Planning and Infrastructure Bill

Viscount Hanworth Excerpts

Report stage
Wednesday 22nd October 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

My Lords, I will speak to Amendments 67 and 261.

The Government listened carefully to the persuasive arguments made in Committee by the noble Lord, Lord Banner, about the unfairness that occurs when planning permissions lapse simply because they are caught up in lengthy judicial or statutory review proceedings. We agree that the current provisions are too limited and do not reflect the realities of modern litigation.

At present, Section 91 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 provides only a single one-year extension when proceedings are begun to challenge a grant of permission or consent. This is narrow in scope; it does not apply to outline permissions or reserved matters approvals, and it does not cater for cases that progress through the appellate courts. In practice, this means that permissions can expire during prolonged legal challenges, forcing applicants to reapply and causing unnecessary cost and delay.

Our amendment introduces a more comprehensive and predictable approach. Where a court grants permission to bring judicial review or statutory challenge proceedings, the commencement period will be extended by one year. If the case proceeds to the Court of Appeal, there will be a further one-year extension, and if it reaches the Supreme Court, an additional two years will be added. These provisions will apply to all types of planning permissions and listed building consents, including outline permissions and reserved matters approvals. They will also apply to existing permissions subject to legal proceedings.

This approach provides clarity and certainty for applicants and developers. It avoids permissions expiring due to delays entirely outside their control, reducing the need for costly and time-consuming repeat applications. It also ensures that the planning system remains fair and proportionate, supporting investment and the delivery of development while respecting the judicial process.

We considered the “stop the clock” proposal put forward by the noble Lord, Lord Banner. While we agreed with the principle, that approach would have required complex calculations based on the start and end dates of proceedings, creating irregular and unpredictable timeframes. Our tiered system offers a simpler, more transparent solution that achieves the same objective without introducing administrative complexity. The amendment strengthens the Bill’s overall purpose: to streamline planning processes and to remove unnecessary barriers to development. It balances the right to challenge decisions with the imperative to deliver homes and infrastructure efficiently. For those reasons, I hope that the House will support the amendment. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Banner, for all the meetings we have had to discuss this and for his constructive approach to this matter.

I will come to the other amendments in this group when they have been spoken to. I beg to move.

[Viscount Hanworth (Lab)]

My Lords, Amendments 77 to 79 propose to limit applications for judicial reviews that are without merit. It is proposed that they may be blocked by a judgment of the High Court. The amendments were tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, and me. In the likely absence of the noble Lord, I have undertaken to speak in support of them.

On Monday, the first day on Report, I spoke to Amendment 83, which describes a means of circumventing lengthy and costly judicial reviews that can affect infrastructure projects of national significance by giving the associated development consent orders—DCOs—the status of Acts of Parliament, which would be legally incontestable. There was no intention in that amendment to curtail meaningful processes of scrutiny and consultation. The purpose was to protect projects from costly and dilatory legal reviews initiated by tendentious factions that are liable to promote their own interests at the expense of those of the wider community or the national interest.

In recent years, the planning system has become increasingly sclerotic. The average time it takes to obtain planning permission for major infrastructure projects has more than doubled in the last decade to more than four years. A judicial review with a minor or frivolous justification may occasion a resubmission of an application for a development order. The revised application might become subject, in turn, to a further judicial review. Despite the eventual dismissal of these appeals, the legal processes can be so costly and cause such delays that the infrastructure project goes into abeyance. Then the contestants have effectively won their case, despite its lack of legal merit.

I should say that I am not averse in principle to judicial reviews. Many of them do have merit. However, a very large and increasing number of requests for judicial reviews are rising nowadays, and hearings are granted in 75% of the cases. They form a lengthy queue and pre-empt the legal resources.

The fashion for judicial views may have been greatly stimulated by the experience of the Archway Road protests, which took place over a period of 20 years from the early 1970s to the 1990s. These protests were prompted by a proposal to develop a motorway dual carriageway in Archway, where the A1 trunk road effectively begins. It was said the purpose of the scheme was to expedite the escape from the centre of London of politicians, senior civil servants and a body of secretaries in the case of the threat of a nuclear missile strike. They were to be conveyed to a secret nuclear bunker in Kelvedon Hatch in Essex, where they might continue to govern the country, while the rest of us perished. It was said that they might have the task of regenerating the population that had been obliterated.

The road scheme would have destroyed 170 houses, for the loss of which the residents would have been given very meagre compensation. It was said that they would have been given no more compensation than would have enabled them to purchase a one-bedroom flat in Tottenham Marshes. A question has to be asked about whether compensation tends nowadays to be more generous. Does its inadequacy continue to provide an incentive to resist infrastructure developments and to resort to judicial procedures to block them? This unpopular scheme has had a long legacy. It established a precedent for judicial reviews that has been followed ever since, for good and for bad reasons.

Amendment 83 did not receive favour from the Government, and in withdrawing it I was clear that I was somewhat disappointed by their response, because we are facing a crisis caused by the wilful delay and obstruction of virtually every important infrastructure project. There is nothing in the Bill or forthcoming from the Government that will address the crisis adequately. We are left with nothing more than the present group of amendments which propose that, in various circumstances pertaining to the Town and Country Planning Act, the listed buildings and conservation Act and the hazardous substances Act, the High Court may deem an appeal to be unworthy of further consideration. I believe that the Court of Appeal already has this prerogative, so there may be very little substance in these amendments, but nevertheless they serve to highlight the problem.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

I thank the noble Baroness.

Although the noble Lord, Lord Banner, is not here, I shall put on the record that there is work ongoing on the Hillside issue, as he is very aware. We continue to engage with him on that issue.

I cannot answer the question asked by the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, off the top of my head, but I will provide a written answer. I appreciate that two years is quite a long time. If surveys have been done, they may need to be done again. I will come back to her on that issue.

I thank my noble friend Lord Hunt for tabling Amendments 77, 78 and 79, introduced by my noble friend Lord Hanworth. These seek to remove the right of appeal for certain planning judicial reviews if they are deemed as totally without merit at the oral permission hearing in the High Court. The effect of these amendments largely reflects the intention of Clause 12, which makes provisions specifically for legal challenges concerning nationally significant infrastructure projects under the Planning Act 2008. The measures being taken forward in Clause 12 follow a robust independent review by the noble Lord, Lord Banner, and a subsequent government call for evidence, which made clear the case for change in relation to major infrastructure projects. We do not currently have any evidence of an issue with legal challenges concerning other types of planning decision. Therefore, we will need to consider this matter further to determine whether the extension of changes made in Clause 12 would be necessary or desirable in other planning regimes.

Amendment 77 seeks to clarify that legal challenges are to be made to the High Court. As mentioned in Committee, this is not necessary as it is already clearly set out in the existing relevant rules, practice directions and guidance documents. In light of these points, while I agree with the intent behind the amendments, I kindly ask that my noble friend does not move them.

[Viscount Hanworth (Lab)]

I am happy not to move the amendments. However, I observe that the government amendments are occasioned by the very problems that I have been describing.

Amendment 67 agreed.