Question to the Department for Business, Innovation, Science and Trade:

To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of calls for a moratorium on planning approvals for data centres and battery energy storage systems outside designated AI Growth Zones.

Government has no plans to introduce a moratorium on data centres and battery storage systems. Data centres and battery energy storage systems, whether located inside or outside AI Growth Zones, are subject to established planning and regulatory requirements. Decision-makers must consider relevant impacts, including those on the environment, heritage, landscapes, ecology, agricultural land and local communities. Planning applications are generally determined by local planning authorities, while particularly large data infrastructure projects may enter the Nationally Significant Infrastructure Projects regime. These arrangements allow proposals to be assessed on their individual merits and development consent to be refused where significant adverse impacts cannot be appropriately managed or mitigated.