Nutrient Neutrality: Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill

Lindsay Hoyle Excerpts

Tuesday 5th September 2023 Commons Chamber

[The Minister of State, Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (Rachel Maclean)]

The Secretary of State for Levelling Up tabled a written ministerial statement yesterday on the Government’s plans, but I am happy to provide an update to the House. In proposing these amendments, we are responding to calls from local—

[Mr Speaker]

Order. May I just say that it is very good of you to offer to give that update? I decided that it was an urgent question—I expect Ministers to come to the House, as I did not think a written ministerial statement was the way to inform the House.

[Rachel Maclean]

I am delighted to be here to answer this urgent question.

In proposing the amendments, we were responding to calls from local councils, which want the Government to take action to allow them to deliver the homes their communities need. At present, legacy EU laws on nutrient neutrality are blocking the delivery of new homes, including in cases where planning permission has already been granted. This has affected home building of all types, whether that is the redevelopment of empty spaces above high street shops, affordable housing schemes, new care homes or families building their own home. The block on building is hampering local economies and threatening to put small and medium-sized local builders out of business. Nutrients entering our rivers are a real problem, but the contribution made by new homes is very small compared with that of other sources such as agriculture, industry and our existing housing stock, and the judgment is that nutrient neutrality has so far done little to improve water quality.

We are already taking action across Government to mandate water companies to improve their waste water treatment works to the highest technically achievable limits. Those provisions alone will more than offset the nutrients expected from new housing developments, but we need to go further, faster. That is why, as well as proposing targeted amendments to the habitats regulations, the Government are committing to a package of environmental measures. Central to that is £280 million of funding to Natural England to deliver strategic mitigation sufficient to offset the very small amount of additional nutrient discharge attributable to up to 100,000 homes between now and 2030. We have also announced more than £200 million for slurry management and agricultural innovation in nutrient management and a commitment to accelerate protected site strategies in the most affected catchments.

In our overall approach, there will be no loss of environmental outcomes, and we are confident that our package of measures will improve the environment. Nutrient neutrality was only ever an interim solution. With funding in place, and by putting these sites on a trajectory to recovery, we feel confident in making this legislative intervention.

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[Philip Dunne (Ludlow) (Con)]

The Minister will recognise that I and many other colleagues on the Government side of the House share the admirable objectives of the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas) in ensuring that the water quality of our rivers improves year by year under the Government and their successors. The Minister’s proposals to amend the Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill are not about damaging the status of our rivers; as I understand it, they are about dealing with a particular and specific interpretation of the EU habitats directive by the European Court of Justice in connection with a case in Holland prior to the time we left the EU. If that is the case—she has referred to the litigation and measures she has undertaken—does she agree that in special areas of conservation such as the River Clun catchment in my constituency, where no planning consent has been granted for nine years, these measures will help to unlock that while preserving the quality of the river in the catchment?

[Mr Speaker]

You have taken longer than the person who asked the question.

[Rachel Maclean]

I thank my right hon. Friend very much. He is right in his observation that this has been a judgment imposed on the United Kingdom after we left the European Union. This is not a long-standing convention in any shape or form. He is also right to highlight the measures we are putting in place to protect our rivers and the environment more broadly. We are also putting in place a substantial package to help farmers to farm more sustainability, manage their slurry infrastructure more effectively and be able to drive the circular economy in farming that we all want. He mentioned specific catchments in his area. We have committed to bring forward a Wye catchment plan shortly, which I hope will address the issues he is referring to.

[Mr Speaker]

I call Clive Betts. [Interruption.]

[Mr Clive Betts (Sheffield South East) (Lab)]

I am happy to go, but the shadow Minister—

[Mr Speaker]

Oh, sorry. It has taken so long, I thought we must have moved on to Back Benchers. I call the shadow Minister.

[Matthew Pennycook (Greenwich and Woolwich) (Lab)]

Thank you, Mr Speaker. As a result of the Government’s failure over many years to make decisive progress in tackling the main sources of problem nutrients, namely farming and waste water treatment works, the requirements for nutrient neutrality in sensitive river catchments present a challenge to securing planning permission for new housing development. It is therefore right in Labour’s view that the operation of the rules around nutrient neutrality is reviewed with a view to addressing problematic delays and increasing the pace at which homes can be delivered in these areas.

However, we have serious concerns about the approach that the Government have decided on. Not only does it involve disapplying the Conservation of Habitats and Species Regulations 2017, but it does not legally secure the additional funding pledges to deliver nutrient management programmes and does not provide for a legal mechanism to ensure that housing developers contribute towards mitigation.

I put the following questions to the Minister: what advice did the Government receive from Natural England about potential reform of the laws around nutrient neutrality? Did it offer a view on the Government’s proposed approach? Given the amount of mitigation currently available in the pipeline, which is estimated at allowing for approximately 72,000 homes, did the Government consider an approach based on the habitat regulations assessment derogation and a revised credit mitigation system to front-load permissions and provide for future compensatory schemes? If so, why did they dismiss that option? What assessment have the Government made of the impact of their proposed approach on the nascent market in mitigation credits, and investor confidence in nature markets more generally? Why on earth do Ministers believe developers will voluntarily contribute to mitigation under the proposed approach?

Finally, the Government claim their approach will see 100,000 planning permissions expedited between now and 2030. Given that house building activity is falling sharply and the pipeline for future development is being squeezed—not least as a result of housing and planning policy decisions made by this Conservative Government—what assessment has the Department made of the number of permissions that its disruptive approach will unlock within the first 12 months of its operation?

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[Rachel Maclean]

My right hon. Friend has considerable expertise in this matter. He is right to focus on the mechanisms we need to bring forward to enable the much needed planning permission to take effect. His region in particular is affected by this issue, and I know his constituents and people across the region will be desperate to see those homes built, to allow people a step on the property ladder. We are about building a property-owning democracy.

My right hon. Friend is also right to say that we can do that at the same time as protecting the environment, which is why we have doubled the funding for Natural England’s nutrient mitigation scheme. We are investing £200 million in slurry management infrastructure and we are helping farmers with a £25 million sustainable package to help them invest in innovative farming techniques to manage their nutrients more sustainably, which can be of benefit to their farms and agricultural processes. We are going much further on those protected sites, so that we deal with the problem at source. That is what we need to focus on.

[Mr Speaker]

I call the Chair of the Levelling Up, Housing and Communities Committee.

[Mr Clive Betts (Sheffield South East) (Lab)]

This is hardly a new problem, is it? The Court decision was in 2018, yet last year we had the levelling-up Bill, which was really a planning Bill with a bit of levelling up added on—no mention of the issue there. In December we had major consultations on changes to the national planning policy framework—no mention of the issue there. The Committee wrote to the Minister and asked how many more consultations on planning issues there would be this year. We were given nine of them—no mention of the issue there. If it is such a serious issue, why has it taken the Government so long to act? It looks like the Government are making it up as they go along. This is a panicked response from the Government to the collapsing numbers of housing starts which the Minister simply wants to do something—anything—about.