Planning and Infrastructure Bill

Debate between Gideon Amos and Chris Curtis

Report stage
Monday 9th June 2025 Commons Chamber

[Chris Curtis]

Hundreds of thousands of children will wake up tomorrow morning in temporary accommodation as a consequence of this, and millions of families will continue paying some of the highest energy bills in the western world. When Russian tanks rolled into Europe, we were dangerously reliant on foreign oil and gas because our planning system consistently blocked the clean, home-grown energy generation that we so desperately need. I see some Liberal Democrat Members laughing. I note that, in many cases, it was their councils that blocked that energy infrastructure from being built.

[Gideon Amos]

Will the hon. Member give way?

[Chris Curtis]

In one of the wettest countries in Europe, we could face summer water shortages because we have not built a single major reservoir in over 30 years. Here is the real kick in the teeth: we have paid all those prices for rules that have failed even on their own terms. We have created endless hoops to jump through and poured public money into bizarre mitigation schemes while Britain has become one of the most nature-depleted countries on Earth. We have lost over half our ancient woodland and one in six species are at risk of extinction. We have got fewer birds, fewer butterflies and fewer mammals, and yet more paperwork than ever before.

We should ask this: if these rules are not helping people and they are not helping nature, who on earth are they for? We throw money at scattergun mitigation—fish discos and bat tunnels—while failing to invest in strategic, landscape-scale restoration that actually works. We force every project to fit every issue on site, even when that is more expensive, less effective and totally irrational. That means tens of thousands of individual site-by-site protections, which are bureaucratic, inconsistent and scientifically out of date, and all despite the fact that modern ecological science is clear that nature recovery depends on scale and connectivity, not isolated microprojects.

Planning and Infrastructure Bill

Debate between Gideon Amos and Chris Curtis

2nd reading
Monday 24th March 2025 Commons Chamber

[Gideon Amos]

We shall put that to the test later.

We welcome the provisions that allow compulsory acquisition—where there is a compelling case in the public interest, such as to build social housing—to go ahead on the basis of existing use value, not what the owner hopes will be the value in the future, to the detriment of the public purse. That could make a big difference. It would allow councils to assemble land more affordably, and to deliver more social homes. However, councils need to be resourced to carry out such projects. To that end, I am delighted that the proposal to abolish the cap on planning application fees that my hon. Friend the Member for St Albans (Daisy Cooper) brought forward in her Bill in 2023 is included in this Bill.

[Chris Curtis]

Would the hon. Member like to take this moment to congratulate the absolute heroes in his party who forced it to change its policy at conference last year in favour of building homes? Many of those who sit on the Benches alongside him were calling out the members of his party for trying to get it to do so, one of whom, a former leader, called them Thatcherite. Does he agree with me that building new homes is not Thatcherite, but is the pro-development future that this country needs and that this Chamber should be supporting?