Planning and Infrastructure Bill (Third sitting)

Ellie Chowns Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 29th April 2025 Public Bill Committees

[Matthew Pennycook]

Let me be clear. I appreciate the concerns that hon. Members have expressed. I hope that I can provide some reassurance, but I am more than happy to have further exchanges on this point, which is an important one.

The clause introduces a new streamlined procedure for making material policy amendments to national policy statements, where the proposed amendments fall into four categories of changes to be made since the NPPS was last reviewed: reflecting legislative changes or revocations that have already come into force; relevant court decisions that have already been issued; Government policy that has already been published; and changes to other documents referred to in the NPPS.

A good example is our recent changes to the national planning policy framework—consulted on publicly and subject to a significant amount of scrutiny in the House. If a relevant NPPS had to be updated to reflect some of those policy changes, which have already been subject to consultation and scrutiny on their own terms, as I said, that would be a good example of where this reflective procedure might be useful.

The primary aim of the clause is to expedite the Parliamentary process for updating national policy statements. By doing so, it ensures that amendments that have already undergone public and parliamentary scrutiny can be integrated more swiftly into the relevant NPPS. In enabling reflective amendments to be made, the new procedure will support the Government’s growth mission by ensuring that NPPSs are current and relevant, increasing certainty for developers and investors, and streamlining decision making for nationally significant infrastructure projects.

Hon. Members should be assured that, where applicable, the statutory and regulatory prerequisites of an appraisal of sustainability and habitats regulation assessment will continue to apply to amendments that fall within this definition, as will the existing publication and consultation requirements for material changes to a national policy statement. The clause does, however—this is the point of debate that we have just had—disapply the requirements for the Secretary of State to respond to resolutions made by Parliament or its Committees. We believe that change is necessary to enable reflective changes to be made to NPSs in a more timely and proportionate manner.

[Ellie Chowns (North Herefordshire) (Green)]

Will the Minister give way?

[Matthew Pennycook]

I will give way in one second, if the hon. Member will allow me, because I think this is some useful context for some of the discussions that have taken place over recent months.

The Government are grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Hackney South and Shoreditch (Dame Meg Hillier) and the relevant Select Committee Clerks for engaging with me and my officials on the implications of the new procedure. We have agreed on certain guarantees to ensure that there will still be adequate parliamentary scrutiny when the procedure is used.

As such, I am happy to restate today that, when the Government intend to use the reflective amendment route to update a national policy statement, we will write to the relevant Select Committee at the start of the consultation period. We would hope in all instances that the Select Committee responds in a prompt and timely manner, allowing us to take on board its comments. Ministers will make themselves available to speak at the Committee during that period, in so far as that is practical.

The process retains scope for Parliament to raise matters with the Government in the usual fashion. Should a Select Committee publish a report within the relevant timeframes of the public consultation period—in a sense, that is one of the challenges we are trying to get at here: not all select Committees will respond in the relevant period, therefore elongating the process by which the reflective amendment needs to take place—the Government will obviously take those views into account before the updated statement is laid before the House in the usual manner.

[Ellie Chowns]

I thank the Minister for reminding us that we are talking about a specific amendment to a specific clause about a specific thing. But the issue that is at stake here was communicated by his complaint that parliamentary process might slow things down. Surely, the whole point of Parliament is to make our laws. I am worried by the implication that Government see Parliament as a hindrance to getting things done, rather than as a crucial part of scrutiny and checks and balances. If the Minister has concerns about timescales, it is perfectly achievable to address those by setting timeframes. But the removal of the clause that requires the Government to pay attention to the views of cross-party Committees scrutinising particular statements is concerning.

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[Gideon Amos]

This set of amendments is, at first sight, very sweeping and broad, as it will remove large sections of the Planning Act 2008. However, we have some sympathy with the Government. Provisions were put into the Act to proscribe dangerous commissioners who might make decisions without proper scrutiny. Given that the decisions reverted to the Secretary of State in 2011, it seems that a number of them may not be needed.

None the less, it is important to ensure that consultation is meaningful and of high quality. In place of the Planning Act provisions, we want a consultation test on the face of the Bill; if the machinery of the Committee so allows, we would like to table an amendment along those lines. If there is no test at all for meaningful consultation in NSIPs, these amendments would simply remove a great number of requirements for consultation without putting anything in their place. We should be moving from a set of sections in the Act that are about the mechanics of consultation to a qualitative test: consultation should be meaningful, and people should have had the opportunity to be consulted.

We would like to see the key principles in the guidance on the face of the Bill. That is the spirit in which we will respond to the amendments. We hope to be able to bring forward proposals for the Committee to consider.

[Ellie Chowns]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mrs Hobhouse, as I should have said earlier. There are three reasons why I, too, have concerns about new clauses 44 and 45 and the removal of the requirement for pre-application consultation.

First, pre-application consultation is often a very useful process, as a way of highlighting and addressing issues between developers and other stakeholders before we get to the formal, structured, legalistic processes. There was a case in Suffolk in which engagement between the Wildlife Trust and National Grid resulted in the trust’s concerns being addressed in such a way that they did not have to be raised in a more legalistic way later in the process. Pre-application consultation is useful and productive for all parties. It is not for developers to decide whether pre-application consultation will be useful in a particular case, but there should be a statutory requirement for key stakeholders, such as local authorities, to be consulted in that way.

My second concern is that the replacement guidance requirements set out in new clause 45 do not provide sufficient clarity for developers, communities and other stakeholders, or for the Planning Inspectorate, on what pre-application engagement is required specifically, because the wording is too vague to provide sufficient clarity. “Have regard to” is a relatively weak duty, while

“what the Secretary of State considers to be best practice in terms of the steps they might take”

is very vague language. It would be open to interpretation and potentially to contestation, which could be unhelpful to speeding up the process in the way we seek.

My third concern, notwithstanding individual examples of processes that might have been held up, is that generally speaking pre-application consultation and public engagement is not the main constraint on the rapid processing of such applications. I understand that research conducted by Cavendish in 2024 looked at DCO consent times from 2011 to 2023. It found that for the first 70 projects going through the DCO process up until 2017, the response time was pretty reasonable. What changed in 2017? It was not the pre-application consultation requirements, which remained the same throughout the process.

Political chaos is what caused the change. Cavendish’s report identifies that it was political turmoil and manoeuvring that caused delays to happen once projects reached the Secretary of State’s desk—I see my Conservative colleague, the hon. Member for Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner, nodding. Who was in government at that time? We had the turnover of Prime Ministers, Ministers and so forth. Bearing all that in mind—the fact that pre-application consultation is a very useful way of deconflicting issues of contestation, the fact that the replacement guidance is so vague as to be unhelpful and itself probably subject to test, and the fact that this is the wrong solution to the problem of delays—I am concerned.

[John Grady]

rose—

[Ellie Chowns]

I had come to the end, but I give way.

[John Grady]

I am grateful. It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mrs Hobhouse.

Is the hon. Member disagreeing with the evidence that we heard from Catherine Howard, one of the most eminent planning lawyers in the United Kingdom? Catherine Howard said:

“We cannot magic up more comms consultants, lawyers, environmental impact assessment consultants and planning consultants in that period, so we desperately need a way to apply those professionals most efficiently in a really focused way across all the projects we need.”

She then went on to talk about the pre-app process, which has gone up from 14 months to 27 months:

“I suspect it is even longer now…The pre-app is always something I feel I have to apologise for and explain, and give the best story about how quick it might be”.––[Official Report, Planning and Infrastructure Public Bill Committee, 24 April 2025; c. 67, Q86.]

She explained that investors welcome this change. The pre-application process, in the mind of investors who want to invest in clean energy projects that lower carbon emissions and other critical infrastructure, is a very material source of delays, according to that witness.

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[Ellie Chowns]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention. I would observe that generally speaking the way oral evidence sessions work is that the Government decide who they want to come and give evidence to support the arguments that they wish to put forward in Committee, so I am not all that surprised that we might have heard that evidence. I am not discounting what the witness said, but I am suggesting that there are other ways to look at it. A blanket removal of the pre-app consultation process with stakeholders who have a huge stake in applications, such as local authorities, is an excessively blanket position to take.

[Gideon Amos]

Would the hon. Member support a test in the Bill of the quality of the consultation carried out, in place of the mechanistic requirements in the previous Act? They do not actually exist in the Town and Country Planning Act, for example, and normal planning processes.

[Ellie Chowns]

Indeed, and I noted the hon. Gentleman’s comments about bringing forward a proposal about meaningful consultation. I would very much welcome looking at that. I think that would help to address the concerns being raised here.

[Luke Murphy (Basingstoke) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mrs Hobhouse. I note the hon. Member’s comments about how the Government arrange the witness sessions, but surely she would not dispute the point about the increasing delays in the pre-application process from 14 months to 27 months. That is a serious issue. The Fens reservoir spent more than 1,000 days in pre-application. The National Grid’s application for Bramford to Twinstead spent 717 days in pre-application for just an overhead line and underground cables covering less than 30 km. Hinkley Point C spent three years in pre-app. Sizewell C spent seven and a half years in pre-app. The hon. Member cannot possibly be suggesting that pre-application is not an issue.

[Ellie Chowns]

I addressed those points in my comments. I am not disputing the fact that there are individual cases in which huge amounts of time have been spent. In response to the comments from the hon. Member for Glasgow East, I am not dismissing the evidence from the witness he referred to, but I have offered evidence from a report that looked at the whole spectrum of applications from 2011 onwards, which says that the representation of nature and community in pre-application requirements is not the underlying causal problem.

These issues are really complex. There is always a tendency to pick a particular example where the situation has clearly been problematic. I am not disputing the fact that some change may be needed. My argument is that it seems excessive to bring in a blanket policy and shift the pendulum too far away from the opportunity to use the pre-application consultation process to resolve issues that might clog up the process later on, because the requirement for meaningful consultation has been removed. Planning applications will always be contested, but these measures take it too far and sweep aside the rights of communities and organisations representing nature to have their voices heard, as well as the opportunity to resolve conflicts before they reach a legalistic stage.

[Jim Dickson]

Is the hon. Member aware that Cavendish, the organisation that produced the report, is a company that undertakes consultations? It might just be in its interest to make the case that consultation is not at fault for the delays. Does she agree that the five separate consultations over 15 years that were required—or not required, in my view—for the lower Thames crossing were excessive?

[Ellie Chowns]

I am aware that Cavendish is a consultancy company. It is perfectly reasonable to make that observation. Most people—I mean, pretty much anyone—who will ever give evidence or produce a report will have some sort of interest. We are not saying that anyone who works in the planning system in any way cannot have a viewpoint that is objective, evidence-based and so forth. There are clear examples of processes that have got stuck. I am concerned not only about unsticking the planning process, but about the proposal to let the pendulum swing too far away from the opportunity to have meaningful pre-application consultation that could be more effective than waiting until things bang up against each other further on in the process.

[John Grady]

rose—

[Nesil Caliskan (Barking) (Lab)]

rose—

[Ellie Chowns]

I am happy to take as many interventions as hon. Members want to make, but I am concerned about the timing, Mrs Hobhouse.

[The Chair]

It is up to you. You may take as many interventions as you wish.

[Ellie Chowns]

If Members feel that they have additional things to raise, they should feel free to speak.

[Nesil Caliskan]

I was rising to make my speech, Mrs Hobhouse, not to intervene; I apologise. It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship.

A crucial component of the ability to deliver homes across the country will be to deliver transport and other infrastructure projects. The measures in the Bill go some way towards speeding up the statutory processes of consultation in the delivery of infrastructure projects. As I outlined in my speech on Second Reading, the pre-consultation period for infrastructure projects is a major cause of delay for infrastructure being delivered. To echo the Minister’s remarks, the status quo in this country is simply not working to speed up the process.

As matters stand, applicants operate in what I describe as a hyper-risk-averse context. Delays caused to pre-application contribute not only to the length of time that it takes for infrastructure to be delivered, but to the cost. Other Members rightly identified the lower Thames crossing, which impacts my constituency; 2,000 pages and £800 million spent are figures that have served absolutely no one, and certainly not the taxpayer.

--- Later in debate ---

[Nesil Caliskan]

I do not accept that, because the statutory consultation period will still be in place and thresholds will still have to be met. The reality is that, as things stand, the pre-consultation period has become a beast in itself, which I do not believe is serving our communities. Years and years of endless consultations, including pre-consultations and pre-application consultations, is not true engagement with communities. That part of the process has become a period in which the applicants just try to derisk their approach to crucial infrastructure in this country, which will see land unlocked so that homes can be built.

[Ellie Chowns]

I do not think that anybody wants “years and years” of contest, but is it impossible to retain the requirement for a degree of pre-application consultation—perhaps within a shorter timescale or with a more tightly drawn set of consultees—so that issues can be dealt with informally and in advance, to prevent more problems arising further down the line? To sweep everything away seems excessive.

[Nesil Caliskan]

Manifestly, we do not want years of delay before the delivery of infrastructure, but the truth is that that is exactly what is happening in this country. There are years and years of delay, in part because of the pre-application consultation period.

There is nothing preventing applicants and local authorities, or communities and organisations, from working pre-application on the sort of engagement that the hon. Member is referring to, but including it in the proposals in this way would heighten the legal risk for applicants, making them very resistant to submitting their application formally before going through every single possible step. As hon. Members have highlighted, there is a very long list of examples where the status quo has created a huge burden, made the processes incredibly long and cost the taxpayer a huge amount of money. I think I recall the Minister saying that the proposed amendment would save up to about 12 months and £1 billion, which could be the difference between an infrastructure project being viable or not being viable. Infrastructure projects being viable will mean the land value will increase, and the potential for land to be unlocked and millions of homes to be built across the country will be realised.

Planning and Infrastructure Bill (Second sitting)

Ellie Chowns Excerpts

Committee stage
Thursday 24th April 2025 Public Bill Committees

[Paul Holmes]

Q I have one very brief question, to change tack slightly, and I would appreciate it if each witness could give a short answer, because I know other colleagues want to come in. The last witness that we heard from was the chief executive of Natural England. As you will know, one of the most controversial parts of the legislation is habitats and nature.

I do not want to put words into the chief executive’s mouth, because she is not here now, but she told the Committee that there was some concern with the new systems over potential shortfalls in funding because of the spending review, which has not yet allocated money in the short term to Natural England, compared with the extra responsibilities that Natural England will have to undertake on habitat and nature. Can you outline your individual organisations’ views on whether Natural England is adequately resourced at the moment to undertake those extra duties? Under its current guise and funding, do you think that it is in a fit state to deliver on those extra responsibilities?

Victoria Hills: We have been very clear in our position: we support Natural England taking forward some of these new powers and responsibilities, provided that it is adequately resourced to do so. I do not have a detailed diagnostic of its resourcing and capability plans, but we have been assured, working with the Department, that the resources will be there. That is something that we will be keeping a very close eye on.

We support the principle of coming up with strategic solutions to some of the approaches to the environment, which can be delivered at a strategic level. As you know, we are a strong supporter of strategic planning and we believe that some of the biodiversity and nature aspects of planning do not stop at district council boundaries, or even county council boundaries. It makes perfect sense to look at these things at a strategic level; we support that and we support the ambition of Natural England to do it. However, we will caveat that by saying that it must be adequately resourced to do so, and that is a point that we will continue to make.

Faraz Baber: I work as a practitioner for a planning, environment and design company called Lanpro, which operates across the country. With that lens, I would say that the provisions on what it is expected that Natural England will deliver are right. It is good that the Government are moving towards the delivery of environmental delivery plans and all the things that sit around them.

I thought that the challenge to Natural England earlier was interesting. The chief executive was challenged as to whether, given what is in the Bill, there could be a cast-iron guarantee of the environmental credentials that we need to see come through. I have to say that I was surprised at the response, because you cannot: we have to see how it works in practice. For Natural England to deliver that, it will need to significantly recruit dedicated teams to operate a number of the provisions that are set out in the Bill, the EDPs being a good example. It is right that there will be concern about the comprehensive spending review and whether Natural England will have the resources and function to deliver. In principle, the Government are right in their direction of travel on this, but they will need to commit to the resources and funding to deliver on their promise.

Hugh Ellis: To add to that, rather than repeat it, there are concerns about the scheme design. We at the TCPA are also concerned about the philosophy that lies behind it—that it may lead to an offsetting process. To be clear, the foundation of planning is that nature and development can be easily managed together to enhance both. That is our tradition, and it has always been the planning tradition, from Morris onwards. The philosophy of planning should always be that I can build a development for you that will enhance nature and provide housing. The setting up of the two ideas in opposition is destructive and distracting.

We need to focus on design quality in new housing, and principally that means allowing people to have access to nature immediately. They need that for their mental health and physical wellbeing. That is a crucial saving to the NHS and social care budget in the long run. We want high-quality design first, and offsetting and large-scale habitat creation elsewhere—as a second resort, but not as the first, principal test.

[Ellie Chowns (North Herefordshire) (Green)]

Q To follow on from that, Mr Ellis, what do you think the purpose of planning should be, and do you think it should be written into the Bill?

Hugh Ellis: Since 1947, the greatest absence in all planning reform measures has been that we do not know what the system is for. The current round of reforms raises that question profoundly. The purpose should be sustainable development. We are signatories to the UN charter, and key concepts around sustainable development do not feature in the national planning policy framework. Those are really crucial ones about social justice, inclusion, environmental limits and precautionary principles. Those are all key to giving the planning system a purpose. That purpose is crucial pragmatically, because across the sector we need to know what the system is for, so that we can have confidence in it.

It is also crucial to understand that the system has long-term goals, future generations being one of them, and addressing the climate crisis being another. Within three to five years, the repeated impacts from climate change will be the dominant political issue we confront, and we need a system that works for that, as well as for housing growth.

Faraz Baber: Whether it should be in the Bill or in an NPPF-style document is more about whether people are able to know what planning is and how that is communicated. I do not necessarily believe that that has to be enshrined in the Bill, but it certainly should be clear, whether it is in the national planning policy framework, a local plan or a spatial development strategy, so that people—by which I mean all those who interact with the planning system—can know what planning is about and what it means for them. I feel that a Bill, and ultimately an Act, is the wrong place for it to be enshrined.

[Ellie Chowns]

Q On the first part of my question, what do you think the purpose of planning should be?

Faraz Baber: Planning is there to help, for want of a better phrase, with the placemaking and the delivery, and to ensure that there are guidelines for how plan making should take place. It is there to ensure that the various levers associated with the plan-making process and the development process are understood. Planning is the guardian that ensures that sustainable development can come forward.

Victoria Hills: One of the most important questions that anybody—elected leaders or executive leaders—can ask is “Why?” Why are we doing it? What is it all about? What is the purpose of this Bill? What is the purpose of planning? That is why we think it is essential, within the realms of this Bill, that a public purpose of planning is stated up front. You do not have to take our word for it. Our research published yesterday shows that the vast majority of the public do not have a clue what planning is. They do not know what it is for, and if you are going to drive through a major reform programme for planning, the likes of which we have not seen for 15 years, it might be a good idea if we are very clear on what the purpose of planning is.

For us, the purpose is really clear; at a strategic level, it is about the long-term public interest, the common good and the future wellbeing of communities. You need to be open and honest with the public up front that all this change that is coming in planning and infrastructure is actually for the long-term common good. Some of it people may not like in the short term, but we are talking about the long-term common good— delivering on climate, delivering on sustainable development goals and delivering for communities. We think it is really important that the opportunity is not missed, not only to help inform the public and everybody else who needs to know what the purpose of planning is but to provide that north star, that guiding star, as to the why. Why are we doing this? What purpose does it have?

Thank you for your question. We are absolutely clear that having a public purpose of planning is really important for this legislation, and we will continue to make that case.

[The Minister for Housing and Planning (Matthew Pennycook)]

Q I have two quick questions: one on planning decisions for Victoria and one on development corporations for Hugh. Victoria, you will know that at the moment individual local planning authorities have schemes of delegation. It would be great to get your take on how effective they are. What variation do we see out there? What principles should inform the national scheme of delegation that we intend to introduce via the Bill?

Hugh—the Bill provides a clearer, more flexible and more robust framework for the operation of development corporations. You know that it is clearly our view that they have to do a lot of work in the coming years to drive the kind of delivery we need and the types of development we want to see come forward. What is your assessment of how effective those development corporation powers are to support development and regeneration?

Victoria Hills: One thing we know about from our members, but also from those people who are actually in the business of building things—of course, that is really what is important if you want to see some growth coming—is consistency. You asked about the variation. Some councils have fantastic schemes of delegation and it is very clear what is and is not going to committee, but other councils have a slightly more grey scheme of delegation—let’s call it that—whereby things can pop up in committee on the basis of an individual issue or individual councillor.

The opportunity afforded to us by the Bill is for some consistency through a national scheme of delegation. We have in place some very robust processes that look at the business of development, through the local plan process. It goes to not one but two public inquiries, through the Government’s inspectorate, and then back to the community. What we recognise is that if you have had some very robust considerations of the principles of development and you have good development prescribed by, for example, a design code that says, “This is what good development looks like here”—so we have worked out what we want, where it is going and what it looks like—it is perfectly possible that suitably qualified chief planning officers can work out whether something is in conformity with a plan. We therefore welcome the opportunity to clarify that through a national scheme of delegation.

This is not to take away anybody’s democratic mandate to have their say. Of course, there are all sorts of opportunities to have that say in the local plan process, but if we are to move to a national scheme of delegation, we would want a statutory chief planning officer who has that statutory wraparound and has the appropriate level of competency and gravitas to be able to drive forward that change, because it will be a change for some authorities. For some, it will not be a change at all, but taking forward that innovation via a national scheme of delegation will require that statutory post, so that those decisions cannot be challenged, because they will be made in a professionally competent way.

Hugh Ellis: I think development corporations are essential if we are going to achieve this mission. You would expect the TCPA to say that, because we are inheritors of the new towns programme. The interesting thing about them is that, for the first time, they bolt together strategy and delivery. The existing town and country planning system is often blamed for not delivering homes, but it has no power to build them.

The development corporation solves that problem by creating a delivery arm that can effectively deliver homes, as we saw with the new towns programme, which housed 2.8 million people in 32 places in less than 20 years of designation, and it also paid for itself—it is an extraordinary model. The measures in the Bill to modernise overall duties on development corporations are really welcome. I assume you do not want me to talk about compulsory purchase orders right now, but hope value and CPOs are critical accompanying ideas in the reform package that go with that. In the long run, I think that they will become critical.

Obviously, the new towns taskforce has to decide what it wants on policy. The challenge that we face with them is legitimacy, and there is still work to do in making sure that there is a Rolls-Royce process of getting public consent for this new generation of places. However, the outcome is such an opportunity to generate places that genuinely enhance people’s health, deal with the climate crisis and provide high levels of affordability. What a contrast that is with what we have delivered through town and country planning at local plan level, which is a lot of the bolt-on, car-dependent development. Frankly, as a planner, I find that shameful. The opportunity with development corporations is there and I hope that the Government seize it.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Chair]

We can possibly get two more colleagues in, so let’s be succinct with our questions and answers.

[Ellie Chowns]

Q Two of my questions have already been asked, so I will ask one more to Richard Benwell—apologies to the other witnesses. In addition to bringing back the mitigation hierarchy, you talk about the need to make sure that polluters really pay. Can you elaborate on that?

Richard Benwell: Let me see whether I can winkle out my clause numbers. Clause 62 requires the EDP levies to be set at a level that takes into account the viability test, and we all know how often viability gives wriggle room for developers. Our view is that the level of levy payments should be enough to secure the compensatory measures needed to go further than remediating the damage caused to nature.

Again, when you look further, you will find the provisions say that the levy needs to cover “wholly or partly” the amount needed to remediate that damage. That could lead to dangerous situations where you are cross-subsidising developers for harm to nature from other pots of money, such as farming funds. It would make far more sense to have a straight-up “polluter pays” principle, where developers pay for the cost of remediating the harm they cause to nature.

[Ellie Chowns]

Q Indeed, that is one of the Government’s fundamental principles, isn’t it? For consistency, that would need to be the case, if the Bill is to do what it says on the tin, which is not reduce environmental protections.

Richard Benwell: We have a “polluters possibly pay” principle here, a “maybe prevent” principle with the mitigation hierarchy, and the overall improvement test is a “possibly improve” test. All the way around, those fundamental principles are brought into doubt by the ways in which the Bill is drafted, particularly for species protection, where these are least appropriate.

[Ellie Chowns]

Q But you are saying that these are easily fixable through amendment. They are not devastating to the Bill, in principle.

Richard Benwell: They can be fixed, but we know it will take bravery and leadership from the Government. We hope that Ministers will go for it and the House will unite behind those changes.

[Luke Murphy]

Q I am afraid that my questions are also to Richard, so apologies to the other witnesses. I want to go back to your original comment about nature and development not needing to be in conflict, with which I entirely agree. You also pointed out that we are suffering from significant species loss and environmental degradation.

As someone who has worked on both housing and protecting the environment for the last 10 years, I support this approach because the current system is not delivering. Do you agree that the current system is not delivering for either nature or development? Notwithstanding the flaws—I think there can be some honest disagreement on what the outcomes might be—do you welcome the fact that a new approach is being proposed, given that the current system is not delivering for either development or nature?

Richard Benwell: There is good scientific evidence that the habitats regulations are the most effective site and species protections in the world, but we definitely still need to go further. Some of those strategic solutions, particularly for landscape issues like water pollution, air pollution and water availability, can be improved.

You are right. There are loads of places where we could go further. We would love to see things like building regulations for biodiversity in the Bill, to help get nature built into the fabric of development as we go. To suggest that the habitats regulations are not working is wrong, but their implementation can definitely be improved and more use can be made of this kind of strategic approach if it is done well.

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[Olly Glover]

Accepted.

Matthew Pennycook: In terms of the top-up, we have already allocated £800 million to the affordable homes programme since coming into office. We have also pulled forward £2 billion as a down payment. A significant proportion of the homes coming through those funding routes are social rented homes—almost half, but I am happy to provide the Committee with the specific figure. So we are getting a huge uplift coming through, and the successor grant programme will give particular priority to social rented homes coming through.

Where I think spatial development strategies can add to what we see coming through is that these will not be big local plans—let us be very clear. They need to be pretty high-level documents that make decisions about where housing growth and infrastructure provision is best sited and delivered on a sub-regional basis. That will allow groups of local authorities to take a far more sophisticated approach to, for example, bringing forward large-scale new communities in strategic locations that allow them to meet housing targets in a more sophisticated way. Through other measures that we are introducing—the CPO measures in the Bill are a good example—we will capture more land-value uplift and deliver more social and affordable homes.

[Ellie Chowns]

Q To Minister Pennycook, I welcome your confirmation that you recognise that environmental, social and economic goals can be achieved together, and are not automatically or even frequently in contradiction with each other. Likewise, I welcome your confirmation that, as it says in the Bill, the purpose of the Government in bringing forward the Bill is to retain the existing level of environmental protections.

Given that commitment from the Government, given Richard Benwell’s observation that there are risks that could be addressed through amendments and given Marian Spain’s comments—that the Bill needs robust safeguards and that drafting amendments may make it more robust—I return to the question that Mr Murphy asked. Can you confirm that you retain an open mind and that you may consider tabling further Government amendments in response to the concerns raised, so that the Bill does what you are saying it does on the tin?

Matthew Pennycook: I appreciate the question. To reiterate—and this is where I slightly disagree with Mr Benwell and others—we are very clear that the Bill will not have the effect of reducing the level of environmental protections, in terms of existing environmental law. We are very clear about that, and confident in the safeguards that exist in the Bill.

I am happy to look at any amendment, and we will in the normal course of the Bill Committee; we will debate each of them in turn and I will keep an open mind about any that we think is feasible, workable, aligns with the objectives of the Bill and delivers what we want to see—absolutely. We will debate all of those in due course. As you rightly made clear, we tabled a package of Government amendments yesterday.

To bring it back to the specific point, some of those amendments on removing the statutory requirement for pre-applications consultation in relation to national significant infrastructure projects were tabled partly because we were getting feedback through the working paper, and also because there were a number of calls on Second Reading for us to specifically look at that area of reform. As you would expect in the normal course of the Bill, we will respond to challenge, criticism, scrutiny and any amendments, which we will debate in due course.

[The Chair]

If there are no more questions, I thank all our witnesses across the day for their evidence.

Ordered, That further consideration be now adjourned. —(Gen Kitchen.)

Planning and Infrastructure Bill

Ellie Chowns Excerpts

2nd reading
Monday 24th March 2025 Commons Chamber

[Ellie Chowns (North Herefordshire) (Green)]

Madam Deputy Speaker, you will know that I always like to start by emphasising where there is common ground and agreement, so that we can start off on a positive foot. I do agree that there is a housing crisis. I do agree that we need to build more homes. We need to tackle the outrageous inequality in the housing market and the fact that there are nearly 1 million empty homes, as well as 1.5 million for which there is planning permission but that are, as yet, unbuilt. We need to build more homes—the right home in the right place at the right price, though—and I am not sure the Bill goes far enough to address those concerns.

There are more areas of agreement. I agree we need to reform planning. I agree we need a strategic approach. I agree we need to tackle the issues of hope value, community benefit from energy infrastructure, and planning fees—so many areas of agreement. [Interruption.] I can see the Minister is smiling. [Interruption.] No, I am not going to stop there; sorry!

However, there are a number of areas of missed opportunity, as well as fairly deep concern. Currently, the Bill has no content on a range of important planning aspects. It does not contain any measures to secure affordable, healthy homes, or to ensure that the planning system is fully joined up with our climate and nature obligations. There is not even a statement of a positive visionary purpose for the planning system, and it is so important to provide the framework for what we are doing here. We need clarification that development should be sustainable, benefiting future generations as well as meeting today’s needs.

We need joined-up policy: a new climate and nature duty on all planning authorities to ensure that all policies tackle our Climate Change Act 2008 and Environment Act 2021 obligations. Planning is crucial for tackling the climate crisis and reducing the environmental impact of new development. We need solar panels on roofs and high levels of insulation. There is nothing here on zero-carbon heating or embodied carbon. There is also nothing on climate adaptation. I find it quite extraordinary that in 160 pages there is not a single mention of the words flood or flooding, yet they are crucial to planning and infrastructure. We need to ensure that the Bill plans for active and public transport. Let us see a “no net new traffic growth” test applied to all developments, so we incentivise the shift to active and public transport.

The Bill should include a nature duty. It provides a great opportunity to specify wildlife-friendly design, swift bricks—I have talked about them previously—hedgehog highways and green roofs. Let us have a new chapter of the building regulations specifically on biodiversity.

I recognise that environmental delivery plans could be useful in some cases, but I worry that they may be a bit too much of a blanket approach. What is suitable for newts is not necessarily suitable for all aspects of wildlife and landscape. I have a little concern that we are effectively outsourcing the environmental obligations of developers to Natural England, without requiring sufficient attention to be paid to those issues. For example, the removal of site-specific survey requirements means we will effectively be shooting in the dark when we specify what remedies need to be taken.

We need to legally guarantee that nature benefits will significantly outweigh any harm. We need to follow the mitigation hierarchy, strengthen protection for irreplaceable habitats such as the ancient woodlands and chalk streams that have been mentioned, and remove the viability test for the nature restoration levy. Otherwise, there is a real risk that developers will altogether escape paying for the nature restoration that they should do.

We need to ensure accessibility standards and affordability standards—

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)]

Order. I call Joe Powell.

Political Finance Rules

Ellie Chowns Excerpts

Thursday 6th March 2025 Commons Chamber

[Ellie Chowns (North Herefordshire) (Green)]

I thank the hon. Member for South Dorset (Lloyd Hatton) for securing this debate on such a crucial topic.

Public trust in politics is at an all-time low; only 12% of people trust political parties, and only 15% of the population think that political funding is transparent. There is clearly a problem at the heart of British politics. As the hon. Member said, it is particularly bad in our country, because we have an Electoral Commission with very little in the way of teeth or of limits. That leaves our democracy open to corrosion and dark money, which we have to be particularly worried about guarding against. As the hon. Member for Brent East (Dawn Butler) said in the previous debate, we must guard our democracy against those anti-democratic forces and against dark money�the influence of money in politics is a core part of that corrosion.

In the UK, there is no limit on individual donations. That is not the case in Canada, in France, or even in the US. Why is there no limit on how much money an individual can donate, and on how much influence they can therefore exert on British politics? Corporate donations are allowed here, but are banned in so many other countries. Foreign donations are theoretically banned here, but loopholes mean that an individual such as Elon Musk could quite easily work within existing, very bendable rules in order to exert what would undoubtedly be a very corrosive influence on our politics. The hon. Member for South Dorset mentioned the Electoral Commission�s lack of enforcement powers: the maximum fine it can impose is �20,000, yet the influence in our politics totals tens of millions of pounds. Just over the past decade, �115 million has come from unknown sources. This is clearly a serious problem.

I welcome the fact that the current Government made a manifesto commitment to strengthen the rules on donations to political parties, in order to protect our democracy from foreign influence. I very much hope that in her summing up the Minister will be able to clarify exactly what that will amount to. What actions do the Government intend to take in order to protect our democracy from foreign influence? Can she commit to taking measures such as strengthening the powers of the Electoral Commission to issue fines, reducing the reporting thresholds in order to increase transparency, and clarifying spending limits? Those measures would not require primary legislation, so can the Government set out the timetable by which they will bring forward those urgently needed measures to protect our democracy?

Big money in politics is a corrosive influence. This Government have the opportunity to put a stop to it�to bring us up to the standards that other democracies have put in place. Will the Minister set out her timetable for doing so, and clarify precisely what she will do?

Local Government Finance

Ellie Chowns Excerpts

Wednesday 5th February 2025 Commons Chamber

[Ellie Chowns (North Herefordshire) (Green)]

I welcome some aspects of what the Minister is proposing. It is important to not always fire political shots at each other and to look for common ground and give credit where it is due. I have said this to him before, but I really welcome the moves that the Government are making towards multi-year funding settlements. It is so important to move away from the hand-to-mouth, year-to-year, jam-jar approach to funding—particularly capital funding. That ridiculous competition between local authorities over an ever-decreasing pot of funding has been so damaging, so those moves really are things to welcome.

But—there are quite a few buts about the local government finance settlement, but I will focus on just three. I represent the wonderful North Herefordshire constituency. Herefordshire council has received a settlement that is well below the national average, well below the average for comparator councils, and well below what is needed to provide the services that residents need and deserve. An interesting element of the debate has been some Members seeking to pose a binary conflict between rural and urban authorities. I want to get away from that—it is really unhelpful—but it is important to recognise there is serious deprivation in rural areas, not just in income but in access to services.

The hon. Member for Glastonbury and Somerton (Sarah Dyke) talked eloquently about the fact that sparse populations, long distances and poor transport networks all hugely increase the cost of delivering services such as social care or home-to-school transport. That is the impact of geography, but demography is also an issue. Herefordshire has 50% more over-65s than the national average, which has a knock-on impact on the cost to local government of delivering crucial services.

It is absolutely crystal clear that although the Government have taken away the rural services delivery grant, which they perhaps viewed as yet another jam jar, they have not replaced it in the new formula with a fair allocation of funding on the basis of rurality. I beg the Minister to revisit that issue when he comes up with the multi-year funding settlement. Otherwise, the serious problem of rural areas having their specific elements of deprivation under-recognised in the funding formula will build up so many other problems into the future. [Interruption.] I can see the Minister is nodding. I thank him for that and warmly invite him to Herefordshire so that we can show him, face to face and on the ground, the challenge of providing those services. That was “but” No. 1, regarding rurality.

“But” No. 2, which relates to the impact of the rise in employers’ national insurance contributions, has been referenced previously in this debate. I appreciate the nuance with which the Minister answered questions on this issue earlier, and his recognition that it is a really serious issue and that the funding settlement does not fully acknowledge it, particularly the on-costs, because so much of what local authorities do is done not just through the staff they employ themselves, but through commissioned services. I am sure that Members across the House have been inundated with correspondence from charities and businesses working in sectors such as the care sector that are desperately worried about the effect of the increase in employers’ national insurance contributions on their ability to provide those crucial services—so often commissioned by local authorities—to local people. When the Minister is doing the multi-year funding formula in future years, will he please address that issue and ensure that those costs are fully integrated into the calculation?

My third “but” was also touched on earlier. The Minister expressed doubt about whether cross-party agreement could be reached on this matter, but there seems to be quite a degree of consensus across this House that council tax is a broken tax—it is a broken funding system. It is outdated, regressive, unfair, and way overdue a review. We are charging people based on an assessment of property rates that were set 35 years ago and have never been updated. Council tax is crying out for a fundamental review, so will the Minister please commit to undertaking that review, working across parties and across the House to find a much fairer and more sustainable long-term approach to raising local funding?

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Caroline Nokes)]

I call the shadow Minister.

New Homes (Solar Generation) Bill

Ellie Chowns Excerpts

2nd reading
Friday 17th January 2025 Commons Chamber

[The Minister for Housing and Planning (Matthew Pennycook)]

Let me start by sincerely thanking the hon. Member for Cheltenham (Max Wilkinson) for introducing the Bill, for the constructive spirit in which he has engaged with me on it, and for his laudable efforts outside the Chamber—including his efforts as a local councillor, before coming to this place—to promote the further growth of solar power. I know it is a cause that he cares about, and his passion and commitment were evident in his opening remarks. I also thank all the other Members who have spoken this morning for their thoughtful and well-informed contributions. It has been a wide-ranging debate and the quality has been high—although the same cannot be said, I am afraid, for many of the puns that have been made throughout.

The Government are extremely sympathetic to the intention behind the Bill, namely to significantly boost the deployment of rooftop solar. That aim is clearly shared widely across the House, and for good reason. Self-generation and consumption through solar PV panels not only decreases emissions and delivers bill savings for householders, but provides security from fluctuations in wholesale electricity prices. As solar technology becomes more efficient and affordable, installing panels during construction is increasingly more cost-effective than retrofitting, a point that many Members touched on. The Government are, therefore, in complete agreement with the hon. Gentleman that solar energy has an integral role to play in improving the energy efficiency and reducing the carbon emissions of new homes.

However, we cannot support the Bill today. That is because the Government already intend to amend building regulations later this year as part of the introduction of future standards that will set more ambitious energy efficiency and carbon emissions requirements for new homes. The new standards will ensure that all new homes are future-proof, with low-carbon heating and very high-quality building fabric. Not only will they help us to deliver our commitment to reach net-zero emissions by 2050, but they will reduce bills, tackle fuel poverty, grow skills, foster diverse job markets and make Britain energy secure.

Let me make this absolutely clear to the House and to those watching our proceedings: solar energy will have an extremely important role to play in these standards. The Government’s reservations about the Bill are not related to its objective; rather, they stem from recognition that the regulatory landscape being dealt with is incredibly complex and that we must take great care to get the technical detail right. My officials and I are working to develop the technical detail of the solar standards we intend to implement, with a view to ensuring that they are both ambitious and achievable. Our concern is that passing primary legislation that does not strike that balance correctly could have adverse effects, including on housing supply, the construction industry and local authorities.

Although the Bill is not inherently flawed, we are not convinced that it is the most appropriate means of proceeding, for reasons I shall set out shortly. None the less, the hon. Member for Cheltenham has done the House a great service by providing hon. Members with a valuable opportunity to debate this important issue. In the time available to me, I will try to give the House a sense of some of the practical challenges we have been wrestling with as we develop and refine our emerging proposals, and how they speak to potential weaknesses in the Bill.

As hon. Members will be aware, in December 2023 the previous Government published the future homes and buildings standards consultation, setting out proposals on what new standards should entail. The consultation closed in March last year. Over 2,000 responses were received, and some of the most detailed feedback the Department received related to the options set out in respect of solar. The hon. Gentleman has, I know, amassed a not inconsiderable amount of technical expertise when it comes to rooftop solar systems, and he has consulted with industry stakeholders, so he will be acutely aware that setting environmental standards for new homes is not something that Government can do in isolation. To succeed, we must take industry with us, and crucially, we must also ensure that the standards we set are achievable on all sites across the country.

While it is certainly not dictatorial, the expert feedback to the consultation as well as our ongoing work with the industry-led future homes hub, where we have been considering matters such as design flexibility, has been invaluable in shaping the Government’s thinking on what future standards should look like and how they should be implemented. The feedback to the consultation we received drew attention in particular to a number of practical considerations, which we believe it is essential to take into account when determining the precise role of solar in the new standards. I shall touch briefly on three, to illustrate the sort of practical issue my officials and I have been weighing up as we develop the forthcoming new standards, and in so doing give the House a sense of why we feel the Bill may not be the right way to achieve the objective we all share.

The first consideration relates to the ground floor area requirement. As hon. Members know, the future homes and buildings standards consultation set out two options for new homes; both included very high-quality building fabric and a heat pump. The first option also included several additional elements, notably solar panels equating to 40% of the ground-floor area. While respondents were very supportive of the inclusion of solar panels, widespread concerns were raised about the proposed level of solar coverage, which many argued would be virtually impossible to achieve on certain types of home—for example, those with dormer windows.

Clause 1(2) of the Bill sets out a requirement for the same level of solar coverage as was proposed in the consultation. Having thoroughly explored the evidence submitted during the consultation process, the Government have concluded that this level of ground-floor area coverage, rather than just being challenging for a small proportion of new supply, is simply not feasible for many new homes. Importantly, our concern is that setting a requirement at this level in law would result in a significant number of homes needing to apply for an exemption to the standards, which in turn could cause unmanageable workloads in local authorities, lead to significant bottlenecks in housing supply, and ultimately reduce the speed at which rooftop solar on new homes is rolled out.

Determining exemptions is by no means a trivial task. Solar panel systems must be designed carefully for each individual house, taking into account features such as roof shape and pitch, roof lights and dormers. As such, determining the number of solar panels a roof can reasonably accept is a technical design exercise for which many local planning authorities are simply not resourced to carry out in large numbers. Furthermore, any regulation would need to have an enforcement mechanism to deal with instances where unscrupulous developers simply did not comply. The Bill does not address that point, and again, we fear it could end up being another burden that will fall on overstretched local planning authorities. Alive as we are to these unintended consequences, the Government are determined to take an approach that is both ambitious and technically feasible so that widespread exemptions are not necessary.

The second issue relates to the timeframe for introducing the changes. Clause 1(1) stipulates that solar PV will be mandatory on new build homes from 1 October 2026. While that may seem some way into the future, the design and specification of new housing developments is typically set some considerable time prior to construction. As a result, the Bill’s proposed commencement date could risk a significant increase in costs and delays to housing delivery, as developers are forced to rapidly redesign, including sites already in train.

It is important to bear in mind that those in the industry cannot properly prepare for the new requirement until they have access to the final regulations and accompanying statutory guidance. Preparing the regulations and said guidance is not an insignificant task. They need to be drafted and consulted upon, with the consultation open for at least 12 weeks to align with standard protocol and to permit industry sufficient time to respond to such significant proposals.

Following the consultation, the regulations and guidance will need to be finalised and passed using the affirmative resolution process. It is therefore unlikely that the full detail will be available to the construction sector until the end of this year at the earliest, giving the sector only a few months to redesign and get supply chains prepared. These issues are particularly pertinent for small and medium-sized enterprises, which are less equipped to respond quickly. By potentially compressing this period to meet the proposed deadline, housing sites that are already under way may become unviable, leading to wasted investment, a negative impact on housing supply and disruption to numerous local communities across the country—outcomes that I am sure Members will agree we must try to avoid.

The third and final issue relates to transitional arrangements. Government typically minimise the disruption associated with the introduction of new building regulations by setting out associated transitional arrangements. These arrangements determine the limited conditions under which a building can be built to the previous standards. That gives industry time to adapt to new standards and allows work that is already under way to be completed without major disruption. When the 2021 standards were introduced, a six-month period was allowed between laying the regulations and the standards coming into force, followed by a 12-month transitional period. That meant the regulations were laid on 15 December 2021, with the transitional period ending on 15 June 2023.

This Bill does make provision for the Secretary of State to put in place transitional arrangements. However, our reading of the Bill is that those arrangements cannot contradict or override its main premise that new homes built from 1 October 2026 must be fitted with solar panels. As a result, we are concerned that there may not be sufficient time for appropriate transitional arrangements to be set. We believe it is vital that they are set, given that the construction sector typically plans ahead by at least two, if not three or even more, years. Providing merely a matter of weeks between publishing such significant legislation and its taking effect would not be realistic or fair, in our view.

[Ellie Chowns (North Herefordshire) (Green)]

I have been listening carefully to what the Minister has said. Does he agree that a vote on Second Reading is a vote on the principle of the Bill, and the objections that he has been raising are micro, technical ones? Does he not agree that the urgency of the climate crisis and the immense benefits associated with solar PV mean that he should stop raining on the parade of this Bill and give us the opportunity to vote on photons?

[Matthew Pennycook]

The hon. Lady makes a fair challenge, but the Government do not intend to proceed on the basis of primary legislation. She might find that the primary legislation route is ultimately slower than the way in which we intend to introduce the future standards later this year. Speed is absolutely an issue we are grappling with, but I gently challenge the idea that this private Member’s Bill is the fastest way to proceed, even leaving aside the points I have raised, which I do not consider to be minor or technical.

In contrast, the future homes standards consultation sets out two options for transitional arrangements, which we believe are far more robust. The first option involves a six-month period between the laying date of the regulations and the regulations coming into force. The second option involves a period of up to 12 months. That approach to transition will ensure that as many homes as possible are required to meet the new standards in a way that is structured and achievable.

It is our responsibility to ensure that the standards we set for new homes are ambitious, but also technically feasible and deliverable, as I have said. For the reasons I have set out, and others that I have not covered today, we believe that forthcoming future standards, developed as a clear and coherent response to the 2023 consultation, are a more appropriate and arguably faster means of achieving the Bill’s aims, which we fully share with the hon. Member for Cheltenham.

English Devolution

Ellie Chowns Excerpts

Monday 16th December 2024 Commons Chamber

[Jim McMahon]

There have been a number of competing proposals. I do not believe in elephants in the room, but one was an explicit proposal to have a Devon and Cornwall combined authority with a mayor. It was by and large proposed by Devon, but it was met with what I would describe as quite animated resistance from Cornwall for different reasons. It is not our intention—and, frankly, there are not enough hours in the day—to keep getting involved in local disputes about boundaries and identity. What we want, and this is genuine, is for the local area to self-organise, come up with a proposal that is right for the area, and make that proposal to the Government so that we can work in partnership and deliver the outcome of getting powers out of this place and into places such as Cornwall.

[Ellie Chowns (North Herefordshire) (Green)]

I welcome the elements of this White Paper that are about devolution, but we have to recognise that some elements are about concentration. The Minister has talked about the two-tier premium, but the reality is that his proposals mean that in some places a local tier will be replaced by a more distant mayoral tier. Does he recognise that this risks creating a bit of a democratic deficit? Surely, we should be trying to keep the “local” in local government as much as possible. Given that average turnout in the last lot of mayoral elections last year averaged 30%, what will he do to address the risk of democratic deficit? In particular, will he introduce a fair and proportional system for local elections?

[Jim McMahon]

The truth is that these strategic authorities are about taking power from this place and moving it down to communities. Every Minister gets hundreds of sign-offs every single day, but as Conservative Members will remember, they include Ministers having to sign off whether cyclists can pass through a local park because the parish council has to apply to central Government for permission. That is part of the centralising nature of the state that we have to change.

Oral Answers to Questions

Ellie Chowns Excerpts

Monday 2nd December 2024 Commons Chamber

[Angela Rayner]

I really hope so, Mr Speaker; that is the plan. We are taking steps through the new national planning policy framework, and we have new mandatory targets for local authorities. We have also allowed local authorities to keep their right to buy receipts. The Government are taking a number of measures to ensure that we get the homes that we so desperately need, and I am determined to get to that 1.5 million figure.

[Ellie Chowns (North Herefordshire) (Green)]

I welcome the Secretary of State’s warm words about improving affordable housing availability. Does she agree that the affordability of housing is closely related to the bills that people have to pay—energy bills in particular? Will she ensure that all new social housing from this stage forward is built to the highest possible standards of energy efficiency, to save people’s bills?

[Angela Rayner]

Again, we have been looking at how we build safe, secure, energy-efficient homes that bring down people’s energy bills. The previous Government saw energy bills go up really high. We are introducing Great British Energy so that we can bring bills down, and are building the homes that people desperately need.

Employment Rights Bill

Ellie Chowns Excerpts

2nd reading
Monday 21st October 2024 Commons Chamber

[Ellie Chowns (North Herefordshire) (Green)]

I begin by welcoming this Bill on behalf of my Green colleagues. I would like to gently comment on the tone of some of this debate. I find myself on the Opposition Benches, but that is not to say that I share the sentiments expressed by Conservative Members. In particular, it is a shame that we have seen some very polarised debate today. I want to challenge the rhetoric of, “It’s workers versus employers and unions versus small businesses.” That is both ahistorical and economically illiterate, frankly. It is ahistorical because if we did not have workers organising together to improve their conditions, we would still have children up chimneys and women being paid a small fraction of what men are paid for doing the same work.

Such rhetoric is economically illiterate because inequality is bad for growth. It is not just me and Labour Members who say that; the International Monetary Fund has specified that inequality is bad for growth. Let us try to look for the common ground together, and to welcome measures that will improve work and the security of people who work. Let us recognise that, frankly, this Bill is long overdue, because we have seen the erosion of workers’ rights over decades. We are now in a position where work does not pay well enough for far too many people in our country, which is why we have so many people on in-work benefits.

I really welcome the sentiments expressed by the right hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell), who pointed out that there are much better labour relations in countries where there is a positive recognition that workers’ rights go along with improved economic growth. As a country, let us try to move towards that point.

I want to briefly mention a few areas where I would like the Government to go further. The Bill’s failure to fully ban fire and rehire practices is inexplicable. It leaves a loophole or get-out clause that effectively condones this practice, and I do not think there can be any grounds for treating workers in purely transactional terms.

Zero-hours contracts are a complex area. I know that some people welcome the opportunity to have zero-hours contracts, but this flies in the face of what the majority of the public wants. The current model leaves far too much power in the hands of employers.

I want to briefly mention other aspects of equality. It is disappointing that this Bill does not uphold previous Labour pledges on mandatory disability and ethnicity pay gap reporting. It will lead to increased inequality between migrant workers and others, because it does not address the risks that migrant workers face when their visas are dependent on employers, and they may exit the country before they have had a chance to pursue their employment claims.

I would like to see kinship care treated in the same way as adoption leave. The hon. Member for Torbay (Steve Darling) talked about foster carers, too.

In summary, I welcome this bill, but there are areas where I would like to see the Government go further to protect workers’ rights.

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

I call Mike Tapp to make his maiden speech.

New Housing: Environmental Standards

Ellie Chowns Excerpts

Thursday 12th September 2024 Westminster Hall

[Graham Stringer (in the Chair)]

I remind hon. Members to bob if they wish to speak so that I can see who wants to speak. Some people have written in—I have a list here. Please be patient if I get names wrong, because everybody’s face is new. I will try very hard to get it right.

[Ellie Chowns (North Herefordshire) (Green)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered environmental standards for new housing.

I thank the Minister and all colleagues here for attending. This is the first time I have led a Westminster Hall debate, so please bear with me if I get the procedures wrong. We have lots of time today, so I welcome interventions and hope we can have a useful debate and conversation on this vital topic.

I want to begin by saying that I recognise that there have been some warm words from the Government on this topic. I look forward to hearing more detail from the Minister today. I called for this debate because, although I have heard one or two warm words in the last two and a bit months, I have not heard any detail. In fact, I have been concerned about hearing nothing specific whatsoever in the Secretary of State’s speeches that I have listened to. The Government have made major commitments on building new housing and it is crucial to consider what type of housing, so I wish to start by outlining three reasons why I think this is a really important debate to have.

First, it is absolutely topical. The Government, as we have heard on numerous occasions—indeed, just five minutes ago in the previous debate—have committed to building 1.5 million new houses over the next five years, but what sort of homes will they be? In the Green party we specify that we need to think about the right homes in the right place at the right price. Today I want to talk about what “right homes” means, because it is not just about quantity; it is also about quality and the need to think long term when new homes are built.

The Climate Change Committee did a report on the UK’s housing stock in 2019. It estimated that in 2050 80% of houses in this country will be houses that are already built, so we clearly have a massive job to do when we think about environmental standards and retrofitting the buildings that we already have. However, I am concerned to discuss the 20% of houses that will be new, because the worst possible outcome could be that we build lots and lots of new houses but to poor standards, thus requiring the retrofitting of those houses, too, so let us focus on new build homes.

The second reason why the debate is important is the scale of the issue relating to houses. Our built environment controls or influences roughly half of UK environmental impacts. Domestic housing accounted for more than a quarter of energy use in the UK in the last year for which we have statistics. Heating accounts for the largest single share of emissions from buildings. The fabric of buildings is crucial in controlling the impact of the housing and broader building sector on the natural environment and climate.

Thirdly, this topic is crucial because we have a massive win-win-win opportunity here. This is not just about reducing carbon emissions from housing, which is certainly very important and I will come on to that later. It is also about ensuring that new homes are warm, affordable to heat and not mouldy but great for people to live in. Just this week in the Chamber there was a debate about how people can stay warm in winter. We need to make sure that all new homes are built to the highest possible standards so that we do not have people shivering in their homes and choosing between heating and eating. Of course, this is a fantastic opportunity to give the economy a great big boost, creating thousands of high-skilled jobs. If we get this right, it will be a fantastic opportunity for economic renewal. We know that investing up front is much cheaper than having to retrofit later, so let us do this right from the start.

I wrote to the Minister for Housing and Planning before the recess about the timing of the release of the future homes standard, which has been in the works for quite some time now—we were consulting on it back in 2019-20, and again in 2023-24. In his response to me, the Minister said that the Government will release it in due course. If he is able to do so, I would love the Minister to provide some clarification on the timetable for publication of the standard; it is supposed to start implementation next year, which is only three and a half months away, so time is of the essence. Of course, it is vital that the policy is right, and not just fast, but, as we have had so many years to develop it, I would hope that it could be published ASAP.

This is not a new topic. One of the helpful briefings I read in preparation for this debate, from the House of Commons Library, which I recommend to everyone—it produces fantastic materials—reminded me that in 2006, the then Labour Government said that they would amend the building regulations to require all new homes to have net zero carbon emissions by 2016. Of course, that policy was scrapped by the Conservatives in 2015, but we are now eight years on from the point at which Labour previously thought that all new homes should be net zero carbon. This is the moment for the new Labour Government to fulfil that promise and put in place regulations to ensure that ambition will actually come to pass—better late than never.

I will speak today about five key aspects of environmental standards for new housing: maximising energy efficiency; minimising embodied carbon; maximising on-site energy generation, particularly rooftop solar; maximising biodiversity in the construction of new homes; and maximising resilience against things like flooding and overheating, which will become more and more important as time goes by and climate change becomes a reality that hits us ever harder.

The first aspect is maximising energy efficiency. To meet the Government’s own carbon targets, almost all buildings will need to fully decarbonise. It is not just me who says that—it was in the Government’s heat and buildings strategy back in 2021. That is what the future homes standard was supposed to ensure. However, the version of the future homes standard that is being consulted on is looking at a 75% improvement on 2013 levels by 2030, which is neither good enough nor strong enough. We need to get to all homes being net zero carbon as soon as possible.

I do not expect the Government to introduce measures whereby every single building has to be built to that standard in 2025, but the industry needs a glide path. We need the Government to set that strategy to provide a framework within which the industry can sort out supply chain issues, both in terms of materials and, crucially, through upskilling, so that we are building zero carbon houses, not ones that are just a bit more efficient than the previous ones. The previous Conservative Government were very pleased to talk at length—I wanted to say “to bang on”—about the fact that more houses are reaching EPC C standard than 15 years ago, and that is indeed true. However, virtually no houses are reaching EPC A or B; that figure has increased from 1% to 3% of houses over the past 15 years. Almost no new houses are being built to those really high standards, which is what we need. Of course, there are major problems with energy performance certificates and the standards assessment procedure that underpins them—I am not pretending that that does not need review, and I commend the moves that are being made in that direction. However, we need to recognise that, flawed as it might be as a metric, it is telling us something really quite serious and worrying, which is that housing quality is not increasing at anywhere close to the rate that it needs to.

Key to reducing energy demand is fabric-first design. That needs to be absolutely integral to the future homes standard. It is deeply concerning that the previous Government claimed that the 2021 changes to building regulations were sufficient, and refused to tighten them any further. It is utterly wrong-headed. In making buildings more energy-efficient, fabric-first must be central. I would welcome a commitment from the Minister that fabric-first will be core to the future homes standard.

I also ask the Minister to lift the restriction placed by the previous Government on local authorities setting higher standards for house building in their areas. I do not think that local authorities setting piecemeal higher standards is the way we will get to a decarbonised housing sector, but we should not hold them back from going further and faster while we wait for Government to show the necessary leadership on a national level. We have too much piecemeal policy on this, both between local authorities and between the four nations of the UK. We need to ensure that we are united in a race to the top for standards, not a race to the bottom.

[Calum Miller (Bicester and Woodstock) (LD)]

I thank the hon. Lady for securing this debate and the Minister for being here to respond. I second the hon. Lady’s point about the standards set by local authorities. I represent part of West Oxfordshire district council, where the Salt Cross development was brought forth. It was challenged by the developers because the local authority sought to set forth a net zero standard. The developers were unsuccessful in their appeal, but in a very obliging step, the previous Government issued a written ministerial statement in December 2023 clarifying that no local authority could have the power to set net zero standards. Does the hon. Lady agree that it would be very helpful if the Minister confirmed that this Government intend to issue a new written ministerial statement to make it more possible, until such time as we have new standards, for local authorities to pursue net zero targets in their planning permissions?

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[Graham Stringer (in the Chair)]

Before I call the hon. Lady to resume her speech, this is probably a good opportunity to remind hon. Members that we are all on a learning curve, and interventions should be short and to the point. We do not have a lot of Members here, so it will not be difficult for you to catch my eye if you want to make a speech yourself.

[Ellie Chowns]

Thank you, Mr Stringer, and I will compensate by being very brief in my response to the intervention by saying that I agree absolutely.

I have talked about the need to maximise energy efficiency. Let me move on to my second point: the need to minimise embodied carbon. In the future homes standard, we have some discussion of minimising operational carbon emissions. There is concern here not just from me. Back in 2022, in its report on the sustainability of the built environment, the Environmental Audit Committee expressed real concern that

“policy has focused entirely on operational emissions”,

and that it does not require the embodied carbon cost of construction to be assessed or controlled in any way. The Royal Institute of British Architects is deeply concerned about this, as are others.

In their response to the Environmental Audit Committee’s report, the previous Government recognised that embodied carbon can account for a very significant proportion of a building’s whole-life carbon emissions. They agreed that a standardised method was needed, and said that they would consult on embodied carbon. In a consultation from November 2023 to March 2024 on the future homes standard, the Government said that embodied carbon was outside the scope of consultation on the future homes standard, but that they would consult on it separately.

Does the Minister agree that embodied carbon needs to be part of the future homes standard? We cannot talk only about operational and not embodied carbon. It has been left behind—effectively the poor relation—in the need to assess the carbon impact of new house building. This urgently needs to be rectified. I very much look forward to hearing the Minister’s comments and, I hope, assurance that as much attention will be paid to embodied carbon as to operational carbon, because it is so significant in the whole-life carbon costs of any new housing.

I move on to my third point: maximising on-site energy generation. I have brought up this topic—the need to ensure that all new homes have solar panels—once or twice in the House already since I have been here. I would be delighted to be known as Mrs Solar Panel by the end of this Parliament. I would be even more delighted if, by the end of this year, we had the regulations necessary to ensure that every roof of a new home had solar panels on it because, frankly, that is what is colloquially known as a no-brainer.

Solar panels are one of the things that residents brought up with me time and again on the doorstep. Constituents of all sorts of political background and none said to me things like, “Why are we still building houses and not putting solar panels on the roofs?” It is something with which people have a real, visceral connection. They see new houses going up around them that do not have solar panels on the roofs, and they know that we need to sort out energy generation. Let’s ensure that we maximise use of these wonderful surfaces that are already there. This is a classic example of where it would be much cheaper to put that technology in place at the point of construction, rather than retrofitting it afterwards. I cannot help but conclude that it has not been done so far only because developers are resisting anything that might increase their costs.

Developers are concerned only with the construction costs; we as lawmakers and as a Government should be concerned with the long-term social, public and environmental costs. Of course, this sort of investment pays for itself many times over during the lifetime of the technology. I warmly invite the Minister to confirm that his Government will bring forward measures to put solar panels on roofs as default, either within the future homes standard, the planning and infrastructure Bill or another appropriate legislative mechanism.

My fourth point is about maximising biodiversity. In the words of the 2021 Dasgupta review,

“Our economies, livelihoods and well-being all depend on our most precious asset: Nature.”

This Government have talked a great deal about growth. Unfortunately, the way we currently measure growth does not take account of the costs of the destruction of the natural assets we have. There have been some welcome moves towards recognition of the need to take account of impacts on biodiversity during construction, with the introduction of biodiversity net gain and so on, but so much more could be done. We could specify having bird and bat boxes for the 1.5 million new houses—wouldn’t it be wonderful to have 1.5 million new bird and bat boxes for the creatures with whom we share this beautiful natural environment? Ponds are good for drainage and for wildlife. Let us take into account lighting design and how light pollution impacts nature if we are building these 1.5 million new houses. We could specify hedgehog highways—little holes cut in fences so that hedgehogs can get from one garden to the next—as well as bee-friendly plants, green roofs and walls, trees, hedges and so on.

We have a real opportunity. People are rightly concerned about the effects on the natural environment of the construction of lots of new homes. We certainly need new homes constructed—they should be affordable and accessible to the people who really need them—but let’s not make it an either/or. Let’s not plaster the country with tarmac in some places while keeping less and less space free for nature. Let’s ensure that whatever new housing we are building recognises that we can also create space for nature to live alongside us and to thrive in those areas, too.

A classic example, and a personal favourite, is swift bricks. For just £30, we could put in place a swift brick in every new house to ensure that these beautiful creatures, whose populations have sadly declined by 60% over the past 30 years, can thrive again. I am not just saying this because both my sons grew up playing for Ledbury Swifts football club, meaning that these birds have a special place in my heart; they should have a special place in all our hearts. Let’s make sure that every new house has a swift brick.

My fifth point is on maximising resilience. We must face up to the fact that the climate crisis means that some extremes of weather will be baked in. We must recognise that adaptation has to be part of what we do, as well as mitigation of the climate impact.

I have seen that very personally. I represent North Herefordshire, and in early 2020 Herefordshire was affected by the worst floods that we have had in 400 years of records. Last winter, we had the wettest 18 months on record in the UK. Such events have major impacts on people’s homes, and we have to take them into account when we build new homes. So, please, may we ensure that the future homes standard and the regulations that go alongside it recognise the reality of the need to be more resilient with issues such as flooding and overheating?

Overheating does not occur much in my constituency, but it is certainly an issue in urban constituencies. Former office blocks are converted into housing through permitted development, but often that entails terrible conditions for the people who end up living in those places. Personally, I think that that should not be allowed to happen. Overheating is a significant issue in such buildings. Let us ensure that overheating and flooding are recognised in resilience planning in new housing.

Finally, water scarcity and efficiency—it is not just energy that we need to use efficiently, but water. That was the topic of my doctorate, although not in this country. Let us ensure that we use these pure resources as carefully and efficiently as possible. Again, that needs to be built in, baked in, right at the start of building new houses.

I have a present for the Minister to take away. A few years ago, in Herefordshire, we developed a thing called “Herefordshire Future Homes”, in which we assessed a whole range of building standards, because of the bewildering array of initiatives in place. The industry is now coalescing around the net zero housing standard, which is good news, but we also looked at things such as water efficiency, biodiversity and so on. I will give this document to the Minister after the debate to feed into his work.

Let me remind the Minister what the Government could and should do. They could ensure that all new homes had ultra-high levels of energy efficiency and were built to an EPC A standard right now, with a glide path through to net zero housing standards as soon as possible. Let us resist the pressure from developers to water down the standards, and let us give local authorities the freedom they need to put in place higher standards initially. Let us incorporate embodied carbon in the future homes standard, and set regulations for whole-life carbon limits aligned with the industry’s building standard of net zero carbon.

I have not mentioned this much, but waste and recycling in construction is a core and enormous part of our waste economy. There are significant opportunities for a more circular economy approach. Let us also specify that all new homes should have solar panels on top and swift bricks everywhere. Let us ensure that all new homes are climate change-resilient.

Now is such an important opportunity for the Government to show leadership. As I said at the beginning of the debate, I confess to being somewhat frustrated that they have not taken the opportunity of their major, high-attention speeches on planning and infrastructure—nothing whatever about building quality. There is an opportunity to rectify that, and I would love to hear not only the Minister’s response, but even more, the Secretary of State integrating building quality into everything that she says about building new houses going forward. I look forward to the Minister’s response.

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[Ellie Chowns]

I thank the Minister for his response and all colleagues for their very constructive contributions. I heard a lot of common ground from Liberal Democrat colleagues, and I welcome that. Indeed, there was an offer from my Conservative colleague, the hon. Member for Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner (David Simmonds), to work constructively wherever common ground can be found, so let us look for that, shall we?

The Minister made a point on goal orientation versus activity orientation. I reassure him firmly that I am focused on outcomes and performance, not on performativity. That is compatible with a view that all new houses should have solar panels on the roof as a default. There may indeed be one or two cases where it is not appropriate, but it is not an either/or. He seemed to suggest that if we put solar panels on, we might miss out on insulation—I am paraphrasing slightly—but we ought to be doing both/and. It is about doing everything that we can to ensure that homes are as energy efficient as possible and, indeed, that they generate as much of their own energy as possible. Let us get all those i’s dotted and t’s crossed in the forthcoming future homes standards.

On being goal-oriented, the hon. Member for Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner mentioned—though he did not use these exact words—post-occupancy evaluation. That is crucial. There is no use setting standards if we do not enforce them and evaluate whether a building has achieved them. I know that many in the sector are quite frustrated that developers may say they are building something to a certain standard, but unless it is evaluated according to how it operates in real life, we will not know. There is an urgent need for an independent inspectorate to make sure that buildings are performing as designed.

I will finish by reiterating a point that came out in my initial speech and in other contributions: this is about thinking for the long term, and it is about the triple win that I talked about. This is not just about environmental protection, vital though that is to tackle the climate and nature crises. It is about making sure that every new home built is a warm home, so that every person who moves into those homes can keep warm and healthy at an affordable cost—at the least cost possible. This is a social goal.

It is also about recognising the opportunity that this sort of economic renewal policy offers the Government in order to achieve their goals of generating good jobs and so forth, and to strengthen the UK’s position in these crucial sectors. With the green new deal and the economic transformation that we need to see globally, let us take the opportunity and be at the forefront of this, using the Government’s excellent ambitions to build new homes as a chance to kick-start the industries of the future, including construction. There are fantastic entities, such as the New Model Institute for Technology and Engineering in Herefordshire with its centre for innovation in timber technology, which the Minister just referenced.

There are lots of opportunities for innovation, so let us grab them with both hands. Let us build the homes that people deserve in this country and fix the problem of environmental standards for new housing having been too low for too long. This is the opportunity to change that.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House has considered environmental standards for new housing.