Planning and Infrastructure Bill

Judith Cummins Excerpts

Consideration of Lords amendments
Thursday 13th November 2025 Commons Chamber

[John Milne (Horsham) (LD)]

There has been great anxiety about the possible negative impacts on the environment of this legislation. Lords amendment 40 seeks to restore site specific protections for most cases where they do not involve wider issues, such as nutrient neutrality, but it has been opposed by the Government, as we have heard. Can we trust the Government to have their heart in the right place when it comes to nature versus development? We can pick up a big clue by looking at what has been happening in my constituency in West Sussex.

For the last four years, Horsham district has been contending with the complications of water neutrality, which is often wrongly confused with nutrient neutrality. It is something that applies only to my district and a couple of neighbouring areas. It concerns possible damage to a unique wetlands habitat on the River Arun, which is home to a rare species of snail and many birds. On a precautionary basis, Natural England has required a halt to any new development that would increase demand on the water supply abstracted at nearby Hardham. Natural England was wrong to impose such a draconian limit. The “not one litre more” rule prevented small businesses from building even the smallest project, and that seriously damaged the local economy.

I do not have any confidence either in the abrupt lifting of all restrictions, as happened a fortnight ago. Southern Water promised to reduce its Hardham abstraction licence by a few million litres a day, but that will not make any difference, because it never used the whole allowance anyway—it was just a notional figure set many decades ago.

The immediate crisis for Horsham is how the changes affect planning and housing development. For the past four years, Horsham has been in the ludicrous position of having to obey two totally contradictory laws. One law says that we have to build circa 1,000 houses a year. The other law says that we cannot build any houses at all if they will use extra water. That is clearly quite a challenge. As a result, we have fallen from being an authority that exceeded our housing targets, even though they were very stiff, to being one of the worst performers in the country, with a land supply of less than one year. It is literally against the law for us to obey the law.

As a result, Horsham district council has been forced to accept a series of applications that contradict its local plan and that make complete nonsense of the strategic plan-led development that the Government always profess to support. Complications around water neutrality have prevented a new local plan from being passed, and that has prevented major new environmental provisions from coming into force.

This legal nonsense has done huge damage to Horsham district and is set to do even more. The sudden lifting of water neutrality today leaves us exposed to wholly unconstrained development, which will do major damage to our environmental ambitions. It is impossible to make meaningful plans for new schools, clinics and community services to support the enormous targets that we will be forced to build when speculative developments keep going through that have none of those attributes.

Do I trust the Government to have their heart in the right place when it comes to environmental protections? No, I do not. Do I believe that they are committed to plan-led development? No, I do not. The Government are content to see holes dug all across our beautiful Horsham countryside in the hope that it might dig the Chancellor out of her own personal fiscal black hole.

I therefore urge the Minister to support Lords amendment 40, and to consider how the legislation is affecting my constituency. I invite him to meet me and Horsham district council so that we can explain that what he is doing will not just sacrifice our local environment but make the delivery of affordable housing—my overall key ambition for Horsham—harder, not easier.

[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.

--- Later in debate ---

[Ruth Cadbury]

My hon. Friend is an amazing ambassador for Shrewsbury—I have learned so much about Shrewsbury since getting to know her. Although it is possibly beyond the scope of today’s debate, she is absolutely right about the need to align transport policies and networks with our wider growth and development aspirations. I know that the Government are listening, and are working hard on that very issue. The point about new towns is also a very good one, and it has been welcome to see a Transport Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Wakefield and Rothwell (Simon Lightwood), sitting alongside the Housing and Planning Minister for quite a lot of this debate—it is a good sign that the important need to break down the silos that built up in Government over the past 15 years is being recognised. We on the Committee corridor really appreciate that.

The Transport Committee considered national networks in 2023, so we do not expect to see that national policy statement again until 2028—we will see what process is followed then, if indeed this change does go through. We published our view on the national policy statement on ports this morning, so it will be 2030 before that is due for revision again. As I said, airports is the only national policy statement that is specific to a particular development, and the Transport Committee expects to address it in the months ahead. Of course, we will be doing so following the Chancellor’s announcement that the Government wish to pursue the development of runway three.

Although we honour the power and role of the Government, I pick up on what the Minister said on Report when he was keen to assure us that the Government’s changes were

“not about eroding parliamentary scrutiny, but about ensuring that scrutiny is proportionate to the changes being made”,

and that the Government

“recognise the value that such scrutiny brings to getting important changes right.”—[Official Report, 9 June 2025; Vol. 768, c. 757.]

Our constituents want to be assured that any changes that have a disproportionate impact on them will be properly scrutinised by this House. I am glad that the Minister has said that the Government will lay a statement in the House, write to the relevant Select Committee and make themselves available, but I want to pick up on the phrase “as far as is practicable”. It is good that he went on to say that

“the Government recognise the importance of Ministers attending Committee to explain the proposed changes”,

and that

“Parliament retains the ultimate say over whether a change should be enacted”—[Official Report, 9 June 2025; Vol. 768, c. 757.],

but Parliament needs time, access to Ministers, and assurance that significant changes will be able to be properly and fully scrutinised. Where a proposed change is significant enough—where it is not a relatively minor change—we must be able to use the full process.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Judith Cummins)]

I call the Minister to wind up.

[Matthew Pennycook]

I thank all right hon. and hon. Members who have contributed to this debate. In opening the debate, I set out at some length the reasons why the Government are resisting the bulk of the amendments made in the other place. In the interests of time, I do not intend to reiterate at any great length the points I have made previously. I will instead focus my remarks on expanding the Government’s arguments in key respects, and on addressing any points raised in the debate that I did not cover in my opening remarks.