Thursday 24th July 2025
(3 days ago)
Lords ChamberPlanning and Infrastructure Bill 2024-26 View all Planning and Infrastructure Bill 2024-26 Debates Read Hansard Text Watch Debate Read Debate Ministerial Extracts Amendment Paper: HL Bill 110-II(c) Amendments for Committee (Supplementary to the Second Marshalled List) - (24 Jul 2025)
Lord Lucas
“Livestock markets and abattoirsThe Secretary of State must, on the day on which this Act is passed, set in train the creation of a national policy statement under section 5 of the Planning Act 2008 (national policy statements) covering the development of livestock markets and abattoirs.”Member’s explanatory statement
Giving livestock markets and abattoirs the privileges accorded to national infrastructure would provide the foundations for the creation of a new network of livestock markets and abattoirs, with good communications and outside town centres, ensuring that animals could be dealt with locally and humanely and profitably.
Lord Lucas (Con)
My Lords, looking at livestock markets and abattoirs as critical national infrastructure would enable a coherent response to a set of problems that have been building up for many years. In the 1970s, the UK had around 2,500 abattoirs. By 2024, it had dropped to fewer than 200. That has resulted in a rising trend in animals suffering long journeys by road, and a sharp decline in the availability of abattoirs catering for independent and local food suppliers, such as butchers and restaurants wishing to supply local meat and farmers wishing to be part of local produce marketing arrangements. We should have care for both those things. We have these animals in our trust, and to treat them badly when we could treat them better is not something we should contemplate; and we need to cater for local and individual food markets if we are to have a healthy food economy.
Abattoirs and livestock markets are difficult to site—abattoirs for obvious reasons, livestock markets because of the noise and traffic. The ideal sites for them are near major road junctions, taking traffic and noise away from towns, but such sites are difficult to get planning permission for, because the need for the sites is national but the need that the application is assessed against is purely local. That makes for a very difficult and uncertain planning process.
If we are to have a rational structure, something that really works for us as a nation, we need some clear thinking as to what should go where, not instantly but over time—the evolution of a plan that makes sense. Places with good communications outside town centres would ensure that animals can be dealt with locally, humanely and profitably. The evolution of such a structure would also have the benefit of freeing up land occupied by current sites within towns, which would be appreciated by locals as well as by the industry. Altogether, it ought to be a good thing to do, but to make it happen it needs to be thought through at a national level, not developed half-heartedly and randomly, trying to make things happen locally, because that clearly does not work. We are just seeing a process of further decline, intensification and discomfort for animals, and lack of facilities for local food producers.
Such an initiative might sensibly be combined with looking at the case for strategic, logistic and supply chain hubs, which need much the same sort of location—away from town centres and near good, strong road and rail transport—and have much the same difficulties in organising and planning, in that they are judged by, “Do we need this near Basingstoke?”, rather than, “Is this a logical part of the national structure of road transport?”. I have been looking at a particular proposal for such a hub near Popham in Hampshire, mostly because I spent a lot of my young life crawling over the railway workings at Popham, which are one of the most glorious sites for chalk downland flowers. I would hope to persuade any such development to include a similar space of bare chalk, which could be allowed to develop into a botanical heaven.
There is a need for the advantages that would come through some element of national planning, some bringing in of national considerations to siting abattoirs and livestock markets at transport hubs, so that instead of everything coming in at Southampton having to go up to the Midlands and down again to service the south of England, it could be dealt with more logically—locally, or in whatever other structure works nationally. That is something that the Government, with a good long time in power ahead of them, could reasonably contemplate giving some thought to and taking forward. I beg to move.
Lord Naseby (Con)
My Lords, I support my noble friend Lord Lucas. In another place I represented Northampton, and when I was first elected in February 1974 it had a very active market and abattoir, not on the outskirts but on the fringes, I suppose. That has been gone now for the best part of a quarter of a century, yet the need is still there. My noble friend is right because the nature of businesses today, as opposed to 50 years ago, has changed. The demand is there for local pubs, local restaurants and other small businesses allied to the area.
Additionally, we should never forget animal welfare—I am sure that none of us does, but it does get forgotten. Today, many animals taken to an abattoir are travelling for 50 miles, 60 miles or more. That is not good animal welfare. We have only to see, as I saw the other evening on the television, the problems with some animals not being looked after properly—the specific example was of the RSPCA in relation to dogs.
I am not sure my noble friend is totally right, though, in saying that it has to be totally national. Yes, there has to be a national strategy, and I would hope very much that it would be done in conjunction with the NFU, which has always taken a positive interest in this area. I am from the east Midlands, and I suspect we could do it equally well on a regional basis, perhaps within an overall national objective. Other things are done very successfully on a regional basis. I hope, first, that the Minister has an open mind on this and, secondly, that he has an enthusiasm to take it forward, because the principle of the amendment my noble friend has moved is, in my judgment, very important.
Lord Berkeley (Lab)
My Lords, I am very pleased to support the amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Lucas. My interest in animal welfare and good-quality meat comes from the south-west and talking over many years with the butchers who supply good meat. The two problems which noble Lords have identified are: the distance of travel, which is a very serious animal welfare issue; and the fact that over the last 20 or 30 years the supermarkets have put pressure on government to close as many small abattoirs as possible, so that they can get a greater share of the market. Also, as we have discussed in your Lordships’ House before, you must have a vet to witness the abattoir’s work, yet there is a shortage in the competitive supply of vets. One company appears to have a very large share of the market. I wonder whether Ministers should not go a little further and look at the whole question of competition in this field and, most importantly, the distance of travel.
I live on the Isles of Scilly. We have some very nice farmers there and some very nice cattle—which taste extremely good too—but they have to go to the mainland. On a small ship going up and down in the waves, these animals are pretty unhappy. For years, the farmers there have been lobbying to have an abattoir on the islands. Finally, after years, the new Duke of Cornwall has agreed to provide some land on St Mary’s where an abattoir can be built. It will therefore be a much shorter journey from the off islands to the abattoir. All the issues that the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, has mentioned are still there, but it is a much shorter distance. I hope that that the Government will look at all these things and make sure that we have a competitive market for this which is also very animal friendly.
Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)
My Lords, there are 100 million animals killed for meat in the UK every month, which is quite a statistic. There are 75,000 people who work in abattoirs and associated institutions. The amendment from the noble Lord, Lord, Lucas, raises an important issue. Whether this is the right way to address it I am not quite sure because, as other speakers have said, we are talking about a systemic issue here. I often speak about our broken food system. At the heart of that broken food system is factory farming and the giant chicken and pig institutions which are associated with giant abattoirs, logically enough. We are approaching a land use framework, to be coming from the Government. Many noble Lords think that this does not get mentioned enough. If we think about land use and abattoirs, this all needs to fit together in a systemic way, whatever model you think should apply. Obviously, I have views on that.
I want to cross-reference what I was doing in your Lordships’ House about 12 hours ago. I was talking about the climate emergency and the impact of rising temperatures. I note that in 2022, the Government produced guidance that animals should not be transported except in temperature-controlled environments when the temperature—or the perceived temperature, taking account of humidity—is higher than 30 degrees Celsius. That might not historically have been much of an issue in the UK, but it is only going to continue and become a larger issue if you are moving animals. The longer the distance, the more you are unable to do it in the cool hours of the day.
We need a much more localised food system, which means small independent farmers and small independent abattoirs. Five small abattoirs closed in 2024 alone, and the figure is down to 49 from 64 in 2019. There is a real issue here, but it must be looked at systemically in the round, not just as abattoirs on their own. We have a huge animal welfare issue here. We also need to think about workforce. I found some statistics suggesting that the average age of a slaughterer is 63.
Baroness Grender (LD)
My Lords, these Benches support the amendment moved by the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, and thank him for raising this. We also thank him for tabling this amendment in good time so that this Committee could consider it.
This amendment seeks to designate livestock markets and abattoirs as critical national infrastructure. This is not merely a technical adjustment but a vital step towards securing the future of our rural communities, ensuring robust food security and upholding the highest standards of animal welfare across our nation. The Liberal Democrats have been consistent about the critical importance of maintaining and investing in small abattoirs and local livestock markets. We see them not just as commercial facilities but as essential pillars for rural economies, fundamental to animal welfare and crucial for food traceability. They are the very backbone of our local food systems and they in turn enable ethical meat production, allowing for shorter supply chains and reduced food miles, about which we have heard something already.
We have heard from the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, about the closure of small abattoirs: operations in England fell from 64 in 2019 to 49 in 2023. This has exacerbated pressures on our rural communities, leading to significant challenges—including thousands of farm animals being culled, with the meat unable to be sold due to a lack of workforce. I will not get into the Brexit legacy, but this is clearly part of that too. According to a 2022 Food Standards Agency report, small abattoirs are closing at the alarming rate of 10% per year and within a decade may disappear altogether. This is not just an economic loss but a profound waste and a blow to animal welfare, as animals often face longer and more stressful journeys to distant facilities.
In the House of Commons during the passage of this Bill, my honourable friend Sarah Dyke MP, whose family are sixth-generation farmers in Somerset, highlighted the impact of regulatory and cost pressures, such as the 20% rise in meat inspection fees, which disproportionately affect these vital facilities. We have consistently called for the replacement of the small abattoir fund, which was removed in November 2024, and have proposed a £1 billion addition to the farming budget to sustain and enhance these networks. Yes, it was all fully costed when we made this proposal, with revenue-raising measures. We even advocate for innovative solutions, such as authorising mobile slaughter units to improve access in remote areas.
The inclusion of abattoirs and livestock markets as critical infrastructure would provide them with the protection and longevity that they desperately need within future planning and development strategies. Our 2024 manifesto explicitly committed to:
“Investing in rural and coastal infrastructure and services, including local abattoirs”
and livestock markets, to bolster community resilience and food security and to support younger workers in rural areas. This underpins our commitment to a comprehensive new animal welfare Bill, which we would love to see, ensuring high animal welfare standards throughout the food supply chain.
This is about providing the stability and recognition that these essential facilities deserve. It is about more than just buildings. It is about safeguarding the livelihoods of our farmers, ensuring humane treatment for animals, and building a more resilient, transparent food system for all. Think of it as a circulatory system of our rural economy. The abattoirs and livestock markets are the vital arteries and veins. Without protecting this core infrastructure, the entire body of our farming sector, and local food supply, will struggle to thrive—or worse, begin to fail. By acting now, we can revitalise and safeguard our rural heartlands for the generations to come. I look forward to hearing the Minister’s response.
Lord Roborough (Con)
My Lords, I also support Amendment 50 in the name of my noble friend Lord Lucas, which would recognise livestock markets and abattoirs as critical national infrastructure. I draw the Committee’s attention to my register of interests, in particular as a dairy and livestock farmer. This amendment, if passed, would lay the foundation for a new, modernised network of these vital rural services—positions with proper transport links, outside of town centres, and designed to ensure that animals are dealt with humanely, locally and profitably.
As others have pointed out, the abattoir sector is in crisis. In 2023, just 60 small abattoirs remained operational in the UK. That number is falling at 10% per annum, as the noble Baroness, Lady Grender, mentions. At that rate, these essential businesses could vanish entirely. This would be disastrous for rural communities, food security and animal welfare.
Over 90% of abattoirs have closed in the past 50 years. Family farms face round trips of over 100 miles to slaughter just a handful of animals. It is inefficient and undermines the very animal welfare standards that we seek to uphold. However, it is more than just a logistical problem; it is a threat to the viability of local farming and the vitality of our regional food systems. A resilient, shorter and more farmer-focused supply chain demands a well-distributed network of small abattoirs, local butchers and livestock markets. These businesses form the bedrock of local food infrastructure. They offer private kill services for farmers who wish to add value, by marketing directly to consumers, and they provide an essential lifeline to farmers breeding rare or native breeds that larger processors often cannot or will not accommodate.
Two-thirds of livestock farmers report difficulty accessing appropriate abattoir services and one-third say that their nearest abattoir has already closed. Small abattoirs in particular are struggling to survive: they face rising energy costs, increased national insurance contributions and a regulatory system that is disproportionately burdensome. The rules are designed with large-scale processors in mind, not the nuance of a local operation handling a few thousand livestock units a year.
Our previous Conservative Government introduced the small abattoir fund to help these small businesses modernise and alleviate costs. Disappointingly, the current Labour Government chose to cancel it, sending entirely the wrong message to the rural economy after the family farms death tax and the abrupt cancellation of sustainable farming incentive applications.
Livestock markets are also disappearing from market towns. These are an essential part of rural life, where farmers and other rural inhabitants can come together, generating real social cohesion and a shared sense of community. If this Government are serious about rural resilience, food security and animal welfare, they should look to support the amendment in the name of my noble friend Lord Lucas. It would provide abattoirs with the planning status that they need to invest, modernise and survive. It would allow new facilities to be built with appropriate infrastructure and make it clear that local food systems matter just as much as energy or transport. Livestock markets will ensure that communities can continue to bond on market days.
This amendment speaks to a wider issue in our national life, where traditional social infrastructure is made uneconomic through burdensome regulation. Large, impersonal businesses are able to cope with this far better than small ones. I urge the Government to consider, in all legislation and regulation, how they can encourage and empower these community businesses to thrive.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (Lord Khan of Burnley) (Lab)
My Lords, Amendment 50 tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, seeks to create a national policy statement for livestock markets and abattoirs.
The Government are committed to a resilient food supply chain. A thriving abattoir network is vital to this, providing a competitive route to market for producers, including those rearing rare and native breeds. Despite recent challenges, England’s resilient meat-processing sector continues to ensure food supply and security, and the Government remain confident in its strength.
The Secretary of State already has the power, under Section 5 of the Planning Act 2008, to designate a national policy statement for any specified description of development, should they choose to exercise their discretion to do so and where the statement meets the criteria set out in this section. This matter should be considered on a case-by-case basis. Another concern we have with the noble Lord’s amendment is that it attempts to override this discretionary process and would, in effect, fetter the Secretary of State’s discretion.
Lord Lucas (Con)
My Lords, I am very grateful to everybody who spoke on this amendment. The noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, gave me hope for a moment when she said that the average age of a slaughterman was 63. I am thinking through what to do after I leave this place; unfortunately, there is no slaughterhouse close enough to make that practicable.
I understand where the noble Lord, Lord Khan, and the Government are coming from. Their answer is very much the same as the one I got out of the previous Government. It is good that the Government recognise the problem but, like the previous Government, they seem prepared just to let it get worse. I really hope that out of the processes that the Minister described comes some initiative that changes the direction. As I say, I am very grateful to all who have spoken, but I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Lord Hunt of Kings Heath
“Carbon capture and storage(1) The Planning Act 2008 is amended as follows.(2) In section 14(1), after paragraph (q) insert—“(r) carbon dioxide spur pipelines;(s) carbon capture equipment.”(3) After section 21 insert—“21A Carbon capture and storage(1) The construction of a carbon dioxide spur pipeline is within section 14 (1)(r) if it is a pipeline used wholly or mainly for the conveyance of carbon dioxide for the purposes of carbon capture and storage. (2) The construction of carbon capture equipment is within section 14 (1)(s) if it constitutes infrastructure or facilities used wholly or mainly for the capture, compression, or processing of carbon dioxide for the purposes of carbon capture and storage.(3) A developer is not limited from seeking consent for infrastructure projects which fall under sections 14(1)(r) and 14(1)(s) through alternative consenting routes available under any other legislation.””Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment amends the Planning Act 2008 to clarify that carbon dioxide spur pipelines and carbon capture equipment are eligible for designation as Nationally Significant Infrastructure Projects (NSIPs).
Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab)
My Lords, I shall speak also to Amendment 91. My noble friend Lady Liddell is not able to be with us today, so I have taken on the mantle of championing carbon capture, usage and storage. Seeing the noble Lord, Lord Naseby, in his place, I hasten to add that I equally would champion the benefits of hydrogen in the future; he has spent the last year telling the House why it is so important.
CCUS, as it is known, is a technology aimed at capturing carbon dioxide emissions from industrial processes, power plants and other sources. It prevents them entering the atmosphere. The captured CO2 can be reused in various industrial applications or stored permanently in geological formations deep underground. The CO2 can then be monitored to make sure it is stored securely.
This is a great opportunity for the UK to lead on technology development, and our resource of the North Sea offers huge potential opportunities to store carbon from other countries in Europe. I am convinced that CCUS is safe. It clearly contributes to a low-carbon society and offers great opportunities for growth in our country.
The UK is home to seven major industrial clusters, which produce 50% of all UK industry emissions. The Government, quite rightly, are supporting development of CCUS in those clusters. Deployment in the first two of those clusters is called track 1. The first two clusters were chosen by a process called phase 1, launched in 2021. They are HyNet, in the north-west of England and north Wales, and the East Coast Cluster in Teesside. In October last year, this Government announced that they had made available £21.7 billion in funding for the first CCUS projects in the UK. Looking at the timescale, I recognise that the last Government were very supportive of CCUS as well.
We are at a pivotal moment. The first carbon capture projects in the UK have reached financial close, and the Government are clearly making strong commitments to support deployment across the industrial heartlands, but progress is at risk from outdated or inconsistent planning rules. At present, the treatment of certain CO2 infrastructure, especially short spur pipelines and capture plants, is ambiguous under the current system. As an example, projects under 10 miles in length do not fall within the nationally significant infrastructure project regime, despite being essential components of major decarbonisation efforts. There are also legacy legal barriers, such as the requirement for special parliamentary procedures under the Pipe-Lines Act 1962 for compulsory purchase of land related to CO2 pipelines. This process is not required for other comparable infrastructure and risks introducing unnecessary delay.
My two focused amendments seek to ensure that CO2 capture plants and shorter spur pipelines are designated as nationally significant infrastructure projects under the 2008 Act, and to remove the need for special parliamentary procedure under the Pipe-Lines Act where it applies to CCUS infrastructure. These are very limited but important changes. As the spirit of this legislation—despite much of the debate we have seen so far—is about growing our economy and making it easy to develop infrastructure, I very much hope that my noble friend will agree to have a look at this. I beg to move.
Lord Grayling (Con)
My Lords, I rise to support the principle of what the noble Lord is suggesting, but with a “but”, which I hope the Minister will give some careful thought to across the summer before we come back to debates in the autumn. The noble Lord, Lord Hunt, is absolutely right that CCUS is extremely important to this country, needs to be progressed expeditiously and provides an important part of how we deal with carbon emissions in the atmosphere, so he is right to bring forward this proposal. My “but” is more broadly related to the range of types of project covered by NSIP. I declare my interests as an adviser to Hutchison Ports and to AtkinsRéalis.
My concern is more about the implications of more and more categories of project being covered by these processes. The issue I want the Minister to address across the summer, before we come to it in Part 3, is that this legislation, when it comes to major projects of this kind, allows developers to simply move ahead, provide compensation to the fund that the Government are setting up and, in effect, clear a site. I strongly believe that the balance of presumption should be that a developer has a duty to examine what is on a site and to take precautionary measures around the biodiversity on that site before they come to take action away from that site. The more we grant permission to those seeking to pursue major projects simply to move away from any environmental responsibilities, the more damage will be done to biodiversity and our environment.
It is not that we do not need change. I was involved very clearly as Secretary of State in the process of taking the expansion of Heathrow Airport through Parliament six years ago, and there were some issues we faced that were nonsensical around the way the habitats directive was applied and which I think defied all realistic common sense. Change is clearly needed, and I accept the principle of what the Government are doing, but I want to see the precautionary principle left in or put back into the legislation, requiring a developer, whether for CCUS or another kind of major project, to look carefully at what is on a site and at how they ameliorate the impacts before they can simply pay money into a fund and wash their hands of what is on the site. My request to the Minister, as he thinks this through across the summer, is to look at what could be done with the legislation to stop the slash-and-burn approach and to leave us with proper safeguards for nature but also to allow us to move ahead with precisely the kind of thing that the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, is rightly saying we need to do.
Earl Russell (LD)
My Lords, I rise to speak to both amendments tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Hunt. On these Benches, we broadly support Amendment 51 and we support Amendment 91. Amendment 51 seeks to amend the Planning Act 2008 to clarify that carbon dioxide spur pipelines and carbon capture equipment are eligible for nationally significant infrastructure project designation. Amendment 91 seeks to directly amend the Pipe-Lines Act 1962 to remove the requirement for special parliamentary procedure in cases where a compulsory purchase order is made for a CO2 pipeline used for carbon capture and storage. Both amendments, in their different ways, seek to make practical changes to help speed up the building and development of carbon capture and storage projects.
The Climate Change Committee was clear that there is no route to net zero without carbon capture and storage. Going forward, we need this technology, particularly for the hard-to-abate industries such as cement and glass, where we have to capture CO2.
On these Benches, we support carbon capture and storage. It is a key part of our strategy on climate change and to achieve net zero, and we are committed to accelerating the development of such technologies to help further reduce and control our emissions. Indeed, the UK is in a good place for doing this: we have an estimated 78 billion tonnes of CO2 storage capacity under the seabed in the North Sea from our old oil wells and as part of that declining basin.
I spent a bit of time last night trying to understand the NSIP system around carbon capture and storage. I must admit that I ended up scratching my head a little, because it is not the clearest thing I have ever read, so the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, has definitely picked up on an important issue. Trying to understand which bits of carbon capture and storage are NSIP and which are not is easier said than done, so we recognise the need for clarity around these points.
My only real worry with the amendment is that the landscape, as it exists now for planning, is complicated. I took particular note of the fact that the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, said that it was a spur of pipelines of less than 10 miles in length, but “less than 10 miles in length” is not in the wording of his amendment. I worry a little bit about whether the definitions the noble Lord has put forward will fit with the existing regulations and that complicated landscape.
Lord Naseby (Con)
My Lords, I support this amendment. We cannot emphasise too strongly the importance of moving forward in this vital area. There has been discussion before, under the previous Government. Some questions have already been raised on the Floor this afternoon. The longer we delay, the more difficult life becomes. Carbon capture and storage is fundamental to what we need in this country. I commend the noble Lord who tabled the amendment. Amendment 91 is self-evident in any case. I look forward to hearing what the Minister has to say in response to his colleague’s amendment.
Lord Jamieson (Con)
My Lords, we welcome the sentiment behind the amendments proposed by the noble Lord, Lord Hunt of King’s Heath. It is clear that, if we are to meet our net-zero targets, there is a need for long-term sustainable technologies such as carbon capture and storage. They must be part of the conversation. The potential of CCS to decarbonise sectors such as heavy industry are—I cannot quite remember the phrase used by the noble Earl, Lord Russell, in referring to those that could not be done in other ways—really important and significant.
We on these Benches also recognise that infrastructure plays an important supporting role in innovation and low-carbon growth. Allowing certain carbon capture projects to be designated NSIPs could offer a more streamlined path to planning approval, removing unnecessary barriers to strategically important developments. However, like my noble friend Lord—
Lord Jamieson (Con)
Grayling. As was pointed out earlier, it has been 184 days. Some of us are just getting a little tired. Like my noble friend, I must also offer a note of caution and a bit of a “but”.
Although CCS is a promising technology, it is not without its challenges. It is expensive, it is not a silver bullet, and it is somewhat untested. Therefore, as the noble Earl, Lord Russell, pointed out, we need closer scrutiny to make sure that it can be done commercially and at scale, which, to date, has not been done. It has not been proved to be viable. We do not want a technology that will cost the taxpayer money, and there are other technologies that could also potentially achieve this aim.
We should also consider this as part of a broader strategy. We must continue to prioritise clean energy, in particular dense technologies such as nuclear. It is our duty to ensure that the costs of decarbonisation are not unfairly borne by households and businesses already facing significant financial pressures.
So, while I support the broad intention of the amendment and agree that enabling clarity in planning and law is important, we must proceed with care. Our route to net zero must be grounded in economic and technical reality.
Lord Khan of Burnley (Lab)
My Lords, I thank my noble friend Lord Hunt of King’s Heath for tabling these amendments, which relate to carbon capture and storage designation. Amendment 51 would amend the Planning Act 2008 to enable the designation of
“carbon dioxide spur pipelines and carbon capture equipment … as Nationally Significant Infrastructure Projects”.
As my noble friend knows well from his time as Minister of State at the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero, this Government recognise the pivotal role of carbon capture and storage in securing growth, achieving their climate goals and transitioning to a low-carbon economy. That is why we have committed to substantial investment to support the development and deployment of carbon capture and storage across the UK.
However, although the Government are committed to the deployment of carbon capture, transport and storage, this amendment could lead to confusion for developers, as it would, in effect, provide a choice for developers in consenting routes. Onshore electricity generating stations with a capacity exceeding 50 megawatts, including those using carbon capture technology, are classified as NSIPs under the Planning Act 2008 and require a development consent order—a DCO. Onshore carbon dioxide pipelines over 16.093 kilometres in length also classify as NSIPs and require a DCO. However, smaller pipelines and industrial carbon capture facilities sit outside the NSIP regime, and applications for development are determined by the local planning authorities under the Town and Country Planning Act 1990. This is consistent with the consenting process for pipelines and industrial facilities more broadly and, as far as we are aware, experience from the planning process for the first carbon capture and transport projects has not identified significant issues for projects determined by the local planning authorities thus far.
Nevertheless, carbon capture, transport and storage remain nascent sectors in the UK, and officials in my department are working closely with the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero, and the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, to ensure that the full range of consenting and permitting regimes for carbon capture, transport and storage remain effective and appropriate.
Amendment 91 seeks to amend the Pipe-Lines Act 1962 to disapply the requirement for special parliamentary procedure in relation to pipelines or lengths of pipeline that are to be repurposed for the conveyance of carbon dioxide. It should be noted that, as drafted, the amendment would not legally achieve its intended purpose as a relevant subsection of Section 12A allows a Secretary of State to revoke a compulsory rights order rather than grant one.
Nevertheless, even with that to be addressed, and while I certainly sympathise with the spirit of the amendment, it would not be practical. Section 12A of the Pipe-Lines Act allows a Secretary of State to make an order for the compulsory acquisition of rights over land that are necessary for the conversion and use of a pipeline to convey carbon dioxide. The making of such an order is subject to special parliamentary procedure.
The Government recognise that it can be more efficient to repurpose existing pipelines for use in a carbon capture, transport and storage project compared with building new pipeline infrastructure. Where the pipeline infrastructure is considered suitable for reuse in this way, the Government support this. For example, we have recently legislated to remove a tax barrier that oil and gas companies have told us would prevent the transfer and repurposing of suitable assets from use in oil and gas, such as pipelines and platforms for use in carbon dioxide, transport and storage.
However, as the works involved in the repurposing of pipelines for the conveyance of carbon dioxide could impact local communities and landowners, enabling the compulsory acquisition of rights over land to remain subject to a special parliamentary procedure would ensure proper scrutiny of such proposals.
The Government support the repurposing of onshore and offshore infrastructure for use in carbon capture, transport and storage projects as part of the UK’s drive to net zero. We are already seeing this in practice, where the HyNet carbon capture and storage cluster in the north-west will be served by a combination of new and existing infrastructure. We are committed to ensuring that the right support and mechanisms are in place to enable the repurposing of suitable onshore and offshore infrastructure, and I hope with this reassurance my friend will feel able to withdraw his amendment.
Before I sit down, I want to refer to the important points made by the noble Lord, Lord Grayling, which I take seriously. I note that consideration of Part 3 and wider environmental issues will take place after the summer. We will consider his points over the summer, as requested. The points the noble Lord is making are mainly being debated in September, so we can pick them up in response to similar amendments, including in relation to Part 3. For the reasons I have just outlined, I ask my noble friend to withdraw his amendment.
Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab)
My Lords, I am grateful to all noble Lords who have taken part. I thought the intervention from the noble Lord, Lord Grayling, was very interesting. I very much take his point about the precautionary principle. A degree of proportionality is required by our regulators in the way they operate. One of the concerns that I and a number of noble Lords have is whether the current regulators are up for the kind of dynamic change we need in the way they perform, and that is really why there are concerns around Part 3.
There are concerns from people very concerned about nature protection, which I well understand. Equally, my concern is that we are putting a hell of a lot of responsibility on Natural England in relation to EDPs. The way I read it, this Bill is largely written around housing requirements, and I can see how EDPs can apply to housing, particularly if you have a number of housing developments within a particular area. A pretty unknown quantity is how this is going to apply to major infrastructure projects as well—but I take the noble Lord’s point.
The noble Lord, Lord Jamieson, is absolutely right. We are taking a punt on CCUS. I am confident about it. His Government continued the work in this area. I think we see in Norway enough to suggest that we can pull this off. The potential for the UK here is enormous, in terms of both our approach to climate change and decarbonisation and the huge export potential.
On the wording of the Bill, I have checked the Planning Act, and in Section 14 there is an order-making power for the Secretary of State that I think can deal with the flexibilities around the length of the pipeline. I should say, as I took the energy bits of that Act through your Lordships’ House, that I feel a particular affinity towards that perfectly formed legislation.
I am grateful to the Minister, because clearly he and his officials are having a look at this. I noted that he did not think much of my Amendment 91, so I will have to go away and reflect on that. I think his main argument was “We don’t really think this is a problem, but we will have a look at it”. My intelligence is that CCUS developers think it could be a problem. If we can iron out some of these things, which are really not mega-principal, that would be very helpful. Having said that, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Baroness Kramer
“Whistleblowing and oversight body for nationally significant infrastructure projects(1) The Secretary of State must, within six months of the day on which this Act is passed, by regulations establish an independent body for the purpose of receiving and investigating protected disclosures in connection with nationally significant infrastructure projects.(2) The body must have responsibility for—(a) receiving disclosures of information from individuals or organisations relating to suspected misconduct, mismanagement, breach of environmental regulations, or any other matter of public interest connected to nationally significant infrastructure projects;(b) assessing whether such disclosures fall within its remit and merit investigation;(c) undertaking investigations where appropriate and referring matters to relevant regulatory, law enforcement, or oversight bodies; (d) providing advice and guidance to individuals considering making protected disclosures in relation to such projects;(e) reporting to the Secretary of State on the nature, volume, and outcome of disclosures received, with appropriate protections for confidentiality and whistleblower anonymity;(f) establishing and maintaining a framework setting out the protections afforded to whistleblowers, including remedies for individuals who suffer detriment as a result of making a disclosure, and procedures for seeking redress.(3) For the purposes of this section, “protected disclosures” are those that meet the conditions set out in section 43B of the Employment Rights Act 1996 (disclosures qualifying for protection), as they relate to the planning, development, or operation of nationally significant infrastructure projects.(4) The Secretary of State may by regulations make further provision about—(a) the governance structure of the body;(b) the process and criteria for assessing disclosures;(c) collaboration between the body and other statutory regulators or planning authorities.(5) Regulations under this section are to be made by statutory instrument.(6) A statutory instrument containing regulations under this section may not be made unless a draft of the instrument has been laid before and approved by a resolution of each House of Parliament.”Member’s explanatory statement
This new Clause would require the Secretary of State to establish an independent body to receive and investigate whistleblowing disclosures relating to nationally significant infrastructure projects, including responsibilities for oversight, guidance, referral, and protections for whistleblowers.
Baroness Kramer (LD)
My Lords, Amendment 53A is in my name and that of my noble friend Lord Shipley, who is unable to be here today. This Bill is part of the Government’s programme to unleash new infrastructure projects across sectors and in every part of the country. It is a vital part of the strategy for growth. Such projects are hugely costly and complex and contain many uncertainties, especially in their early stages. Many of them will involve public investment or have a major impact on ordinary people, which means that integrity and transparency are vital if we are not to waste money, undermine public trust and fail to get the outcomes we need.
Lord Grayling (Con)
My Lords, I listened carefully to the noble Baroness’s comments. I was not planning to speak but, given that I was the Secretary of State alongside the Mayor of London when we had the bad news about Crossrail, I thought I would contribute a thought to this discussion.
First, the noble Baroness is right about many of the issues. What happened in 2019 was a combination of head in sand and a lack of understanding of the complexity of the Crossrail project. It was outrageous that the mayor and I discovered only as late as we did that the project was as far off track as it was. That is the reason I set up the Allan Cook review into HS2 that identified the following spring that the project could not be delivered for the budget that was there. I said clearly, “That’s your budget. You have to deliver it for that amount of money—otherwise, there’s a real question over whether it can happen at all”.
Although the noble Baroness makes an important point, equally we have to remember the problem of disaffected employees. How do you deal with a whistleblower who has a separate agenda—somebody who has been dismissed, somebody who is unhappy at work and so forth? I am not convinced that setting up a separate agency is the right way to deal with what she is suggesting, but she is making a salient point. There probably needs to be a much earlier mechanism to raise a danger flag about a project that is not going the way it should, because there is a reluctance to tell truth to power. In these projects there is an optimism bias and always a feeling that, “Well, something will come along to bring it in okay after all”. I suggest to the noble Baroness and to Ministers a possible route for NISTA, the new infrastructure body, to have some form of investigatory role. If somebody says, “This project appears to be going badly wrong” early on, that might be a better way of doing it than setting up a separate body altogether.
The reality is that the mayor and I should never have been in the position we were in of discovering so late in the day about a project that we had been told clearly was on track and was going to open, with the first trains running the following December. The noble Baroness makes a valid point in saying that there should be safeguard mechanisms in the system, but the mechanisms that should exist are probably best handled through the national infrastructure bodies than through a separate organisation in its own right.
Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab)
My Lords, I am very sympathetic to what the noble Baroness said but, rather like the noble Lord, Lord Grayling, I am not sure that another statutory body is the right way to deal with this. Thinking back to my experience in the NHS, I cannot think of the number because there have been so many whistleblowing initiatives. There have been edicts and circulars, and I think we have some legislation as well. But I think we would find it hard to say that we think the NHS has a culture in which whistleblowers feel confident to come forward; they do not.
The noble Baroness has raised an important question, which I hope the Government will consider. We need to start talking to the leaders of organisations to understand what the issue is in relation to whistleblowers. It is, of course, partly the point that the noble Lord, Lord Grayling, raised; sometimes whistleblowers can be awkward people and therefore have already built up a feeling against them. Sometimes they could be making trouble, but very often they are raising legitimate points.
Part of the problem is the punitive culture for senior managers in much of the public sector. Why do NHS chief execs discourage whistleblowing? It is because we have a punitive culture. The turnover rate of CEOs in the health service is frightening; it is so rapid. Somehow, to deal with whistleblowing, you have to look at a much wider issue of whether we set conditions in which leaders have greater freedom to develop and grow their organisations from the current micromanagement they often come under. We also need a culture in which, if CEOs really do encourage their staff to raise concerns, the system then does not come down.
There is clearly a tension. I am sure that many CEOs know that, in their hospital trusts at some point, there are unsafe services. They know they do not have enough clinical staff. The penalty for admitting it, however, is to have regulatory intervention and managerial intervention from above which basically says, “You get on with it. We are much more concerned about finance and throughput”. Unless we are realistic about why senior management does not encourage whistleblowers, the reality is that any of these kinds of initiatives will not be effective in the end.
Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)
My Lords, I briefly and with pleasure offer support for the noble Baroness, Lady Kramer, who is the House’s acknowledged expert and champion in the area of whistleblowing. Reacting to some of the comments made, the noble Baroness said she would prefer to see an overarching system rather than operating within the frame of this Bill. With the huge changes the Bill is potentially making, it is clearly very important that, if things are going wrong, we are able to see them and whistleblowers can safely speak out.
The noble Lord, Lord Hunt, raised the health service. It is useful to reference our earlier debate on the infected blood scandal. The noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, went through a very long list and ran on a theme she has long been running on; we have this cascade of continuing scandals and crises with all sorts of harrowing outcomes. I do not think she mentioned this, but issues such as sodium valproate and vaginal mesh are quite recent and possibly ongoing. There is a systemic problem with the structure of government and the way it is working. We are potentially giving the Government much more power here.
I want to fulfil my traditional Green role and add to the thoughts about the impact on the environment and when environmental issues go horribly wrong, as they potentially will. I note that since we were last in Committee the Government have brought in some changes to the highly controversial Part 3, which the noble Lord, Lord Grayling, referred to. In response to those changes, the Office for Environmental Protection has said:
“We are clear that even after the material amendments the Government proposes, the Bill would, in some respects, lower environmental protection on the face of the law”.
The OEP is saying that if we are lowering environmental protections, there is a real risk—“environment” usually means human health impacts as well—and environmental whistleblowers need to be able to speak up and point out what is happening. These are people from within organisations who may be the only ones who really know what is happening.
Finally, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Kramer, for mentioning HS2 so that I do not have to.
Lord Jamieson (Con)
My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Kramer, for tabling this amendment. It is a clear and well-intentioned proposal that raises important questions about how individuals can share concerns relating to NSIPs. We on this side of the House recognise the value in exploring such concerns and that they are heard and addressed. Clarity in that process is undoubtedly important. However, at the same time the question of establishing independent bodies through amendments is not straightforward. There are practical and structural considerations that merit careful thought, particularly around proportionality, as my noble friend Lord Grayling mentioned.
I want to focus on what the noble Lord, Lord Hunt of Kings Heath, said: this is an issue of culture. No bureaucracy can overcome the wrong culture, and we need to fix the culture if we are genuinely going to have people listening to whistleblowers. So, while we welcome the opportunity for Ministers to set out how the concerns will be raised and responded to—and clarification will be helpful in understanding whether further mechanisms are needed—it will be most interesting to hear from the Minister how he will change the culture.
Lord Khan of Burnley (Lab)
My Lords, Amendment 53A, tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Kramer, seeks to insert a new clause that would require the Secretary of State to establish an independent body to receive and investigate whistleblowing disclosures relating to nationally significant infrastructure projects, including responsibilities for oversight and protections for whistleblowers.
The NSIP regime is responsible for delivering consenting decisions on the most complex and critical infrastructure projects. The framework, underpinned by the Planning Act 2008, is based on principles of fairness and transparency. As noble Lords have heard throughout the debates on the Bill so far, it is vital that the Government’s decisions on major infrastructure projects are properly informed by relevant expert bodies, as well as those who are affected by the application, including landowners, local authorities and local communities. That is what the Planning Act and NSIP regime enables.
This planning process includes the transparent appointment of an examining authority, which has six months to consider the views of members of the public, local authorities and other interested parties as part of the examination of an application. It also involves interested parties such as regulators, including the Environment Agency and Natural England, in examinations, and enables them to outline any concerns they have. Ultimately, based on evidence and the legal framework, the Secretary of State has the ability to grant or refuse consent for the development consent order, and must prepare and publicise a statement of reasons for their decision. Finally, the lawfulness of decisions can be challenged in the courts.
While I have been interested to hear the noble Baroness’s views today, I am afraid that I do not share the view that whistleblowing is a widespread issue within the NSIP regime or that there is currently sufficient evidence to warrant action. More broadly, I understand that the noble Baroness, Lady Kramer, has long called for the introduction of an office of the whistleblower to centralise and triage disclosures, enforce standards and provide advice and support to those considering making a disclosure of information. However, the Government do not support the establishment of an office of the whistleblower at this time. Such a step would introduce a significant structural change to the whistleblowing legal framework, which the Government believe should be considered as part of a broader assessment of the operation of the framework. I also do not agree that this is something which should be tackled through this Bill.
The Government are keen to work with organisations and individuals who have ideas on how to further strengthen the whistleblowing framework. Our first priority is the Employment Rights Bill, which delivers on our commitment to strengthen protections for whistleblowers who report sexual harassment at work. I do not think the fact that they are not NSIPs is the best argument to make, given that they are so evocative. It is a really important issue to discuss here, with the relevant focus. No examples were given by the noble Baroness that would give consent to the NSIP regime or go through the system. I therefore ask the noble Baroness to beg leave to withdraw her amendment.
Baroness Kramer (LD)
My Lords, I am obviously not encouraged by the government response. It seems a weakness not to recognise how essential it is that there is transparency in major infrastructure projects, for the sake of everybody involved—but I was very encouraged by the comments across the Floor. I am not precious about how whistleblowing is structured, except that the channel needs to be genuinely perceived as being independent and having the power to protect whistleblowers, making sure that investigation follows where necessary.
I will make two comments. First, on grievances, part of the reason for having an expert body is that it will be expert at identifying the truth. Sometimes under a grievance there is real truth that matters, but there can be mischievous reporting. Whistleblowing expertise is very good at quickly winnowing that out, because obviously that is not where you are going to focus your time, energy and effort, and you want to make sure that it is stropped in its tracks. But we know from experience across the globe that that is very well managed.
Secondly, on the issue of changing the culture—that is what they used to say in the United States, until offices of whistleblowing were introduced widely across the financial sector and are now being picked up by the Department of Transportation. That may change with the Trump Administration, but you are seeing them picked up across other areas in the United States, because having an Office of the Whistleblower with the appropriate kind of powers has had a dramatic impact on the culture. There has been a sharp drop in bad actors, because people know that they are not safe. There is no greater deterrent than knowing that somebody will speak out, and it very much changes the whole culture within an industry.
It is also important to recognise that, with a good whistleblowing system, you get information very early—it is the canary in the mine. Therefore, in the case of the Elizabeth line, you know very early on that something is going wrong when you have scope to act, correct and manage. It is truly an important mechanism to save a project as well as protect the public.
I am fascinated that this argument is beginning to get widespread recognition and traction. I am totally supportive of a great deal of new infrastructure across the UK, so let me suggest that we must have with it a mechanism that means that disclosure and transparency happen at the earliest possible moment when things go wrong and before they turn into project-destroying phenomena.
Lord Hunt of Kings Heath
“Removal of duplicative regulatory justification decisions(1) Where a specified consent is granted for a nuclear generating station—(a) the practice of the generation of electricity or heat from that nuclear generating station which is so consented is deemed to be justified for the purposes of the Justification of Practices Involving Ionising Radiation Regulations 2004 (SI 2004/1769) (“the Regulations”),(b) the decision to grant a specified consent is deemed to be a justification decision for the purposes of the regulations, and(c) without limitation to sub-paragraphs (a) and (b), regulations 14, 17, and 18 of the Regulations do not apply.(2) Where a specified consent is granted by a person other than the Secretary of State, regulation 19(2) of the Regulations is to be construed as though that provision applied to that person.(3) Nothing in a national policy statement designated under section 6 of the Planning Act 2006 (review) prior to this Act coming into force affects the operation of this section, and any national policy statement designated prior to this Act coming into force is to be construed so as to give effect to subsection (1).(4) Nothing in this section affects any power to review, take enforcement action in respect of, or otherwise vary (with conditions or otherwise), a justification decision under the Regulations. (5) In this section—“nuclear generating station” means a nuclear installation used, or proposed to be used, for the purpose of generating electricity or heat with a view to giving a supply to any premises or enabling a supply to be given;“nuclear installation” means any installation the operation of which requires a licence under section 1 of the Nuclear Installations Act 1965;“specified consent” means a licence under the Nuclear Installations Act 1965, permission under Part 3 the Town and Country Planning Act 1990, development consent under the Planning Act 2008, or a consent under the Infrastructure (Wales) Act 2024 (provided, in the case of that consent, the Welsh Government provides an approval for the purposes of this section), or any other equivalent planning or land use approval, permission or consent for the development of a nuclear generating station.”Member’s explanatory statement
Before a nuclear power station is built (and in addition to the planning process) an assessment must be made of whether the social, economic or other benefits outweigh the health detriment of ionising radiation. This amendment seeks to disapply the need for this assessment where planning consent is given.
Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab)
My Lords, my Amendment 53B seeks to remove the current requirement for what is known as “regulatory justification” in relation to new nuclear power stations. I want to acknowledge the work of Mustafa Latif-Aramesh on inspiring the amendment and Stephen Tromans KC, who has produced an opinion for Last Energy on the Justification of Practices Involving Ionising Radiation Regulations 2004.
I read with great interest the Opposition’s amendments coming from the noble Lord, Lord Offord—Amendments 346B to 346D, which have not been grouped with mine but which we will be debating later in September. He is much more radical than I am in his three amendments: he would disapply all the provisions of the Conservation of Habitats and Species Regulations 2017 in relation to the development of new nuclear power stations.
The noble Lord, Lord Offord, would give the Secretary of State the power to grant planning consent to a nuclear power station regardless of an environmental impact assessment. The Opposition also want to prevent applications for judicial review of the Secretary of State’s decision to grant development consent for a nuclear power station on the grounds of non-compliance with habitat regulations or environmental protection obligations.
It is a bit of a turnaround from what the Opposition were saying last week. The point I am making is that my amendment is very modest in comparison with the one from the noble Lord, Lord Offord. I hoped that I would get support around the House for this.
Only a few days ago, we had the very welcome conclusion of the final investment decision for Sizewell C. That followed on just a few weeks from the decision to give Rolls-Royce financial support after an exercise conducted by Great British Nuclear to develop a fleet of small modular reactors in the UK.
Globally, we are seeing a renaissance in new nuclear power. The International Energy Agency this year reported that more than 70 gigawatts of new nuclear capacity is under construction globally, one of the highest levels in 30 years. The IEA in its report also comments that to take advantage of the opportunities that nuclear power offers, which are low carbon and essential baseload to an energy infrastructure largely moving towards renewables, we need a stable regulatory framework. I very much welcome the appointment by the Government of the Nuclear Regulatory Taskforce, which has been asked to look at how the regulation of safety, environmental planning and other relevant areas could be improved. It is charged with publishing a final report this autumn and its recommendations will go direct to the Prime Minister.
One area that I hope the task force will be considering is the current ludicrous requirement for regulatory justification. Before a nuclear power station is built,
“its design must be assessed to find out if the social, economic or other benefits outweigh the health detriment of ionising radiation. This assessment process is known as Regulatory Justification … In the UK, this principle is set out in the Justification of Practices Involving Ionising Radiation Regulations 2004. These regulations require any new class or type of practice involving ionising radiation (such as nuclear power stations) to undergo a generic, high-level pre-optimisation assessment of whether the social, economic or other benefits outweigh the health detriment”.
This is a completely arcane, wasteful process, costing a huge amount of money and delaying an application process by about two years. It achieves absolutely nothing, given that we have world-renowned extensive regulatory systems in place to ensure the safety of nuclear power stations.
I suspect my noble friend might say that we will have to wait and see what the task force says. I get that, but I hope the Government will be prepared to amend the Bill on Report if the task force comes up with very strong recommendations around this area. In the meantime, the Government could take a small step to improve the situation. I am grateful to Catherine Howard of Herbert Smith Freehills Kramer for her work on this. Our understanding is that under the current regulatory justification procedure, each and every small modular reactor developer has to submit their design for regulatory justification. I think we should go back to why we have these regulations in the first place. Examples might be the use of X-rays in prisons or bone density scanners for sports performance assessments, which are required to obtain regulatory justification. Basically, this is to ensure that the small risks to human health that they pose are outweighed by their benefits.
The regulatory justification applies not to each and every type of X-ray machine and bone density scanner but to them as a class of ionising radiation practice. Under Regulation 5, something
“is an ‘existing class or type of practice’ if either—(a)”
it is a practice carried out lawfully without regulatory justification before 6 February 2018; or
“(b) it has been found to be justified; or both”.
I argue that the small modular reactor designs coming forward could be included within both (a) and (b). The result is that we could do away with what seems to be the current position, that each SMR developer has to make separate applications for regulatory justification.
I am very grateful to Stephen Tromans KC for the opinion he produced. It made me then look up a 2010 justification decision by the relevant Secretary of State on European pressurised reactors. In essence, the Secretary of State basically says, “It is justified because we have a strong regulatory system in practice”. So if ever a regulation was completely useless, this is it. The trouble is that once we have such a regulation, it is very difficult to move away from it. All sorts of reasons will be given, but here is a simple way of speeding up the introduction of SMRs. It is clear that Rolls-Royce has government support, and many other SMR developers are bringing forward proposals in the UK. It is perfectly possible that we may be able to get entire private sector investment in developing this. We need to encourage it, not put a wasteful, useless regulatory system in place to disadvantage those developers. I hope the Government will be sympathetic to this. I beg to move.
Viscount Hanworth (Lab)
My Lords, I strongly support Amendment 53B, which seeks to relieve newly commissioned nuclear power stations of the burdens of the regulations on ionising radiation. These regulations have accumulated over time and become a byzantine legal code. They require justifications for a wide variety of daily practices involved in the handling of radioactive materials. Specialist firms exist to enable their clients to identify the specific compliance requirements of their organisation, to enable them to complete legal compliance audits and to develop bespoke legal registers.
The regulations are the products of successive enactments in the UK that date from the inception of the nuclear industry. They have also arisen out of the directives of the European Commission, and Euratom has been responsible for creating many of them. I observe that we are no longer a member of that organisation; had we remained a member, we would doubtless be involved in an endeavour to rationalise and alleviate the regulations.
There are two reasons why the burden of justification should not fall on newly commissioned nuclear power stations. First, their designs and operating procedures have already been scrutinised in detail by the generic design assessments conducted by the Office for Nuclear Regulation, which renders further justifications unnecessary. The second reason concerns the stringent culture of safety that nowadays characterises our nuclear industry. Anyone who has visited a nuclear power station will testify to it. The Office for Nuclear Regulation is the UK’s nuclear inspectorate. Its job is to ensure that these standards are maintained, and it can be relied on to continue to do just that.
Lord Naseby (Con)
My Lords, I strongly support this amendment. Rolls-Royce was ready to move forward with SMRs some five years ago but, under several Governments, no decision was made. More inquiries were done on this, that and the other. The net result is that Rolls-Royce goes to do it on the ground on the continent, and gets permission within a few months. Here we are vacillating again. This important amendment is really needed, and I very much hope that His Majesty’s Government will take it on board.
Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)
My Lords, it will probably not surprise the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, to know that I oppose his amendment. It is well known in your Lordships’ House that the Green Party opposes new nuclear power plants. Proponents of new nuclear power should be careful what they wish for and consider the whole issue of public consent and concern.
I commend the noble Lord on managing to get this amendment considered at an extremely timely moment, given that this week the Government are seeking to go ahead with Sizewell C. As the Financial Times notes, it is
“the costliest nuclear reactor in the world”
and will see the UK taxpayer bearing huge costs and risk, with government loans of £3.8 billion and a £36 billion loan from the National Wealth Fund.
I declare an interest in that I know many of the people who have opposed the Sizewell C project and, I have no doubt, will continue to do so. There are many reasons why they oppose it. Cost is the obvious one, but there are also the local environmental impacts and concerns about future security, sea level rise and water use—a whole list of things. Safety is a big issue that people have continuing concerns about with nuclear power; it is no wonder when you consider the list from Chernobyl to Fukushima to the continuing concerns regularly highlighted by the International Energy Agency about Zaporizhzhia in Ukraine. The public are very much concerned about trust and safety.
Many in your Lordships’ House are undoubtedly familiar with the phrase “policing with consent”. When we were discussing physician associates, I spoke about regulating with consent. What has happened since with the Leng review and the many concerns expressed showed that there was a problem when the previous Government went ahead without real consent and clear understanding within the health sector. If you are looking at nuclear power, those who propone it would want to see that there is construction with consent and reassurance of security. Taking away regulatory justification is not going to play very well.
Viscount Trenchard (Con)
My Lords, I listened with interest to the remarks of the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, and I can assure her that, having heard last week from both the chairman and the chief executive of the Office for Nuclear Regulation, who appeared before the Industry and Regulators Committee on which I serve, I was very satisfied that their regulatory process and policy would more than satisfy the consumers and residents of the area of Suffolk near the Sizewell nuclear power station.
The secret of the amendment tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, is in its title:
“Removal of duplicative regulatory justification decisions”.
We do not need duplicative regulatory justification decisions if, in the singular, they protect the safety of the public to a sufficient degree. I was very satisfied by the answers to questions on safety that we received in our committee last week from the senior management of the ONR. I strongly support the amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Hunt.
Earl Russell (LD)
My Lords, on these Benches we fully recognise the need for nuclear power and nuclear generation to be part of our baseload capacity, which is needed to combine with renewables as we transition to clean power. I have the utmost respect for the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, his work and everything that he has done for energy transition. However, I am surprised that he calls these regulations “ludicrous”, “arcane” and “wasteful”. It may be that the broader landscape needs reform and he is able to raise his points with an amendment, but clearly an amendment is not a way to look at the reform of this stuff.
I worry that, were we to rip up regulation in haste, we would repent at leisure. These measures are completely different from the planning process. They are designed for new types of nuclear generation technology, to check whether new designs are safe and fit for purpose. I do not see them as duplicative; they are separate to the operation of the planning system and fulfil different functions. My worry is that, were these two to go ahead in this way, they would serve to undermine confidence in the safety and security of the nuclear processes that we have in this country. Indeed, this is an international standard that is recognised by the ICRP and in the EU and is used around the world.
It takes up to 18 months to undergo these processes, but they start before planning. I do not see exactly how, even if this amendment was successful, it would do much to speed up the new nuclear generation that is needed. The noble Lord’s central argument is that these are duplicative—I do not agree; I think that they are separate—and that passing this amendment would speed up the process of getting new nuclear power. Since the process at issue happens first, I do not think that is the case either.
We will not support the noble Lord’s amendment. Obviously, all regulations need to be kept under review and, if the Government want to do that, we are open to it. However, I do not think that an amendment here is the way—other than to pressure the Government—to look at these things with a broader scope, so we will not support the noble Lord on his amendment.
Lord Jamieson (Con)
My Lords, Amendment 53B in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Hunt of Kings Heath, proposes a sensible and pragmatic change to the current requirement that, before a nuclear power station is built, an assessment must be made as to whether the social, economic and other benefits outweigh the health detriment caused by ionising radiation. The amendment seeks to disapply this requirement in cases where planning consent has already been granted.
This change is both timely and necessary. We must look carefully at how to prevent nuclear power projects from being blocked or delayed, especially in the context of a wider energy landscape. Notably, the Government are currently presiding over the highest prices for offshore wind in a decade, which highlights the urgent need for diverse, affordable, reliable and resilient energy sources. Nuclear power stations provide that critical alternative—one that is essential to the UK’s growing demand for electricity in a cost-effective and secure manner.
Noble Lords across the House can agree on the vital importance of nuclear energy to our energy strategy. Nuclear energy remains a cornerstone for delivering a cheap, stable and low-carbon supply of electricity. It is crucial not only to meet our ambitious climate commitments but to safeguard energy security in an increasingly unpredictable world. The reliability of nuclear power provides a steady backbone to the electricity grid. As such, it is an indispensable part of our efforts to build a resilient energy system.
We acknowledge that we need rigorous planning and regulatory processes, but these are already in place for nuclear projects. These processes thoroughly assess health and safety concerns, including the risk posed by ionising radiation. While I might not go as far as some other noble Lords today about “wasteful”, “useless” and “byzantine” regulation, I certainly believe that it is duplicative. We therefore do not need to do it again, if planning consent has already been granted and has already assessed those risks. It would create unnecessary complexity and delays, without delivering any meaningful public benefit.
Where planning consent has already been obtained, following comprehensive scrutiny, it is entirely reasonable to disapply this further requirement. Doing so would streamline the development process, reduce unnecessary bureaucratic hurdles and support the timely delivery of vital infrastructure projects, which are so central to the UK’s energy future. For these reasons, we hope that the Minister has listened carefully to the concerns raised in relation to this amendment.
Lord Khan of Burnley (Lab)
My Lords, Amendment 53B would have the effect of removing the need for nuclear technologies that generate electricity or heat to undergo regulatory justification. Regulatory justification is derived from international standards. Its purpose is to ensure that all practices involving ionising radiation, including nuclear technologies, must first be assessed to determine whether the individual or societal benefits outweigh the potential health detriment from that practice. It is a key pillar of radiological protection.
That said, I am aware that there are concerns around the process of justification for nuclear reactors and that it is considered administratively burdensome—I heard that argument loud and clear from the noble Lord, Lord Naseby, and my noble friend Lord Hunt of Kings Heath. That is why I am pleased that it forms part of the nuclear regulatory task force’s review of nuclear regulation.
The Government are committed to stripping out ineffective, overlapping and unduly burdensome processes, but as we move forward with new nuclear, it is vital that we maintain high standards of health and environmental protection and fulfil our international obligations. The nuclear regulatory task force is examining all aspects of nuclear regulation, including regulatory justification, environmental permitting and nuclear licensing and planning. We expect it to come forward with recommendations that will streamline the regulatory processes and reduce unnecessary burden.
I believe that more effective solutions can be found to improve the process of regulatory justification by including it, as the task force is doing, in a holistic review of the nuclear regulatory framework. Therefore, we unfortunately cannot support this amendment. I hope that my noble friend Lord Hunt is satisfied with my response and will withdraw his amendment.
Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab)
My Lords, it has been a very interesting debate. I say to the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, that I know the Green Party does not like nuclear, and I would just point to the complete mess that Germany is in because it is turning its back on nuclear. It is then dependent on Russian oil and gas, and, geopolitically, Germany is in a very weak position still because of it.
Lord Moylan
“(ca) that fees charged must not exceed the reasonable cost of providing the relevant service;(cb) requiring prescribed public authorities to publish annual accounts showing fee income and associated service costs;”Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment would prevent public authorities from using the fee-charging power as a revenue-raising mechanism by limiting charges to actual service costs and requiring transparent reporting of income and expenditure.
Lord Moylan (Con)
My Lords, we come to a series of amendments that relate to transport and the Department for Transport. If I may, I shall begin with a few preliminary remarks. The first is to apologise to noble Lords that I did not speak at Second Reading on the Bill—I was not able to. The second is to thank the Minister and his officials for the engagement and the helpful meetings and briefings that I had in preparation for today. Thirdly, as a class, the amendments relating to the transport section of the Bill are generally very trivial and minor indeed. If this is the Government’s engine for growth, there is not a great deal of puff in it. One of the amendments—I doubt we will discuss it—is so bold as to repeal a redundant clause in the Transport and Works Act. For those of us with a tidy mind, that is not a bad thing to do, but it will hardly shake up the economy. None the less, the Government’s amendments deserve a degree of scrutiny and we shall attempt to do that in the course of the next few hours.
I turn first to amendments relating to Clause 29. As well as moving Amendment 53C standing in my name, I will speak to Amendments 53D, 53E and 53F. I shall also speak to Amendment 53M, which relates to a later clause in the Bill. What these amendments have in common is that they relate to charges. Clause 29 creates a category of legal person known as “prescribed authorities”, which are not named. These prescribed authorities will be able to charge highways authorities for their services, but the services that they will be charging for are not specified either. All this is to follow in regulation. One can hazard a guess that the sort of body that might be a prescribed authority for this purpose might be Natural England or the Environment Agency, or whatever.
My first question, and the purpose of the first few amendments, is to elicit from the noble Lord what these bodies are. The second is to try to establish what range of services they are going to be able to charge for, and whether services that are currently regarded as routine and freely available will now become a charge on highways authorities. I would also like to know whether, in setting the charges, they will be limited by the very common principle among public authorities that charges should be set only so as to cover costs, and that taking one year together with another they do not generate a surplus. Will that be the case in relation to these charges or not, and if not, what limit will be placed on their ability to set those charges?
My final question is a slightly detailed one for those who are involved with local authorities that are also highways authorities. Could the payment of these charges by highways authorities fall upon a parking revenue account and be drawn from a parking revenue account, or would it fall on the general fund? It would be helpful if the Minister could tell us that as well.
Briefly on Amendment 53M, this relates to a clause which allows highways authorities to charge applicants—this is, if you like, a mirror image, or may be to some extent a pass-through clause. It is not objectionable in itself, but there is again the question of whether these charges will be set so as to cover costs and so that a surplus is not generated, taking one year with another. I think it would be very helpful to all noble Lords if the Minister could answer those questions. I beg to move.
Lord Grayling (Con)
My Lords, very briefly, I support my noble friend in this probing effort to establish what the intention of the Government is. He is right to highlight the risk that this becomes a revenue-raising mechanism as opposed to a cost-offsetting mechanism. There have been many examples over the years where different public bodies have sought to do that, and he is right to seek clarification.
The one caveat I would add is that there may be some cases where it is right to levy a punitive charge, where there has been a failure on the part of the third-party body that is being charged, but that should be under only very limited circumstances and where there has been a palpable and measurable failure in what that organisation has done; for example, a lane rental that has been put in place to carry out works that have been done inadequately, leading to disruption afterwards. My noble friend is absolutely right to ensure that the Government are clear about whether these measures will allow profits to be made or whether they are simply to offset costs. I look forward to hearing the Minister’s answer.
Lord Liddle (Lab)
My Lords, I speak briefly to make an apology. I have Amendment 71 in a later group, but I have to catch an Avanti train to Carlisle—and that, as my noble friend Lord Hendy will know, is a bit of a hazardous process these days. So I probably will not be here for the amendment that I have tabled, but it is relevant to the point about charges, because it is an amendment about trying to liberalise the regime, to enable people who cannot park their electric car off the road to charge from their home across the pavement. That will cut bills for people by a considerable amount. Lots of profit is being made somewhere in the provision of on-street charging systems, and enabling people to charge their car from their own home would be a pro-environment measure in increasing the attractiveness of electric car ownership but also a cost of living measure, to which I hope the department will give consideration. I apologise again if I am not around when this matter is discussed.
Lord Whitty (Lab)
I too did not intend to speak on this group, but it occurs to me that these are such wide-ranging provisions that the charging of one local public authority by another is probably covered, in which case I wish to refer to a matter which was referred to when we were discussing the interim report on water yesterday. Could the new regulator of the water sector make provision for charging highways authorities, whether Highways England or local authority highways authorities, for the incredible effect the run-off of water from highways has on the quality and quantity of water? If these provisions do not cover that, is it covered elsewhere? The interaction between two forms of environmental and planning arrangements are covered here, in part, and the water dimension, and the not inconsiderable run-off from the highways into the water system, is an important issue which either the Environment Agency or the new regulator will have to face up to.
Baroness Pinnock (LD)
My Lords, I just query the assertion made by the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, that it is a planning authority that deals with run-off. It is if there is a planning application, when appropriate measures have to be made for dealing with surface water drainage. If it is already existing infrastructure, the highways authorities are responsible for surface water drainage in gullies. Sometimes it is then the water companies which are responsible for the collection of that water, sometimes it is the river authorities.
This is an issue that ought to be resolved but never is, because it is complicated. But we should try to tease out that the run-off that the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, was referring to is not essentially a planning problem except where there is new development. That is when it happens. That is when you must get permissions for surface water drainage agreed with the water company if it is also a statutory drainage company.
Lord Whitty (Lab)
That is true at present, but we are about to invent a new system of regulation of the total water system, which must have some interface with the planning system that we are referring to in this Bill. It may not be in this clause, but somewhere in the Government’s mind this should be an issue to address.
The Minister of State, Department for Transport (Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill) (Lab)
My Lords, the first three amendments in this group seek to ensure that the fees charged by the prescribed bodies to highways authorities under the Highways Act 1980 are not excessive, that the level of fees charged does not cause highways authorities financial hardship, and that the regulations detail financial mechanisms and arrangements to support highways authorities in meeting any charges that may be forthcoming under Clause 29. I welcome the noble Lords, Lord Moylan and Lord Grayling, raising points related to the public purse. The ability of organisations to plan and fund resources accordingly is important to the successful implementation of these reform measures.
Clause 29 is an enabling power that allows the Secretary of State in England and Welsh Ministers in Wales to make provision for, through regulations, the charging of fees for services provided to support Highways Act 1980 applications. I underscore that Clause 29 is intended only to allow prescribed bodies to charge fees on a cost-recovery basis. Its implementation, through supporting regulations, will not allow them to make a profit. The ability to recover reasonable costs will support the capacity and capability of specified public bodies. This in turn will encourage timely and high-quality inputs into the process.
As in other infrastructure consenting regimes where cost-recovery principles have been introduced, the regulations will be used to set out that fees may not exceed the costs reasonably incurred in providing the relevant services. The clause states that the regulations may make provision in respect of
“what may, and may not, be taken into account in calculating the amount charged”.
This provides a satisfactory basis on which to achieve the intention of the amendment. As part of stakeholder engagement, the Government will rightly continue to engage to understand the potential financial implications for highways authorities, prior to introducing regulations. The Government believe that, taken together, our commitments to produce statutory guidance alongside the regulations will ensure that the fees charged by prescribed bodies are done only on a cost-recovery basis and will provide appropriate flexibility in the light of changing circumstances to review and adjust fees where necessary and justified.
In respect of transparency, local authorities are already under a duty to maintain a system of internal audit and to appoint external auditors to audit their accounts annually. Government departments and their non-departmental public bodies in England are audited by the National Audit Office on behalf of the Comptroller and Auditor-General. The Welsh Government and their non-departmental public bodies in Wales are audited by Audit Wales on behalf of the Auditor-General for Wales. The department allocates capital funding to local highways authorities so that they can most effectively spend this funding on maintaining and improving their respective networks based upon their local knowledge, circumstances and priorities. It is therefore for the respective highways authorities to determine how best to spend this funding to fulfil their statutory duty under Section 41 of the Highways Act 1980.
Precedent from other regimes with cost-recovery principles directs that the matters identified in the proposed amendments can be satisfactorily addressed through secondary legislation and guidance. In so doing, that will provide suitable flexibility for the operation of a cost-recovery regime in the event of changing circumstances.
The points proposed in the noble Lord’s Amendment 53F are important. It is the intention, as in other transport-consenting regimes with cost recovery, that they will be addressed through secondary legislation. The regulations will, among other things, explain how fees should be calculated and when fees can and cannot be charged, as well as specify which bodies can charge fees.
I turn finally to Amendment 53M. Clause 40 is an enabling power that allows the Secretary of State in England and Welsh Ministers in Wales to make provision through regulations to charge fees for services provided to support Transport and Works Act applications. As in other infrastructure-consenting regimes, where cost-recovery principles have been introduced, the regulations will be used to set out that fees must not exceed the costs reasonably incurred in providing the relevant services. These regulations will detail not only the bodies that will be able to recover fees but the basis on which fees should be calculated. The regulations will also consider circumstances in which fees may or may not be charged and when these fees may be waived or reduced.
Taken together, the Government believe that our commitments to produce statutory guidance alongside regulations will ensure that fees charged by prescribed bodies are done only on a cost-recovery basis and provide appropriate flexibility in the light of changing circumstances to review and adjust fees where necessary and justified.
The noble Lord, Lord Moylan, asked what the prescribed bodies are. I am happy to write to him to set out which bodies the Government have in mind. The sorts of services that might be included are, for example, providing advice on significant adverse effects on the environment and mitigating those effects. The Environment Agency might, for example, provide advice on surface water flood risk from a new highway and how to mitigate it.
The noble Lord, Lord Grayling, referred to punitive charges in certain circumstances. While I sympathise greatly with the idea that all public bodies should behave in a timely and proper manner, I am not entirely sure that punitive charges ought to be set out in an arrangement that seeks just to make the system work better.
Lord Grayling (Con)
It may be that this is not the right vehicle for this, but most local authorities do not have the resource to inspect works carried out by utility companies, for example. As a result, the works tend to deteriorate faster than they should do. Putting in place a punitive regime to enable a local authority to apply fines would provide additional resource for extra inspections. That is something that, in hindsight, I wish I had been able to do and which the current Government could do.
Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)
I thank the noble Lord for his intervention and I am very sympathetic to his point. He is quite right. He and I both know that, on many occasions, reinstatement works are done badly and do not last long. The recovery of inspection charges to find that out is reasonable; punitive charges beyond those levied for work reasonably incurred are probably not reasonable. This may not quite be the vehicle to do it, but I have every sympathy with what the noble Lord is saying. As he probably does, I inspect pavements and roads almost daily and despair at their condition.
I will deal with my noble friend Lord Liddle’s point on Amendment 71 when we get there, even though he will probably be in transit to somewhere else. I will take away the points about run-off water, which were debated by the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, and the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, and reflect on the extent to which they are covered by these amendments.
I thank the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, for tabling these amendments and appreciate his interest in these clauses. However, I ask that he withdraws Amendment 53C.
Lord Moylan (Con)
My Lords, I start by congratulating the noble Lord, Lord Liddle, on the deftness with which he developed a debate on charging fees into one about charging his electric vehicle. It demonstrates the indulgence of your Lordships that he could get away with that for the whole length of a speech. Well done is what I would like to say to him.
In the light of the Minister’s clear assurances at the Dispatch Box that these genuine concerns, which are not mentioned in the Bill, will be dealt with satisfactorily through secondary legislation—
Lord Deben (Con)
Does my noble friend not still agree that it would be much better to have primary legislation that listed who and where it is than always having to wait for secondary legislation, which we know we cannot amend, as we discovered only earlier this week? Why can we not have proper primary legislation, so that we can discuss these things more sensibly?
Lord Moylan (Con)
I could not agree more with my noble friend, and I will only say that you cannot get blood out of a stone. We are simply not going to get those changes unless we decide to bring the matter back on Report and divide the House, which we may do. I am sufficiently satisfied at this stage to withdraw my amendment.
Before I do so and sit down, I simply remind the Minister that I had a question about the general fund and parking revenue accounts as sources for paying for the charges imposed on highways authorities. It would be useful, perhaps by way of a letter after this debate, to have a response to that question. With that, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Lord Moylan
“(4H) Before making an order under this section, a strategic highways company must consult for a period of not less than 12 weeks—(a) neighbouring highway authorities;(b) local planning authorities whose area the highway passes through or would pass through;(c) where applicable, combined mayoral authorities whose area the highway passes through or would pass through.”Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment would require strategic highways companies to undertake a minimum 12-week consultation with neighbouring highway authorities, local planning authorities, and combined mayoral authorities before making trunk road designation orders.
Lord Moylan (Con)
My Lords, we come now to a number of amendments that relate to Clauses 30, 31 and 32, and to my opposition to the question that Clause 34 stand part of the Bill. We shall return to Clause 33 in an ensuing group. These are a bit of a ragbag, because this part of the Bill is something of a ragbag, but I have grouped them together because, although they are relatively trivial clauses, they deserve some level of exploration.
Amendment 53G relates to Clause 30, and it is to do with the power being given to the highways authority to designate trunk roads. At the moment, this designation has to be carried out by statutory instrument. Contrary to advice that I suspect would be offered by my noble friend Lord Deben, were he still in his place, the Government wish to transfer that power to Highways England. I have to grant that this is not a constitutional point on which to go to the stake, but we are at least, in this amendment, asking that it be required to undertake proper consultation with neighbouring authorities—highways authorities, planning authorities and local authorities—in so far as they are not the same body. I hope that the Minister would be able to agree to that.
I have to admit that Amendment 53H to Clause 31 is a bit of a tease. The Department for Transport, pressed to find something that it could put into the Bill, has gone so far as to say, “Wouldn’t it be a nice idea to standardise notice periods, so that instead of having six weeks under the Transport and Works Act, we move it to 30 days?” The only thing about that is that, if you turn to the Explanatory Notes, the example of standardisation given is the Planning Act, where it says the notice period is 28 days. I have tried to be helpful to the Government here in seeking to correct 30 days to 28 days so that it is compliant with the Explanatory Notes that the Government have themselves produced. Were the Government simply being inattentive? I wonder how much time we should spend debating this clause.
Amendment 53I relates to Clause 32. It raises a similar concern to that which I raised in relation to Clause 30. The clause dispenses with the need for a statutory instrument in confirming certain schemes. Again, the question here is whether the Secretary of State should be taking those powers for herself and away from Parliament. The amendment is much more honest. The Secretary of State is obliged to publish confirmation of an order or scheme when she makes that confirmation, but it does not say what deadline she has to meet when she makes that confirmation before she issues the publication. We suggest that she should have to do so within seven days.
Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)
My Lords, before I turn to Amendment 53G, I will reflect on the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, at the end of the previous group. I will, of course, write to him about the question of the general fund versus the highway fund. He reflected on the deftness of the noble Lord, Lord Liddle, in turning his amendment to charging electric cars, but I have some sympathy as the noble Lord will be travelling on Avanti on a Thursday afternoon.
Amendment 53G seeks to require
“strategic highways companies to undertake a minimum 12-week consultation with neighbouring highway authorities, local planning authorities, and”
relevant
“combined mayoral authorities before making trunk road designation orders”.
I welcome the reasoning behind the noble Lord’s amendment and note that the existing legislation makes some provision in respect of these matters—most notably, in parts II and III of Schedule 1 to the Highways Act 1980, which set out consultation requirements in respect of every council in whose area the proposed highway order relates.
The noble Lord’s amendment could introduce an additional and unnecessary administrative burden on those neighbouring local authorities that are not directly affected by a proposed order but would necessarily be directly consulted by National Highways. Mandating engagement risks diverting resources away from the core task of delivering vital infrastructure and could lead to delays.
Lord Moylan (Con)
My Lords, it is an ingenious argument on the part of the Minister, but I have never come across, and I may say that he has never come across, a consultation that mandates a response from a consultee who has nothing to say.
Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)
We will differ slightly on the interpretation. I think that I agree with him.
Furthermore, imposing a 12-week minimum consultation period would introduce rigidity that would have the consequence of significantly slowing down the delivery of transport infrastructure projects. It would be contrary to the purpose of Clause 31, which is designed to make consultation more efficient while maintaining necessary safeguards.
Amendment 53H, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, proposes to amend the notice period from 30 days to 28 days. He did not detain us long, and neither will I. The purpose of this is to reduce it from six weeks. I note his comparison with the Planning Act. The Government’s proposal of 30 days seems, to the Government at least, to strike a good balance in this respect. That is where we propose to leave the matter.
Amendment 53I, tabled by the noble Lord, seeks to write into primary legislation that the Secretary of State must publish the notice of making a highway order and the confirmation of a highway scheme within seven days, along with the related documentation. Currently, notices are dated on the day they are published. The amendment would not have the effect of speeding up that part of the process. I appreciate the noble Lord’s interest in this clause and the intentions behind the amendments, but I ask him not to move his amendment.
The noble Lord has given notice of his intention to oppose Clause 34 standing part of the Bill. The clause contains an enabling power that allows the Secretary of State in England and Welsh Ministers in Wales the power to move model clauses from legislation into guidance to make the Transport and Works Act process more efficient for applicants. The model clauses are intended to streamline the delivery of Transport and Works Act orders. They set out standardised provisions for applicants and other stakeholders to consider in the preparation of applications. They can currently be amended only through secondary legislation, so moving them into guidance will allow these helpful guiding provisions to be updated on a more responsive basis via a more efficient process. This supports the Bill’s aim of simplifying and streamlining transport laws, ensuring that we have a more efficient legal framework. I urge the noble Lord not to oppose the clause standing part.
Lord Moylan (Con)
My Lords, the Minister did much less well that time round than he did on the previous debate. At least on the previous debate he said that the issues that I had raised would be dealt with one way or another in secondary legislation. Here he is moving into government blank wall approach: nothing can be changed. None the less, given the relative triviality of this part of the Bill and the fact that it does nothing whatever to promote growth but tidies up a few things here and there—that is all from the bottom of a bureaucrat’s desk—I am happy at this stage to beg leave to withdraw my amendment.
Lord Moylan
“(2) After section 250(8) of the Highways Act 1980, insert—“(9) Any compulsory purchase order made in exercise of powers under this Act that includes the right to take temporary possession or occupation of land must specify the maximum duration of such temporary possession or occupation, the mechanism for establishing compensation, and the condition in which the land is to be returned to the landowner.” (3) Before the powers in this section are implemented, the Secretary of State must publish guidance on the procedure for temporary acquisition, acceptable durations, calculation of compensation, and further compensation if the land is not returned in the agreed condition.”
Lord Moylan (Con)
My Lords, I apologise that this amendment, which started life some time ago, got lost somewhere in the system. That was identified only yesterday, so it was tabled as a manuscript amendment, but the Minister has been aware for some time that the area is of concern. It is, I think, the first substantial area of concern. I set out my stall immediately as a Conservative who believes in the rights of private property and that, consequently, the Government’s power to undertake compulsory purchase should be constrained to occasions when it is absolutely necessary.
The clause appears to create a new type of compulsory purchase altogether. It is entirely open to the Minister to correct me in all this, because I am not a planning or property lawyer, but it purports to create something that is, in effect, temporary compulsory purchase, and we have never heard of such a thing. We have heard of the temporary acquisition, compulsorily, of certain rights and usages across land that may be necessary for the purposes of construction on an adjacent site—way leaves, for example, may be acquired compulsorily—but the clause talks about the possession and acquisition of the land, and that seems to go considerably beyond what exists at the moment, unless, as I say, the Minister can correct me.
This measure is hard to find in the Bill because all this, which is at the bottom of page 48, is encompassed in five lines of text. So what I regard as potentially a very significant change—meriting, in my view, a Bill of its own, a Bill that actually has the words “compulsory purchase” in the short title—is possibly, though I am not saying deliberately, being slipped through in a way that would hardly be noticed at the bottom of a page in a Bill that on the face of it is about something very different.
My amendment does not seek to set the provision aside because it is possible that the Minister can correct me and explain that all he is doing is building on well-established precedents, which he will be able to cite. My amendment is simply to say that any order creating such a compulsion, any compulsory purchase order, must specify the manner in which the compensation is to be paid. Normally, for compulsory purchase, there is one payment and you pay to acquire the site, the land or the building. If you are doing it temporarily, what are you paying? Are you paying a form of rent, or are you paying a price together with a fixed repurchase price at the end of a defined period? None of that is known.
Then we come to the question of period. The second thing that my amendment would require is that when such an order was made, it should specify the period. Otherwise, what is to stop temporary becoming permanent—and for what purpose? If it is temporarily needed for a certain purpose, could it become permanent and used for a different purpose? If you temporarily need access to a field to put portakabins in it next to a construction site, could it somehow slip into being permanently acquired for development by the Government themselves? On what basis then would the recompense have been decided? Would that have been a valid recompense?
I think asking these questions through the amendment is more valuable than simply trying to slap the clause down completely, especially as I do not claim to be 100% sure of my ground, but this is potentially quite a dangerous clause that the Government are going to have to justify thoroughly if it is to stand, as it does, part of the Bill at the moment. I beg to move.
Lord Banner (Con)
I endorse the comments of my friend Lord Moylan. I have two questions and two observations. First, “temporary” can mean different things to different people. For example, in the context of onshore wind, temporary permission tends to be granted for 25 years, whereas if one is talking about occupation or possession of land, ordinarily one would think of a considerably shorter time. Can the Minister give any elucidation of the intent behind the use of that word in the provision to which the amendment relates?
Secondly, can reassurance be given on whether the power that Clause 33 proposes to introduce would be used only where lesser alternative forms, such as those existing powers that my noble friend Lord Moylan referred to, would not do the job equally or similarly well?
Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)
This amendment seeks to provide safeguards in legislation to implement powers of temporary possession under the Highways Act 1980. Of course, that Act already contains powers covering the compulsory acquisition of land and rights in and over land. Clause 33 would make it explicit that those powers can also authorise temporary possession.
We are introducing this power because currently in the Highways Act there is no mechanism for the temporary possession and use of land through means of compulsion. Where land is required only on a temporary basis, if access to such land cannot be achieved by agreement with the landowners, the highways authority will seek powers of compulsory acquisition to enable it to use the land. Powers of compulsory acquisition are disproportionate to the needs of highways authorities that need to access the land only temporarily. This measure will offer a more proportionate route, aid land negotiations and provide legal protection to landowners that they will regain their land following the carrying out of works.
The noble Lord, Lord Banner, raised the definition of “temporary”. This is not defined in legislation. It has the meaning of lasting for only a limited period and not permanently. This provides flexibility to the order-making authority and landowner when considering the nature of the powers. He is right that the power would not always be used, because if the land could be temporarily used in another way, the relevant public authority would use that instead.
The noble Lord, Lord Moylan, raised some very important points on compulsory acquisition of land and rights over land. These matters are already embedded within the existing compulsory purchase mechanism that underpins not only the Highways Act 1980 but other infrastructure consenting regimes. For example, land compensation is calculated in accordance with the Land Compensation Act 1961. The legislation sets out the mechanism by which compensation might be calculated and, in the case of dispute, the mechanism for seeking resolution. A suite of published guidance exists to support these established mechanisms. The Highways Act 1980 therefore already embeds an existing and well-founded mechanism for consideration of compulsory acquisition of rights in and over land. The clause would not amend this but simply make it explicit that it applies to powers of temporary possession and occupation, as well as powers to permanently acquire land.
Lord Moylan (Con)
My Lords, the noble Lord would surely agree that those provisions do not cover one of the questions that must arise in the case of temporary possession of land, which is the condition in which you are obliged to return it. Since the permanent acquisition of land by compulsory purchase does not contemplate that it will ever be returned, there will not be any provisions that cover that. This must be another one of the issues. In what condition are you required to return it? That is also addressed in one of my amendments. Surely the Minister cannot claim that prior legislation explicates and resolves all that.
Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)
I thank the noble Lord for his intervention. Since he asked the question, I will write to him about how the condition of the returning land is to be dealt with. In the meantime, I kindly ask him to withdraw his amendment.
Lord Lansley (Con)
I am sorry to interrupt the Minister, but on that point, Section 252 of the Highways Act allows for a counter notice from somebody where rights over their land have been compulsorily acquired to seek to have their interest in the land purchased. I wonder whether the Government might consider whether the temporary possession of land might also reasonably give rise to an opportunity for a landowner to seek that the land be acquired on a permanent basis.
Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)
I thank the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, for that point. He makes a very valid point, and we will go away and consider it. I thank him very much for raising it. I kindly ask the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, to withdraw his amendment.
Lord Moylan (Con)
My Lords, I regret to say that the Minister has confirmed one’s worst fears about this clause—that it has created something wholly new and unprecedented and has done so without proper safeguards and without being properly embedded in a piece of legislation that would invite appropriate scrutiny. Rather, it is in a very short clause in a Bill that appears to be about something else. He appears to be saying that, but I have a suspicion from what the noble Lord has said that, actually, something else might be going on: those who have drafted this clause have simply got muddled about the difference between acquiring rights over land, such as way leaves and so forth—necessary for the purpose of construction—and actually acquiring the land itself. Indeed, it is notable that, in the Minister’s response, he gave no reason and no examples as to why it should ever be necessary to acquire the land outright rather than to use the existing provisions available to those who can exercise compulsory purchase powers.
In all candour and friendliness, I suggest to the noble Lord that he consider very carefully whether this clause is necessary—and, indeed, whether it actually achieves what it was intended to achieve in the first place or goes way beyond it. It is certainly the case that, if an amendment is not tabled by the Government at the next stage of consideration of this Bill, it will be the subject of a very significant and lengthy debate as a result of amendments tabled by this Bench. In the meantime, I would be grateful for your Lordships’ permission to withdraw my amendment.
Lord Moylan
“(1A) In subsection (2) (hearing after objection under section 10) omit “may” and insert “must””Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment would make it mandatory for the Secretary of State to provide an opportunity for objectors to appear before and be heard by an appointed person.
Lord Moylan (Con)
My Lords, we are now back on the Transport and Works Act. This clause relates to the holding of an inquiry when the powers of that Act are used. Since it will come up at some point later, it is worth reminding noble Lords, although I am sure they know all this, that for major construction works and infrastructure projects there are three methods available to a promoter for getting permission. One is planning permission from the local authority, and one—since 2008—is to go for a development consent order. When I say that there are three methods, there are really four, because there are also hybrid Bills. But there is also the intermediate thing of getting a Transport and Works Act order under that statute. In doing so, of course, one almost inevitably impinges on the property rights of others, so the possibility of having objectors and holding inquiries to examine those objectors must of necessity arise. That is the part of the Transport and Works Act that we are dealing with.
There are two things going on in the Bill, as far as I can make out. One is that it is currently the case that, if somebody raises an objection, the Secretary of State may hold an inquiry or may appoint somebody to hear the objector. However, they do not have to appoint someone to hear that objector if the Secretary of State considers that the objection is frivolous or trivial. There is a seriousness test, if you like, before the Secretary of State is obliged to respond to the objection by appointing someone to hear it or, indeed, by holding an inquiry.
One of the things happening in the Bill is that that seriousness test is being changed so that it now has to be something considered “serious enough” by the Secretary of State—no longer the very low bar of frivolous or trivial, which are terms quite well understood in legal circles, I believe, and therefore testable objectively, to some extent. Now, it becomes an entirely subjective test on the part of the Secretary of State as to whether it is “serious enough”—enough for what? No definition is offered. This moves the balance of power away from the citizen and in favour of the promoter, who is very often the Government, in a way that deserves inquiry. That is what these amendments are intended to highlight and invite the Government to comment on.
In addition, there is the question of whether the Government have to hold an inquiry or appoint a person. At the moment, in the Transport and Works Act, they “may” do so, but with the rising of the seriousness test—if that is admitted—it seems to me that, if someone passes the seriousness test, it should say “must” hold an inquiry or appoint a person on the part of the Secretary of State. After all, if it is admitted that the objection is serious enough—again, enough for what?—surely it must follow that an inquiry or a hearing should take place. If we are going to have a different balance, I am trying, not unhelpfully, to get the right balance. It would be worth hearing what the Minister has in mind here, and whether there is any give on his part.
Finally, I turn to my Amendment 53L, which relates to what is, as far as I can make out, a new power for inspectors in relation to Transport and Works Act inquiries—not planning inquiries but specifically Transport and Works Act inquiries—to impose costs on those who appear. At least in the planning realm, with which I am more familiar, inspectors can indeed impose costs on one side or the other, and in some cases on both, but only if there is some sort of delinquency on their part that has caused damage and held up the inquiry, such as a failure to provide documents on time or not turning up at hearings, which create costs for the other side.
The inspector can hold a separate costs hearing and can, and does, impose costs. I think we would all agree that that is a sensible measure to try to minimise delinquency on the part of those attending hearings. But a general power to defray the costs of the inquiry could have a chilling effect on objectors. That may be the Government’s intention—it may be that the Government want only the well-heeled to be able to appear before inquiries. If so, it would be as well to say so. But, if not, this new power needs to be either removed or very severely moderated. With that, I beg to move.
Lord Lucas (Con)
My Lords, I very much support my noble friend in these amendments. This is not just something that is happening in this Bill; it is also going on in the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill, where the Government are looking at the conditions under which a parent is allowed to complain about their treatment by a local authority. There seems to be a general move to restrict individuals’ access to setting something right when they feel they have been hard done by by the state and really making it quite difficult. In the case of the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill, there are no criteria set out for the Secretary of State. The Secretary of State can just throw the thing in the bin without giving reasons, without doing anything. I hope we will manage to change that, but it is a big change in attitude and I am really interested to know what is going on in this Government, in that they want to change the relationship between the state and the citizen in that way.
Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)
My Lords, I am very grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, for setting out so succinctly the choices for the routes by which infrastructure projects might be pursued. The objective of the Bill is to deliver a faster and more certain consenting process for infrastructure, because a failure to build enough infrastructure is constraining economic growth and threatening the economy, climate targets and energy security. There is a strong purpose in this whole suite of amendments. In this case, it is not intended to withdraw the right of individual citizens to take action; it is designed to deal with objections to transport infrastructure projects more proportionately. Sometimes, those objections will necessitate a public inquiry. On other occasions, however, an exchange of correspondence may achieve the same goal but quicker, cheaper and more efficiently. All objections will continue to be decided entirely on the merits of the arguments put forward. It does not mean less scrutiny but it is designed to speed up the Transport and Works Act process.
Currently, if an objection that is better than frivolous or trivial is raised through an application under the Act by a statutory objector—that is, an affected local authority or landowner—a public inquiry or hearing must be held, even if the objection is deemed to lack substance. This can result in a costly and lengthy public inquiry even where objections clearly lack merit. Instead, it is proposed that a public inquiry or hearing be held only when an objection by a statutory objector is considered serious enough to merit such treatment. A streamlined process for considering objections saves time and costs for applicants and objectors, but a proportionate objection process will still remain, ensuring that objections are given due attention and decisions communicated to all parties.
On Amendment 53K—
Lord Moylan (Con)
Before the noble Lord moves to Amendment 53K, what does he understand, and what should noble Lords and members of the public understand, by the term “serious enough”?
Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)
We have to get ourselves into a position where it is possible to get schemes to move forward based on a consideration of the objections and whether they can be dealt with by means other than a public inquiry. It is evident from how the processes work at the moment that delays can be and are being incurred. Of course the definition needs to be fleshed out in due course, but the Bill seeks to streamline the whole process by introducing another bar into it. The Government have chosen the definition
“serious enough to merit such treatment”
to define what that is.
On Amendment 53K, the Government consider that procedural matters such as providing written reasons for a decision on whether to hold a public inquiry are best dealt with in guidance or secondary legislation. By reducing the current unnecessary bureaucracy or disproportionate process, this clause will help support a faster transport consenting process.
Amendment 53L would ensure that costs may be imposed on a person only when that person has acted maliciously or unreasonably during a public inquiry process. Clause 37 introduces to the Transport and Works Act a new power enabling an inspector conducting a public inquiry to make decisions on relevant cost claims rather than the Secretary of State, as is currently required. Department for Transport Circular 3/94, which governs how claims for costs during a Transport and Works Act inquiry are handled, makes explicitly clear what constitutes unreasonable behaviour and the circumstances in which it can be applied. Guidance of this type is also used for the Planning Act 2008 regime and appeals under the Town and Country Planning Act 1990. Inspectors conducting inquiries on Transport and Works Act applications will continue to apply the circular when considering costs. The intent of the proposed amendment is achieved through existing means.
I thank the noble Lord for the amendments he has tabled but, for the reasons outlined, ask that he does not press them.
Lord Moylan (Con)
My Lords, I think many noble Lords—I am one of them—have general sympathy with the Government’s ambition to remove unnecessary obstacles to the approval of infrastructure projects, which is why one has tried to be as indulgent as possible in bringing forward amendments to their clauses. But in this case, it simply will not stand. It is an entirely circular definition to say that an inquiry will be held if the objection is serious enough to merit an inquiry. It is entirely self-defining; it tells us nothing whatever. It does not tell us anything objective about the seriousness required, as one of my amendments would set out. The Government will have to come back to this because, as it stands, it is completely unsustainable.
Lord Lucas (Con)
My Lords, before my noble friend withdraws his amendment, I have a question for the Minister. He said the definition needs to be fleshed out in due course. Under what powers in what Act will that fleshing out be done?
Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)
I thank the noble Lord for his interjection. I will write to him after this Committee and set out some more detail.
Lord Moylan (Con)
My purpose here is not to enter a radical objection to Clause 38 but, rather, to raise a debate and to hear what the Minister has to say on the points that I would like to make. This clause allows the Secretary of State to set a deadline for inquiries to be conducted and concluded. As I understand the clause, the deadline is flexible in that the Secretary of State can subsequently amend it and extend it to make it longer. With the purpose of trying to speed up consents, that may appear, on the face of it, to be a very sensible measure. However, I want to draw a lesson from history here.
Let us go back to the Planning Act 2008, which introduced the development consent order. One of the features of the development consent order was that the inquiry phase was to be limited; it was to be six months by statute, unless it was extended. Exactly the same approach was used all the way back in 2008 in relation to DCOs. Has that resulted in DCOs being shorter processes? It has not. It has, in effect, required all the work preparatory to the inquiry to be front-loaded, carried out and presented to the inspectors before they will agree to open the inquiry; the clock does not start running until they open it, so the six-month limit does not apply.
In effect, this approach has failed in relation to DCOs. It could be argued that it has made DCOs a slower method of acquiring permission than a Transport and Works Act order currently is. To get to the point at which the inspectors are willing to start the inquiry, one has to produce every conceivable document that they might require, which sometimes results in hundreds of thousands of pages having to be produced. Under the older system—using Planning Act powers under which documents could be pulled in later on—although the overall process lasted quite a long time, it did not require as much paper as is currently required by the DCO process.
I offer that lesson from history—not even history, because we live with DCOs today—as a cautionary tale. I wonder to what extent the Minister has taken account of that. Are the Government not in fact doing something here that is seductively attractive and will achieve something that we would like to see but will, in practice, slow up the whole process? I beg to move.
Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)
The noble Lord, Lord Moylan, makes an interesting point. I will not replicate the intention of Clause 38 because that is already pretty clear to the House. However, I am not sure that he is entirely correct in saying that what he describes as a DCO is a wholly bad thing because, in practice, it is sometimes a very good thing that the parties sort themselves out before the inspector starts the inquiry, rather than prolonging the inquiry by sorting themselves out while the inspector is sitting.
It is true that the DCO has the time limit that the noble Lord describes, whereas the Transport and Works Act does not. The Government’s view is that that leads to uncertainty in the consenting process and that introducing statutory timeframes will provide increased certainty to stakeholders, which has been valued in other transport consenting regimes. It will introduce greater accountability to the decision-makers. It should speed up the consenting process and should allow applicants to be better prepared post consent. I therefore kindly ask the noble Lord not to oppose Clause 38 standing part of the Bill.
Lord Moylan (Con)
I do not intend to oppose Clause 38 standing part of the Bill.
Baroness Pinnock
“(1A) Any disapplication of heritage protections under this section must be exercised in a manner that—(a) recognises the value of the United Kingdom’s archaeological and architectural heritage to the nation and to local communities;(b) respects the principle that structures and sites are designated for protection only where they are of special or particular historic or cultural significance; and(c) ensures that development under this Act gives due regard to the importance of conserving the historic environment alongside the need for future infrastructure.”
Baroness Pinnock (LD)
I am awake, my Lords. It has been quite a long afternoon, has it not?
Amendment 54 in my name and that of my noble friend Lady Pidgeon was tabled some time ago, so everyone will have had time to think about its consequences. It focuses on the potential for significant harm to listed buildings, ancient monuments and archaeological sites and on preventing any ill-considered harm caused by the measures in Clause 41. That clause refers to Section 17 of the Transport and Works Act 1992, about which we have heard a lot in the past hour and which relates to applications for listed building consent in England and Wales where a planned transport development, such as a railway or a road, will involve the demolition, in whole or in part, of a building or site with a statutory protection. Under this regime, the application for listed building or other consents is referred directly to the Secretary of State, instead of an application to the local planning authority.
Clause 41 amends the Planning (Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas) Act 1990 so that authorisations related to heritage protection are no longer required; that includes listed building consent, conservation area consent, scheduled monument consent and notifications for works in areas of archaeological importance. If the clause is agreed, the process will mean that applicants can obtain all necessary consents, including those for heritage matters, through the Transport and Works Act process rather than needing to apply separately to different bodies. I guess that this is part of the so-called streamlining of planning application processes.
However, a one-stop shop approach such as this will result in local heritage structures, which are a source of local pride, being bulldozed from the local landscape. Many heritage organisations, including Historic England and the Heritage Alliance, have expressed concerns that the disapplication of separate heritage consents could weaken the checks and balances designed to protect historic assets. Applying Clause 41 in this way may have the knock-on effect of watering down the well-understood protections of our heritage and may lead to more requests for reducing enforcement and statutory protections.
Another major problem with this wholesale reduction in heritage protections is that there will be no prioritisation of the value of different historic assets. For example, will Hadrian’s Wall be regarded as having protection if there is an application for, say, a new route by rail or road into the north of our nation? Hadrian’s Wall, a world heritage site, has substantial protection but, following the changes made under this Bill, it will be treated in the same way as other, less important—but still vital—heritage assets.
As the powers under Clause 41 are discretionary, inconsistencies can creep in and cause even greater local and national outrage. For example, Hadrian’s Wall is protected, but a local monument that is very valued by a local community can be swept aside.
As far as the Bill is concerned, this measure undermines two essential elements of planning. The first is engaging with communities so that they have the full facts and can have their say. The second is that the scales by which we currently assess projects are tipped excessively in favour of development proposals to the detriment of our heritage. Further, an approach such as this gives a green light to less scrupulous developers who will gain by destroying historic assets.
Our heritage is an important part of who we are as a nation, and it has to be much more carefully weighed in the balance than is proposed in Clause 41. I look forward to hearing about the amendments in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, and others. I beg to move.
Lord Lansley (Con)
My Lords, I am very glad to speak to my Amendment 55 and in support of the noble Baroness’s Amendment 54. Clause 41 provides for the “Disapplication of heritage regimes”. I declare an interest as the owner of a two-star listed property and a member of the Listed Property Owners’ Club. As this is my first substantive contribution on the Bill in Committee, I also declare that I have a registered interest as chair of development forums in Cambridgeshire and Oxfordshire. But, as noble Lords would expect, all the views I express will be my own and not those of any particular forum members. Like the noble Baroness, I thank the National Trust and the Heritage Alliance for their briefing on this issue.
The Explanatory Notes to this clause state that it
“would provide an alternative to an applicant having to apply separately to each relevant consenting authority”.
The consenting authorities referred to are, respectively, the local planning authority in respect of listed building consent and conservation areas and the Secretary of State—in practice, the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport—in respect of scheduled monument consent. The structure of the clause is not simple, so if I may, I will explain how I think it is intended to work but raise questions thereby for the Minister.
The clause replaces Section 17 of the Transport and Works Act 1992. That section inserted a new Section 12(3A) into the Planning (Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas) Act 1990, which enabled the consenting process to be referred to the Secretary of State where it forms a part of an application for a transport and works order under Sections 1 or 3 of the Act—Section 1 being on transport and Section 3 being on waterways. Such an application is a Section 6 application under the Transport and Works Act. The assimilation of the applications for consent for listed buildings and scheduled monuments into a concurrent application is provided for in the Transport and Works Applications (Listed Buildings, Conservation Areas and Ancient Monuments Procedure) Regulations 1992.
That is why Clause 41 notes Section 12(3A) and the relevant Welsh legislation and goes on to say in subsection (4) that Section 12(3A) continues in force. To my reading, this means that if listed building and other heritage consents are required, they can continue to be included in a Section 6 application and, in consequence of Section 12(3A) of the Planning (Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas) Act, would be automatically referred to the Secretary of State.
If noble Lords are staying with me, that raises the question of why Clause 41 is needed. My point is very simple. It is already possible not to send relevant consenting authorities separate applications since they can be assimilated in a concurrent application, which goes to the Secretary of State for a Section 1 or Section 3 order. Therefore, the purpose is not simply to streamline the consenting process by routing them to the Secretary of State; it is more substantial and significant. The new Section 17 will mean that where an order is made which would presently require a heritage consent, that requirement is done away with. As a consequence, the provisions in heritage legislation which attach conditions or considerations to the consenting process are also done away with.
That is why I tabled Amendment 55, and I am grateful to my noble friend Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay for signing it. The key reference there, or the operative point, is the reference to Section 7 of the Planning (Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas) Act 1990, which prohibits
“the demolition of a listed building or for its alteration or extension in any manner which would affect its character as a building of special architectural or historic interest, unless the works are authorised”.
There will be a similar provision in relation to scheduled monuments. The latter is distinctive in so far as it also has a requirement for advice from Historic England in relation to a scheduled monument consent.
Amendment 54, moved by the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, also rightly highlights that the making of a transport and works order may involve the demolition of, or impact on, listed buildings and ancient monuments without a requirement for consent. So, when such an order is being made, where is the advice from Historic England? Where are the statutory guardrails around the preservation of our built heritage and its setting? Where are, at the very least, the “must have regard to” provisions in relation to our heritage, including all the issues set out in the amendment in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock?
I look to the Minister to use this Committee debate to tell us where those safeguards are. If they are presently linked to the consenting process, on the face of it they would no longer apply. Why, given the scope already available to bring the consents together in a single Section 6 application, is it necessary to apply the consenting regime and its safeguards for heritage assets?
In the absence of reassurances, which do not appear to be in the clause itself or available in existing legislation that I can find—indeed, they are not referred to in the Explanatory Notes at all—I hope that those protections can be inserted into the Bill on Report.
Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)
My Lords, as my noble friend Lord Lansley says, I signed his Amendment 55, but I am also broadly supportive of Amendment 54, in the names of the noble Baronesses, Lady Pinnock and Lady Pidgeon—I thank the former for the way she opened the debate on this important set of amendments.
My noble friend Lord Lansley set out very powerfully the concerns that many of us have about Clause 41 and its potential consequences. His Amendment 55 seeks to remedy that by making sure that the provisions regarding listed buildings and conservation areas can continue to be applied. Of course, Clause 41 also applies protections for scheduled monuments, which is why I have tabled my stand-part notice on whether Clause 41 ought to stand part of the Bill at all; my noble friend Lord Lansley asked much the same question.
Like my noble friend and others, I have discussed these amendments and this clause with organisations including the Heritage Alliance and the Heritage Railway Association, which I thank for their time and insights. As the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, outlined, Clause 41 would sweep away the need for listed building consent, conservation area consent, scheduled ancient monument consent, and notices for works on land of archaeological importance for projects carried out under the terms of the Transport and Works Act 1992. As she said, it makes no distinction between the sites that are protected. She raised the horrifying example, for me, a Northumbrian, of Hadrian’s Wall, which is not just a scheduled monument but a UNESCO world heritage site. I know that the present Government take a different view from the previous one on another world heritage site, Stonehenge, and the suggested changes to the A303 there, but I am sure that the Minister and his colleagues share our belief in the importance of the protections that allow people to raise their concerns about the scheme proposed in that instance.
Baroness Freeman of Steventon (CB)
My Lords, I support the amendments in this group. I declare my interest as the owner of a listed building and thank the Heritage Alliance for its briefings.
Other noble Lords have already, much more eloquently than I could, put the problem of this clause to the Committee. I highlighted exactly the same quotes as the noble Lord, Lord Parkinson, from the Commons Committee stage, alongside the Minister in the other place saying that:
“We absolutely want to ensure a better process, with those bodies consulted and their concerns addressed”.—[Official Report, Commons, Planning and Infrastructure Bill Committee, 13/3/25; col. 219.]
It is not clear to me where in this clause and in all the changes that it makes those bodies concerned with heritage will be consulted and their concerns addressed. Therefore, I add my voice to those who have serious concerns with Clause 41.
Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)
My Lords, I share those concerns. The noble Lord, Lord Lansley, and others have forensically dissected this clause and demonstrated that it is, to use a technical term, a right mess.
Manor Castle is in Sheffield, for those who do not know. Sheffield is a city which has suffered enormously from the destruction of heritage, both industrial and earlier heritage. On this last day, I take your Lordships to August 1644, when there was a 10-day siege of Sheffield Castle. The castle fell. Having been held by the Royalists, it was besieged by the Parliamentarians, and Parliament—this place—ordered the castle to be destroyed. To add insult to injury, in the intervening period the castle market was built on top of the site. That has now been demolished and archaeology is being done on the site. The end point of this is a story from the last few months, when the archaeologists uncovered abatises—a word that I have just learned—which are sharpened branches that were put around the ditch by the defenders in an attempt to hold off the Parliamentarians.
This is not just a history story. This is a city that is uncovering an important, exciting piece of its past which has survived miraculously and against all odds. This is a story of how important discoveries such as this are to cities’ identities and local heritage is to the identity of a place. As the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, set out, we cannot allow centralisation and the taking away of local control, which might see us lose stories such as this.
Baroness Pidgeon (LD)
My Lords, as we have heard, the Bill stands to disapply heritage regimes for transport infrastructure developments. There is, therefore, a risk that this could harm heritage assets without proper scrutiny and probably go further than the stated ambition of the Bill. I am therefore delighted to support Amendment 54 in the name of my noble friend Lady Pinnock, who has outlined the technical issues, as has the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, in talking about his amendment.
We all understand that building transport infrastructure is important to our economic growth. In particular, new public transport is important to support people moving away from cars where possible. However, we have got to make sure that, in building faster and more efficiently, we do not lose critical heritage. This amendment and debate are important because they flag the importance of recognising our architectural heritage and conserving the historic environment alongside the need for new infrastructure. It is a practical approach, and I urge the Government to support this small but, in some ways, significant change.
As we have already heard, in Committee in the Commons, the Minister acknowledged that these changes could have unintended consequences and committed to respond to concerns raised by my colleague Gideon Amos MP by Report—yet nothing has been forthcoming. No further comments were made by the Minister on Clause 41 during that debate. I await the response from the noble Lord the Minister to this important topic of our heritage assets and the answers to the many important questions that have been raised.
Lord Moylan (Con)
My Lords, I shall be brief, after this very valuable debate. I make it clear that the Opposition Front Bench is fully behind the amendments in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, and my noble friend Lord Lansley. I seek to add nothing to the detail of their amendments, which were so eloquently argued by both of them.
I just add one reflection of my own. It is very easy to imagine that listed building consents and planning applications are much the same thing, because they are usually dealt with by the same officers in the same local authority. But they are not; they are two very distinct legal regimes, which have two very distinct bases. Planning is essentially about mitigating and shaping the externalities of development so as to minimise public harm and perhaps achieve some public good—it is to do with utility—whereas listed building legislation is about a test of absolute value. Either a building is listed and therefore is to be preserved, implicitly for ever, or it is not. Of course, there are grades of listing and it is possible to delist a building, so there is a little movement around the edges. However, in essence, it is a test not of utility—of whether something is useful to us—but of value. For the Government to mix up these two, to mash them together, is to ignore that very important distinction.
The listed building regime is not part of a trade-off as a consequence of that. You do not say that, because we can achieve something useful on the one hand—a faster railway, shorter route or whatever it might be—there is a calculus by which we can demolish so many listed buildings to achieve that. They are not commensurate regimes. The Government would do very well to withdraw this clause altogether and rely on the flexibility in existing arrangements. I look forward to hearing what the noble Lord has to say, but I suspect that we will be debating this again in due course.
Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)
My Lords, the Bill seeks to deliver a faster and more certain consenting process for infrastructure. It is quite clear that there are a whole range of measures within the Bill that seek to do that, and I think the general clarity of the intention of the Bill is absolutely there.
But I am going to save your Lordships quite a lot of time because, having said that and having listened very carefully to the contributions made by a series of noble Lords just now, I can say that the Government are not looking to reduce heritage protections through this clause. We are seeking to streamline the process of decision-making by creating a one-stop shop; it would sometimes be the case in the current regime that separate government departments would still need to issue separate consents.
In the light of what noble Lords have seriously said—with some passion, conviction and a great deal of clarity—I commit to go away and reflect on the arguments raised. I cannot say what happened following the discussion in the other place, but I can commit to considering all the arguments raised. We will return to this subject, bearing in mind what I have heard this afternoon. In the meantime, I kindly ask the noble Baroness to withdraw her amendment.
Baroness Pinnock (LD)
This may be a first for me in this House to have a Minister listening to the arguments and thinking, “Maybe this needs further thought and consideration”. I congratulate the Minister on achieving that today, because that is what Committee should be about: we make the arguments and question what the Government are proposing, and the Minister listens carefully and, instead of defending the indefensible, says, “Good points have been made, and I am going to go away and seriously think about them”. I thank him most heartily for doing so. It has been a really thoughtful, considered and expert debate from people who have had experience in government on the same issues and have raised—more eloquently than me—the issues that are pertinent to this clause.
None of us here wants to stand in the way of the development of important infrastructure. That is not what this is about. It is not about preserving our heritage in aspic—as the noble Lord, Lord Parkinson, said—but finding new life for our heritage assets and respecting them. It is about having that balance between the heritage that people in this country really value, on the one hand, and the importance of having a growth in infrastructure on the other. At the minute, I think the Government have that balance wrong. I very much thank everybody who has taken part in this debate. I really look forward to the Minister coming back and helping us with this. I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.
Lord Moylan
Lord Moylan (Con)
My Lords, again I return to the Dispatch Box not to object as a matter of principle to what the Government are proposing in Clause 42 but to throw a little grit, in the hope that the Government will explain the consequences of it for us and accept that it might need some moderation.
The effect of Clause 42 is that an order under the Transport and Works Act can be made that includes a marine licence without having to apply separately to the Marine Management Organisation. The concern that I have expressed in my amendment is that there appears to be no requirement in any of this for consultation with the Environment Agency, which has considerable responsibilities for much of our marine environment. Some assurance on the existing apparatus of guardianship is necessary. It is like what we discussed earlier. Keeping the guard-rails without necessarily having excessive bureaucracy is something we are sympathetic to, but losing the guard-rails altogether is much more concerning.
The Environment Agency is part of the guard-rails system for protecting our marine environment. We should like to know that it will be properly consulted and that that will be in the Bill. With that, I beg to move.
Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)
My Lords, I shall seek to be brief on this matter. Clause 42 allows for a single process similar to that in the Planning Act 2008, which already provides for deemed marine licences. Applicants will still need to consult the Marine Management Organisation on a Transport and Works Act order that contains a marine licence, ensuring that proper oversight remains in place.
The Marine Management Organisation’s application process includes consultation with the Environment Agency, whose representations will be given due regard during the determination process by the Secretary of State. The clause removes duplication and, therefore, streamlines the process, saving time and costs in decision-making, while maintaining the Environment Agency as a statutory consultee. It aligns the Transport and Works Act with the Planning Act 2008 process, making it simpler and quicker for transport projects that involve marine areas.
The noble Lord’s amendment would introduce a blocking power for the Environment Agency that does not exist for deemed marine licences under the equivalent provisions in the Planning Act 2008 regime. Clause 42 reduces bureaucracy, helping to deliver transport infrastructure more efficiently. I appreciate the noble Lord’s interest in this clause. However, I kindly ask him to withdraw this amendment.
Lord Moylan (Con)
My Lords, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Lord Moylan
“(a) the Transport and Works Act 1992, or”
Lord Moylan (Con)
My Lords, here we come to the odious Henry VIII provisions in the Bill, which are completely unnecessary. The Government are seeking power here to make regulations that
“may amend … an Act, or … an Act or Measure of Senedd Cymru, passed before the end of the session of Parliament in which this Act is passed”.
I have tabled two amendments to this clause. The first would delete “an Act” and replace it with “the Transport and Works Act”. It should be enough for the Government to be able to amend the Transport and Works Act by regulation and not have a power that extends to every Act of Parliament that exists. If that is not acceptable to the Government, then it is incumbent on the Minister to explain now, or very shortly after this debate, which Acts he intends, or might intend, to amend using these powers.
The other amendment I have relates to Clause 45(3), which says:
“Regulations under this section may include incidental, supplemental, transitional and saving provision”.
My amendment would add after “may” the word “only”, so that these changes may include “only” changes of that character. Even with those two limitations, the clause raises questions, but without them it is pretty unacceptable, and the Government need to explain what they are aiming to do. I beg to move.
Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)
My Lords, as the noble Lord said, the amendments he has tabled seek to limit the making of any consequential amendments to the Transport and Works Act 1992. Clause 45 provides a power for the Secretary of State to make consequential amendments; namely, changes to legislation that may be required when changes to the Transport and Works Act as a result of Clauses 34 to 44 are added to the statute book. The power cannot be used to implement changes in policy, nor to make amendments for reasons unrelated to Clauses 34 to 44. Its purpose is simply to ensure consistency across the statute book.
If any changes were needed to primary legislation, already existing or made in this parliamentary Session, the relevant regulations would need approval from both Houses. If changes were needed to secondary legislation only, the negative procedure would apply.
The Transport and Works Act interacts with a number of pieces of primary legislation. Therefore, limiting amendments to the Transport and Works Act 1992 could hinder the implementation of Clauses 34 to 44. The inclusion of this power is a practical and reasonable step to ensure the most efficient legal framework. I will endeavour to write to the noble Lord to set out examples of the legislation that might need to be altered. In the meantime, I ask him to withdraw his amendment.
Lord Moylan (Con)
Pending receipt of the Minister’s letter and saving our position for Report, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Lord Moylan
Lord Moylan (Con)
My Lords, I shall be very brief because there are government amendments in this group. Their effect is going to be the same as what I set out to achieve; namely, that it would be interesting to hear what the Government imagine they are going to achieve by making these changes so that we can consider properly what the effect is likely to be. Since the Government are likely to do that themselves in moving their amendments, it is hardly necessary for me to press the point at this stage. I beg to move, and I look forward to hearing what the Minister has to say in support of his amendments.
Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)
My Lords, government Amendments 56 and 359 relate to Clause 46. Harbour revision and empowerment orders under the Harbours Act 1964 extend or modify ports’ statutory powers. The Marine Management Organisation currently charges fees for harbour orders in England and for the reserved trust port of Milford Haven. Elsewhere in Wales and in Scotland, fees are the responsibility of the devolved Ministers. These fees are currently charged at flat rates in advance, an approach that does not align with marine licence applications. The current system does not accurately reflect the complexity or time required for each application, especially for works applications, and does not allow enough flexibility in charging, which currently leads to inefficiencies and inaccurate cost recovery and slows down application processing.
Clause 46 offers great flexibility in setting fees in relation to case work on these orders—for example, charging on the basis of actual hourly costs. The actual fee level will be subject to consultation with ports and relevant stakeholders. In line with the devolution settlement, this new, more flexible regime will be commenced by the Scottish and Welsh Governments at a time of their choosing.
Lord Moylan (Con)
My Lords, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment would remove transitional provision that is no longer needed after the changes to commencement made by my amendment to clause 110.
Baroness Pidgeon
“(5A) After subsection (5), insert—“(6) References in this Part to public charge points are to be taken as including cross-pavement charging solutions.””Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment clarifies that cross-pavement charging solutions are to be considered public charge points for the purposes of the legislation. It ensures such infrastructure falls within the scope of relevant regulatory provisions governing public electric vehicle charging.
Baroness Pidgeon (LD)
My Lords, a lot of the discussion this afternoon has been very technical, as it would be around planning, but this group of amendments is much more practical. They are about electric vehicle infrastructure, making sure that we can easily support the next generation of electric vehicles and make it easy for people to transition to domestic electric vehicles at home, as well as in the commercial sectors. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, and the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb, for putting their names to my amendments in this group.
Amendment 57 would allow for cross-pavement solutions to be considered as public charge points in this legislation to ensure that such infrastructure fell within the scope of regulatory provisions governing public electric vehicle charging, to make it easier, quicker and cheaper for people to move to electric vehicles at home. Currently, EVs can be a more affordable and convenient alternative to petrol or diesel cars and they can save households up to £1,000 a year, but only if you have a driveway. Up to 40% of households in the UK do not have access to off-street parking, so they rely on public charge points, which can cost up to 10 times more than charging at home. For millions of households that is unaffordable, and it is unacceptable to expect only certain consumers to pay the price for the transition to electric.
Cross-pavement solutions have real potential to tackle that challenge, and they have been proven to be a workable solution in 38 local authority areas to date, but the current process for applying for one is lengthy and costly. Drivers report that you have to pay up to about £3,000 for the planning application, the permitting and charge point installation costs, and waiting up to 12 to 15 months simply for a decision from their local authority on whether permission to install one has been granted. So many residents have given up trying to secure cross-pavement solutions and electric vehicles because of these delays and costs.
This amendment seeks to make the transition to electric fair. It asks that cross-pavement solutions are treated in the same way that public charge points are being treated, simplifying the process for applying for these solutions by allowing them to be treated under street works permitting. This would make it quicker, easier and less costly for residents. Crucially, local authorities would still have some control over the decision on whether the cross-pavement solution is appropriate and safe for that location, and whether it can go ahead.
Amendment 58 would extend permitted development relating to electric vehicle charging points where there is an agreed cross-pavement charging solution and the charger does not overhang the footway by more than 15 centimetres. The Government have extended permitted development rights to households wishing to install charge points where the houses are close to the street and they have off-street parking. This amendment seeks to extend these rights to households without off-street parking that wish to install a charge point so that they can get a cross-pavement solution. It does not conflate the charge point with the cross-pavement solution; they are still two separate entities. It would simply ensure that those residents who are applying for a cross-pavement solution can then install a proper charge point that allows them access to the cheaper charging rates that residents with driveways are already able to use.
Electric Vehicle Association England provided me with this quote from its recent survey. One respondent commented how the council refused to consider installing a charger gully, saying, “We got a free charger and installation along with our car purchase, but we haven’t been able to make use of it, as our local council refuses to consider charging gully solutions”. Another hybrid car owner, when asked why they did not choose an EV, said it was due to the difficulty of installing a charger. They said: “Our council has no policy or provision for pavement gulleys to make it easier. There are no on-street public chargers either”.
Another quote is:
“You shouldn’t need a driveway to own an electric car. My Plan for Change is boosting funding for infrastructure to allow cables to run safely beneath pavements. That’s cheaper, at home charging”.
Those are not my words but the Prime Minister’s a week and a half ago. There is a need to make it easier for everyone to be able to move to electric vehicles through simplifying the system and allowing people without driveways to be able to move to EVs. I hope the Minister will work with me to make this vision a reality through this legislation.
Amendments 64 and 67, which are in my name, cover HGV electric charging points. Amendment 66 covers EV charging infrastructure plans. As we transition to cleaner vehicles and technology allows for HGVs to run on electric batteries, there is a need to support charging infrastructure in the planning system. The lack of adequate charging infrastructure remains one of the major obstacles to greater e-HGV adoption. According to a report by National Grid, 70% to 90% of HGVs will be charged or refuelled overnight in their depot or at their destinations, but the remaining 10% to 30% will rely on public charge stations. e-HGVs are very much a reality—in fact, we had one outside the House only a few weeks ago. There are a number of announced plans for charging stations right across the country from a variety of companies, but I know from my inbox that, where a company might want to move to e-HGVs, they find that the local authority will not grant planning permission for the necessary infrastructure at a depot, stopping the decarbonisation of this industry.
These amendments are about a clear installation programme for HGV electric charging points at key transport points, and the provision of EV charging infrastructure at freight depots and HGV facilities when they are new or substantially renovated. This amendment would future-proof the logistics infrastructure by embedding EV readiness into the design and permitting process. This supports depots and warehouses to be ready for the transition. Depot charging, as I said, is the preferred option where possible for operators as it allows trucks to charge while at a natural stopping point, not requiring additional stops to recharge in transit, which can also leave cargo vulnerable to theft. It also reduces future retrofitting costs and planning delays by integrating charging requirements from the outset.
Amendment 67 is about the prioritisation of electricity grid connections for EV infrastructure. It tackles a major barrier to infrastructure rollout: delays in grid connection approvals. Some fleet operators may face up to a 15-year wait for a grid connection to meet their need for electric infrastructure, severely hampering a willingness to invest. This amendment recognises the strategic importance of logistics infrastructure for national supply chain security and decarbonisation.
Finally, Amendment 66 is about placing a duty on local authorities to produce a local EV charging infrastructure plan to assess the demand and need for EV charging infrastructure in their area, including both private and commercial vehicles. This will ensure a comprehensive understanding of need to focus efforts. Local authorities are critical to the rollout of EV infrastructure, but often lack a co-ordinated or strategic plan. This duty empowers them to take a proactive role while ensuring consistency across regions.
The amendment would ensure local accountability and planning for EV infrastructure deployment, aligning with national decarbonisation targets. Importantly, it establishes a recurring review cycle every three years to ensure that plans are responsive to evolving demand and technology. So this package of amendments would make a huge difference to supporting the transition to electric vehicles. I look forward to the Minister’s response to these issues and all the amendments. I beg to move.
Lord Lansley (Con)
My Lords, I support the noble Baroness, Lady Pidgeon, who I thought admirably set out the importance of the case. Frankly, we are only a decade away from the point where we intend that all the new cars that are to be bought are to be electric vehicles. As she rightly said, something approaching 40% of the people who we expect in future to buy cars are in premises that do not have charging facilities, and we want to enable that to happen. It is all part of the green energy transition that we want to support. So I very much support everything that she said and I hope that we can find a solution.
As far as I can see, the clause to which this amendment refers intends to support the process of adding public charge points to the road architecture but does not necessarily allow individual householders to be able to find the appropriate cross-pavement charging solutions for this. My noble friend Lord Lucas has an amendment in this group the purpose of which is to give permitted development rights for this. I know that the Government will say, “Well, permitted development rights relate to the curtilage of one’s own premises, they do not extend out into the pavement for this purpose”. But I hope the spirit of this debate might be that we all agree on what we want to achieve—the question is what the best way is to achieve it.
I suggest to the Minister that one way we might look at this is to look at Section 50 of the New Roads and Street Works Act, which is about the process of applying for a street works licence. This clause is intended to enable those who have a street works licence to access the necessary works in the street. As the noble Baroness said, that is an expensive solution for an individual householder and not likely to be an easy route. The question to the Minister is whether we might actually find, as he is in the business today of streamlining applications, whether we can streamline applications for street works licences for individual householders, or groups of householders, in order for them to get a street works licence by what is effectively a deemed consent, rather than having to make individual applications. It is a bit like an assumption that the licence will be granted, save if there are particular exceptions or objections. That might get us to the point where householders or groups of householders can get the cross-pavement charging solutions that they require—and I think that it is urgent that we make that happen. So I hope that it is something that we can progress during the course of this Bill.
I will raise just one other point, which is about the green energy transition and the amendments relating to HGVs. I ask that we not only look at electric charging points for HGVs but recognise that HGVs—mentioned by my noble friend Lord Naseby earlier—can, very readily and unlike many other road vehicles, use hydrogen cost-effectively as a solution. But they need a network. My Japanese friends have told me that Japan is creating a network of hydrogen refuelling points for its HGV fleet. The Japanese are orders of magnitude ahead of us on this.
Lord Lucas (Con)
My Lords, I have Amendment 57C in this group, which proposes some alternative ways of solving the same problem, so I do not propose to go into it in great depth. The point of this debate is that this is something we should be moving to find a solution to because, although it us not particularly simple, it is not particularly difficult, either.
Many of us have come across simple cross-pavement charging arrangements, which people seem to be installing ad hoc. It would be a good idea if this became something that was regularised, because we want the street to be a properly controlled environment. On the other hand, we do not want to make it expensive or difficult for an individual householder to obtain what we intend to be a general provision. But, if we are looking at a system where a lot of people have this facility, we should also be looking at how we are going to manage parking in this space. There is not much good in having an electric charging facility if someone else has gone on holiday and left their van in the space you need to charge your vehicle. An efficient use of an electric charging system is that it is used by more than one person, so how will we enable householders to allow other people to charge in that space?
Neither of these are things with instant solutions, but, if we are looking ahead to a time where we all have electric vehicles—particularly people who live in flats or other arrangements where the parking outside the building is not going to be sufficient—how will we provide that? Can we provide it in a way which is better than the one we have at the moment, where, for one reason or another, mostly because it is provided by people who have no personal interest in the facility, the prices paid by people for on-street charging are very high? If someone has installed it for their own use, they are much less motivated to charge a huge price for someone else to use it. They are much more likely to say that any margin is a good margin. So I very much hope that we can look at democratising on-street charging. I am not saying it is easy, but I am saying it is something we need to make progress with.
Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)
My Lords, as the noble Baroness, Lady Pidgeon, said, my noble friend Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb signed a number of amendments in this group, so while noble Lords will know that I do not normally speak on transport, I am speaking on my noble friend’s behalf this afternoon.
I begin with the very interesting comment of the noble Lord, Lord Lucas: the efficient use of a charger would mean it being used by more than one person. I would go rather further than that and say that what we want is an efficient use of cars: them being used by more than one person. The practical reality, of course, is that most cars spend the vast amount of their time stationary, occupying public space when they are parked on the road. Coming to an arrangement is where Amendment 66, tabled by the noble Lady Baroness, Lady Pidgeon, comes in, requiring
“local planning authorities in England to publish and regularly update a three-year electric vehicle charging infrastructure plan”.
That charging infrastructure plan would ideally very much look at that car club kind of model, which could potentially free up large amounts of space in our cities to be put to much better use than simply being occupied by a stationary vehicle 96% of the time—that is the last figure I saw of the amount of time that cars are stationary.
It should be noted that my noble friend did not sign any of the cross-pavement charging solutions. I know that Caroline Russell, the Green London Assembly member, would not forgive me if I did not make the point that, whatever we say about charging across the pavement, the first priority has to be pedestrians, particularly vulnerable pedestrians. We must make sure that anything that is installed or allowed does not create even greater difficulties, on what is already a very difficult streetscape on many occasions, for pedestrians, particularly vulnerable pedestrians, with wheelchairs, buggies et cetera. I note, perhaps declaring an interest, that when I was in Camden I would regularly try not to trip over the electric cable that my boss at the time trailed out of his house and across the pavement out to his car on the street. Because he was my boss, I was not quite allowed to do anything about it.
I want to focus mostly on Amendments 64 and 67, which are about heavy goods vehicles. This is a crucial issue for the environment and for public health. At the moment, fewer than 1% of new HGVs sold are electric, and there are 500,000 HGVs in the British fleet. At the moment, they are emitting the equivalent of 20 megatonnes of CO2 equivalent per year—the same as 2 million homes. They are also particularly bad in terms of emissions of nitrogen oxides and particulate matter, which have very significant impacts on public health. That tends to particularly strike in poorer, more disadvantaged areas—think about the homes along busy main roads, which tend to be where people who already have poorer health live. There is also the point that EVs are much quieter, which has significant public health impacts, and they are also better to drive. One of the things we have in terms of HGVs is an ageing driving population, and something that is easier to drive is a significant issue there.
I also note that the Government currently have a plug-in truck grant, with a discount for those who purchase them of up to £25,000. There is a push there, and the Government are spending money on it, but what is lacking at the moment is the general charging infrastructure, and these two amendments seek to have a programme and to make sure that when new depots and other infrastructure is being built, they are covered. I note that at the moment there is still an issue about the speed of charging, but megawatt charging is on the way. When we come to later amendments that my noble friend also signed, we also have to think about the infrastructure of distribution of electricity, to make sure that it is able to cater to that very heavy demand. I think there are very strong arguments here for a concerted, planned and organised approach. What we have now is extremely ad hoc, and in far too many cases we are seeing people literally trailing a cord across the pavement, which is a really bad idea for all kinds of reasons.
Earl Russell (LD)
My Lords, the fact that there are so many amendments on the issue of electric vehicles and electric HGVs shows, to my mind, that the Government have slightly missed a trick in not using the Bill as an opportunity to do more to roll out EVs and EV lorries and small vans, and on door-to-door delivery mechanisms, particularly as the targets and the timelines are coming up so quickly.
I hope the amendment will cause the Government to reflect on that and that more progress can be made in this Bill, because it is a real opportunity. It would be remiss of the Government not to seize it, because it lies at the heart of what they are trying to do in the stated purposes of the Bill. I very much welcome the amendments put forward by my noble friend Lady Pidgeon. I will speak particularly to Amendments 57 and 58, but I generally support all the amendments in this group.
Private cars are responsible for some 13% of the UK’s total CO2 emissions—some 60.2 million tonnes of CO2 equivalent in 2023. They are the largest single source within the transport sector, which as a whole is responsible for around 30% of our emissions. Road vehicles, including cars, make up the vast majority of them. Emissions from cars have been declining since 2005, but we still have a long way to go if we are to hit our climate targets, and the time we have to make these changes is fast running out.
The take-up of electric cars is, thankfully, growing. As of mid-2025, around 4% of the approximately 34 million registered cars on UK roads are EVs, totalling about 1.3 million. This goes up to about 7% if we include hybrid vehicles. The Climate Change Committee has been clear that we have further to go and need to do more. Rolling out EVs and making them affordable and practical is a key part of our pathway to net zero. We need to work together as politicians to make sure that we can overcome all the practical obstacles we have heard about, including the cost of affording the car in the first place. We need to make sure that, when people own these electric cars, they can afford to charge them and get the benefits that come only from being able to do so via their home charging points—at night and on a proper tariff that saves them money. If we do not do those things, people will just not make that transition away from petrol and diesel cars in time. We need to make those pull factors work for people. It is really important.
We have seen price reductions in the vehicles, increased government support and the continuing rollout of national charging infrastructure. Taken together, all these measures are helping to change consumers’ choices. We welcome the other efforts that the Government are making: the UK now has 73,000 public charging points—that is welcome—and the charging network rollout is helping to overcome some of the real fears with these things. The projection is that we could have 25 million EVs on UK roads by 2040. The biggest barriers to the take-up of EVs commonly cited are a lack of charging infrastructure, range anxiety—although that technology is improving—and the higher costs of running the cars. This is what we have talked about—making sure that people can plug them in at home.
We really welcome these amendments. It is not good enough that people are facing £3,000 of costs to get this planning stuff done and are waiting 12 to 15 months simply to run a cable across the pavement. As my noble friend said, 40% of people do not have a driveway at home, so cannot do this. This really needs to happen.
I also welcome all the amendments on HGV charging. This is particularly important for last-mile delivery and smaller-scale vans so that we can continue to tackle the scourge of air pollution, which is so damaging to our young people in particular and is such a radical cause of asthma. Luckily, we are beginning to see changes in that space.
We welcome these amendments and we think this really needs to happen. We encourage the Government to go away and think about how they can do more to bring about a joined-up policy on these issues through this Bill. There is more that can be done through the proposed legislation to help bring about the changes that we all want.
Lord Moynihan (Con)
My Lords, I echo many of the comments that have been made, and I strongly welcome the intention from the noble Baroness, Lady Pidgeon, in bringing this matter to the Committee towards the end of the day and considering the issue in depth through a range of amendments. She was admirably supported by my noble friend Lord Lansley. I think the Government will have taken on board the widespread enthusiasm for doing everything possible to move forward against some of the serious practical difficulties that exist.
Lord Moylan (Con)
My Lords, I find myself somewhat out of temper with many noble Lords who have spoken. It would give me great pleasure to be able to say that I heartily swung behind them. I do so to some extent, but not very heartily—and with some difficulties and problems, some of which have been extremely well set out by my noble friend Lord Moynihan. I have three amendments in this group—Amendments 57A, 57B and 71B—but I do not intend speak to them in detail. Rather, I will draw, to some extent, on my own experience. My noble friend Lord Lucas said that, although this is not simple, it is not difficult either. However, then he went on to explain that, in practice, it really is very difficult.
At one stage, I was in charge of the roads in Kensington and Chelsea, one of the places in London with the greatest demand for on-street parking, because very few people have an off-street place to park their car. It is not terribly different in many other parts of London, especially inner London. I was approached by a Member of your Lordships’ House, who asked me whether it would be possible for the council to install an electric vehicle charging point outside his house. As it happens, we had a programme of installing such points at the council’s expense. I said that there was no difficulty at all, and that, if he wanted it, I could put it forward and it could easily happen. Not everybody welcomed electric vehicle charging points then, so it was nice to have a resident who did. However, the charging point would of course not be for his exclusive use. For him, that was not good at all; that was not at all what was wanted—in fact, his enthusiasm for the idea waned immediately.
The discussion we have had today more or less envisages that groups of families or houses will have clusters of spaces more or less outside their front door, which they may have paid for and which will be for their exclusive use. I am afraid that, if any elected local authority in London—and, I suspect, in many other cities—did that on a sufficient scale, they would eventually be lynched from the nearest lamp-post. Local authorities know that perfectly well, because this is politically a very difficult thing to do.
It also raises an issue of principle: to what extent should we encourage what is in fact the privatisation of a public asset? It is after all the public who pay for and maintain the highway, yet what is envisaged is that people will have the exclusive use of part of it for themselves. That will create very severe difficulties, which have been raised but have not been fully addressed by noble Lords in the course of this debate.
There is another point. If one puts an electric vehicle charging point next to the carriageway, the tendency—although this is not entirely true—is to mark off the bay and write, “Electric Vehicles Only”. I see that my successors in Kensington and Chelsea are not quite doing that; they are putting up signs—this might actually be more effective—politely asking, “If your car is not electric, would you mind awfully not parking next to this lamp-post?” That might achieve as much as an outright ban, because sometimes being polite to people gets their compliance more than anything else.
While we still have a large number of people, mostly people on lower incomes, who need access to an internal combustion engine car, the threat arises that they will be increasingly squeezed out of access to the public highway they are paying for in favour of middle-class people in their Teslas. It is not simply the optics but the morality of this that is highly questionable.
Some of the things that have been suggested should be done. Nothing seems more obvious to me than the suggestion from the noble Baroness, Lady Pidgeon, that it should be mandatory for freight depos to have electric charging points in them that can be used by electric HGVs. That sort of thing should be happening. She gave other examples of a similar character, so not everything is difficult. When you come to that interaction, particularly of cars with the pavement edge and where people park them, there are serious difficulties not only of practical local politics but of social equity.
It is very easy to think that because something is a good idea, we should all push for it, make it happen and just shove the obstacles to one side. I do not mean this to be excessively critical of the noble Baroness, Lady Pidgeon, but I am very struck by her amendment that says we must prioritise grid electricity supply for electric charging infrastructure. “Prioritise” means to choose, to say that one thing is more important than another. My question is: prioritise over what? Prioritise over electricity supply to a new housing estate, hospital or care home? Those questions do not just vanish because one has enthusiasm for a subject; they are real choices. I think the Minister is already going a little too far in the Bill for what the public will bear. That is the thrust and gravamen of the amendments I have tabled.
Certain noble Lords, including, I regret to say, certain noble friends, have gone perhaps even further than the Minister. I am not following them in that direction. I shall do my best between now and Report to reason with them, as we normally do in the Conservative Party, so that we may present a united front of common sense and reason to this House when we return to this debate.
Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)
My Lords, follow that. The noble Lord says he is out of temper; I am out of energy, so I am going to be as brief as I can be.
The general tone of the discussion was very positive, stimulated by the amendments tabled by the noble Baroness and the noble Lords, Lord Lucas and Lord Liddle—who was here earlier and has hopefully reached Preston by now. It is getting past Preston that is the difficulty on Avanti. That entirely accords with the Government’s intention, which is to promote the use of zero-emission vehicles. I particularly thank the noble Baroness, Lady Pidgeon, for her introduction, and I recognise the passion with which she has spoken on this matter—that too is entirely in accordance with the Government’s desire to move forward.
Other contributions have raised some choices about the form of zero-emission power, especially for HGVs and hydrogen. The noble Lord, Lord Moynihan, raised, in a slightly more positive way than the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, some issues that need to be resolved in these matters as we move forward.
The Government are working with local authorities to promote cross-pavement solutions, including the recently announced £25 million grant fund to encourage the installation of cross-pavement channels, plus published guidance for local authorities on this technology and charge point grant funding for residents. We recognise that cross-pavement solutions will not be suitable for all scenarios. Local highway authorities are responsible for deciding on each application, considering the needs and opinions of residents. The noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, raised the issue of other users of the pavements who need a safe and level surface, of which we should be very mindful. Local authorities will have to take account of this because, as the noble Lord, Lord Moynihan, remarked, they will be held accountable if people fall over or sustain injury or damage in any way. This is an important issue of which the Government are well aware, and that is why we launched a call for evidence on this very matter on 6 May this year; we are currently considering responses.
Baroness Pidgeon (LD)
I thank the Minister for his detailed response and thank all Members who have spoken on this group. All but one of us agree on what we want to achieve. Although we understand that it can be complex, there must be a way to streamline things to make it easier, cheaper and quicker for cross-pavement solutions to help people transition to electric vehicles. I still believe that simplifying the process can be achieved through this planning Bill.
We see what happens today: either people are not able move to electric vehicles, or we have cables draped out of windows, across pavements—maybe with a mat over the cable if you are lucky so that it is not a trip hazard. We need to find a way forward. The Prime Minister committed to it in the last couple of weeks. I hope that we can continue to have dialogue on this before Report. On that basis, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Lord Gascoigne
“Water infrastructure project licencesOmit sub-paragraph (a) of regulation 4(3) of the Water Industry (Specified Infrastructure Projects) (English Undertakers) Regulations 2013 (S.I. 2013/1582).”Member’s explanatory statement
This new clause would amend the Water Industry (Specified Infrastructure Projects) (English Undertakers) Regulations 2013 to remove the “size and complexity” test for the awarding of a licence for a water infrastructure project, meaning that projects would be considered on value for money alone.
Lord Gascoigne (Con)
My Lords, the Minister said in the last group that he was running out of energy, so I reassure him that he is not hallucinating: I am not my noble friend Lady Coffey. However, I am moving Amendment 59 on her behalf. I refer noble Lords to my interests on the register and declare that I am on the board of the Conservative Environment Network—although I speak completely independently of it.
I am sure that whenever I stand to speak, many of my colleagues on this side and on the Front Bench think that what I have to say is full of excrement. I am pleased to satisfy them today because when it comes to sewerage, it is not often that it can be associated with good news. But Tideway is the good news story in the UK. It was officially opened by His Majesty the King earlier this year, and London’s super-sewer is now fully connected and has, to date, captured over 7 million tonnes of sewage, which would historically have spilled into the River Thames. That is enough storm sewage to fill Wembley one and a half times. While I was waiting today, I was trying to figure out how many times it would fill this Chamber, but I will leave that to brainier folks than I.
This super-sewer is a marvel of modern engineering. It spans the length of London from Acton in the west right through to the Beckton sewage treatment works in the east, passing under iconic London landmarks as it goes. Having taken many years to build, it will continue to serve Londoners for generations to come, helping to protect our precious natural environment from sewage at the same time.
However, ambitious infrastructure projects such as Tideway do not come cheap. That is why, in 2013, the specified infrastructure projects regulations were created. I do not want to go too much into the weeds of this but these regulations made it possible for the Tideway project to be paid for using a novel financing mechanism. This reduced the political and financial risk for Tideway’s investors, reduced the cost of capital, and spread the costs over multiple generations of Londoners who will benefit from that infrastructure. The incurred debts are repaid over the long term by Thames Water bill payers, much like a mortgage.
Before work started, it was estimated that the project would cost customers between £20 and £25 per year, and that was in 2014-15 prices. The cost has remained well within that range since, which in itself is a remarkable achievement. As I said at the beginning of my remarks, this makes Tideway a good news story.
Lord Lucas (Con)
My Lords, I have Amendment 61 in this group. Its purpose follows on from what my noble friend Lord Gascoigne said: namely, that we have not built a new reservoir for a long time. The intention of the amendment is to give the Government the power to change that—to make things happen.
I would hope that the existence of such a power would mean that things happen anyway, but we need the ability to shift things onwards and to get out of the situation we are building ourselves into. We want to put in another 1.5 million houses but have no way of supplying them with water, particularly in some bits of the country that would actually welcome additional houses. It is important to get over whatever the blockage is and it would be a good idea to give the Government a bit of dynamite to do this.
I am delighted that Tideway has come in on budget. Perhaps the noble Lord could introduce whoever is responsible for that to whoever is responsible for the doors here.
Baroness Grender (LD)
My Lords, as we consider the challenge of water security, we all feel the urgency. Demand is rising, our climate is changing and not a single new major reservoir has been completed in over three decades, as we have already heard. Yet pursuing a one-size-fits-all solution rarely serves us well, especially regarding water storage and distribution. I particularly thank the noble Lords, Lord Gascoigne and Lord Lucas, for inspiring this discussion and debate.
There is consensus on building new reservoirs, but this cannot be done in isolation. Proper investment from water companies is essential, particularly in tackling leaks and improving demand management so that we use water more wisely, even as we boost supply. This is not either/or; it must be both. Yesterday, in the Statement regarding the Independent Water Commission, the full implication of the broken infrastructure that has led to so much water going to waste was laid down very clearly.
It is tempting to focus on grand, large-scale projects, but we should make space for smaller, locally led interventions that reflect the needs and fabric of our communities. Alongside ambitious infrastructure, a programme of carefully sited small and medium reservoirs, delivered in partnership with farmers, landowners and councils, can speed up progress, reduce environmental barriers and, most importantly, engage local people. We have heard not just from experts but from communities themselves that local schemes such as Slow the Flow projects, natural dams and catchment-based storage bring added benefit for flood mitigation and biodiversity, not just water supply. These nature-friendly solutions must be championed alongside larger reservoirs.
However local schemes alone are not enough. We must pair them with strategic national thinking. Regions with water surpluses should be able to support those facing deficit—a modern, integrated network for water transfer. I ask noble Lords to bear with me, because this is a little complicated. The National Infrastructure Commission, which was replaced by the National Infrastructure and Service Transformation Authority in April 2025, was praised by the National Audit Office for its proposals, which constituted a positive cost-benefit case for establishing a network of strategic transfers of water—a transfer system that enables us to balance supply across the country, smoothing out regional disparities and providing resilience against drought and flooding. The recent Commons Library briefing, Future Water Resources, highlights several proposed intercompany transfers, such as Thames Water to Southern Water—120 megalitres a day—demonstrating that active steps can be and are already being undertaken. Alongside large and small reservoirs, these transfer schemes are truly integral to future-proofing our water supply and reducing the risk of shortages.
Turning to the amendments before us, Amendment 59, in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Coffey, proposes removing the size and complexity test for new water infrastructure to focus solely on the value for money test. But, as Ofwat’s current regulations set out, that test ensures that projects do not threaten a water company’s fundamental service to customers. Given the sector’s current state, we should tread carefully before removing this safeguard. A more prudent path may be to consider government co-funding models, such as that now being used for nuclear, if projects exceed what companies can realistically deliver and are in jeopardy of providing a poor or totally broken service—or further broken, should I say—to consumers.
Amendment 61, in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, would hand powers to the Secretary of State to dictate timelines and, crucially, permit bypassing planning controls. While there is much in the amendment that we read with interest, I worry in particular about proposed new subsection (3)(b), which is a significant centralisation of power. Yes, there has been an unacceptable delay in reservoir construction, but concentrating such powers is unlikely to foster better outcomes. Proper local engagement, as we all made very clear in our Second Reading speeches, and scrutiny need to be balanced and are vital partners to each other.
Amendment 62, tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh of Pickering, aligns more closely with the objectives on these Benches. I look forward to hearing the Minister’s response to the compelling arguments that were made on the noble Baroness’s behalf.
Above all, we must ensure that interventions, whether mighty reservoirs or smaller, community-scale schemes, work for people and for nature, and are delivered with transparency, accountability and genuine urgency. I hope the Minister will clarify the Government’s support for small reservoirs and for a robust water transfer network, so that every region and every customer in every region can feel protected, valued and heard.
Lord Lansley (Con)
My Lords, I intervene in this group to flag up a couple of points. I thank my noble friend Lord Gascoigne for introducing Amendment 59, which makes an interesting point.
In response to the noble Baroness, Lady Grender, the size and complexity threshold test is about assessing whether an infrastructure project is of such size or complexity that the water undertaking cannot manage it or, if it attempts to manage it, it might prejudice its financial ability to meet its obligations to customers. Actually, under current circumstances, we have reached the point where many water undertakers may not have the capacity to undertake infrastructure projects in the way we expected in the past. We know that there was a substantial period when they did manage investment and they increased investment in the water industry, but in more recent years they have not done so and there is considerable risk to their ability to undertake the infrastructure projects we are looking for.
We should not be surprised that that is the case. Take Anglian Water, which is not among the most prejudiced of the water companies at the moment. I was very interested to attend a presentation about Anglian Water’s proposals for the Fens reservoir. It was fascinating, positive and optimistic. Then, in response to a question, Anglian Water mentioned that it is not going to own it. Somebody else will own it, and we do not know who.
So we have to be aware that there is substantial uncertainty about how we will fund much of this infrastructure, but the most important thing was mentioned by my noble friend Lord Gascoigne in moving Amendment 59. The amendment is about which projects should go out to competitive tender. That is all it really tells us. The answer ought to be: if it will secure value for money—indeed, if there is potential for independent financing which, as he said, can be more cost-effectively delivered, and we know that the risk premium on the water undertakings themselves is making their borrowing more expensive than what may well be available through other sources of financing —then we should go down that path. The size and complexity threshold test is unhelpful, gets in the way and creates serious impediments to getting on with infrastructure projects.
Of course, the amendment is not deliverable. It does not deliver the objective in its own right. One would have to substantially change Section 36 and other sections of the Water Act 1991 to achieve the objective, because the regulation derives its power from the primary legislation. We need to look at the Water Act 1991 in substance to achieve that on Report.
What my noble friend Lord Lucas’s amendment says is helpful. When one looks at what it is that governs the delivery of reservoirs, as far as I can tell the Reservoirs Act 1975 basically says that it ought to be done by an appropriately approved construction engineer. That is pretty much it. There is a great deal that should be added to what is required in order to secure reservoir development.
I have two other points to make. The first is that Amendment 62 from the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh, raises a more significant point than the amendment itself says. We are aiming to secure what we need in terms of water supply. I remind noble Lords of my interests in the Cambridgeshire Development Forum and the Oxfordshire Development Forum, which of course means that two reservoirs—the Fens reservoir and the Lincolnshire reservoir—are relevant, as well as the Grand Union Canal project and related activity to try to supply the east of England. We are in a position at the moment where, by 2050, we will have a deficit in water supply equivalent to a third of our present use. That is the degree of stress that we are looking at and therefore need demand management to be substantially improved and the supply to be improved.
Lord Jamieson (Con)
My Lords, I will address these important amendments concerning water infrastructure, each of which touches on the future resilience and efficiency of our water sector. These amendments reflect a shared desire to ensure that the regulatory framework keeps pace with the demands of modern infrastructure delivery while safeguarding value for money and service quality for consumers.
Amendment 59, tabled by my noble friend Lady Coffey, proposes to remove the size and complexity test currently embedded in water regulations. This is a timely and helpful amendment, particularly in the light of the Cunliffe review published on Monday. The review highlights that, under specified infrastructure projects regulations, this test can apply only where projects are of such scale and complexity that they risk threatening the water company’s ability to provide services and value to customers. The Government have recently signalled their intention to relax this criterion. In this context, will the Minister clarify when the Government intend to relax it by? How will they do so? Could the opportunity presented by my noble friend Lady Coffey’s amendment be used to implement such a relaxation? We need a regulatory environment that is more flexible and better suited to facilitating timely delivery of much-needed infrastructure projects without unnecessary procedural hurdles that can cause delays and cost overruns.
Amendments 61 and 62 relate to reservoir construction and regulation. We recognise the importance of the delivery of new reservoirs, and we acknowledge their vital role in enhancing water security and supporting our long-term infrastructure goals. While I would like to support my noble friend Lord Lucas on his Amendment 61, we have a concern about whether introducing new, possibly burdensome regulation is necessary or whether it would risk creating delays or have unintended consequences.
In contrast, Amendment 62 tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh of Pickering, seeks to deregulate low-hazard reservoirs. We believe that this approach could streamline processes where the risk is minimal, allowing resources to be focused on the highest-risk infrastructure.
Water infrastructure is a critical national priority. In the light of these differing proposals, I ask the Minister to give the Committee a clear answer on the Government’s position. How do the Government intend new reservoirs to be built? What regulatory approach will be taken to balance safety, efficiency and the urgent need for water infrastructure? I look forward to the Minister’s response on these important matters.
Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)
My Lords, it was of course a pleasure to hear the noble Lord, Lord Gascoigne, introduce these amendments. He referred to the success of the Thames Tideway project, and there were a number of references to who did it. The person in charge of that project is Andy Mitchell, who has done an extraordinarily good job, so it is quite right that his name should be referred to next to the project itself.
The amendments seek to insert new clauses specific to water infrastructure. Amendment 59 tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Coffey, seeks to remove the size and complexity test from the specified infrastructure projects regulations, known as SIPR. The Government are resisting this amendment because we have already committed to reviewing the SIPR framework. That was set out in the Chancellor’s New Approach to Ensure Regulators and Regulation Support Growth policy paper, published in March 2025, which confirmed that Defra will amend the SIPR framework to help major water projects proceed more quickly and deliver better value for bill payers. It is important that the planned review goes ahead so that any changes are properly informed by engagement with regulators and industry. Removing the size and complexity threshold now would pre-empt that process and risk creating a regime that does not reflect the sector’s diverse needs or long-term priorities.
We will continue to work closely with stakeholders to ensure that the specified infrastructure projects regime remains targeted and proportionate and delivers value for customers. The noble Lord, Lord Jamieson, asked by when this review will be completed, and I can assure him that it will be completed in this calendar year. I therefore thank the noble Baroness, Lady Coffey, for tabling the amendment, but I kindly ask the noble Lord, Lord Gascoigne, to withdraw it on her behalf.
Amendment 61 tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, seeks to introduce enabling regulations for milestones and enforcement for various delivery phases of all water undertakers’ reservoir proposals. The Government have already taken urgent steps to improve water security. This involves action to improve water efficiency and to reduce water company leaks alongside investing in new supply infrastructure, including new reservoirs and water transfers. We are taking action to speed up the planning process for new reservoirs. For example, we recently revised the National Policy Statement for Water Resources Infrastructure to make clear that the need for the proposed reservoirs in the water companies’ statutory management plans has been demonstrated.
Ofwat’s price review final settlement in December 2024 for the water sector has also unlocked record investment, around £104 billion of spending by water companies between 2025 and 2030. This includes £8 billion of investment to enhance water supply and manage demand, such as enabling the development of nine new reservoirs. As part of that, leakages will reduce by 17%. We have taken steps with Ofwat to improve water company oversight by increasing reporting and assurance requirements on companies’ delivery, improving protection for customers from companies failing to deliver the improvements by returning the funding to customers, and encouraging companies to deliver on time by applying time-based incentives.
The Government, as the Committee has already heard, also commissioned Sir Jon Cunliffe to lead the Independent Water Commission, to which the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, referred. It is a once-in-a-generation opportunity to modernise the water industry and deliver resilient water supplies. The Government are grateful to Sir Jon and the commission for their work and will carefully consider their findings and recommendations, including those that the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, referred to.
We will provide a full government response to the commission’s report in the autumn, setting out our priorities and timelines. The Government will introduce root and branch reform to revolutionise the water industry. Working in partnership with water companies, investors and communities, the Government will introduce a new water reform Bill to modernise the entire system so that it is fit for decades to come. I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, is therefore reassured that the proposed new clause is unnecessary, and I kindly ask him not to move his amendment.
Amendment 62, introduced by the noble Lord, Lord Gascoigne, on behalf of the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh, is not necessary. It is a probing amendment to encourage the consideration of measures to facilitate the construction of small reservoirs. The Government are already encouraging building both small and large reservoirs. That improves resilience to climate change, sustains food production and water security and supports economic growth.
Reservoir safety legislation does not prevent new reservoirs being constructed but does ensure that structures are well built and maintained. The streamlining of the planning system will make them quicker and easier to build in the future. However, it is important that new reservoirs do not pose flood risks for local communities by being built in the wrong locations and that existing reservoir dams are structurally safe.
Reservoirs that store water above ground level pose risks to life, property, businesses and the environment, and could cause economic disruption to local communities if the dam structure were to fail. These risks are managed through reservoir safety regulations. Reservoirs that store water below ground level do not pose the same risks and so are out of scope of the reservoir safety regulations. Current advice to farmers and landowners who wish to build reservoirs is to consider options for non-raised water storage. The Government intend to consult in the autumn on proposals to improve reservoir safety regulations, including making the requirements more tailored to the level of hazard posed and bringing some smaller raised reservoirs in scope. These proposals do not alter the need for more reservoirs, nor prevent new ones being built. They are to ensure that reservoir dams are structurally sound and that flood risks for communities down stream are effectively managed.
I appreciate the interests of noble Lords in tabling these amendments. However, for the reasons I have set out, I kindly ask the noble Lord to withdraw the amendment.
Lord Gascoigne (Con)
My Lords, I am conscious that the hour is late and already the two Chief Whips are conspiring to tell us that we need to rattle through.
Lord Gascoigne (Con)
Exactly—that is just what my Chief Whip says.
I am grateful to the Minister and everyone who has participated. I obviously cannot do justice to what my noble friend Lady Coffey would say on Amendment 59 in this group, but it has been a good discussion, albeit short.
I think it was my noble friend Lord Lucas who made the correct observation that this is not just about water infrastructure in itself. It is about the importance of it linking into housing and the need to build more homes. My noble friend Lord Lansley made a very good point about the Cunliffe review as a whole and the need to have a broader discussion about what was said in that review. I am sure that will happen.
I am conscious that we are heading into Recess. I am grateful for the many brainy points that my noble friend makes about the issues within the regulations and this legislation. For now, on behalf of my noble friend, I beg leave to withdraw this amendment.
Lord Gascoigne
“Guidance on planting along highways(1) The Secretary of State must, within six months of the day on which this Act is passed, issue guidance for developers, local planning authorities and other relevant parties on the planting of trees, shrubs, plants or grass alongside highways constructed as part of—(a) any new transport infrastructure;(b) any other development for which consent has been granted.(2) Guidance issued under this section must outline how licence conditions under section 142(5) of the Highways Act 1980 (licence to plant trees, shrubs, etc., in a highway) are to be applied and complied with in a way which—(a) is not unreasonably burdensome on applicants for licences, and(b) does not prevent or discourage the planting of trees, shrubs, plants or grass,and must provide model licence conditions, standard designs, and planting palettes.”Member's explanatory statement
This new Clause would require the Secretary of State to publish guidance on the planting of trees and other plants alongside new highways.
Lord Gascoigne (Con)
My Lords, yet again I have the two Chief Whips staring at me. I will be brief, but also, I hope, very cheery—this will be a cheery discussion.
Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)
My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the evident enthusiasm of the noble Lord, Lord Gascoigne, and I thank him for moving this amendment.
With an amendment with the headline of planting trees next to new roads, I have to begin by pointing out that, if you are talking about highways and so on, we should not be building new roads. All too often, we are destroying wonderful pieces of nature. I am thinking of standing beside a wonderful oak tree, which would have been a sapling when Elizabeth I was on the Throne, that was threatened by the Norwich link road, Western Link. Luckily, it appears to have been saved by barbastelle bats. Sometimes the bats do win.
Nonetheless, I very much support this amendment, and the noble Lord, Lord Gascoigne, has made the case for it strongly. I declare an interest, as we are talking about old times, as one of those campaigning to save Sheffield’s trees, which helped to highlight to the nation the benefits of street trees and how important they are to human health and well-being. That is what we are talking about here, as well as biodiversity and nature.
Given the time, I will say just one other thing. I think the noble Lord alluded to this, but it is worth stressing that when we think about trees and other plantings, we think that it is good for the trees, but it is absolutely crucial for other wildlife. We should be ensuring that roads are, as much as they can possibly be, wildlife corridors. Birds are the obvious thing to think about here, but many noble Lords will be aware of the phrase “insectageddon”. The populations at the base of our food web have been collapsing, and plantings beside roads and in urban areas should provide some sort of refuge and restoration here.
I referred previously to the fact that we are not meeting the legal target to reverse the decline in nature by 2030, which of course is in the Environment Act. I will just say one final thing. Noble Lords might be thinking that I am getting fairly small with insects, but I also want to focus on the importance of a rich microbial and fungal world. Just yesterday, the Society for the Protection of Underground Networks produced some really important work pointing out that very few fungal biodiversity hotspots are in protected areas, and we need to have a healthy environment. We need to think about all elements of life in the web in which all our bodies actually live. This is just a small step, but I think it is a very sensible and practical one.
Earl Russell (LD)
My Lords, I really appreciate this amendment being tabled and the manner and the style in which it was presented. I welcome the noble Lord’s comments and speeches in this space.
Amendment 60 requires guidance around the planting of trees on highways to be issued within six months of the Act coming into force. As the noble Lord said, this does not require great expense. We feel that it is a helpful, useful measure. I absolutely agree with the noble Lord that this is not about development versus nature. Actually, we need both, and both need to be conjoined and considered together, because we, as people who live in the new developments, who need to thrive and not just survive, need these things to work. They are better for all of us. They reduce health inequalities, they make us happier and healthier, and they make our lives more pleasant.
One example came to my mind on this: the work that was done on the upgrade to the A14 between Cambridge and Huntingdon, which opened in 2020. As part of the upgrade programme, 850,000 saplings were planted by the Highways Agency. Unfortunately, it was done in extreme heat and in poor soils, as a result of which three-quarters of the trees—roughly half a million—that the Highways Agency planted died. They are being replanted, at a cost of £2.9 million, which raises an issue about how we replant nature. Again, I do not want to go into Part 3, but there are obviously issues with trying to replicate nature or move nature from one place to another, and this is a very stark example of that.
Going beyond that, local communities really got involved in this area and I want to thank them, because people went out and planted trees themselves, cared for and nurtured them, and did a great job in trying to put right some of the mess. Some of the trees that were planted were the wrong types of trees; they did not have enough soil around them, so they dried out; the soil they were planted in was bad; the saplings were too young—generally it was not very well done and the trees that were planted were not cared for and nurtured. What tends to happen is that there is a concentration on numbers—it is a numbers game. Every party had a tree-planting commitment in its manifesto—“My tree-planting commitment is bigger than yours”—and that is not what we need. We need trees to be cared for and nurtured.
I suggest politely to the Government that they should focus not on numbers planted but the numbers in five years’ time. How many trees, five years after the planting, actually survive and are counted? If there are not enough, more planting should be done. Trees are really important. This is a valuable opportunity for the Government to look at the strategies and for us to have a broader look at how we do this. So I really welcome this amendment.
Lord Lucas (Con)
My Lords, I very much support my noble friend’s amendment and the speeches that have been made. Getting good guidance published makes a lot of difference. There are always reasons why a local developer or authority will not do what is best. One can hope that a big authority would have good practices; our big local authority has decided to mow all its wildflower verges in the middle of June—sigh.
Lord Moylan (Con)
My Lords, I am at risk of losing my carefully nurtured reputation as an environmentalist and a nature lover. This amendment was beautifully presented by my noble friend Lord Gascoigne, but perhaps somewhat extravagantly. We were told that having more trees would improve driving. Does anybody believe that? Just think what experiment you would have to conduct to be able to prove it.
Not every tree is as attractive as you might think. Right across the road from my front door, there is a mulberry tree. Most of the year it is survivable, but at the moment it is absolutely fatal. It is dropping its half-formed mulberries on the pavement, causing danger in every direction, as well as being terribly ugly. The householder was out today with a hose trying to sweep it off the pavement, I assume because he was worried about liability. Just around the corner we have some very fine plane trees in Queen’s Gate that must be 150 years old. They are aggressively pollarded. Why? It is because they suck so much water out of the clay that they cause subsidence in the houses adjacent. As it is the council’s liability if the street trees pull the houses down, to protect itself it pollards them aggressively to reduce water demand.
There is a right place for trees. Bedford Park in west London, built as a semi-rural extension, would look ridiculous without trees and of course must have them, but other fine Italianate terraces looking like palazzos are made ridiculous if you plant the odd sapling in the carriageway because you cannot fit it on the footway due to the voids under the pavement built to house coal. Everything must be judged very finely and at local level.
The idea here is that the source of wisdom on this should be a civil servant in MHCLG, producing guidance which includes, to my horror,
“standard designs, and planting palettes”.
What will that produce? It will be one ash, one poplar and one oak sapling—box ticked and that is the developer done. You will have the same trees planted in the same configuration in half the developments in the country. There are people who can produce guidance on trees, and I would encourage them to do so. There is a professional body representing local authority arboriculturists. People who really work with trees, know trees and have great affection for them have a great sensitivity to what is appropriate to plant in a particular location. Guidance from that source might be very sensible and valuable. I would encourage that, but not, I hope, box-ticking.
Let us have trees in the right places and remember that they are good in some places but bad in others. Let us have variety in the right place and perhaps fewer mulberry trees overhanging the footway, but let us not bureaucratise this with guidance from the ministry with little drawings.
Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)
I should declare that for the past year or so I have been working with the Horticultural Trades Association, which represents environmental horticulturists under the Industry and Parliament Trust scheme. The industry is very keen to improve the quality of planting. We have talked about housing, but I do not know if the noble Lord has seen, for example, the planting near warehouses or commercial estates. Far too often, there are one or two exotic species which have no value at all for wildlife. The Government could of course work with the industry and those experts to produce the guidance, so it would not just be them; it would be a co-operative effort.
Lord Moylan (Con)
That would be an indispensable approach, if this were to go ahead, but we are fundamentally forgetting local authorities and local planning departments in this. The arboriculturists to whom the noble Baroness refers are exactly the sort of people who should be involved and are the right source of information for this—more so than the Government. If the Government are to be involved, it should be at a very considerable distance from the whole process, offering encouragement, advice and light support rather than providing the guidance itself. Otherwise, I welcome everything else that my noble friend said and I am very happy to have a further discussion with him in due course.
Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)
I thank the noble Lord, Lord Gascoigne, for tabling this amendment. The Chief Whip on our side is no longer present, but I can hear him saying, “Get on with it”, so I shall.
I thank all noble Lords who have contributed to this discussion. The Government agree that planting schemes can mitigate the environmental impacts of new highways and make existing ones more pleasant. However, this amendment is not necessary as there is already relevant guidance on this matter, produced by a number of relevant stakeholders, that local highway authorities and others should have regard to. This includes the well-managed highways infrastructure code of practice, which provides guidance for local authorities on managing highway networks; the Design Manual for Roads and Bridges; the Manual for Streets; and local authorities’ own street adoption and street works guidance documents. Some local authorities go further and encourage local residents to look after street trees—including my own. When I am not in the Chamber until late at night, I am nurturing a small but growing tree in my locality by taking it a bucket of water every so often, and it will be a pleasure to do so this evening when we finish.
Planning applications for highway development under the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 are already subject to mandatory biodiversity net gain, and we are currently consulting on the application of biodiversity net gain for nationally significant infrastructure projects, with the aim of mitigating any environmental impact. Requiring additional or new guidance would be an administrative burden and could merely duplicate the guidance that already exists, so I kindly ask the noble Lord, Lord Gascoigne, to withdraw his amendment.
Lord Gascoigne (Con)
I am grateful to the Minister and everyone who participated in the debate; it started on a high then slowly descended. I have said many times in this Chamber that I massively respect the Minister, but I think he mentioned about five different sets of rules or guidance, and that is precisely why there should be some clear documentation that sets out the different issues and how to tackle them.
I am grateful to my own Back Benches, the Greens and the Lib Dems for their comments and support. The noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, raised the perfect point that this is also about wildlife, which is often accused or neglected, and the fact that we have the 2030 targets, which we should aim for and this can play a part in that.
I am conscious of the time, but there are various things I could say to my dear and good noble friend Lord Moylan. I will take him up on the offer to engage with him. I will make three very quick points. First, while trees do not improve your driving, it is a fact that having trees on streets slows down drivers in urban areas; someone made that observation in mainland Europe, where, sadly, they have more trees than we do. It therefore improves driving, even if it does not improve the quality of the driver.
Secondly, my noble friend mentioned the issues with his mulberry bushes. That is exactly why there should be guidance on new development—that is its purpose.
Finally, I was googling frantically what sort of tree my noble friend Lord Moylan could be. I cannot quite put my finger on it, but one that I found was the great white oak. I am told that it is big and majestic in many ways, but it is also quite stubborn. I say respectfully to my noble friend: please, let us have this journey; I will come and help him clean up his mulberry bush.
For now, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Baroness Pidgeon
“Provision of solar panels in new transport infrastructure(1) The Secretary of State must, by regulations, require that all new transport infrastructure projects requiring approval under any enactment make provision for the installation of solar panels where reasonably practicable.(2) The regulations must include—(a) criteria for determining when installation is reasonably practicable, including structural, environmental, and safety considerations;(b) minimum surface area requirements for solar panel coverage where practicable;(c) the types of transport infrastructure to which the requirement applies.(3) “Transport infrastructure” includes but is not limited to—(a) new or refurbished rail stations and rail lines,(b) new or refurbished bus stations and depots,(c) major road-building or upgrading projects, and(d) other public transport hubs.(4) Regulations under this section must be made by statutory instrument.(5) A statutory instrument containing regulations under this section is subject to annulment in pursuance of a resolution of either House of Parliament.”Member’s explanatory statement
This new clause would require the Secretary of State to mandate the installation of solar panels in the construction of new transport infrastructure where reasonably practicable, through regulations made by statutory instrument.
Baroness Pidgeon (LD)
I will speak briefly to the three amendments I have in this group.
Amendment 63 is about increasing solar panels on new transport infrastructure. This could include new or refurbished railway stations or rail lines, bus and tram stations and depots, major road building or upgrade projects, and other public transport hubs. As a country, we have so much to learn from others. For example, Switzerland has just started a new scheme of installing solar panels on the actual railways; PV panels will be rolled out like carpet between the tracks in one of their western cantons. Germany plans to install solar panels along motorways, tapping into 250,000 potential sites to boost renewable energy. France is trialling solar panels on its railway estate.
The European Commission, in a 2024 report, looked at the potential for the large-scale deployment of vertical solar panels on Europe’s major roads and railways. It concluded that the electricity generated from such PV installations would not only be cost-effective in electricity markets but serve as a viable alternative to fossil fuels in transportation. Tapping into solar PV energy along transport infrastructure can therefore significantly contribute to the EU’s energy transition, and we should do the same here in the UK. There are examples of good practice—at Second Reading, I mentioned Blackfriars and Denmark Hill railway stations—but we must do more, and that is why I tabled the amendment.
Amendment 106 is a requirement for all new car parks to include solar panels. As I highlighted at Second Reading, across the country there are vast expanses of roof space that sit idle, while exposed to sunlight. Installing solar panels on car parks could generate clean energy, reduce grid pressure and power local EV chargers directly. France has already mandated solar panels on large car parks. The Government’s recent consultation on solar panels feels like we are trying to catch up; this amendment will make that a reality, and I hope that the Minister will be able to support it.
Finally, Amendment 68 is about the prioritisation of electricity grid connections for EV charging infrastructure. This includes, as I discussed in an earlier group, the need for a focus on commercial as well as private vehicles. I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb, although she is not in her place, for putting her name to this amendment. I look forward to the Minister’s response. I beg to move.
Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)
My Lords, I will again speak extremely briefly. As the noble Baroness, Lady Pidgeon, said, my noble friend Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb signed Amendments 68 and 106.
I already referred to Amendment 68 when discussing the need for the Government to ensure that the electricity network providers prioritise grid connections for electric vehicle charging infrastructure, particularly for freight. As I said in an earlier group, that is particularly important. It will potentially have a large draw on the grid, so this has to be planned from an early stage to make sure there is enough there to cater for HGVs.
If we were going to have a contest for the most popular amendment tabled to the Planning and Infrastructure Bill, I think Amendment 106 might be it. I have heard a number of people saying, “Don’t put solar panels on farmland, put them on car parks instead”. It is a pity we are doing this before the holidays, because, when we come back, many people will have undoubtably been in continental Europe. France, for example, has a rule that all new and existing car parks with more than 80 places must install solar panels. So, this is a very modest amendment, when you compare it to what France has legislated; this is only talking about new car parks. It is absolutely common sense about where we should be putting those solar panels, for all the practical reasons, in terms of the extra shade they provide, protection for cars and to meet the Government’s energy targets.
Lord Lucas (Con)
My Lords, I very much support Amendments 63 and 106 in this group. I will speak fearlessly to them, because my noble friend Lord Moylan has already put the WD-40 on my set of thumbscrews as a result of previous amendments.
It is entirely sensible to put solar panels in places where there is the immediate local demand for electricity when it is sunny. When it is sunny, our trains are running. To have solar panels along rail infrastructure supplies a demand which is entirely local. When the sun is out in a serious way, the rail consumes extra electricity in keeping the carriages cool, so it is an entirely sensible place to put them.
Car parks are excellent places to charge your car. They are usually next to supermarkets or other similar places that are using electricity in the daytime. If we are going to generate solar electricity, this is an entirely appropriate place to do it.
I would go further than this: I would allow local authorities to have local schemes to encourage solar on all commercial roofs and would allow them to increase the level of business rates payable on roofs that do not have solar. It is ridiculous when you stand on hills above Eastbourne and look at a couple of hundred hectares of commercial estates and there are no solar panels whatever on any of them, but they are all using electricity in the daytime. The difficulties arise from fractured ownership and lease patterns. It is not easy to do, but, if we can produce a substantial incentive that basically says to businesses, “You can either generate some solar in this space or you can pay into a fund to help us to do other things elsewhere”, and if the payment is sufficiently high, I think we will get a move to solar, and that would be a good idea.
The alternative is a large solar farm on an ancient marsh in the middle of town. That would be entirely destructive in visual terms and not at all helpful in terms of wildlife and the environment generally. It would be much better if we could have the same size of solar farm on land that is already developed and entirely suitable for it. But we have not got the right structures in place in government to enable that, and I would really like to see that changed.
Lord Khan of Burnley (Lab)
My Lords, before I speak to these amendments, I declare my registered interests, including shareholdings in companies involved in renewable energy. These interests are not directly affected by the amendments under discussion. I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Pidgeon, for tabling and speaking to these amendments so eloquently and passionately, and for her ongoing commitment to the UK’s decarbonisation ambitions in the transport sector.
Amendments 63 and 106 seek to mandate the installation of solar panels in the construction of new transport infrastructure and require solar panels to be provided as part of the construction of all new above-ground car parks. The Government are committed to achieving clean power by 2030, and it is clear that solar energy will be crucial to achieving our mission. The clean power action plan calls for the rapid acceleration of solar deployment, from around 18 gigawatts as of April 2025 to 45 to 47 gigawatts by 2030. This is an ambitious mission, which has enormous potential to create good jobs, protect bill payers, ensure energy security and reduce our exposure to volatile fossil fuel markets. The recently published Solar Roadmap includes over 70 actions for government and industry to take forward to help deliver this ambition by removing barriers to deployment of all types of solar.
We recognise that solar canopies on car parks have the potential to provide significant renewable electricity generation, shelter for cars and drivers, and localised power for EV charging points. This year, the Government published a call for evidence to assess the potential to drive the construction of solar canopies on new outdoor car parks over a certain size.
We are currently analysing the evidence that has been provided by the sector, and are conducting the essential cost-benefit analysis needed to understand the impact of any policy to mandate the provision of solar on new car parks. Having not yet concluded this process, it would not be appropriate at this stage to include this amendment in the Bill. However, the Government are considering this proposal very carefully and will explore ways to achieve its intention, including through future legislation, if the evidence supports this conclusion.
It is also the case that we do not currently have the evidence base to support requiring all transport infrastructure to include solar panel installation. We have not yet engaged with industry to fully understand the potential impact of this amendment, or conducted the necessary cost-benefit analysis to determine whether it would be appropriate to install solar on all the different types of transport infrastructure set out in the amendment.
The Government are committed to achieving their mission through significant solar deployment across the country. Following the publication of the road map, the solar council will be established to bring together the solar industry, the UK Government and other relevant parties. The council will work to secure, enable and accelerate the deployment of solar at all scales and identify emerging opportunities, realigning priorities and action as needed.
I hope that the noble Baroness, Lady Pidgeon, notes the ongoing work the Government are doing in this area, which must conclude before any consideration of a legislative intervention takes place. I therefore kindly ask her to withdraw her amendment.
On Amendment 68, also tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Pidgeon, the Government recognise the importance of accelerating grid connections for electricity demand projects, including electric vehicle charging, as well as for generation projects. This recognition lies at the heart of the reforms we announced in the industrial strategy, which include using the powers in the Bill to amend regulatory processes and accelerate connections for strategically important projects.
Although the Government fully acknowledge the critical role of freight and logistics in national supply chain security and decarbonisation targets, it would not be prudent to enshrine in legislation a preference for one sector, as this would inevitably mean deprioritising equally important sectors listed in the industrial strategy, such as advanced manufacturing, the wider supply chain for clean energy projects, data centres, and more.
That is why we have also announced the connections accelerator service, which will support strategically important projects across all priority sectors to accelerate their connection dates. The Department for Transport will play a key role in helping to shape the framework for identifying these vital projects.
I also take this opportunity to highlight the suite of initiatives the Government are pursuing in support of the electrification of freight, logistics and the broader transport sector. This includes our ongoing efforts in national and regional strategic energy planning. We are working to support infrastructure investment ahead of need, ensuring that we not merely react to but anticipate demand. By planning strategically, we can deliver robust, future-proofed infrastructure, and support our broader decarbonisation and economic ambitions.
Furthermore, the Department for Transport is actively encouraging stakeholders in the transport sector to look ahead, to consider their future electricity needs and to feed this information directly into our strategic planning processes. By doing so, we will create a more comprehensive and responsive energy network that is able to meet the evolving requirements of our nation’s transport system.
I also highlight the work of the Freight Energy Forum. Led by the Department for Transport, this forum brings together transport and energy stakeholders from across the country, providing a platform for knowledge-sharing and collaboration. By working closely together, we can inform future action and ensure that the sector remains agile and well-equipped for an electrified future.
I trust that the Committee will appreciate the rationale for our approach and recognise the Government’s determination to deliver balanced, strategic and forward-looking energy infrastructure for the nation. The noble Baroness, Lady Pidgeon, mentioned a number of countries, as did the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett. The noble Baroness cited the French Government in particular. The potential for solar canopies on car parks is significant, and we are looking carefully at international best practice, including what France has introduced. Before committing to any prospective policy, including mandating, we believe it right to properly engage with industry and stakeholders to better understand the impacts and see whether government intervention is needed.
Noble Lords alluded to a couple of points about deploying solar on rail lines and roads. Rail track solar could be a feasible solution, particularly in urban areas where the track is electrified, as there will already be a good connection. However, there are some current obstacles that may inhibit the deployment of the technology in all areas, such as the challenge of grid connections in rural areas and additional kit required to convert electricity from solar to usable electricity for trains, which may be expensive.
Finally, the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, talked about car parks and agricultural land. This Government are committed to a solar revolution that enhances energy security while protecting the UK’s biodiversity and agricultural spaces. Car parks indeed offer an opportunity to utilise vast spaces for solar generation, but we must engage with industry and gather a broader evidence base to overcome the potential structural and financial barriers to widespread use of solar canopies. For the reasons outlined previously, I kindly ask the noble Baroness to withdraw her amendment.
Baroness Pidgeon (LD)
I thank Members who have spoken on this group and the Minister for his detailed answer. He talked about a solar road map. Alongside that, we want a solar rail, tram and bus map. We want to see this across transport infrastructure, and we hope to start to see some progress in due course, particularly looking internationally. With that, I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.
Lord Jamieson
“National Lane Rental Scheme: establishment(1) Within six months of the day on which this Act is passed, the Secretary of State must establish a National Lane Rental Scheme (“the Scheme”).(2) The Scheme must ensure that—(a) local authorities are able to grant lane rental permission to utility companies as standard,(b) the Secretary of State is only involved in the granting of lane rental when utility companies appeal to the Secretary of State about the local authority’s actions under paragraph (a), and(c) any public highway may be subject to lane rental provisions, irrespective of size or level of sensitivity.(3) The Secretary of State must—(a) consolidate existing regulations which provide for local authorities to grant permission for lane rental to utility companies for works, and(b) ensure that any orders made under section 74A of the New Roads and Street Works Act 1991 which may contradict the provisions of the Scheme are repealed.(4) The Secretary of State may by regulations made by statutory instrument vary provisions in the Scheme.(5) A statutory instrument containing regulations under this section is subject to annulment in pursuance of a resolution of either House of Parliament.”Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment would require the Secretary of State to bring forward a national scheme for Lane Rental during road works with the intention of developing a simpler, less bureaucratic, and more flexible scheme replacing the existing scheme of individual applications by transport authorities to the Secretary of State.
Lord Jamieson (Con)
My Lords, I rise to speak on the two amendments in my name relating to utility works on roads. Constant disruption to our roads from roadworks—in the majority of cases, related to utilities works—is a huge frustration to all drivers, often causing significant traffic delays, economic damage and environmental impact. It also impacts householders, pedestrians and cyclists caught up in or impacted by the noise and fumes of idling cars. Local businesses are hugely impacted from loss of business, as customers stay away to avoid excessive journey times and, when it is on major roads, excessive traffic on smaller roads.
The frustration of drivers is doubly so when they see no work being carried out. Sometimes that is for good reason, but often it is for the convenience of the contractor. I give the example of traffic lights put out on a Friday afternoon for roadworks starting on the Monday and completed on the Thursday, but the traffic lights are removed the following Monday, so for three or four days of work the road is impacted for 10 days. While we recognise that utility and other works are essential, they should be done in a way that minimises disruption.
While councils and Governments have sought to address this through measures such as permitting regimes, and councils often do this proactively, enforcing them to keep roadworks to the permitted time, this does not stop utility companies and contractors seeking an extended time. There is also a lane rental scheme under the 2012 lane rental regulations. Four county councils and Transport for London have applied for this. However, it is a cumbersome process and, with the exception of London, can be applied to only 5% to 10% of roads, and only to those that are highly sensitive. It involves lots of consultation, specific identification of roads, applying to the Secretary of State, needing to draw up an SI and so forth.
There is a better way: there should be a national scheme, with appropriate protections and so forth but also enabling a wider range of highways to be included, that councils could simply opt into. This amendment would not only reduce the time during which our roads are held up by roadworks but reduce bureaucracy.
Lord Moynihan (Con)
My Lords, I declared my interests in detail some two hours ago; they relate also to this amendment.
Regrettably, my noble friend Lady Coffey is, as the Committee knows, abroad. She offers her apologies and has asked me to speak to her Amendment 71A, an amendment regarding litter on the strategic road network. Essentially, her amendment asks the question: which roads are the responsibility of National Highways? Due to previous legislation, National Highways has responsibility for litter only on all motorways and some A roads. When my noble friend Lady Coffey was MP for Suffolk Coastal, she witnessed a real conflict in trying to get National Highways to work effectively with the council on litter on the A14. Most litter can be collected only when National Highways closes the road, which is often overnight and does not really fit in with local council practices on litter.
My noble friend’s points are valid. She is right that it is very difficult for National Highways and local authorities to co-ordinate and to get this work done efficiently. There are challenges in night-time operations as regards who is the principal contractor, who puts whom to work safely and who holds whom to account when litter picking needs to happen prior to grass cutting, road space management, customer complaint management, responses et cetera. Having the responsibility for litter across the entire strategic road network sit wholly with National Highways would, it seems, make complete sense.
But I know that the Minister has lengthy experience. With flat opex, the challenge of maintaining the SRN will be exacerbated. I am not completely sure that we have addressed the issue of whether sufficient moneys will be redirected from local authorities to National Highways to offset the additional service demands and risks. Litter picking under NLR is a schedule of rates activity, so it would require new and additional funding. It could not just be absorbed solely through efficiency gains.
Litter picking is a current necessity, but it is reasonable to consider it a waste of taxpayers’ money. Working as a community to dissuade littering behaviour through campaigns and technology should perhaps be the continued primary focus. How do we accelerate? How do we use technology? How do we change legislation? How can we affect the level of prosecution for littering—which then could raise moneys to fund litter-picking activity until the problem hopefully ceases to exist? With 100% strategic road network coverage with CCTV an intended outcome, and with the help of AI, I hope that we can move this industry challenge forward. I believe that we will.
Lord Moylan (Con)
My Lords, lane rental has worked well in London; it should be rolled out across the rest of England. National Highways should of course pick up its own litter. Street works should be guaranteed for a decent period. As ever, Conservatives have all the best ideas. I look forward to a short speech from the Minister in which he agrees.
Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)
My Lords, in respect of lane rental schemes, the Government are committed to reducing disruption from street works and improving the efficiency of our road networks. Lane rental is an important tool to help highway authorities reduce the impact of works taking place, but it is important to recognise that such schemes may not be suitable for every area. Many local authorities do not experience the level of congestion necessary to justify the administrative and financial burden of operating such a scheme. However, the Government recognise the value of empowering local leaders and that is why we have consulted on devolving approval powers for lane rentals to mayoral combined authorities. We will be publishing the results of the consultation and next steps in due course. So I kindly ask the noble Lord, Lord Jamieson, to beg leave to withdraw his amendment.
I thank the noble Lord, Lord Moynihan, for speaking to the amendment on litter. I agree with him that we must find the best way of tackling this problem. I know that the amendment has been tabled in that spirit. At present, National Highways is responsible for the collection of litter on England’s motorways, but there are other roads—trunk roads and A roads—where National Highways is responsible for the maintenance but local authorities are responsible for litter collection. The question is therefore whether we should relieve local authorities of those duties and transfer them instead to National Highways.
That sounds like a simple solution, but it is in fact a little more complicated. The collaboration methodology works well: for example, National Highways looks for opportunities to enable litter collection to take place safely when roads are closed for other reasons, such as resurfacing or maintenance. Those partnership arrangements provide the best way of tackling litter on the strategic road network, and we encourage and expect National Highways and local authorities to work closely together on them.
I also thank the noble Lord, Lord Jamieson, for tabling the amendment on extending the guarantee period following road reinstatement. He and I both recognise that high-quality reinstatement is highly desirable. It is important to note that, under the existing Specification for the Reinstatement of Openings in Highways guidance, the guarantee period begins only once the reinstatement has been completed to the required standard.
In 2023, a performance-based inspection regime was introduced that means that utility companies with higher defect or failure rates are subject to more frequent inspections and, as they pay for each inspection, this creates a strong financial incentive to maintain high standards. We are closely monitoring the recent changes in Scotland, where the guarantee period has been extended to six years, to assess whether that leads to improved standards, before considering any changes in England. For the reasons outlined, I kindly request that noble Lords do not press their amendments.
Finally, my noble friend Lord Liddle will now have reached the end of his journey to Carlisle, and I celebrate the noble Lords who have come on the journey for this part of the Bill by remaining in the Chamber. I wish all those who have stayed this long a happy and restful recess.
Lord Jamieson (Con)
I thank the Minister for his reply. I look forward to seeing more on the rollout of the lane rental scheme to mayoral authorities, but I ask, as we do not yet have mayoral authorities right across the country, whether he could extend it to all authorities. I also look forward to the review of the practice in Scotland and hope that we will move to a five-year guarantee here. With that, I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.
Lord Moynihan
“Water Services Regulation Authority: transfer of functions(1) Within six months of the day on which this Act is passed, the Secretary of State must, by regulations, make provision for the functions of the Water Services Regulation Authority relating to planning, development and infrastructure to be transferred to the Secretary of State.(2) A statutory instrument containing regulations under this section may not be made unless a draft of the instrument has been laid before and approved by a resolution of each House of Parliament.”Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment seeks to transfer Ofwat’s functions relating to planning, infrastructure and development to the Secretary of State.
Lord Moynihan (Con)
My Lords, I will speak to my noble friend Lady Coffey’s Amendment 70. I see the Chief Whip on the Bishops’ Bench praying for a short introduction to this exceptionally important amendment.
My noble friend Lady Coffey seeks to transfer Ofwat’s functions relating to planning, infrastructure and development to the Secretary of State. Of course, she was ahead of her time; the Cunliffe report is now before the House and it will be debated at significant length. Whether the functions go to the Secretary of State or, as Cunliffe suggested, form part of the remit of a new regulator is a matter for your Lordships’ House in due course. We now face the biggest overhaul of water management and, above all, water regulation since privatisation. The Government have offered to fast-track five recommendations and I hope they will take my noble friend Lady Coffey’s amendment to heart when considering how best to move forward. I beg to move.
Lord Jamieson (Con)
My Lords, I also thank the noble Baroness, Lady Coffey, for tabling this amendment, which is pertinent, as has just been mentioned, given the announcements this week, including that Ofwat will be abolished. The future of water regulation is clearly in flux. We on these Benches seek clarity on the way forward. I look forward to hearing the Minister’s response.
Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)
My Lords, I apologise: I prematurely terminated the journey of this part of the Bill. I will seek to be very brief.
The Government are committed to ensuring effective planning, development and management of water infrastructure. To that end, the Secretary of State for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs formed an Independent Water Commission. We oppose the amendment put forth by the noble Baroness, Lady Coffey, to transfer Ofwat’s planning, infrastructure and development functions to the Secretary of State because it would pre-empt the results of the independent review. As mentioned, we will provide a full government response to the commission’s report in the autumn, setting out our priorities and timelines, and the Government will therefore introduce root and branch reform to revolutionise the water industry. I ask the noble Lord to withdraw the amendment on behalf of the noble Baroness, Lady Coffey.
Lord Moynihan (Con)
My Lords, I am very grateful to the Minister for his response. It was powerful. It was mistaken in not accepting the amendment, of course, but at least he put it in the context of the important work that the Government have committed to undertake. In that context, I thank him for his contribution and beg leave to withdraw Amendment 70—with the rider that I wish a well-deserved, restful and enjoyable Recess above all to the Minister, who has worked extraordinarily hard throughout this Session, and to every Member of the Committee who has been present throughout the proceedings.