Planning and Infrastructure Bill

Debate between Gideon Amos and Caroline Nokes

Report stage
Tuesday 10th June 2025 Commons Chamber

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Caroline Nokes)]

I call the Liberal Democrat spokesperson.

[Gideon Amos]

I reiterate my thanks to all members of the Bill Committee and to the Clerks and officials, who I know had plenty to be getting on with during our sittings.

I am grateful for the support of my colleagues for the amendments I have tabled. The Liberal Democrats’ new clause 22 on active travel, and new clause 114 on open spaces in new towns and other development corporation developments, and our amendments 88 and 89 on recreational land, form our key proposals for this part of the Bill. All of them urge the Government to go further when it comes to releasing land value for infrastructure that meets community and environmental needs.

On part 5 of the Bill generally, our compulsory purchase proposals included that where major permissions of over 100 homes are not built out, greater powers to acquire that land for housing would be given to councils in a new “use it or lose it” planning permission. I was delighted to hear in the news that the Government are taking up that idea—although I gained a slightly different impression in Committee—even if the promise of more conditionally approved compulsory purchase orders will not give councils the same strong “use it or lose it” power that our amendment would have.

Wary of your strictures to stay on topic, Madam Deputy Speaker, I hope you will briefly allow me to add my welcome to that of my hon. Friend the Member for Cheltenham (Max Wilkinson) of the fact that, following the introduction of his private Member’s Bill, the Government, to their credit, have agreed that all new homes will be fitted with solar panels as standard—his sunshine Bill really is “winning here”—bringing zero emissions a step closer, after all the hard work of Liberal Democrat and Labour Ministers on zero-carbon homes, before the Conservatives cancelled the programme in 2015.

I turn to our amendments on compulsory purchase and development corporations. Our community-led approach is about the essential infrastructure people want to see being put in place ahead of the building of new homes. Clause 104 could support that by helping the building of council and social homes. It would reward landowners with a fair value, rather than inflated prices from an imaginary planning permission no one has ever applied for, as set out in section 14A of the Land Compensation Act 1961. Our manifesto supports that for the delivery of council houses, and we are supportive of steps that ensure that landowners are awarded fair compensation, rather than inflated prices, for specific types of development scheme.

However, at my meeting with farmers in North Curry on Friday, there was concern about the idea—possibly as a result of rumours—that under the clause, farmers would lose land to Natural England so that it could carry out its environmental delivery plans, and in return would get only a reduced payment. I am not convinced that is what the clause does, but family farms have had a tough time recently. They provide food for our tables, and they have been hit hard by risky trade deals with Australia and New Zealand under the last Government, followed by a new inheritance tax on small family farms, the underspend of the agricultural budget, and the closing of the sustainable farming initiative.

Plan for Neighbourhoods

Debate between Gideon Amos and Caroline Nokes

Tuesday 4th March 2025 Commons Chamber

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Caroline Nokes)]

I call the Liberal Democrat spokesperson.

[Gideon Amos (Taunton and Wellington) (LD)]

The Liberal Democrats welcome this plan to work with communities to improve local amenities and engagement in the process. We also welcome the move away from local council areas bidding against each other, and towards a more objective approach, based, for example, on indices of multiple deprivation. In our opinion and my opinion, the previous system divisively pitted one area against another in a way that did damage to more areas than it helped.

The Liberal Democrats are committed to allowing communities to take action to improve their area. Given sufficient powers and resources, local authorities can play a major role in responding to climate and nature emergencies, whether through the insulation of homes, enhancing green spaces or improving air quality. However, the Conservative Government forced councils to do more and more with less and less, plunging many into financial crisis. As a result, councils have gone bankrupt around the country, and many are feeling the strain of cuts to public services and a lack of investment in community assets.

No community can flourish without proper powers and resources, so we welcome the plan’s commitment to ensuring that new neighbourhood boards work with local authorities to implement new funding. However, we urge the Government to confirm that local authorities will be funded and resourced substantially to take on this additional workload.

The financial burden on councils has forced many to make impossible choices on funding. In my council of Somerset, for example, nearly 70% of council tax receipts go on care for vulnerable adults and children, which many believe should be a national responsibility. Until we have a national solution to the care crisis, councils will continue to be held back from reaching their full potential. We welcome the Government’s commitment to investing in community-led improvement.

We also welcome the new neighbourhood boards, which should provide community engagement throughout the process. We urge the Government to reconsider their decision to remove district council-level scrutiny from the planning process. Where Whitehall takes power and decisions out of the hands of local councillors, it also takes decisions out of the hands of local people. That is undemocratic and will ultimately slow up the process of getting the homes that we need. We also call on the Government to confirm that nature and climate specialists will be included on the neighbourhood boards. Finally, can I ask the Minister—

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Caroline Nokes)]

Order. I remind the hon. Member that there is a time limit. I will give him one more sentence.

[Gideon Amos]

Apologies, Madam Deputy Speaker. Will the Secretary of State review the list of 75 towns, so that others can be included in future? Finally, will the Government consider rolling the plans into neighbourhood plans, so that they are given more statutory effect when planning decisions are made?

Water (Special Measures) Bill [Lords]

Debate between Gideon Amos and Caroline Nokes

2nd reading
Monday 16th December 2024 Commons Chamber

[Gideon Amos (Taunton and Wellington) (LD)]

Few of the natural features of the Taunton and Wellington constituency in Somerset are as valued as the River Tone, which goes through the constituency. Like my hon. Friend the Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale (Tim Farron), I welcome this Bill but wish it would go further. In particular, we need a much stronger regulator. As long as Ofwat has a duty to protect profits and returns for shareholders but not to protect the environment, it will be more of a tame kitten than a watchdog. When it comes to managing the quality of our water and our waterways, profiteering surely has no place in the equation, which is why we want to see privatised water companies replaced with not-for-profit companies, which work very effectively in Denmark. Water companies also need to be held to account for longer when it comes to investing in the infrastructure that is needed.

From preparing and submitting its bathing water status application—with a lot of support from the hard-working volunteers of the Friends of French Weir Park—I know how much goes into designating a bathing water such as the Tone in Taunton. I therefore urge the Minister, in the context of the ongoing parallel bathing water consultation—to completely end automatic de-designation after five years. Wessex Water and the Environment Agency have made it clear that we can get improvements in water quality in the Tone in five years—and who would disagree with improving the tone, Madam Deputy Speaker?—but they are unlikely to be enough to protect its designation unless more time is available.

We in Taunton also strongly disagree with making new designations dependent on already having sufficiently clean bathing water quality. The whole reason that communities are seeking to get their designations is to stimulate that improvement. As Surfers Against Sewage has pointed out, making quality a prerequisite rather than the goal to be established would have prevented almost all the current inland bathing waters from being designated. Also, we would oppose allowing bathing seasons to be curtailed. I hope the Minister will also say something about bringing in water restoration grants, which would have the dual advantages of supporting the drive to eliminate phosphates from the Somerset levels and moors and improving river and bathing water quality.

Having canvassed the views of my fellow swimmers the other day, I know how much people want to see the river improved. We therefore need to give rural communities the support they need for water restoration. We need to establish a tough regulator bound by legal duties to protect the environment, not just profits, and give bathing waters enough time to be brought up to standard without the threat of de-designation and being pushed into the “too difficult” pile. Our rivers and our environment—

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Caroline Nokes)]

Order. I call Julie Minns.