The petition of residents of the United Kingdom
Declares that the planning system should put people and nature before profit.
The petitioners therefore request that the House of Commons urge the Government to reform the Planning and Infrastructure Bill so it delivers for both workers and wildlife, redefining affordable housing based on local incomes, ensuring developers deliver on their housing promises, protects irreplaceable habitats like chalk streams and upholds local democracy in the planning system.
And the petitioners remain, etc.—[Presented by Chris Hinchliff, Official Report, 5 June 2025; Vol. 768, c. 569.]
[P003081]
Observations by the Minister for Housing and Planning (Matthew Pennycook):
The hon. Member for North East Hertfordshire has proposed various reforms to the Planning and Infrastructure Bill, which I will address in turn.
With regard to development and the environment, the Government remain firmly of the view that we can do better than the status quo, which too often sees both sustainable house building and nature recovery stall. Instead of environmental protections being seen as barriers to growth, we are determined to unlock a win-win for the economy and for nature.
The current approach to discharging environmental obligations is too often delaying and deterring development and placing unnecessary burdens on house builders and local authorities. It requires house builders to pay for localised and often costly mitigation measures, only to maintain the environmental status quo. By not taking a holistic view across larger geographies, mitigation measures often fail to secure the best outcomes for the environment.
The nature restoration fund provided for by part 3 of the Bill will end this sub-optimal arrangement. By facilitating a more strategic approach to the discharge of environmental obligations, it will streamline the delivery of new homes and infrastructure and result in improved environmental outcomes being delivered more efficiently.
Following the introduction of the Bill, we took very seriously the concerns expressed by those who were not yet convinced that the provisions in part 3 provided the necessary certainty that the nature restoration fund will deliver in practice the potential environmental benefits it offers and who questioned whether the safeguards in the Bill were sufficiently robust.
With a view to ensuring that everyone has confidence that the nature restoration fund delivers the improved outcomes for nature that are at the core of the model, we continued to engage with expert stakeholders, including environmental organisations and house builders, as well as the Office for Environmental Protection.
Having done so, the Government developed and tabled a comprehensive set of amendments for consideration during the Lords Committee stage of the Bill. As part of that exercise, we also took the opportunity to address wider issues raised during parliamentary debates as to how the nature restoration fund will operate going forward.
The targeted package of amendments we have tabled will provide confidence that part 3 of the Bill, and the nature restoration fund it provides for, will work in the way we have always maintained they would. The amendments make explicit what was previously implicit in respect of what Natural England will do when preparing an environmental delivery plan for submission to the Secretary of State. For example:
Natural England must consider the best available scientific evidence, we would always have expected them to do so but this has now been made explicit on the face of the Bill.
Natural England must consider whether network measures will make a greater contribution than normal measures, they would have done this anyway in our view but it has now been made explicit on the face of the Bill.
Natural England will set out how conservation measures will be sequenced - again this was already the intention and it is taking place in initial work on draft EDPs but it has now been made explicit on the face of the Bill.
We have made it even clearer how Natural England will monitor and report on the effectiveness of their conservation measures and when back-up and remedial measures-which were already part of the Bill may be used as a result.
As before, Natural England will provide the Secretary of State with its opinion on how the conservation measures will enable the EDP to pass the overall improvement test, clearly this would have happened in practice.
Importantly, none of the amendments will affect the process by which house builders interact with an EDP, namely by paying a levy to discharge specific environmental obligations through it, or undermine the strategic approach that the model provides for. By making the implicit, explicit, we are simply giving further confidence and assurance without changing the model or undermining the impact of these reforms.
Taken together, we are confident the package of amendments will provide reassurance that the nature restoration fund will restore, not harm nature, while at the same time ensuring house builders benefit from the same streamlined process to discharge their environmental obligations and get Britain building.
Irreplaceable habitats are just that, irreplaceable. The Planning and Infrastructure Bill does not make changes to the existing protections in place for irreplaceable habitats under the national planning policy framework. Chalk streams are not only vital ecosystems, but a symbol of our national heritage and their conservation and restoration are pressing objectives for the Government.
Chalk streams are already recognised by decision makers in the planning system as valued landscapes and sites of biodiversity value. These wildlife-rich habitats provide key ecosystem services and benefits for natural capital, and should be identified and safeguarded through local plans. Local nature recovery strategies, which are being rolled out across England, will help decision makers to identify and protect them as areas of importance for nature. Moreover, as sensitive waterbodies, our guidance is clear that developers should be assessing and mitigating impacts to water quality in these areas. The measures introduced through the Bill will not weaken existing protections for these valuable areas for nature within the planning system. The Government are considering how we best safeguard chalk streams from a range of threats, including adverse effects relating to new development, as part of our wider work to bring forward a new suite of national policies for decision-making.
The Government are committed to the biggest increase in social and affordable house building in a generation. At the spending review, we announced £39 billion for a successor to the Affordable Homes Programme over 10 years from 2026-27 to 2035-36. Our new Social and Affordable Homes Programme will give registered providers a decade of certainty over the capital funding they will have available to build new, more ambitious housing development projects. Given the priority this Government accord to social rented housing, at least 60% of homes delivered through the programme will be for social rent. Rents for social rent homes are set using a formula that takes account of relative local incomes.
The NPPF is clear that local authorities should assess the size, type, and tenure of housing needed for different groups and reflect this in their planning policies. The revised NPPF published on 12 December 2024 gives local planning authorities greater flexibility to deliver the right mix of affordable homes to respond to housing need in their areas, while also making clear that they should address the particular needs of those who require social rent homes. To reflect this Government’s priorities, the revised framework places greater emphasis on the delivery of social rent homes and includes a separate definition of social rent so that it is not referred to as just one of a number of types of affordable housing for rent.
We know that slow build-out is of great frustration to many local planning authorities and communities that rightly expect homes, infrastructure and services that have been promised as part of a planning approval to be delivered as quickly as possible. We are determined to close the gap between the amount of land allocated and permissioned and the number of homes being completed. In May, the Government published a planning reform working paper setting out a series of proposals to speed up homes being built. These include the possibility of introducing, as a measure of last resort, a delayed homes penalty to address instances where build out is falling significantly behind the agreed schedule without a reasonable justification.
Alongside that working paper, we launched a technical consultation on implementing measures to improve the transparency of build rates from new residential development, which includes proposals to implement provisions in section 113 of the LURA on the power to decline to determine applications. Subject to the outcome of the consultation, the Government intend bring forward the regulations to implement these measures at the earliest practical opportunity with the new build-out reporting framework coming into force from 2026.
Planning is principally a local activity, and the Government recognise the vital role that planning committees play in ensuring that decisions about what to build and where are shaped by local communities and reflect the views of local residents. However, in providing essential local democratic oversight of planning decisions, we must ensure planning committees operate as effectively as possible, focusing on those applications which require member input and not revisiting the same decisions.
At present, every council has its own scheme of delegation to identify the circumstances in which planning decisions are taken by the planning committee rather than delegated to officers. Most local planning authorities delegate a significant proportion of applications to such officers, such that 96% of planning decisions in England are already not made by committees. However, there is significant variation across the country and this creates risk and uncertainty in the system. As such, the government believe there is a robust case for introducing a national scheme of delegation.
The Government recently consulted on proposals to modernise planning committees including a national scheme of delegation splitting planning applications into two tiers. Tier A covers those types of minor and technical planning applications that must be delegated to officers—although we ask in the consultation whether there should be a mechanism to bring a tier A application to committee in exceptional circumstances. Tier B covers types of applications where there is a presumption of delegation to officers but where a planning committee can make the decision if both the chair of the planning committee and chief planner agree. This will include all significant new housing and commercial developments and will allow the local democratic oversight of the most controversial applications where warranted. We believe this is a sensible and proportionate change designed to improve certainty and decision-making within the planning system.