Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, whether her Department plans to (a) allow fast-track approval routes, (b) introduce parliamentary sign-off and (c) implement other reforms to the judicial review process to help ensure nationally significant road projects do not have prolonged legal delays.

The Department for Transport is committed to ensuring that nationally significant infrastructure projects (NSIPs), including major road schemes, are delivered efficiently and without unnecessary delay.

The Department is actively exploring options to streamline the Development Consent Order (DCO) process, and the Planning and Infrastructure Bill (PIB) includes provisions to remove mandatory pre-application consultations and revise acceptance tests to accelerate decision-making and reduce potential bottlenecks.

We are also legislating to tighten the judicial review process. Key reforms include removing the paper permission stage; limiting appeals for cases deemed “Totally Without Merit” at oral hearings; exploring target timescales for judicial reviews in collaboration with the judiciary. These reforms aim to prevent meritless claims from delaying critical infrastructure while ensuring legitimate challenges are heard promptly.

In parallel, the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government has also launched a public consultation on streamlining infrastructure planning. Proposals being consulted on include reforms to pre-application services, enhanced guidance for statutory bodies, and improvements to the fast-track process administered by the Planning Inspectorate.