Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:

To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, with reference to the National Planning Policy Framework, updated on 12 December 2024, what steps he is taking to support local planning authorities in assessing the impact of data centre development on (a) electricity grid capacity, (b) land availability and (c) other local infrastructure.

The National Planning Policy Framework makes clear that planning policies should pay particular regard to facilitating development to meet the needs of a modern economy, including by identifying suitable locations for uses such as data centres.

The Framework also makes clear that Planning policies and decisions should recognise and address the specific locational requirements of different sectors.

The availability of land for specific uses and developments is a matter to be considered locally though plan and decision-making.

A policy paper on delivering AI Growth Zones was published by the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology on 13 November 2025. The paper sets out actions that the government is taking to support proposals for data centres, including through the provision of additional planning capacity, forthcoming updates to national planning policy and a new National Policy Statement for Data Centres to support NSIP applications. The policy paper can be found on gov.uk here.