Planning and Infrastructure Bill

Debate between Lord Cromwell and Lord Teverson

Committee stage
Thursday 4th September 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Cromwell (CB)]

My Lords, I endorse completely the speeches by the noble Baroness, Lady Miller, and her supporters. She introduced it engagingly and comprehensively. I have therefore scribbled out most of what I was going to say. She has done the Committee a double service in that respect.

A common difficulty for those citizens who wish to examine or question a development proposal is the scarcity of information, expertise and resources they have, often when up against a large professional development company. Planning authorities have the same problem, and the risk of very expensive and protracted discussions and inquiries to get to grips with the proposed project. Some applications that I have seen seem almost designed to overcome planning authorities and public resistance through the sheer volume and number of boxes of paper that arrive, within which people have to try to find where the bodies are buried.

If such projects were obliged to produce a digital twin model, as the amendment proposes, not only would we have a more equitable process but it would also save a great deal of time, resources and money. I could say a great deal more, but I will not because we all dread the phrase, “My Lords, a lot of good points have been made” and I shall not repeat it. I genuinely shall not. I support these amendments, and I will now sit down.

[Lord Teverson (LD)]

My Lords, from these Benches I support this amendment and thank other Lords for their support. One thing the noble Viscount, Lord Hanworth, said is that if we had had a digital twin model earlier, the bat tunnel we talked about would probably never have been necessary in HS2.

Clearly, there are issues around this on data privacy, keeping information up to date, legacy systems and so forth. But one of the positives is that once you have a model, you do not just discard it once the project has finished; you continue using it into the future and update it. It allows you all the benefits into the future.

We on these Benches are very interested to hear where the Government are in the development of this area, which I certainly hope is an area where the UK, with its IT prowess, will move ahead of our competitors and use it for the kinds of not very successful infrastructure projects that we have had in recent years.

Planning and Infrastructure Bill

Debate between Lord Cromwell and Lord Teverson

Committee stage
Monday 1st September 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Teverson (LD)]

My Lords, like many Members in the Committee, when I read the list in my noble friend’s Amendment 77 I was absolutely incredulous that we are in the position where planning permissions still have to be given for that scale of change to our electricity distribution system. It is incredible. I hope that whichever Minister is answering on this group will be able to give us concrete guarantees that action will be taken in this area, whether through accepting this amendment or through secondary legislation. We need to get on with this and with the Government’s own programme.

I very much welcome the boldness of the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, which is perhaps unusual coming from those Benches, and the tenor of the amendment of the noble Baroness, Lady Coffey. One thing that strikes me, and she mentioned it, is that a lot of reservoirs, certainly in my part of the world, the south-west, are used as recreational facilities, and obviously we would not want to squeeze that out. The other thing that occurs to me, particularly this year, is that floating solar on reservoirs is very likely to become non-floating fixed solar panels, given the rate of rainfall that we have been having, or not having, over some of these summers.

I will be interested to hear the Minister’s response to these very positive suggestions for how we can move renewable energy forward in this country.

[Lord Cromwell (CB)]

My Lords, with the solar energy that is reaching me at the moment, it is actually quite hard to see whether there is anybody out there, but I will take it for granted that there is and that they are all listening with rapt attention.

I apologise that I was unable to participate in earlier debates on the Bill, but I have been following it closely. I should declare that my family farm has some of what the noble Baroness, Lady Coffey, referred to as “hideous”—or was it “horrendous”?—pylons and poles coming across it. My grandfather actually welcomed these as signs of the inevitable march of progress, but, even then, and certainly now, not everybody is quite as enthusiastic as he was.

While I see and support the logic of Amendment 77, it makes no provision overtly for wayleaves or compensation for those whose homes and businesses are affected by any additional poles et cetera. I hope that any amendment along these lines would accommodate such arrangements, as is the case with current power lines. Will the Minister, or perhaps the noble Earl himself, confirm that that is the intention?