Planning and Infrastructure Bill

Baroness Willis of Summertown Excerpts

Report stage
Monday 27th October 2025 Lords Chamber

In light of the growing and urgent challenges facing our chalk streams, we cannot afford to wait for LNRSs to have more planning bite, or for 2030, when the abstraction licence amendments come into effect. We need Amendment 94 so that spatial development strategies are equipped to enable planning authorities to direct development away from areas where development footprints, pollution and overabstraction could sound the death knell for declining chalk streams. I will certainly listen to the Minister’s response with care. However, if this amendment continues to secure wide support, I will look to test the opinion of the House.

[Baroness Willis of Summertown (CB)]

I am pleased to add my name to the important amendment tabled by the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Norwich, and to Amendment 92 in this group, because, let us be honest, we are not starting from a good place with chalk streams. As mentioned by my noble friend, the current status of these unique and extremely rare habitats in the UK is poor, with more than three-quarters failing to meet good ecological health standards. This is precisely why the chalk streams became such an important issue for debate in the Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill. I remember only too well the same Front Bench colleagues debating long and hard for their protection.

The chalk stream recovery plan, announced by the previous Government, was seen by many, including me, as a good step in the right direction. But here we are again, with chalk streams back in the firing line and, despite the reassurance from the Minister on Report that local nature recovery strategies could propose priorities for their protection,

the problem with our planning system is that it requires local authorities only to have regard to our LNRSs, which is not strong enough to protect these vulnerable habitats. We came across this a number of times in the Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill. Those words are etched in my memory.

Also, although the NPPF recognises the importance of irreplaceable habitats, chalk streams, much to my alarm—and, I am sure, to that of many in this House—are not specifically listed as protected habitats. Therefore, they do not have the overarching level of protection in the Bill, through the spatial development strategies, in the same way other protected habitats do. The only hope left, therefore, is the chalk stream nature recovery plan, launched by the previous Government. However, in reply to the question on this asked in Committee by the noble Viscount, Lord Trenchard, who sadly cannot be here today, the Minister stated that even this is now on hold because it is out of step with the ambitious programme of water reforms proposed by the Government. Perhaps the Minister can say for how long it will be on hold, as a result permitting further damage to occur in these unique freshwater habitats.

I say this because time is of the essence here. As an ecologist, I went back to look at the literature. Research on chalk streams has demonstrated that while removing pollution can result in the improvement of water quality within a month to a few years, ecological recovery can take between 10 and 20 years. The more damage we do, the longer it will take for them to recover.

Lastly, surely there must be some no-go habitats in some of our river catchments, and these chalk streams should be one of them. I therefore urge the Minister to agree to this amendment, within which the spatial development strategy would mandate the sort of responsibilities that lead to the protection and enhancement of these unique and rare chalk stream habitats.

[Lord Bellingham (Con)]

My Lords, I support both amendments. I made a speech in Committee in which I laid out very similar arguments to those put by the right reverend Prelate and the noble Baroness, Lady Willis. I will not repeat them now, except to say that the right reverend Prelate referred to a number of chalk streams in my old constituency of North West Norfolk. These incredible assets—these unique and precious assets—are at risk as we speak. I say to the Minister that neither amendment is particularly demanding. They are quite modest in their overall fabric and intent. If the Government are serious about their environmental credentials, and about trying to do something for the countryside, I urge them, please, to accept these amendments.

--- Later in debate ---

So mapping is a great part of this, leading to a proper strategic risk assessment and a review of where the floods are likely to fall. That would benefit residents and insurance companies, and it would obviously give a heads up to local authorities and the Environment Agency about where the floods are likely to occur. With those few remarks, I beg to move.

[Baroness Willis of Summertown (CB)]

I want to say a few words in support of another very sensible flooding-related amendment, Amendment 101 tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh, to which I was pleased to add my name. I find it alarming that we seem currently to have a situation where some local authorities are using out-of-date maps that do not reflect the current risk of flooding. For example, in a recent report on flood resilience, the Environmental Audit Committee found that:

“Surface water flooding … remains … often underestimated in development decisions”,


and recognised that in spite of surface water flooding being the most common source of flooding in England, it remains “poorly quantified” and “inconsistently planned for”.

We have an opportunity in this Bill to try to address this gap by strengthening requirements on local authorities to ensure that flood risk assessment maps are updated as soon as reasonably practical after the publication of updated Environment Agency flood risk assessments. In Committee, the Minister said that keeping flood risk assessments up up-to-date is “already expected practice”, but with so many properties still being built in areas of high flood risk, perhaps the Minister can assure us about what more can and will be done to ensure that local authorities are updating their flood risk assessments more regularly to reflect the current risks.

[Baroness Grender (LD)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh of Pickering, for yet again raising the flag on flooding—all strength to her— and the noble Baroness, Lady Willis of Summertown, for adding her name. These amendments are clearly designed to address the escalating risks of flooding by embedding precise statutory safeguards into local planning.

Amendment 100 would convert the existing sequential test and the exception test from mere guidance into a legal requirement for local plans. The effect would be direct. Local authorities would be obliged to locate development according to robust risk-based criteria. Our colleague in the House of Commons, Gideon Amos MP, talked in Committee there at some length on this issue and highlighted the dangers where planning permission is still granted for homes on functional flood plains and high-risk areas, often with households left uninsured and exposed to the heartbreak and terrible experience that we discussed a great deal in Committee. Amendment 100 would also mandate the incorporation of sustainable drainage systems, SUDS, except where demonstrably unsuitable. A lack of statutory backing for SUDS, as the APPG on flooded communities has made clear, continues to compromise local flood resilience.

Amendment 101 speaks to the need for reliable current evidence in planning and stipulates that strategic flood risk assessments, SFRAs, must be based on the latest available data from the Environment Agency. On these Benches, the one question we have about it is the level of burden and expectation on local authorities, which already have so many burdens and expectations, but the further burden on households and families of flood risks and living in homes that are built on flood plains without due care is obviously so significant that we cannot ignore it. These amendments establish enforceable statutory standards and require some practical action, and I look forward to hearing the Minister's response.