Planning and Infrastructure Bill

John McDonnell Excerpts

Consideration of Lords amendments
Thursday 13th November 2025 Commons Chamber

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Caroline Nokes)]

We now come to King’s consent. Do we have a Privy Counsellor present?

[John McDonnell (Hayes and Harlington) (Lab)]

indicated assent.

King’s consent signified.

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

I inform the House that nothing in the Lords amendments engages Commons financial privilege.

Clause 2

National policy statements: parliamentary requirements

--- Later in debate ---

[Dame Meg Hillier (Hackney South and Shoreditch) (Lab/Co-op)]

I add my thanks to those in the other place for the work that they have done on this Bill, and particularly on Lords amendment 1, which I will explain my thinking on in more detail.

I stand to speak on this issue because of the importance of scrutiny of Government policy by the Select Committees of this House. While this House has an important scrutiny task, and Bill Committees have their job to do, there is a valuable role for Select Committees in scrutiny because of the depth of knowledge of the Committee teams, which are made up of Members, experienced expert staff, and Clerks. That depth of knowledge can be very helpful to Ministers and Governments, who can get useful input as policy is developed, and Select Committees have a particular role in relation to national policy statements.

More widely, I say to Members on the Treasury Benches that although I massively appreciate the work that the Minister has done to ensure that we lean into this issue —which I will touch on in a moment—Governments of whatever party need to be mindful when they are pushing legislation forward. We get elected with an agenda and, quite rightly, we are impatient to push things through, but we need to be mindful of the importance of parliamentary scrutiny. We diminish that at our peril, because we risk a slippery slope. One day, a mad, bad or dangerous Government—do not tempt me on that, given the past 14 years—could misuse the system. We need to stress-test what is being proposed by the Government of the day in the light of that important fact.

We have 13 national policy statements covering types of national infrastructure. I do not need to go into detail on that, but they include energy, transport, waste water and waste. The normal process has been that these statements are laid before the House, and Select Committees are involved. For time reasons, I will not go through the technical detail of how that works, but basically, Select Committees have an important role to play in scrutinising any changes to national policy statements. The Government are concerned that this can take too long, and have decided, as the Minister has explained, to introduce a new reflective amendment procedure. Under that procedure, the Government would not be subject to the existing statutory obligation to respond to a resolution of either House, or to recommendations from a Committee of either House, regarding the proposed changes.

The key question is: what is proposed to replace the existing procedure? As the Minister has said, there will continue to be a public consultation on reflective amendments —the smaller category of amendments that might be introduced. The Minister will need to write to the relevant Select Committee, and Ministers must make themselves available to appear before the relevant Committee to explain why the proposed changes to the NPS mean that the reflective amendment route is appropriate. The Minister and I have been discussing this for months—I have been speaking on behalf of those on the Committee corridor—and I thank him very much for his time.

On Report, the Minister said at the Dispatch Box that Ministers would appear in front of Select Committees

“as far as is practicable”.—[Official Report, 9 June 2025; Vol. 768, c. 757.]

I raised with him the concern that although “practicable” may be a legal term, it does not really work for Select Committees, because there is a question about what it means. The Minister could be on holiday, or could be visiting a constituency somewhere else in the country, and it might not be practicable for them to appear before a Select Committee. I have been a Minister, and it is right that Ministers should be accountable to this House. That should be a priority; it is the job of a Minister to steer legislation through the House, politically and practically. I know that the Minister has been looking closely at whether he can give us a reassurance that Ministers will be expected to appear before a Select Committee if required to do so, not just as far as is practicable.

Under the new approach, an amended national policy statement will be laid before Parliament for 21 sitting days—I am glad that the Minister has been clear that it will be sitting days, not days during a recess period; that is critical—and the Government will respond to any Committee reports during that time. However, they no longer have a statutory obligation to respond. I hope that the Minister can reassure me further, at the Dispatch Box, that they would be expected to do so.

Speaking on behalf of the Committee corridor, we are very clear that we would play our part in ensuring that these matters were turned around within a proper timeframe, and there would not be unnecessary delays. There is a great team of people behind our Select Committees. If you were not in the Chair, Madam Deputy Speaker, I would say that I am privileged to work with probably the best set of Chairs of Select Committees that we have ever had, but that would cut you out, and you did important work that set the tone for us all. You were a leader in this field when you chaired the Women and Equalities Committee; we follow in big footsteps. There is a very talented team of people on the Committee corridor who want to make sure that this process works. We take very seriously our responsibility to scrutinise Government legislation, and our role in getting it through Parliament, although not necessarily without amendment. We will work very closely with the Government when submitting our views.

[John McDonnell (Hayes and Harlington) (Lab)]

Those who are watching this debate might think that we are just debating tedious parliamentary processes, but as my hon. Friend the Member for Vauxhall and Camberwell Green (Florence Eshalomi) made clear, national policy statements have impacts. We are about to consider—in some detail, I hope—the national policy statement on airports, which would result in 15,000 people in my constituency losing their home, and whole communities being wiped off the face of the earth. That is why it is so critical that we get this procedure right; otherwise, we will not carry the community with us.

[Dame Meg Hillier]

I think I can reassure my right hon. Friend that, as the Minister has made clear at the Dispatch Box, very large changes would go through the old process. There is no watering down of that, which is absolutely right and proper; the Government are leaning in the right direction on that. Our concern was about turning smaller amendments into reflective amendments. The Minister outlined four categories of amendment; when he sums up, I would be grateful if he could clarify who decides which of the four categories an amendment would be in, and whether there is any prospect that the process could be misused by a future Government. I cannot imagine that the Minister would misuse it, but in a bad world, could this process be abused by the Government of the day?

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Perkins]

Building 1.5 million homes to tackle the housing crisis at the same time as protecting British wildlife is an issue that the general public are rightly passionate about, and one that Government must get right for people, for nature and for the economy. The Environmental Audit Committee, which I chair, initiated an inquiry to explore that exact question last November, and we will shortly be able to share our conclusions and recommendations to Government. The Planning and Infrastructure Bill is a central plank of the Government’s plan to unlock the planning system in order to deliver the housing and infrastructure that Britain needs.

I was interested in the contribution of the hon. Member for Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner (David Simmonds), who rightly identified the issue of developers sitting on land. I have to say, as someone who has been in local and parliamentary politics for 23 years, that that has always been the case, so it was unconvincing that, having identified the issue, he did not seem to have any solutions. He listed a number of things that the Government might consider, without enlightening us as to whether he supported any of them, so it is clear that the Government will have to crack on alone if they wish to address this important issue.

The Bill has been significantly improved during its passage, and my original concerns about part 3—which were shared by many others—have been allayed. I have been through enough debates on legislation in this Chamber where people have accused Ministers of not listening to give credit to my hon. Friend the Housing Minister for having listened to criticisms and skilfully clarified how the Government will respond. I thank him for that.

Unfortunately, the Minister’s work has been made more difficult by briefings that characterise nature as a blocker to development. In fact, research from the Wildlife Trusts found that bats and great crested newts were a factor in just 3% of planning appeal decisions. I think these anti-nature narratives are at best lazy, and often unhelpful; they distract from some of the more significant challenges in the planning system, such as the lack of resources and skills in local authorities to support good planning applications. Tackling those genuine planning barriers, alongside this Bill, will be essential to building the homes that we need.

Lords amendment 40 would limit environmental delivery plans to only certain environmental impacts, including water pollution, water availability and air pollution. Addressing environmental impacts at a strategic level, as enabled by the EDPs introduced by the Bill, has the potential in some circumstances to deliver more benefits for the environment and faster planning outcomes. In some circumstances, this strategic approach would absolutely not be appropriate—for example, as my hon. Friend the Member for Poole (Neil Duncan-Jordan) alluded to, harm to a site-loyal species would often be impossible to redress in a different location.

I do believe, though, that it is reasonable to steer clear of stipulating on the face of the Bill which environmental issues EDPs could be developed for in future, as Lords amendment 40 would do. If guided by current robust scientific evidence, or evidence that might come to light in future, it is possible to imagine that a strategic approach for addressing environmental impacts could be found to be appropriate for issues beyond only water and air pollution.

[John McDonnell]

My hon. Friend is making an extremely considered speech. On that point, which was also made by my hon. Friend the Member for Poole (Neil Duncan-Jordan), we now have concerns being expressed by virtually every environmental organisation we have ever worked with, including SERA—the Socialist Environment and Resources Association—Labour’s own environment campaign.

Could there not be a compromise here? If the Government were really clear on the process for the future, the issues that my hon. Friend has just raised could be considered. Then, we could see that there was a strategic approach on some issues, but that there would be further consideration on others that the Government could come back to. There is potential there for a compromise with the other House as part of this ping-pong process.

--- Later in debate ---

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Judith Cummins)]

I call John McDonnell.

[John McDonnell]

I apologise, Madam Deputy Speaker, for leaving the Chamber for a period. I had to chair a meeting upstairs that had been planned for a number of months.

My hon. Friend the Member for Northampton South (Mike Reader) mentioned the 4 Cs. I will add a fifth: confidence. One problem that we have as a Government —on this issue and on a number of others—is that we need to instil confidence in the general population that not only are our objectives sound but the methods that we are about to use will be effective. I want to stick to the Bill, but let me use a general example. There has been a trend in Government over the past 17 months of policies being introduced that have not maintained the confidence of the general public or of a number of Members. Having destroyed that confidence, we have then gone through a process of reversing the policies and, as a result, not gaining any benefit from them. We just require a bit more political nous as we consider things, issue by issue.

In this field in particular, I do not think that we have taken people with us. What has undermined confidence for people like me is that when Members honestly expressed their views, concerns and expertise, and moved amendments, they lost the Whip. Then, at a later date—within weeks—the Government adopted those amendments as part of the process in the Lords.

[Matthew Pennycook]

No, we did not.

[John McDonnell]

I am happy to take an intervention if the Minister so wishes.

[Matthew Pennycook]

I am happy to intervene just to make clear that we did not adopt the amendments that were pressed on Report. There are very crucial differences between the package that we submitted and those amendments.

[John McDonnell]

The Government did not accept the amendments on Report, but the reality is that they had to negotiate with the other House and introduce amendments that were in the spirit of the amendments tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for North East Hertfordshire (Chris Hinchliff)—it is as simple as that. We need to be honest about that and admit when we make mistakes.

That is why I worry about this. If we introduce legislation of this sort, we need to take people with us. My hon. Friend the Member for Northampton South referred, in a derogatory tone, to the well-funded environmental groups. I have been working with those groups for nearly 50 years. I have never seen a breadth of unanimity across them on an issue such as this. Some of them cannot be described as anything other than mainstream. What they are asking for, in some of these amendments, is relatively limited, so it behoves us, as a listening Government, to go that one step further and see whether compromises can be reached. I congratulate the Government on doing that for clause 3, in which compromises have been reached. For some reason, however, people are digging their heels in, particularly in relation to Lords amendment 40.

Let me deal with Lords amendment 1 on national policy statements. As I said earlier, confidence must be built when dealing with huge developments. My hon. Friend the Member for Brentford and Isleworth (Ruth Cadbury) has mentioned the third runway at Heathrow. The proposal to build a third runway will never have my constituents’ confidence because, as I said earlier, 15,000 of them will lose their homes, whole villages will be wiped off the face of the earth, and 2 million more people in London will suffer from noise and air pollution —so we will not be able to convince them, to be honest. However, on more general topics, including major infrastructure projects, the role of Select Committees has been critical, as they are able to examine those issues in depth, have Ministers before them and present reports to the House, which we can debate.

In many instances, Select Committee reports and the work those Committees have done has been of such a quality that—as my hon. Friend the Member for Chesterfield (Mr Perkins) demonstrated in his description of the work his Select Committee does—they have influenced Government, enabled policies to be changed and, as a result, built up confidence in the general public. I am concerned about any lessening of the role of Select Committees in this whole process. The Minister has given us some assurances, and we will see how that works out in practice, but we interfere with that democratic process of this House at our peril when we are in government, because this is how mistakes get made.

--- Later in debate ---

[Ruth Cadbury]

It is an honour to follow the hon. Member for North Norfolk (Steff Aquarone), a fellow Transport Committee member. We do not have any chalk streams running through Brentford and Isleworth, but we are beside the Thames, which I know is fed by many chalk streams.

[John McDonnell]

You’ve got a canal.

[Ruth Cadbury]

We do have a canal. We also have the Thames, the River Crane and the Duke of Northumberland river, but I do not think any of them are chalk. The issues for chalk streams, particularly sewage going into them in Oxfordshire, causes us problems in the Thames as it goes past my constituency—I digress.

I welcome the many changes that the Government will make to the planning system as a result of the Bill, and I welcome the amendments that have been made during its passage. As my hon. Friend the Member for Northampton South (Mike Reader) said so eloquently, the most important thing about the Bill is that will it bring more homes. There is high demand for housing in the borough of Hounslow; people desperately need adequate, affordable and good-quality housing but cannot get on to the housing ladder. Some people can afford to rent or buy privately, but I know from door-knocking that all the flats that have been built over the past 20 years are fully occupied.

West London is desperately short of housing, for those already living in the area who want to stay close to their family and for those who want to come to live in the area to take advantage of the many job opportunities in growth sectors. Sadly, some developments that have planning permission have not yet been built, partly because of changes to designs following Grenfell, and partly because other building regulation and industry changes. I hope that those developments get on stream very quickly.

I will focus on Lords amendment 1 to clause 2. In response to my intervention on the Minister earlier, he assured me that despite the significant changes and the new national policy statements, the existing process of parliamentary scrutiny—including a role for this Chamber and the Committees—will continue, and I thank him for that.

The new procedure introduced in clause 2 applies to amendments to national policy statements that reflect policy or legislative changes, or decisions that have been through the courts. The implication is that the provision will enable the quicker implementation of light-touch amendments—those involving less material changes—to national policy statements. That concerns some of us, as the Chair of the Liaison Committee has already covered so eloquently. Some of these changes could be very significant, and they deserve proper scrutiny. As Chair of the Transport Committee, I will come later to some examples specifically relating to transport.

The Government’s changes will give

“Parliament and the relevant select committee forewarning that Government intends to follow the reflective amendment procedure to update an NPS”.

The “reflective amendment procedure” is what I would call “the reduced procedure”, but we will get forewarning—great. The Government will also have to formally announce a review of an NPS by making a statement in Parliament—great. When there is a partial review, the Government will

“informally update the Liaison Committee and the relevant Select Committee”

by writing to the relevant Select Committee at the commencement of the public consultation period on proposed changes to an NPS.

In Committee, the Minister said that

“Ministers will make themselves available to speak at the relevant Select Committee during the consultation period, so far as is practical.”––[Official Report, Planning and Infrastructure Public Bill Committee, 29 April 2025; c. 105.]

It is the words “so far as is practical” that have concerned the Chairs of the Select Committees.

A letter received by the Liaison Committee also stated that if a Select Committee publishes a report on proposed NPS changes within the public consultation period, then the Government will take those views into account before the updated NPS is laid before Parliament and will seek to respond to the report around the time of laying the updated NPS “wherever feasible”.

When the Minister sums up, I hope he will clarify those two phrases: “so far as is practical”, in relation to the Minister coming to the Select Committee; and “wherever feasible”, in terms of the Government responding to the Committee’s report.

As I have just said, the reflective amendment process is expected to apply to changes to national policy statements that reflect legislative decisions, Government decisions, the publication of Government policy or changes to other documents referred to in the ANPS. I have a question, which I would really like to know the answer to: by what criteria will the new process be used, and who decides? When will the full-fat version, with the involvement of Parliament, be used?