Planning and Infrastructure Bill

Debate between Baroness Young of Old Scone and Earl Russell

Report stage
Monday 20th October 2025 Lords Chamber

[Earl Russell (LD)]

My Lords, I shall speak to my Amendment 44. I begin by thanking the Minister and apologising, because strangely the Minister has answered my amendment before I have spoken to it, but that is just the way that this group has operated. My speech is slightly back to front, so I will go through it and then come to the end.

Amendment 44 is in my name and is also signed by the noble Lord, Lord Krebs, and the noble Baronesses, Lady Young of Old Scone and Lady Bennett of Manor Castle, who are both in their places. This is an important and timely amendment, and I am delighted that it has the firm support of the Wildlife Trust and Wildlife and Countryside Link. Amendment 44 would require the Forestry Commission, when exercising its functions, to contribute actively to the achievement of our legally binding climate and biodiversity targets. The Forestry Commission, founded in 1919, manages some 5% of all publicly owned land in the United Kingdom.

As the noble Baroness, Lady Young of Old Scone, reminded us in Committee, it is now nearly 60 years since we last legislated comprehensively on forestry. The commission’s core duties remain, unfortunately, deeply rooted in a 20th-century focus on timber production, despite its remit having long been broadened. We need to complete the task of modernising its responsibilities, aligning them with the Climate Change Act 2008, the Environment Act 2021 and the environmental improvement plan, so that the commission’s huge influence over land use supports the delivery of statutory targets, rather than leaving them to chance or good faith and good management.

Without these changes, the Government are in danger of trying to deliver their climate and nature ambitions while failing to direct one of their key public bodies to act in joint support of delivering it. I have said this before, but it is a little like a general knowing the strategy but neglecting to tell their own troops. We cannot expect effective delivery in the Forestry Commission if it is left without a clear duty to act.

The public forest estate contains some of England’s most ecologically valuable land, including irreplaceable habitats such as ancient woodland, yet there is currently no explicit statutory duty for the commission to protect these sites or to prioritise biodiversity outcomes. Clause 28 already extends the commission’s remit to allow greater renewable energy activity on public land, and that duty makes it more vital that the nature aspects of the estate are given equal statutory weight to ensure that the drive for renewables proceeds hand in hand with the protection and restoration of nature.

The new clause we propose after Clause 28 does precisely that: it would place,

“a duty on the Forestry Commission to contribute”,

to the achievement of the climate and nature recovery targets, to avoid harm, to designate conservation sites in ancient woodland and to balance energy and timber production with ecosystem services such as biodiversity, carbon storage, access and recreation. It is a low-cost but high-impact reform that would modernise Governments, ensure accountability and bring clarity and consistency to decision-making about land acquisition, leasing and woodland creation.

As we know already, between Committee and Report there has been substantial progress on this matter. I am very grateful not only to the Ministers but to their officials for the time that they have given to us in discussing these amendments, and for the movement the Government have made on this important issue. I know that the Government now intend to address this issue as part of a wider and broader package of measures. We are not against that as a system and a means of addressing this problem; in fact, it is a welcome strategy. We are buoyed up by the progress we have made on the Crown Estate Act and the Great British Energy Act, where collaborative work with Ministers and across the House—across all parties—achieved similar provisions. We look forward to the outcomes here.

The Minister has already spoken to give her comments. I pay tribute to the work of the noble Lord, Lord Krebs, who has been pushing on these issues. He of course has his important Private Member’s Bill and I hope that, as part of this package of measures, some of the broader aspects in his Bill can also be taken up. I also pay tribute to the noble Baroness, Lady Young of Old Scone, for her work on these matters.

The Government’s words are very welcome and I am thankful for them. We push the Government to go slightly further on the duties of the Forestry Commission, and for a little more clarity on when this legislation might come forward. However, we have come to a reasonable place. What we would like now is to see this legislation come forward so that progress can be made on these matters. With that, I thank the Minister and those involved, as this is a sign of real progress to come.

[Baroness Young of Old Scone (Lab)]

My Lords, I will briefly speak in support of the noble Earl, Lord Russell, on his Amendment 44, which I put my name to. The Forestry Commission is a really important organisation; it is the largest landowner in England. What it does can not only influence the Government’s climate and biodiversity targets; it can inspire other people to do stuff that will deliver those targets. Therefore, it is really sad that we have got to the point where, by a process of accretion, the legislation surrounding the Forestry Commission’s duties is so complicated.

When the Minister responded in Committee, for which we thank her, it revealed just what a piecemeal patchwork of responsibilities is laid on the Forestry Commission—not just by the aged Forestry Acts, dating back 60 years, but by extensions to its duties from the Countryside Act 1968, the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981 and the NERC Act 2006, strengthened by the Environment Act 2021. In addition, the Minister’s account, both in Committee and today, has brought up other requirements, such as those laid on the Secretary of State in the national policy statement for renewable energy on his influence over the Forestry Commission. It is a bit of a quagmire of legislation. It is certainly not clear to the Forestry Commission how it will help it do that important job of meeting government targets in any systematic way, rather than by an accretion of decisions made that reflect various bits of legislation.

I, too, thank the Ministers and their staff for the discussion behind the scenes, but we have to press on moving forward from saying that the Forestry Commission will use its best endeavours or have regard to various pieces of policy. Instead, we have to try to nail down whether there is a real commitment within government to update the legislation surrounding the Forestry Commission—and when a suitable legislative vehicle might come forward that would allow it to operate in a systematic way within a modern, comprehensive and effective framework. We need to make sure that its important work will be carried forward systematically.

The alternative way of doing this is to adopt the proposition of the noble Lord, Lord Krebs, who, alas, is not in his place. In his Private Member’s Bill, he sought to give these duties to any public body that had the ability to deliver, in a substantial way, the climate, environment and biodiversity targets—that would be the simple way of doing it. However, if we have to do it piecemeal, can the Government say how soon and in what way it will be done?

Very briefly, I also agree with the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, on Amendment 40. He is absolutely right that we have the limits the wrong way round.

Planning and Infrastructure Bill

Debate between Baroness Young of Old Scone and Earl Russell

Committee stage
Monday 15th September 2025 Lords Chamber

[Earl Russell (LD)]

My Lords, I will speak briefly to the proposition that Part 3 not stand part of the Bill, in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Roborough, which the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, and I have signed. It was unusual, but I feel that it was the right thing to do to bring this forward to indicate the strength of political feeling on these matters of nature protection. I am pleased to have added my name to them. Equally, I think it is right that they are not pursued at this stage.

I pay my respects to and thank the Government, in particular the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, and others, who have worked on and looked again at the concerns raised about the possible impacts of this Bill as it was initially drafted. Those have been voiced very strongly by the general public, by the NGO community and by Members of both Houses of this Parliament. It is not often that such a package of government amendments is tabled without a vote, but I must say it is a very welcome move. After Second Reading, I was not looking forward to the rest of the stages because I could see a showdown on basic nature protections coming down the line, so I am immensely grateful that this Bill has been substantially amended and improved. These amendments are not perfect, as others have said, but they do offer some substantial improvements.

I believe in the friendly hand of scrutiny, and I am convinced that Governments who listen and compromise make better laws than those who do not. Fundamentally, however, I feel that this Bill is still flawed. It carries a fundamental flaw through its heart in Part 3, because it identifies the wrong problems and then sets out to fix them in a not particularly great way. All the while, there are multiple other blockages to the planning system that do not really get the solutions that they need. They need to be unlocked so that we can get growth for housing, transition to clean power and do everything else that we really need to do.

I know the Government have made concessions and want this Bill passed. My hope is that, with shorter speeches from all, this Government will continue to listen, and we can continue the constructive dialogue in the time remaining to discuss the remaining important issues. In the interests of that time, I will not run through the changes but on these Benches we still have concerns about the environmental delivery plans and the nature restoration levy as representing a really significant shift in approach—an approach that generally has worked fairly well.

This change of approach carries with it significant bureaucratic burdens and inherent risk for the businesses which will be undertaking this stuff and will face reputational damage. It creates an almost communist scale of new bureaucracy about moving nature as if it was Lego bricks from one place to another, but I am deeply concerned about the irreplaceable habitats. We will have opportunities to discuss this on the remaining clauses of this Bill.

We are also concerned about the mitigation hierarchy. Fundamentally, I still do not understand; I have looked at all the updated energy policies, such as EN-1 and those on nuclear power, the grid and renewables, and the mitigation hierarchy remains at the heart of those policies. I do not understand why, when that will continue to be the case after the Bill has passed, the mitigation hierarchy needs to be removed for housing. The Government might want to make arguments about the mitigation hierarchy in relation to nationally significant infrastructure projects but, when we can deliver energy projects with the mitigation hierarchy, I do not see why that needs to be removed for housing.

I shall close on the comments of the Chancellor of the Exchequer this morning, as quoted in the Times. While I deeply respect the Minister and everything that has been done here, I worry that another Bill will come down the line; that some aspects of this Government still perceive nature as a blockage to planning and development, even though the Government’s own impact assessment shows that this is not the case; and that commitments made here might be changed later on. Still, I thank the Minister; there is more to discuss, but I am grateful.

[Baroness Young of Old Scone (Lab)]

There are three reactions coming to the fore about Part 3. A bunch of folk want to kill it because it is awful and unnecessary; a bunch of folk are predisposed to accept it, because although with the government amendments it is still not very good it is good enough, and we can probably get more amendments in the process of its passing through this House; and the third position is finding an alternative way of focusing on and resolving the issues that are stopping development happening. The last one is the way that I espouse.

Originally I had my name down to the mighty list of clause stand parts drawn up by the noble Lord, Lord Roborough, which would have completely kneecapped Part 3. I thank him for giving us the opportunity to discuss the problems with Part 3 that arouse such strong antipathy across the piece, regardless of which of the three reactions you espouse. However, I took my name down from the clause stand parts when I tabled my Amendments 185F, 185G and 242A. I presented those amendments with a heavy heart to the small but dedicated band who were still here, since it was the final group of Thursday night’s session. I had never experienced a death slot quite like that one before; it felt like a wet Tuesday night at the Aberdeen Empire.

I believe that EDPs are a risky and not very good way forward, for a number of reasons. One is that they are probably unnecessary because they are too sweeping, regarding EDPs as needing to cover a plethora of issues that have already been resolved or, in the eyes of developers, are not really the problems that are getting in the way. Another is that the habitats regulations have stood us in good stead over many years. We invented them as a bunch of Brits, and they represent the highest level of protection for that tiny, most important set of sites and species. Developers have got used to applying them over 30 years; they have developed an understanding and expertise within their operations. Many developers admit that the habs regs and nature are a long way down their list of blockages. It is a pity that the noble Lord, Lord Krebs, and the noble Baroness, Lady Willis, are not in their places tonight, because they have developed a wonderful road map that shows how EDPs simply add another route to getting permissions rather than simplifying the existing routes.

My amendments would take the, I hope, constructive avenue of trying to find a middle way by restricting them to those issues for which they can be effective, which are strategic and landscape-level issues of nutrient neutrality, water quality, water quantity and air quality, and by adding amendments that I combined with them to give the heavy lifting on habitats regulation assessment to regional spatial strategies and local plans. By the time a developer came to put forward a planning application, not only would the majority of surveys and assessments have taken place but developers would be clearer where they should avoid sites with tricky protected species and instead aim for those sites rather less likely to have wrangles at stake. These already debated amendments have had a second opportunity to find their way to the light at a slightly more auspicious point in the timetable, and I hope that Ministers will consider them. They would be less dramatic than the clause stand part massacre of the noble Lord, Lord Roborough.

I do not wholly support the solutions proposed by the noble Lord, Lord Roborough, to the nutrient neutrality issue, mainly because I do not actually understand what his amendments intend to achieve. I will swot up on that before Report.

However, I will briefly speak in support of Amendments 302 and 303, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Roborough, and to which the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, and I have added our names. They confirm that only impacts addressed by an EDP should be disregarded for the habs regs. We must make sure that any disregarding of the habitats regulations is absolutely forensic and rapier-like, not broad, woolly and unformed. They are important building blocks for nature conservation and recovery in this country. They do not get in the way of development if they are properly administered. They are about process rather than substance, and we can streamline them in a whole load of ways without wrecking them.

This is the nub of the Bill. If the truth were known, Part 3 is one of the most unpopular pieces of legislation that I have seen, and my first conversation with Ministers in the Commons did not reassure me. When I said that I was worried about the environmental impacts of the Bill, they said, “Don’t you worry about it. This isn’t an environment Bill; it’s a planning Bill”.