Planning and Infrastructure Bill

Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle Excerpts

Committee stage
Thursday 11th September 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Whitaker (Lab)]

My Lords, I am pleased to open the sixth day of Committee on this hugely important Bill with a set of amendments which may appear rather niche to some, but which I suggest are fundamental to our national values.

I speak to Amendments 145, 173, 174, 175 and 176 in my name and those of the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Manchester, who regrets he cannot be here, and the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett of Manor Castle, for Amendment 145, together with the noble Lord, Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth, and the noble Baroness, Lady Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville, who have joined me for the others. I am very grateful for their support. I am also very grateful to Friends, Families and Travellers for its advice, and to the Public Bill Office for its heroic efforts to get our requirements within the scope of this Bill.

All these amendments address a gap in our understanding of the population of the United Kingdom: the centuries-old existence of a small number of fellow citizens, some Gypsies and Travellers, whose traditional way of life and culture is to live in their communities on caravan sites. The fact that they may reside in a different pattern from the majority does not lessen the validity of their citizenship, as the law has attested. Their rentals of caravans and associated amenities on a site as their permanent residence thus means that they should be entitled to standards of provision just as much as those who live in bricks and mortar on a street. But the omission of general acknowledgment of their way of life has meant that there is a significant shortage of sites and that the conditions that they are obliged to live in can easily be—and are—markedly inferior, insecure, dangerous, polluted and the cause of multiple disadvantage, to say nothing of the damage all this does to social cohesion.

These amendments are the way to close that gap. Amendment 145 would make it clear that Gypsy and Traveller sites must be considered within the strategically important housing sites identified in spatial development strategies. Amendment 173 would firm up the current obligation on local authorities to assess the accommodation needs of Gypsies and Travellers so that plans and planning strategies, including the all-important new spatial development strategies, never omit the need for sites again. Thus, local authorities could not ignore the excellent guidance so far produced by this Government and must observe any further guidance. It is of particular importance to put an end to the inconsistent approaches and methodologies of assessment of need which have resulted in such marked inequality of provision. Amendment 174 would clarify the role of government in revising or developing guidance, so that Parliament has a proper opportunity to debate what is best.

Amendment 175 would create a similar framework for local authorities to ensure that they meet the assessed need for sites in their area in their role in planning, development and infrastructure. Here it is essential that needs for both private and socially rented pitches, transit as well as permanent, are taken account of.

Finally, Amendment 176 addresses the failure to date of many local authorities to meet the assessed need for Gypsy and Traveller sites by giving the Secretary of State the power to make them do it when they are carrying out their functions in relation to planning, development and infrastructure.

In conclusion, these amendments together would at last recognise the validity of that small Gypsy and Traveller population that follow their traditional way of life as full citizens. They would go far to eliminate the neighbourhood friction that comes of their having to live on unauthorised sites. Perhaps most poignantly of all, they would enable proper education for the children who suffer so markedly and in so many ways from the insecurity of constantly being evicted. It would remove a very long-standing injustice to adopt these amendments. I very much hope that my noble friend will do that, or devise amendments that would achieve the same end.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, it is a great pleasure to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Whitaker, who has long been the House’s champion in these areas and provides us with great leadership. I was pleased to attach my name to Amendment 145, also supported by the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Manchester and the noble Baroness, Lady Bakewell. I would have attached my name to all the others if there had been time.

I will put the context of this issue. Noble Lords who follow the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography will know that, at the weekend, the biography it focused on was a woman called Elizabeth Canning who was one of the most celebrated criminal cases of the 18th century. She was a maidservant who disappeared for a month and said that she had been kidnapped. A woman identified at that time as an “Egyptian”—what we would now describe as a Gypsy—was then convicted of being responsible for that. if you read the account now, it is very obvious that this was simply a case of 18th-century prejudice.

I reference that case because it focuses on how long Gypsies in particular, but also Traveller people generally, have been part of our communities and lives, and how long the prejudice has gone on. In the 21st century, these amendments seek to make sure that we end some of that prejudice, at least in the structure of our law. We cannot always in your Lordships’ House address people’s attitudes, but we can address the law and make sure that there is provision for the housing needs that are so crucial.

The noble Baroness, Lady Whitaker, has set out most of the technical points. I will make one additional point. This aims to ensure that we have a level of accommodation needs provision for Gypsy, Roma and Traveller people across the country that is to the same standards. Some noble Lords might suggest that I am often talking about the need for local devolution and decision-making, but we also want a basic level of standard across the country, which these amendments would provide. That does not mean that a local authority could not do better than the basic standard; this is saying that there have to be standards and there has to be provision. That has to be the crucial starting point.

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[Viscount Trenchard (Con)]

My Lords, I support my noble friends Lord Blencathra and Lord Bellingham—who will I think speak later in this group—and other noble Lords in their Amendment 146. I agree with everything that has been said.

Your Lordships may wonder why I am also so keen to support Amendment 147, in the name of the right reverend Prelate, the Bishop of Norwich, my noble friend Lord Caithness and the noble Baroness, Lady Parminter, who has just spoken most effectively. I declare an interest as the owner of a short stretch of the River Rib in Hertfordshire. I hope the Minister will not suggest that the right reverend Prelate’s Amendment 147 is not necessary and will instead consider the arguments for special protection for chalk streams, as was accepted by the Government and supported by your Lordships’ House in the Levelling-up and Regeneration Act. Two years ago, during the passage of that Act, I introduced an amendment designed to support a chalk stream recovery package and provide protection for our beautiful chalk streams as a specific, unique and precious natural resource.

I was delighted at that time that the noble Baroness, Lady Taylor of Stevenage, put her name to my amendment and spoke in support of it. I hope the Minister will not mind if I quote what she said:

“I am lucky enough to have spent my life living in the wonderful county of Hertfordshire. For those of you who are not aware, Hertfordshire contains over 20% of the world’s unique and special, natural and precious chalk streams.”

She continued:

“If our chalk streams were buildings, they would be UNESCO heritage sites. Let us protect them as though they were”.—[Official Report, 18/7/25; col. 2269.]


Like the noble Baroness, I was brought up in and live in Hertfordshire, and I was delighted that she appreciated the special and distinct needs of chalk streams, which have disproportionately suffered from pollution and excess abstraction. My noble friend Lord Caithness also supported my amendment. We successfully persuaded my then noble friend, the noble Lord, Lord Benyon, to introduce a government amendment which broadly achieved the same purpose.

Can the Minister now confirm whether the Government intend to set explicit outcomes regarding the protection of chalk streams as specified in the Levelling-up and Regeneration Act? The previous Government had endorsed the “one big wish” put forward by the catchment-based approach initiative, CaBA, for statutory protection and priority status for chalk streams. Can she also say whether the Government intend to build on and maintain priority status for chalk streams? I think that she has supported the perseverance of CaBA, led by Charles Rangeley-Wilson.

The CaBA chalk stream strategy is very clear that a special status is needed for these globally rare and locally precious treasures, but progress on the strategy has been disappointing, although there has been a petition, “Don’t Abandon the Chalk Stream”, which secured enough signatures to require a government response, and the Petitions Committee of another place has requested an updated response to that petition.

The noble Baroness, Lady Parminter, explained very well just now why chalk streams need special protection, so I will not repeat the points that she so ably made, but I will say that to take specific account of chalk streams in spatial development strategies would allow local authorities to provide a safety net to protect them from the indirect impacts of development where other regimes have failed to do so. Taking chalk streams into account should facilitate the action so desperately needed to curb additional demand for water and make sure that appropriate wastewater infrastructure is in place before development occurs.

The Rivers Trust is right in calling for chalk streams to be defined as irreplaceable habitats. This would minimise direct harm from development and encourage enhancement of chalk streams through the biodiversity net gain regime. The Minister supported these arguments in the Levelling-up and Regeneration Act. I look forward to hearing whether she still supports them in this Bill before your Lordships now.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, I will concentrate chiefly on Amendment 150 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Grender, to which I have attached my name, but I shall briefly comment on Amendment 148, very comprehensively introduced by the noble Baroness, Lady Parminter. Indeed, we have majored on chalk streams and I suspect we will hear a lot more about them. I am just going to cross-reference a contribution I made earlier this week about the River Itchen and the amount of plastics and fibreglass fibres that have just been discovered in new research in that chalk stream. This amendment addresses permissible activities. We do not know where those fibres in the River Itchen are coming from, but we desperately need to think about what activities we can afford to allow and what the planning permission can be beside those chalk streams. The extraction of water is the obvious issue here, but we also have to think about pollution and we really have to apply the precautionary principle to these crucial environments.

Amendment 150 says that a spatial development strategy must take account of local wildlife sites, which is crucial in this terribly nature-depleted country. There are, by a very precise count, 43,992 local wildlife sites, of which we know the status of only 15%. That is what the Wildlife Trusts say. SSSIs have greater legal protection. We know that very often does not work, but these local wildlife sites too often fall under the radar and are not sufficiently considered. They are often stepping stones for wildlife to get from one place to another crucial environment, or parts of corridors that enable wildlife communities to mix, to get genetic diversity, among other crucial factors, so it is crucial that the spatial development strategy totally takes these into account.

I think this also cross-references Amendment 152ZA, to which I shall speak briefly. I am strongly in favour of this amendment and commend the noble Baroness, Lady Hodgson of Abinger, for bringing it. I am sure that she is going to introduce it shortly, but it is about the welfare of animals being considered in spatial development strategies. We think about such things as light pollution, noise pollution, the cutting off of corridors and the isolating of populations. These things that human developments are doing do not sufficiently consider the welfare of animals, and they very much relate to local wildlife sites as well.

[Baroness Hodgson of Abinger (Con)]

My Lords, I shall speak to Amendments 152ZA and 216A. I hope that noble Lords will not think I am in any way discourteous, but I think that there has been a transposition of numbers on Amendment 216ZA. I cannot find any such amendment in the Marshalled List. I think what was meant was Amendment 261A. I am not surprised if anybody has become confused, with the amount of amendments, so I will speak to both.

The purpose of these two amendments is to ensure that the welfare of all sentient animals, both wild and domesticated, is systematically considered within the new planning frameworks established by the Bill. Amendment 152ZA addresses this for spatial development strategies and Amendment 261A addresses it for environmental delivery plans. We all understand the Government’s objectives within the Bill to streamline the planning system, deliver the necessary infrastructure and build more homes. Of course, these are vital aims. However, the Bill contains a significant omission that these amendments are designed to address. It is entirely silent on the welfare of the individual sentient animals living within the environments we seek to develop. This is not simply my opinion; it is also the view of the Animal Sentience Committee, the independent expert body established to advise on whether government policy pays proper regard to the welfare of sentient animals.

In its letter to Ministers this June, the committee expressed significant concern about the Bill. The committee warned that under the current proposals, existing animals—not just species of high conservation concern, but common species such as rabbits, voles or wrens—face severe negative impacts. They

“may be killed directly … by plant machinery … killed indirectly … if their burrows or food sources are destroyed … or displaced to highly uncertain futures”.

Furthermore, planning decisions will have a long-term impact on millions of wild and companion animals. The committee warned that the Bill appears to conceptualise “biodiversity” or “the environment” as abstract entities without recognising that these are populated by individual animals capable of experiencing pain, distress and suffering. Wild animal welfare is aligned with but distinct from species conservation.

Rather than protecting species at the population level, it is about improving well-being at the individual level. In fact, it is interesting that the Government grouped these amendments with others on the protection of rivers and chalk streams today, rather emphasising the committee’s concern that all “biodiversity” or “the environment” is being considered as one homogeneous group. Conscious of the time allotted to the Bill, I did not request to degroup on this occasion, but I assure the Minister that I will do so at the next stage if the Government do not give due consideration. The Animal Sentience Committee’s concerns have been echoed by NGOs such as the Wild Animal Welfare Committee and the UK Centre for Animal Law.

My amendments are designed to implement the recommendations of the Animal Sentience Committee in a constructive and proportionate manner. They are intended not to block development but to ensure that how we build is done responsibly and humanely. Amendment 152ZA would require that spatial development strategies consider animal welfare. It does not mandate specific outcomes and it provides flexibilities for planning authorities. In practice, it could mean such things as considering the impact of development on known wildlife movement corridors and roosting or breeding sites at the concept plan stage; specifying bird-safe lighting and glazing standards for tall or waterside buildings; or the creation of refuge areas with appropriate food and shelter for animals displaced during construction.

Amendment 261A would require that the environmental development plans drawn up by Natural England pay due regard to the welfare of all animals. This is about practical steps at the delivery stage, such as ensuring thorough preconstruction checks for hedgehogs or ground-nesting birds, avoiding key breeding seasons or requiring the humane relocation of animals where harm is unavoidable.

If Ministers are unwilling to consider legislative options on this, I hope they will give serious thought to what non-legislative policy commitments they could make in order to address the concerns of the Animal Sentience Committee. This could include, for example, making a commitment that the Secretary of State will include due regard for animal welfare as a prescribed matter for spatial development strategies or mentioning animal welfare in the regulations that they will establish for Natural England’s duties when preparing an environmental delivery plan. They could also issue voluntary guidelines on wild animal welfare-friendly approaches to planning, infrastructure, development and building. This could build on guidance that has been issued elsewhere—for example, the Chartered Institute of Ecology and Environmental Management’s Good Practice Guidance for Habitats and Species, but with a specific focus on welfare.

However, I hope that the Government have a sincere commitment to animal welfare and will therefore feel able to accept these amendments.

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[Baroness Hodgson of Abinger (Con)]

My Lords, Amendment 215 is in my name, but I also support Amendment 157 and echo many of the words of the noble Baroness, Lady Grender. Amendment 215 would insert a new clause after Clause 106 that would provide existing villages with protection equivalent to that currently provided to towns under the National Planning Policy Framework. We have already discussed the importance of design and the impact that the built environment can have on health, productivity and sense of community cohesion, and that we need to put the right house in the right place. This clause is, in part, an extension of these arguments, in that it also looks to preserve the special character of individual villages, and of historic villages in particular. Be it medieval cottages or Victorian buildings, historic architecture reflects an era and the influences that shaped a village.

The UK is known for being a green and pleasant land, with villages and communities that are embedded in the landscape, hewn over centuries of rural life and livelihoods. Many people prefer to live and work in smaller communities closer to nature, often with a strong sense of being rooted in a community. Yet you need only read the debate in the other place to see many Members sharing examples of where some of their villages are no longer recognisable, having grown exponentially, often with housing insensitively tacked on. Members spoke of fields with as many houses as a developer can cram in, with no reference to local styles or consideration of infrastructure, rather than villages being developed organically in a way that existing residents feel comfortable with. Too often, this challenges the rural identity of an area and sounds a death knell for the green belt.

There are key elements that contribute to a village’s identity: architecture; cultural traditions and community narratives; and local pride, with traditions and festivals often reinforcing historical awareness as well as supporting heritage tourism. According to a report by the National Lottery Heritage Fund, heritage-led regeneration projects in UK villages have led to a 20% increase in local business activity, demonstrating the economic benefits of maintaining historical identity. Meanwhile, Historic England argues:

“Understanding the significance of places is vital”.


The risk that the Bill poses is of opening up development so much that we lose these gems or, in the worst-case scenario, that they become swallowed up in a styleless, depressing urban sprawl.

There is a significant threat to the authenticity and continuity of historical narratives that define UK villages and their identity. The Government have reported that between 2000 and 2017, more than 1,000 listed buildings were lost due to redevelopment. How could that have happened? It seems to happen all too easily. I argue that we should afford villages the same protection as towns under the NPPF, to ensure that they can retain their character and charm. This amendment would enable that and I hope it will gain the support of the Committee.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Baronesses, Lady Grender and Lady Hodgson. At this point, I wish to thank the hard-working Whips’ Office, which, in this combination of amendments, has done an excellent job of tying together two things. I acknowledge just how much of a difficult job we have been giving it with Bills at the moment, with our alphabet soups. I think we should acknowledge that and say thank you.

Amendment 157, in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Grender, might have been written after my visit to Belper in the Amber Valley in Derbyshire in about 2012. This was a visit focused on trying to protect the green-belt patch of land between Belper and an adjoining village. The plan was to build across the lot and join up that village and Belper together. It was also for speculative development, as the noble Baroness said, and there was a lot of frustration about that. Then we went to lunch. We were sitting in the café and above us there was a lovely woodcut, a historic piece of art, of an old mill in town when it was in operation. I said to the local party, “What’s happening with that mill?”, and they said, “Oh, it’s derelict and we worry about it being burned down”. We were going to build on the green belt and destroy the village environment, and there was that obvious place where we could have been putting housing, right in the centre of town, where all the facilities were, where there was public transport, et cetera.

I am afraid that the Government often do not seem to understand the point of the green belt, and I think that is clear in the invention of the term “grey belt”. Yes, green belt can be to protect beautiful green spaces, nature, farming land, et cetera, but it is also to prevent communities—towns, cities and villages—sprawling and linking up together. The whole idea of “grey belt” really avoids understanding that.

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[Baroness Young of Old Scone (Lab)]

My Lords, I support Amendment 164 from the noble Baroness, Lady Parminter, who has laid out the case very clearly. Local planning authorities are vital if the Government and we as a nation are going to achieve the legally binding targets and programmes for climate, environment and biodiversity listed in the amendment. We are likely to have this debate on multiple occasions over the next few months and years. Of course, we have already gone through this process of debating why major bodies—new bodies in legislation or bodies whose legislation is being changed—should have the opportunity of a statutory duty to promote these issues.

We had some success in this House in giving such a duty to the Crown Estate. Indeed, the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, played a sterling role there, and although it was not actually adopted in the legislation, it was included in the guidance to the Crown Estate. The noble Lord, Lord Krebs, had he been in his place, would have been reminding the Committee that he, of course, has a Private Member’s Bill that would do the job in a sort of bulk-buy fashion and give a whole list of the key implementation public authorities a similar duty in one fell swoop. It would be absolutely the right way forward if that private legislation were adopted by the Government and put forward as a government Bill, because that is the most efficient way of doing it. Otherwise, noble Lords are going to have to listen to the likes of me, the noble Lord, Lord Krebs, and the noble Baroness, Lady Parminter, bang on about this sequentially as each body comes forward, until such time as we have debated the whole lot.

So, I commend this amendment and issue a stern address to the Government that accepting the Krebs Private Member’s Bill would be a splendid shortcut to the right destination.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, it is a great pleasure to follow the noble Baronesses, Lady Parminter and Lady Young, and to thank the noble Lord, Lord Krebs, for supporting this amendment. It is something of the usual crew, and “Green Member gets up to support climate and biodiversity action” is, I know, not terribly original, but I just want to make a couple of specific points. One is that there was a climate reporting duty on local authorities until 2010, brought in by a previous Labour Government. This amendment is seeking to reinstate something that Labour Governments brought in.

Repeated calls have come from the Climate Change Committee, businesses and the independent net zero review for a statutory local duty on climate, which is what this amendment aims to introduce. The noble Baroness, Lady Parminter, referred memorably to the “NERC Act”, a phrase I had not heard before; I think I will call it the Natural Environment and Rural Communities Act, because it is perhaps a bit clearer. It links with the Environment Act 2021, and research on the implementation of it is clear—it exists but it is all terribly obscure, and people are not catching up with it. This amendment introduces something very clear and simple.

As the noble Baroness, Lady Young, said, this is a debate that we keep having, so let us bring in a climate duty. Your Lordships’ House has had some real success over the years in having impact on Bills. I can go back to the pensions dashboards Bill, which will predate quite a number of people sitting in this Chamber. It was the first Committee stage I ever worked on, and we were trying to get climate measurements into the pensions dashboard. We really need to get to the point where your Lordships’ House does not have to keep doing this Bill after Bill. I know the noble Lord is concerned about the rate of progress, but if the Government put this in at the start, we would save a lot of time in your Lordships’ House.

I want to make one other crucial point. Local authorities have clear statutory duties, including a growth duty under the Deregulation Act 2015. There is a real imbalance between the fact that they have this growth duty but not a duty to look after the environment, climate and nature. Whatever I may think about growth, if you do not have a healthy environment, if communities are being battered by heatwaves, floods and droughts and you are not doing the climate mitigation you need to do, then you are not going to get the growth. These two things have to fit together.

We are all well aware that different parties with different views are coming into local authorities now, but this is a communal responsibility. Loss of biodiversity does not stop at county or district boundaries; climate change does not stop there either. All local authorities must have the duty, so that everyone is looked after. We cannot allow some people a free ride.

[Lord Deben (Con)]

My Lords, this is a crucial amendment, not least for the reasons the noble Baroness, Lady Young, put forward. We are going to go on about this until we have an overall demand that this is how we think about matters. We have to recognise that unless we make all our decisions in the context of recovering our biodiversity and protecting our nation and the world against climate change, we are going to make a mess of the decisions we make. That is absolutely central.

I know the Government will be inclined to say it is already there—it is in the guidance, and it is all very proper—but I am afraid that there are many in local authorities who do not see this as the priority it ought to be. I really must ask the Minister to think seriously about the fact that every local authority at least must know that it has to think about things through this lens, because it is the most important lens for all of us.

I live in, and used to represent, a very agricultural constituency, and anyone who has seen the effect of the drought on all our farms at the moment will realise just how desperate the effect of climate change is, particularly for farmers who, only 18 months ago, could not get their crops out because of the water and could not plant because it was still too wet to do so.

People do not understand the impact of climate change today—it is amazing. I am upset and concerned that the good common view of all major political parties is beginning to be eroded. Only by working together are we going to solve these problems. It is no good just saying, “Oh well, we can put it off. We can’t do it by this or that time”. I congratulate the Government on sticking to the fact that we have to do this very quickly indeed. The trouble is that the timetable is not in our hands. We have allowed the timetable to be led by the fact that nature is now reacting to what we have done, and doing so in an increasingly extreme way.

I hope that the Government will take these amendments seriously and consider an overall view of this in a whole lot of other areas, so that we do not have to have this discussion on a permanent basis. Frankly, it ought to be the given for everything we do that we look at in the light of the fact of climate change. If there are Members of the Committee who have still not seen this, I remind them that it is necessary for growth. If we do not do this, we will not be a country in which people will invest, and we will not have new jobs or the kind of society, nature and climate that will be suitable not only for our children and grandchildren but for us. At my age, I can still say that we have to do this, otherwise the climate in which I will go on living will be increasingly unhappy for me, and for my children and grandchildren. Please accept this amendment.

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[Lord Addington (LD)]

Clearly, my noble friend has heard me often enough.

The best playing fields are in nice, urban environments where people can get to them. Effectively, you have a greenfield site, often owned by a cash-strapped local authority or an independent school that has been increasingly under pressure to improve exam results rather than develop the whole picture. The playing field owners say, “Wouldn’t it be better if we had a slightly better new gym court and got rid of the field?” or “Nobody else is playing on the playing field because we haven’t maintained it”; they sell it off and get rid of it. Who cares? The people who play the sport do and the people you want to play the sport should.

What is sport? It is the ultimate community activity with health benefits, and public playing fields are essential for those in grass-roots sport to be able to address this. Go to any successful sports club, especially for sports such as football, rugby, and cricket, and it will have started on a public playing field. That is where you start. Even with these property-owning sports—rugby and cricket are the classic examples—where you are encouraged to take over, manage and own your own ground, you start somewhere else and develop on from it. You can expand your playing numbers by taking on smaller pitches for your junior teams by using them. It is an integrated part of it. If you do not have that capacity, the nature of the club will be threatened. So we have something which adds to it, but it is potentially a cash cow for some other groups and is sitting there in the right place, very tempting for any housing plan.

The body that has been protecting such places, Sport England, is no longer a consultee. That is what it is thinking and feeling. If we are wrong about that, I would be very grateful to hear it when whichever Minister replies, and your Lordships will not be hearing from me again. If that is not the case, there is something to be answered here.

My amendment would put in another duty; of course, it is Committee and this is just the first go, but I hope that the Government will tell me here if there is another solution to this—if they cannot tell me exactly at this stage, I will make myself available for any meetings to make sure that I know and can tell the rest of the House. If something positive is going to happen there, I will be more than grateful to go away and spread the word. If the Government are not going to do something like this and will just leave it to a general duty, they are basically guaranteeing losses, and possibly catastrophic losses. Unless you understand this and your current drive is for something else, you will ignore it, because we all do. What is your primary objective? We go there. I hope that the Government will tell me something positive and supportive with regard to this group.

We should also remember that you are supporting voluntary groups which do this at very little cost to the state at the moment. That culture of gathering together, paying for the use of the pitch and running up has to have a little space to grow. If we remove that, we will stifle the whole thing.

The noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, has another amendment down here; I think we all know enough not to say exactly what her amendments mean, but the idea of play also comes in and tags on there. Such play is not as formalised or structured, but it is also important.

I hope that whichever Minister replies will be able to tell us that something solid will address this, not a general air or duty of “Oh yes, of course they will deal with it”, because we all know that things like that get ignored. We need something solid that will make sure there is a protection at least compatible with what is going on now. If we do not, we will have to go back to this, at least once, and possibly it will have to be decided by a decision of the whole House. I hope we do not need to do that, but I am quite prepared to do it. I beg to move.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Addington. Just to reassure him, I did not dream up Amendment 179; it was originally presented in the other place, and I am taking it forward with the support of Play England. I hope that what it means will be very clear.

I was happy to attach my name to Amendment 165, which the noble Lord, Lord Addington, just presented. In a sense, the first amendment we have had here is a subset of the broader amendment. Amendment 165 is about formal play, if you like, such as organised games and structured activities; my amendment covers those but also looks more broadly at unstructured play and interaction where young people in particular have the chance to mix.

The proposed new clause introduces a play-sufficiency duty to ensure that every local planning authority

“must, so far as reasonably practicable, assess, secure, enhance, and protect”—

“protect” is particularly important—

“sufficient opportunities for children’s play when exercising any of its planning functions”.

Far too often, play is seen as something frivolous and childish, to be fitted around the edges of cramming for exams; rigid, structured arrangements. Yet we know that play is essential for physical and mental health. It is vital for the development of minds and bodies. It offers a space for the flowering of social skills and the development, crucially, of independence: the ability to assess risks, to take risks and to deal with the consequences, particularly in an unstructured environment. Yet this is being squeezed out of children’s lives in urban and other environments. The noble Lord, Lord Addington, talked about playing fields being sold off. We have also seen a huge number of closures of swimming pools, which has real public safety implications.

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[Lord Wilson of Sedgefield (Lab)]

I have laid out quite specifically what we intend on doing and how much money we are going to spend. I know we have lost playing fields. That was not under this Government but under the previous Government. Local government was affected by major cuts in funding. So, yes, we have a plan, and we mean to implement it. We are going to spend £1.5 billion on neighbourhood boards. They will have the right to give enhanced provision of public areas for play, et cetera, so I think there is a lot that we are doing. If the noble Lord wants to meet in the near future, I am sure we can organise something so that we can discuss this and explain it further.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

I asked whether the Minister would be prepared to have a meeting with me and other interested Peers and campaigners on Amendment 179.

[Lord Wilson of Sedgefield (Lab)]

I am sure we can sort something out.

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[Lord Fuller (Con)]

I thank the noble Baroness for her comments and congratulate her on taking through the legislation. At the outset, when she was taking the legislation through your Lordships’ House, she would have contemplated that CIL was going to carry the lion’s share of the cost of infrastructure. Sadly, that never turned out to be the case. To a certain extent, the areas that have had CIL have ended up in a worst-of-all-worlds situation, where they have some CIL but they also have Section 106. That is a disappointment. It has not reached the promise that we all wanted for it, because everything has become so much more expensive. As I alluded to earlier, the developers give up with CIL and just want to build the school themselves. In fact, they are probably best placed to build the school while they are onsite, mobilised and with the construction equipment all around them. With the benefit of hindsight, perhaps forcing the council to build the school when they do not have some of that brownfield risk would have been an improvement.

I am getting off the point. In short, I support the amendment, but it needs to be embellished on Report.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Banner, described Amendment 184 as compelling, and I entirely agree with him. In the interests of time, that is all I will say on that amendment.

I will briefly speak to Amendment 218, taking us back some time to the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, who has already introduced the idea of a review of land value capture. I am going to brandish a historical figure in defence of this suggestion. It may surprise the Benches to my right, because I am going to start by saying that I agree with Winston Churchill. That is not a phrase that I bring out very often, but I do in this context. In 1909, he said that

“the landlord who happens to own a plot of land on the outskirts or at the centre of one of our great cities … sits still and does nothing. Roads are made, streets are made, railway services are improved, electric light turns night into day, electric trams glide swiftly to and fro, water is brought from reservoirs a hundred miles off in the mountains—and all while the landlord sits still … To not one of those improvements does the land monopolist, as a land monopolist, contribute, and yet by every one of them the value of his land is sensibly enhanced”.

That was identified more than a century ago, but it exactly addresses the issue that still exists and that we have not come to deal with.

[Baroness Thornhill (LD)]

He was a Liberal then.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

Okay—I am not going to get that far into the history.

I declare an interest in that land value tax is a long-term Green Party policy and one that I am very happy to talk about at length, but I am not going to do that because it is not what this amendment would do. However, it is worth thinking about the fact that the problem with how we tax land goes back a very long way. There was a royal commission on the housing of the working classes set up in 1885; it was the first time that an inquiry had referred to land value taxation—it was called site value rating then—and it said that this would be a better way to solve a housing crisis. These are issues that we have been wrestling with and failing to solve for a very long time.

My final point is that this amendment by itself would not deal with the crunching, terrible elephant-in-the-room issue of council tax, but it would start to provide the Government with a way to open up these issues. This is all regarded as too politically difficult, too challenging and too complicated to explain—I know what it is like to try to explain land value tax in 15 seconds, because it is a challenge. We are now 35 years on from when council tax was created. It was an emergency crunch measure created by the Treasury after the political disaster of the poll tax. It is a deeply regressive tax. Someone living in a home worth £100,000 pays an effective tax rate five times as high as someone in a £1 million property. The average net council tax is only 2.7 times higher for the top 10% of properties than for the bottom 10%. This is something that we have to address. This amendment would not address all, or even the bulk, of it, but it would start to inch us into a space where we could tackle some issues that desperately need to be tackled.

[Lord Jamieson (Con)]

My Lords, we have already debated some complex topics in Committee and the issue of land value capture certainly continues in that vein.