Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask His Majesty's Government what estimate they have made of the cost of reforming the judicial review process for nationally significant infrastructure projects; and how much time they anticipate will be saved, on average, as a result of these measures.

Since 2025, the Government has introduced several reforms to judicial reviews of Nationally Significant Infrastructure Projects (NSIPs) to speed up the determination of such claims and prevent meritless claims from causing unnecessary delays. On 1 October 2025, amendments to the Civil Procedure Rules and Practice Directions formally designated NSIP judicial reviews as Significant Planning Court Claims; removed the paper permission stage, encouraged the use of case management conferences; and introduced target timescales for NSIP cases in the Court of Appeal. In February 2026, the Planning and Infrastructure Act 2025 also limited claims deemed totally without merit to a single permission hearing by removing the right to appeal to the higher courts. Further target timescales for NSIP cases in the High Court came into force on 1 October 2026. These changes support faster and more consistent handling of NSIP judicial reviews, providing greater certainty for developers and supporting the Government's growth agenda.

There are no significant costs associated with these reforms.The reforms are instead expected to lower costs for developers and other parties.

The package of reforms is expected to make the judicial review process for NSIPs up to six months faster, compared with the average duration of approximately 16 months identified in Lord Banner's Independent Review.