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

To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, with reference to his Department's consultation, Planning for the Future, which closed on 29 October 2020, which environment sector organisations his Department invited to take part in its policy sprint exercises ahead of the forthcoming Planning Bill.

Our Planning for the Future White Paper was published in August 2020. It sets out our vision for a reformed planning system which would be simpler, quicker and more accessible for communities to engage with, providing a more certain system for all.

Alongside the publication, we ran an extensive series of roundtables with representatives from across the planning system, including with local authorities, SMEs, environmental groups, heritage bodies and representatives from civil society.

In addition, the accompanying consultation received over 44,000 responses – providing valuable feedback on our proposals and demonstrating just how important this is to people.

Since the close of the consultation, we have continued to regularly engage with stakeholders. This has included representatives from local government, as well as the planning, development and environmental sectors, statutory consultees, and other users of the planning system. Their perspective and knowledge have been vital in helping us to develop and refine the ideas set out in the White Paper, and we look forward to continuing to engage with a wide range of stakeholders throughout this process.

As we are in an active state of policy development, I hope you will appreciate that we are not able to share further details at this time. We will publish a response to the consultation setting out our next steps shortly, which will provide a basis for further engagement with the sector.