Planning and Infrastructure Bill

Baroness Scott of Bybrook Excerpts

Committee stage
Wednesday 17th September 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Coffey (Con)]

My Lords, I am concerned about this amendment, in particular subsection (3) of the proposed new clause, because it talks about repealing primary legislation. I understand what the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, is getting at in trying to make legislation straightforward. That is why we have all these schedules to legislation nowadays, to try to bring that about. I fear, and I have heard on the grapevine, that the noble Lord has been advised by somebody who is now advising somebody very important in the Government and who has also made subsequent comments about how nature is getting in the way of development. While I am conscious of the positive intentions that the noble Lord seeks to achieve through the amendment, I am just flagging my concern.

[Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)]

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Hunt of Kings Heath, for bringing forward Amendment 356A for the consideration of the Committee today. The proposed new clause would allow for pre-consolidation amendments to be made to planning legislation in anticipation of a full future consolidation Bill. Its purpose, as I understand it, is to probe the desirability and feasibility of consolidating the extensive and at times unwieldy body of planning law. The noble Lord is absolutely right to raise the matter.

It comes at a timely moment. We hear that, hot on the heels of the first planning Bill, the Government may now be contemplating a second. As we have said from this Dispatch Box on a number of occasions, if the Government had proceeded to commence either in full or even in part the schedules and clauses already contained within the Levelling-up and Regeneration Act, we might well have avoided the need for yet another Bill in the first place.

That brings me to the specific questions for the Minister. Can she confirm whether there is any truth in the strong rumours circulating that a new planning Bill is indeed on its way? If so, will such a Bill aim to consolidate the many changes that have been made right across the breadth of planning law in recent years? Do the Government accept that consolidation is both needed and desirable, not least to provide clarity and certainty to practitioners, local authorities and communities alike? Finally, can the Minister tell us whether the Government have considered what such a consolidation process might look like and under what timescale it might realistically be delivered? I look forward to the Minister’s reply.

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank my noble friend Lord Hunt for Amendment 356A and for highlighting the merits of consolidating our planning legislation. As someone who has been on the sticky end of it for a number of years, I can absolutely see his point.

My noble friend is not the first to consider this. Indeed, the existing legislative framework provides the Government with sufficient powers to consolidate the planning legislation at an appropriate time. Specifically, as the noble Baroness, Lady Scott, said, Section 132 of the Levelling-up and Regeneration Act provides the Secretary of State with broad and flexible powers to make regulations that amend, repeal or otherwise modify a wide range of planning-related statutes.

While we have no immediate plans to consolidate planning legislation in England, we will keep this under review, as we recognise that consolidating planning legislation could offer some benefits. Since the enactment of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990, the legislative framework has undergone numerous amendments, and consolidation may help to streamline and simplify the system. However, a comprehensive consolidation needs to be weighed against the risks of uncertainty and disruption, particularly at a time when the Government are prioritising targeted planning reform to drive economic growth.

Any move towards consolidation would also require substantial resources, so we would need to be confident that it has clear benefits. At this stage, we believe that targeted reform is the best way forward, but we are live to the possibilities that consolidation offers. I hope that my noble friend and other Peers with an interest in planning will continue to work with us. I therefore hope that my noble friend will feel able to withdraw his amendment.

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[Baroness Pinnock (LD)]

My Lords, SME builders play a very important role in the housebuilding sector of the country because they are able to build on small sites that often need to be redeveloped or are in villages or small townships. We need to encourage SME builders, because they add variety to the range of housebuilders that we rely on in this country. It does seem that, throughout this Bill, there has been too much emphasis on the major house developers—on the basis, I guess, that they are the only source of the very large numbers of housing units that the country requires.

I know that throughout the Bill the Government have attempted to support SMEs, although I am not sure that that has been sufficient. The noble Baroness, Lady Neville-Rolfe, has important points to make about SMEs. As always in planning, it is the balance—between encouraging SMEs, maybe at the expense of some of the regulations regarding environment, and relying too heavily on the major housebuilders, which will be able to cope with the growing need for consideration of environmental responsibilities. I look forward to what the Government are going to say about this; encouraging SME builders is really important.

[Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)]

My Lords, we are nearly there. I thank all noble Lords from across the House for their contributions to the Bill. Over long and often intricate debates, sometimes stretching well into the night, your Lordships have engaged with candour, with insight and with seriousness befitting the weight of these issues. The cross-party spirit of scrutiny and the diligence shown in Committee has, I believe, genuinely strengthened our deliberations.

Amendment 361, tabled by the noble Earl, Lord Caithness, is sound and reasonable. I shall not detain the Committee with another extended rehearsal of why Part 3 is, in our view, both damaging and unnecessary. But let me be clear: despite the Government’s determination to plough ahead with this part of the Bill, the opposition to it will only crystallise further on Report. Part 3 needs to go. At the very least, there must be an independent oversight of its administration. Without that, the concerns raised in Committee will only deepen.

The two thoughtful amendments tabled by my noble friend Lady Neville-Rolfe are practical and considered proposals that go right to the heart of the issues we have debated throughout Committee. Amendment 363 would ensure that the Secretary of State updates all national policy statements before the Act can be commenced. This is vital; out-of-date national policy statements do not provide the clarity or certainty required for developers, planners or communities.

Meanwhile, Amendment 364 would ensure that the Secretary of State publishes an analysis of how each section of the Bill will affect the speed of the planning process and construction before any provisions are commenced. If the central purpose of the Bill is, as Ministers insist, to accelerate planning and speed up delivery, it is only fair to ask how it will achieve that objective in practice. Will it, for example, make any real progress towards the former Deputy Prime Minister’s target of 1.5 million new homes, a promise which, under this Government, looks ever more distant as housebuilding rates continue to decline?

I conclude by returning to the point that I made at the start of Committee. This Bill does not go far enough. It makes adjustments to processes, to roles, to fees and to training. But it leaves untouched the fundamental framework of planning—the very framework that needs serious, bold reform if we are to unlock the scale of housebuilding that this country so urgently requires. We now hear rumours of a second planning Bill to come. If that is true, what your Lordships’ House has been asked to consider is not reform but merely a prelude.

The Government have missed an opportunity with this Bill. They had the chance to set a clear vision for the planning system that delivers for communities, supports growth and tackles the housing crisis head on. Instead, they have brought forward a piecemeal piece of legislation more about tinkering at the edges than about grasping the real challenge. The Government have chosen to use up their remaining political capital on Part 3 rather than building more homes, and the Minister will soon realise that she and her department have wasted their energy on this Bill.

I repeat my thanks to all the staff in the House: the doorkeepers, the technical staff and Hansard have all had to work very hard on nights when we have sat late on this Bill, and I thank them very much for that.

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

My Lords, before I respond to the amendment, I thank all noble Lords who have taken part in the Committee debates and the meetings we have held around the Committee stage of the Bill. We have apparently spent 60 hours in the Chamber debating the Bill and covered 650 amendments. Noble Lords’ knowledge and experience have helped us to shape this important new approach to planning, growth and the environment, which has been especially valuable.

I thank the Front-Bench spokespeople who have shown great stamina and fortitude, which has been really greatly appreciated. I also thank all the outside bodies who have contributed to our debates in the House. I especially thank all the officials who have worked on the Bill. The processes in the House of Lords mean that our officials often have to work at very short notice on putting together papers for Front-Benchers. I also thank the staff of the House, who have worked often very long hours on the Bill.

I also give my personal thanks to my fellow Front-Bench government spokespeople, the noble Lords, Lord Khan and Lord Wilson, and the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, who have supported me so ably on the Front Bench during Committee. I am extremely grateful to them for their support.

This final group of amendments tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Neville-Rolfe, relates to the commencement of the legislation. I thank the noble Baroness for her support and encouragement of the growth agenda that the Bill is aimed at promoting. As we have made clear throughout Committee, our Planning and Infrastructure Bill will play a key role in unlocking economic growth, and we must progress to implementation as swiftly as possible to start reaping the benefits of these measures and getting shovels in the ground—including shovels operated by SME builders. My noble friend Lord Livermore yesterday quoted the fact that this Bill has already been assessed to be making a great contribution to the economic growth we all want to see.

On Amendment 363, while I commend the intent of bring all national policy statements up to date, we must resist this amendment because the clauses in the Bill already address this through the introduction of a requirement for all NPSs to be reviewed and updated at least every five years. These clauses include transitional requirements, the most stringent of which require the NPSs which were designated more than five years before the date when the clauses came into force and have not been amended, to be brought up to date within a two-year period. Delaying the commencement of the rest of the Act until such a time as all NPSs have been updated is therefore unreasonable and would have a detrimental impact on the objectives of the Bill, stalling delivery and growth in our country.

Amendment 253 also seeks to have all remaining sections of the Bill come into force on such a day as the Secretary of State may by regulations appoint. Commencement regulations under this amendment are to be subject to a negative resolution. The commencement of each section of the Bill has been carefully considered with regard to the specific issue and relevant circumstances to determine whether that provision should come into force on the day the Act is passed, or a set period beginning with the day on which the Act is passed, or on such a day as the Secretary of State may by regulations appoint. This bespoke consideration should not be displaced by a blanket rule requiring commencement regulations, and I do not believe there is any reasonable basis for requiring all commencement regulations to be subject to the negative procedure rather than the generally standard procedure of commencement regulations not being subject to any procedure.

Amendment 364 would require the Secretary of State to publish analysis regarding the impact of each section of the Bill on the speed of the planning process before we can commence any of its provisions. I appreciate the noble Baroness’ intentions behind this amendment, and we are aligned in that we want the Bill to have as big an impact as possible in unlocking growth and accelerating development across the country. However, we have already published a full impact assessment on the Bill, including analysis of how each measure will impact on the planning system. As I mentioned earlier, this analysis showed that the economy could be boosted by up to £7.5 billion over the next decade by this pro-growth legislation, and we should not look to delay the implementation of these clauses and the reaping of the Bill’s benefits across the planning system.

We are confident that the Bill will streamline and turbocharge planning processes. For example, our analysis of the Bill’s reforms to the pre-application stage of the NSIP regime shows that these changes could reduce the typical time projects spend in pre-application by up to 12 months. This is a dramatic acceleration of the current system and of delivery of major economic infrastructure and demonstrates clearly how the Bill will get Britain building again. With these reassurances, I hope the noble Baroness will not press her amendment.