Planning and Infrastructure Bill

Lord Teverson Excerpts

2nd reading
Wednesday 25th June 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Teverson (LD)]

My Lords, I am pleased to start with my interests because they are to do with energy, specifically battery storage—I will talk about long-term storage in a minute, but I will leave that for now. I am also chair and director of a number of smaller land developers, and chair of the Cornwall & Isles of Scilly Local Nature Partnership. So I stand on both sides of the conflicts that the Bill looks at. In wearing those two hats, I have never had a conflict of interest. There has never been a situation in all the developments that we have been involved in—medium-sized, often mixed, not always with a lot of housing and admittedly not infrastructure—where nature has got in the way of development. It is primarily about planning resources at local authorities.

I welcome many parts of the Bill, particularly everything that will enable us to achieve net zero; it is really important that we manage that in terms of energy infrastructure. I also welcome this Government’s housing objectives. However, as many people have said, my noble friend Lord Shipley in particular, the problem is not primarily planning. My eyes were opened on housing some time ago when I looked at the time series of housing starts since the Second World War. There is a complete break around the beginning of the 1980s. Up to that point, the number of private starts was pretty equal to the number of public starts: roughly about 150,000 each through that period. When the Thatcher Government came in and, in effect, banned local authority housing, that fell off to more or less zero—social housing now is some 40,000 units—but the private sector just carried on along at the same level. Whatever the stimulus was, the volume stayed the same. Behind that, there is a message about the difficulty of stimulating private housing finishes, and it is not necessarily down to the planning system.

I welcome the measures in the Bill on long-term storage, which I am not involved in commercially, and the cap and floor mechanism—let us get on with that because it is important for grid stability. I welcome the EV changes, but let us enhance them further, exactly as my noble friend Lady Pidgeon said. I also welcome the financial compensation being by grid lines, or trying to get people involved in that energy transition.

No one has mentioned Clause 28, which concerns the Forestry Commission. It is allowed to indulge in renewable energy itself, which sounds great, but it does not mention biomass in relation to energy production. I would be concerned if the pass that allows the commission to work in that area enables it to use its own logs commercially, to make up for any government funding reductions—they would be cannibalising their own crops. I am interested in what the Minister says on that.

I am particularly concerned about the environmental delivery plans. This is not something that we are imagining; sure, we are in nature depletion and the restrictions that we have had on nature have not been good enough so far, but to me, this makes them worse. The OEP’s letter to the Secretary of State makes it very clear this is a regression. What worries me is not only the fact that the Bill is a regression but if the Government do not take notice of the OEP, in terms of their reputation and core function in Parliament, it is a real problem. It is important, as Minister Pennycook has said, that we find a way that the OEP and the matters that it has brought up are solved in the Bill as it goes through. That is crucial; otherwise, we have an important government agency that loses respect.

Lastly, local nature recovery strategies are mentioned twice in the Bill, once very positively in relation to spatial development strategies. However, when it comes to EDPs, they have very weak enforcement in how they are taken into account, and that must be changed. It has to be compulsory that local nature recovery strategies are fully taken into account in relation to any environmental development plan.

Planning Reforms: Energy and Housing Costs

Lord Teverson Excerpts

Thursday 15th May 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

My Lords, we are developing the future homes strategy, which will point to all the net-zero measures that we want to see. We do not want new houses being built that have to be retrofitted, or that are technology-specific, because the technology is developing at pace and we want to make sure there is enough flexibility in the system for new technologies to be adopted. Things such as solar panels and air source heat pumps are great innovations that are really changing our homes, keeping them warmer and making them more carbon neutral.

[Lord Teverson (LD)]

My Lords, in future, a number of major planning applications will require environmental development plans, which will be written by Natural England. Yet there is a great scepticism about the efficiency of that, because Natural England does not have the resources, and it is going to be very difficult to recruit them in time to meet the planning targets. Can the Minister assure us that, somehow, these plans and Natural England will be properly resourced to make sure that those efficiencies can happen, and that nature can be protected?

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

My Lords, it is important that, as we go forward with our ambitious target to build 1.5 million homes, we take care of the environment at the same time. Natural England’s role in that, which the noble Lord points to, is key in developing the plans that will protect nature as we build those homes. I understand the concerns that he and other noble Lords have about the resources in Natural England. We are working very closely with it, and we will provide it with additional resources to help it deliver with us what I do not think is a contradiction: the development and infrastructure that we all want to see, while protecting our precious natural environment at the same time.

Housing: Modern Methods of Construction

Lord Teverson Excerpts

Thursday 5th September 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Teverson (LD)]

My Lords, MMC can make a big difference in energy efficiency and embodied carbon in buildings. I will give a quick bit of history for 15 seconds. The previous Labour Government, and indeed the coalition Government, had targets for net-zero buildings for homes for 2016. That legislation was about to be enacted when the Government changed and George Osborne, as Chancellor of the Exchequer, stopped that process. In the meantime, we have had 1.5 million homes built below that standard that need not have been and will have to be retrofitted. That was a national disgrace and probably one of the largest bits of environmental vandalism that we have had in recent years.

The Labour manifesto says two things around this. On page 56, on fuel poverty and net zero, its “Warm homes plan”, which I hugely welcome, says:

“The energy shock of recent years has highlighted the urgent importance of improving energy efficiency in British homes”.


Page 38, on housebuilding, says:

“Labour wants exemplary development to be the norm not the exception. We will take steps to ensure we are building more high-quality, well-designed, and sustainable homes and creating places that increase climate resilience”.


I welcome that and all the aspiration behind it. We have for next year the future homes standard that has been mentioned, but that is not a net-zero commitment in terms of housebuilding. Will that aspiration be improved to return us to what we should have been doing in 2016?

Lease Extension Policies for Residential Properties

Lord Teverson Excerpts

Tuesday 30th July 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

The noble Baroness will know that I agree with her sentiments. I have certainly already had the Chief Whip speak about this. As outlined in the King’s Speech, the Government will provide home owners with greater rights, powers and protections over their homes by, first, implementing the provisions of the Leasehold and Freehold Reform Act 2024. Some of that has already been enacted, but there will be a need for some secondary legislation to do the rest. We will then further reform the leasehold system by enacting remaining Law Commission recommendations —which we tried to do with amendments but were not successful—relating to leasehold enfranchisement and the right to manage; tackling unregulated and unaffordable ground rents; and removing the disproportionate and draconian threat of forfeiture as a means of ensuring compliance with the lease agreement. We will take steps to bring the feudal leasehold system to an end, reinvigorating commonhold through a comprehensive new legal framework.

[Lord Teverson (LD)]

My Lords, the Crown Estate owns the seabed around England and Wales. Is it the Government’s opinion that it should use that influence of ownership to stop particularly destructive fishing practices, such as scallop dredging? It could end that here and now.

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

The noble Lord will not be surprised to learn that I do not have particular information about scallop dredging. However, a Crown Estate Bill will come forward as part of the King’s Speech legislation. This will modernise the Crown Estate by removing some of the outdated restrictions on its activities. The measures that will come forward will widen investment powers and give the Crown Estate powers to borrow to invest at a faster pace. Those reforms will ensure the successful future of Crown Estate business and help meet the clean energy superpower mission. I will come back to the noble Lord with a Written Answer on the issue of scallop dredging.