Planning and Infrastructure Bill

Baroness Parminter Excerpts

Committee stage
Thursday 11th September 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Blencathra (Con)]

My Lords, I rise to move Amendment 146 and speak to Amendment 354 on behalf of my noble friend Lord Roborough. Amendment 146 would require spatial development strategies to list any rivers and streams within their areas, to outline specific measures to protect them from environmental harm, and to impose a clear responsibility on strategic planning authorities to protect and enhance chalk stream environments. Amendment 354 would designate a river or stream as a protected site. Amendment 147, in the name of the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Norwich, similarly requires spatial development strategies to specifically identify chalk streams within their areas.

Amendment 152ZA, in the name of my noble friend Lady Hodgson of Abinger, seeks to ensure that animal welfare is explicitly considered when spatial development strategies are produced. This amendment responds directly to the concerns raised by the Government’s Animal Sentience Committee in its June letter to Ministers, which highlighted that the Bill as drafted does not pay due regard to the welfare of sentient animals. It is crucial that our planning framework acknowledge and integrate animal welfare as a key consideration alongside environmental protections.

These amendments are vital. They recognise the urgent need for bespoke protections for our rivers and chalk streams, which are not only key environmental assets but are deeply woven into our national heritage. I am grateful to see many noble Lords across the Committee expressing the same concerns and recognising the unique value of these precious water courses.

I will also speak briefly to Amendments 148 and 150, in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Grender, and Amendment 178, in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Teverson. Amendments 148 and 150 seek to ensure that spatial development strategies include explicit policies to protect chalk streams and take proper account of local wildlife sites. Amendment 178 would ensure that local plans align with the land use framework and local nature recovery strategies. Chalk streams are not merely beautiful and iconic features of our landscape; they are symbols of our natural and cultural heritage. Often described as England’s rainforests, they are globally rare, ecologically rich and uniquely vulnerable, yet they face increasing threats from development pressures, pollution, over-abstraction and the escalating impacts of climate change.

Tragically, none of England’s rivers, including our chalk streams, currently meets the standard of good overall ecological health. This Bill offers a significant opportunity to embed the bespoke protections identified by the CaBA Chalk Stream Restoration Strategy directly into our planning system—protections that these rare waterways so desperately need. The Planning and Infrastructure Bill should ensure that growth is paired with stringent protections for these vital habitats, especially given that, across the south and east of England, chalk streams are already heavily impacted by over-abstraction and wastewater outflows.

In conclusion, can the Minister say what assessment has been made of the Environment Agency’s 2024 event duration monitoring dataset, particularly regarding the role of chalk streams in achieving the Environment Act’s targets to restore our precious waterbodies? I look forward to her response, and I beg to move.

[Baroness Parminter (LD)]

My Lords, I rise to speak to Amendment 147 in the name of the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Norwich and Amendment 148 in the name of my noble friend Lady Grender, both of which deal with the issue of chalk streams, which has been well touched on by the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra. I give the apologies of the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Norwich, who is unavoidably in Papua New Guinea on a diocesan link meeting. If he were here, I know that he would wish to thank the noble Earl, Lord Caithness, and the noble Viscount, Lord Trenchard, for their support for his amendment.

There are many noble Lords in this Committee who know a lot about chalk streams. It was interesting to hear the Minister last week say that she knows about them because she has a chalk stream in Stevenage. They are globally significant, and their pristine water conditions and stable temperature are home to some of our most endangered species, including water voles, the long-clawed crayfish and kingfishers, so they really need our protection. I will not go into the issue of where the protections come from, because that was covered so well by the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra.

When this issue was raised in the Commons, the Minister said that these additional protections were unnecessary. I contend that that is the wrong approach. The reasons the Minister gave in the Commons for it being unnecessary to have these additional protections in spatial development strategies were, first, that protection was provided in local nature recovery strategies. For those of us who are familiar with chalk streams, we know that they cross counties, and local nature recovery strategies are specific to individual areas. LNRSs therefore cannot deliver the protection that chalk streams need to cover that cross-county boundary.

--- Later in debate ---

Moved by

[Baroness Parminter]

164: After Clause 52, insert the following new Clause—
“Local planning authority duty: statutory environment and climate change targetsIn the exercise of any of its planning or development functions, a local planning authority must take all reasonable steps to contribute to—(a) the achievement of targets in sections 1 to 3 of the Environment Act 2021,(b) the achievement of targets set under Part 1 of the Climate Change Act 2008,(c) the programme for adaptation to climate change under section 58 of the Climate Change Act 2008, and(d) the achievement of targets set under the Air Quality Standards Regulations 2010.”Member’s explanatory statement
This new clause would impose a duty on local authorities to take reasonable steps to contribute to Environment Act and Climate Change Act targets.

[Baroness Parminter (LD)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Baronesses, Lady Bennett of Manor Castle and Lady Young of Old Scone, and the noble Lord, Lord Krebs, for supporting me in this amendment, which would give a statutory duty to local authorities to promote climate change and nature recovery targets. It would specifically ensure that planning decisions actively supported climate adaptation, mitigation and nature recovery, thereby helping us to deliver our legally binding targets for net zero and the restoration of biodiversity.

We know that local authorities play a fundamentally important role in meeting our net-zero and nature restoration targets, because planning decisions fundamentally determine where infrastructure goes. We have to think not just about houses but about transport, which is responsible for half of our climate change emissions in the UK. Our land use determines whether we are providing the necessary homes for nature.

It is not just us making this case: the Climate Change Committee in its report to Parliament last year argued strongly that net-zero objectives should be consistently prioritised in planning decisions. Many businesses have been arguing for some time for a statutory duty in this regard, in order to provide policy certainty and encourage the necessary investment in net-zero and nature recovery objectives.

When the Government produced its Statement on the climate and nature crisis on 14 July, Ed Miliband said that

“the actions we need are not just about Government, we are also determined to help communities take climate and nature action in their own area … supporting mayors and local government to accelerate action”.—[Official Report, Commons, 14/7/25; col. 31.] 

This amendment would do just that.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Wilson of Sedgefield (Lab)]

We believe that what is already there is specific and offers clarity. It is fundamental to the planning regime that we want to bring in. If the noble Lord wants, I can write to him in greater detail about what is on offer here.

[Baroness Parminter (LD)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister at least for the consistency of his reply with that given in the Commons. I thank all other noble Lords who have spoken in this brief debate.

The noble Lord, Lord Deben, made the point well: time is not on our side, and local authorities have a critical part to play in meeting our net-zero targets. The Government cannot do it on their own and we as individuals wanting to drive electric cars cannot do it if local authorities have not put in place plug points or if the houses are in the wrong places. They are pivotal. At some point, you have to start creating the overall conditions to show that the Government and local government are acting in partnership to achieve the legally binding targets which this Government are signed up to and which I am sure they wish to keep to.

To pick up the point from the noble Lord, Lord Deben, what will this Government do if the big local authorities start refusing to take these responsibilities seriously? They will have no chance of getting to the targets that they want to achieve and which this country needs unless they start biting the bullet now and putting some target statutory duties in, as the previous Government gave local authorities statutory duties to promote growth. Without that, they will not get there. I ask them urgently to think again on this. I suspect that we may well return to this on Report. I beg leave to withdraw.

Amendment 164 withdrawn.