whether the Government intend to build on and maintain priority status for chalk streams? I think that she has supported the perseverance of CaBA, led by Charles Rangeley-Wilson.

The CaBA chalk stream strategy is very clear that a special status is needed for these globally rare and locally precious treasures, but progress on the strategy has been disappointing, although there has been a petition, “Don’t Abandon the Chalk Stream”, which secured enough signatures to require a government response, and the Petitions Committee of another place has requested an updated response to that petition.

The noble Baroness, Lady Parminter, explained very well just now why chalk streams need special protection, so I will not repeat the points that she so ably made, but I will say that to take specific account of chalk streams in spatial development strategies would allow local authorities to provide a safety net to protect them from the indirect impacts of development where other regimes have failed to do so. Taking chalk streams into account should facilitate the action so desperately needed to curb additional demand for water and make sure that appropriate wastewater infrastructure is in place before development occurs.

The Rivers Trust is right in calling for chalk streams to be defined as irreplaceable habitats. This would minimise direct harm from development and encourage enhancement of chalk streams through the biodiversity net gain regime. The Minister supported these arguments in the Levelling-up and Regeneration Act. I look forward to hearing whether she still supports them in this Bill before your Lordships now.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, I will concentrate chiefly on Amendment 150 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Grender, to which I have attached my name, but I shall briefly comment on Amendment 148, very comprehensively introduced by the noble Baroness, Lady Parminter. Indeed, we have majored on chalk streams and I suspect we will hear a lot more about them. I am just going to cross-reference a contribution I made earlier this week about the River Itchen and the amount of plastics and fibreglass fibres that have just been discovered in new research in that chalk stream. This amendment addresses permissible activities. We do not know where those fibres in the River Itchen are coming from, but we desperately need to think about what activities we can afford to allow and what the planning permission can be beside those chalk streams. The extraction of water is the obvious issue here, but we also have to think about pollution and we really have to apply the precautionary principle to these crucial environments.

Amendment 150 says that a spatial development strategy must take account of local wildlife sites, which is crucial in this terribly nature-depleted country. There are, by a very precise count, 43,992 local wildlife sites, of which we know the status of only 15%. That is what the Wildlife Trusts say. SSSIs have greater legal protection. We know that very often does not work, but these local wildlife sites too often fall under the radar and are not sufficiently considered. They are often stepping stones for wildlife to get from one place to another crucial environment, or parts of corridors that enable wildlife communities to mix, to get genetic diversity, among other crucial factors, so it is crucial that the spatial development strategy totally takes these into account.

I think this also cross-references Amendment 152ZA, to which I shall speak briefly. I am strongly in favour of this amendment and commend the noble Baroness, Lady Hodgson of Abinger, for bringing it. I am sure that she is going to introduce it shortly, but it is about the welfare of animals being considered in spatial development strategies. We think about such things as light pollution, noise pollution, the cutting off of corridors and the isolating of populations. These things that human developments are doing do not sufficiently consider the welfare of animals, and they very much relate to local wildlife sites as well.