Asked by: Victoria Collins (Liberal Democrat - Harpenden and Berkhamsted)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what guidance his Department provides to local planning authorities on the use of injunctions under section 187B of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 in cases involving repeated or escalating breaches of planning control.
Answered by Matthew Pennycook - Minister of State (Housing, Communities and Local Government)
Relevant guidance on enforcement, including planning injunctions, can be found on gov.uk here.
Asked by: Imran Hussain (Labour - Bradford East)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what steps he is taking to support local planning authorities to process applications for employment land and commercial development more efficiently.
Answered by Matthew Pennycook - Minister of State (Housing, Communities and Local Government)
The MHCLG Digital Planning Programme is developing data standards for planning applications and supporting the adoption of modern planning software to make the planning process smoother, faster, and more efficient. Further detail on the programme can be found on gov.uk here.
I otherwise refer the hon. Member to the answer given to Question UIN 112629 on 2 March 2026.
Asked by: Martin Wrigley (Liberal Democrat - Newton Abbot)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, to ask the Department, pursuant to the Answer of 3 March 2026 to Question 115602 on Nature Conservation: Planning Permission, what guidance her Department issues to Natural England on assessing hydrological risks to wetland Sites of Special Scientific Interest when providing advice on major housing developments.
Answered by Mary Creagh - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
This is determined by various legislation and the National Planning Policy Framework.
Asked by: Martin Wrigley (Liberal Democrat - Newton Abbot)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, pursuant to the Answer of 3 March 2026 to Question 115602 on Nature Conservation: Planning Permission, what monitoring requirements are required for developments located near hydrologically sensitive wetlands.
Answered by Mary Creagh - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
Any monitoring requirement would depend on the nature of both the development and the wetland’s protected status.
Asked by: Wendy Morton (Conservative - Aldridge-Brownhills)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what assessment he has made of the extent to which housing delivery shortfalls are being used to justify development on protected land; how many homes approved on appeal in the last 12 months were on land previously designated as green belt; and what proportion of those approvals were opposed by the relevant local planning authority and ward councillors.
Answered by Matthew Pennycook - Minister of State (Housing, Communities and Local Government)
The National Planning Policy Framework sets out clear safeguards for land which is designated for its environmental or amenity value.
While a poor score on the Housing Delivery Test (HDT) is a strong indicator of housing need in an area not being met sufficiently, HDT failure does not mean that planning permission for housing will be automatically granted.
In 2025, the Planning Inspectorate approved approximately 3,000 homes on Green Belt land, of which 88% had been originally refused by the relevant Local Planning Authority.
My Department does not hold information in relation to opposition to specific applications by individual ward councillors.
Asked by: James Cleverly (Conservative - Braintree)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, pursuant to the answer of 20 October 2025 to Question 78185 on Glenigan, what assessment has Glenigan made of the reasons for sites with planning permission not being (a) started and (b) completed.
Answered by Matthew Pennycook - Minister of State (Housing, Communities and Local Government)
Glenigan gathers data from the websites of local planning authorities. They supplement this with additional research tracking expected start and completion dates for the construction phase of larger sites.
Glenigan undertakes no systematic labelling of reasons why individual sites have not yet started or completed construction, and my Department is not aware of their publishing any assessments in relation to this specific matter.
Asked by: Alison Griffiths (Conservative - Bognor Regis and Littlehampton)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what guidance the Environment Agency provides to local planning authorities on assessing the cumulative impact of development on surface water flood risk and drainage capacity in low-lying coastal areas.
Answered by Emma Hardy - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
Lead Local Flood Authorities (LLFAs) are the lead authority for managing surface water flooding. LLFAs are statutory consultees on major development, providing expert advice to local planning authorities. The Environment Agency (EA) has a strategic overview for all sources of flooding.
In December 2024 the EA published its updated National Assessment of Flood and Coastal Erosion Risk in England. This included an updated assessment of surface water flood risk.
The EA also supports consideration of surface water flood risk in decision making for new developments through the Flood Map for Planning and Check your long term flood risk services.
The EA is supporting implementation of the Government’s new flood and coastal erosion risk management funding policy, which made several improvements to aid investment in managing surface water flooding. The EA has produced guidance explaining how the new policy will work in practice.
Asked by: Wendy Morton (Conservative - Aldridge-Brownhills)
Question
To ask the hon. Member for Blaenau Gwent and Rhymney, representing the Restoration and Renewal Client Board, with reference to the proposed relocation and permanent reprovision of the Education Centre, what assessment the client board has made of the potential merits of relocating the Education Centre as part of the core Restoration and Renewal scope rather than retaining or upgrading its temporary arrangements; what the estimated capital and lifecycle costs of relocation are; whether alternative options involving refurbishment of existing facilities were costed; and how relocation contributes to (a) fire safety, (b) building services, (c) asbestos remediation and (d) fabric conservation.
Answered by Nick Smith
As set out in the Restoration and Renewal (R&R) Client Board’s recent report, Delivering restoration and renewal of the Palace of Westminster: the costed proposals (HC Paper 1576), the preferred scope for the R&R works will deliver a permanent Education Centre. Early designs propose that the centre is based within the Palace.
The current Education Centre on the Victoria Tower Gardens site was always intended to be a temporary facility and it is not sited on Parliamentary estate land. The land is owned by the Royal Parks and Parliament’s license for its use is with the Department for Culture, Media and Sport. The temporary planning and license agreements for the Victoria Gardens site expire at the end of 2030. The relevant statutory bodies have said that any further application for extension of the current Education Centre temporary permission and licence will not be granted. A new location for the centre is therefore required after this date.
The proposed Education Centre accounts for 0.3% of Palace construction costs under the full decant option and 1.6% under the enhanced maintenance and improvement plus (EMI+) option. This is based on the base construction costs for the Palace project set out in Annex 2, table 2 of the report, which exclude risk and inflation.
The net reduction in Palace lifecycle costs as a result of the renewal of the Palace does not isolate a specific change for the Education Centre. The cost of refurbishing existing facilities was not considered given their temporary nature and the known requirement to move the facility.
The location of the new education centre has been considered as part of the wider fire strategy, though its provision does not directly contribute to the fire safety, building services, asbestos remediation or fabric conservation outlined in the R&R Client Board’s report.
Asked by: James Cleverly (Conservative - Braintree)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what the planning use class is of a data centre; and whether change of use planning permission is required for an office to become a data centre.
Answered by Matthew Pennycook - Minister of State (Housing, Communities and Local Government)
What use class any given proposal for a data centre will fall into will depend on the individual circumstances of the case.
An application for planning permission will generally be needed in order to change use of an office to a data centre.
Asked by: Kevin Hollinrake (Conservative - Thirsk and Malton)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, pursuant to the answer of 5 February 2026, to Question 108681, on Chinese Embassy: Planning Permission, if he will list each developer or applicant that has been given clarification meetings or pre-application engagement since July 2024.
Answered by Matthew Pennycook - Minister of State (Housing, Communities and Local Government)
Since July 2024, officials have undertaken pre-application engagement with:
Engagement in these instances related to prospective Crown or Urgent Crown applications, and carried out in accordance with planning propriety guidance.