Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:

To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, whether he has plans for infrastructure utility providers to become statutory consultees on planning applications.

The current policy and legislative framework already provides for the engagement of infrastructure utility providers in the planning system.

The National Planning Policy Framework asks local planning authorities to work with infrastructure providers to assess the quality and capacity of infrastructure and its ability to meet forecast demands during the plan-making process.

Local planning authorities are able to consult utility providers where appropriate. Where a utility provider raises issues that are material to the determination of the application in question, local planning authorities must take these into account in reaching a decision.