Planning and Infrastructure Bill (Third sitting)

Lewis Cocking Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 29th April 2025 Public Bill Committees

[David Simmonds]

I rise in support of my hon. Friend the shadow Minister to press the Government on this point. I think the key issue for all of us is what remedy is available where there are concerns about the impact of a decision taken using these new provisions.

In the evidence sessions, there was much mockery of a so-called fish disco at a new nuclear power station. However, the local constituency MP, the local authority or fishing and wildlife organisations would be very concerned about the impact of that development on wildlife, particularly at a location with significant numbers of protected species, some of which are unique in Europe. When the detail of a project emerges and an issue of that nature needs to be addressed, and there is feedback from Parliament, if we have inserted provisions that allow the Secretary of State to say, “I am going to ignore that now,” we lose the opportunity to ensure appropriate remedies and measures to address the impact of that detail, either in planning terms or on the local environment.

I recall a judicial review brought by the local authority where I served as a councillor in respect of a scheme that had been agreed with the Secretary of State. The Secretary of State had written to the local authority and said, “This is what it is going to be. This is the process that is going to be followed.” That Secretary of State was then replaced with another, who said, “I am not going to follow it. Although my predecessor wrote to you last year to tell you this is how it was going to be, I am not going to do it.” The local authority said that was clearly unsatisfactory, because of the impact at community level.

The test that was required to be met for a judicial review to succeed was that we had to be able to demonstrate that the Minister was—what the judge said has always stuck in my mind—“out of her mind” when she told Parliament at the Dispatch Box what she was going to do, on the basis that parliamentary sovereignty was so great. If Parliament had approved the Minister’s actions, regardless of whether they were a flagrant breach of an agreement previously entered into with another part of the public sector, provided they had said that at the Dispatch Box and unless we could prove that the Minister had actually been out of their mind at that point, the decision would stand and would not be subject to judicial review. It could not even be considered, because parliamentary sovereignty has such a high test.

I think the shadow Minister is right to raise the need to get this right. We are all talking about the importance of getting infrastructure and major developments through, and we can understand the desire to drive that forward, but we would not wish to find ourselves in a situation where a key point of detail, which has a significant community impact but which emerges only once some of those detailed elements of a major project are in the public domain, cannot be taken account of and is irrelevant or disregarded in the planning process. It is absolutely critical that we have that level of safeguard to ensure that constituents are assured that the concerns that they might perfectly reasonably have will be properly addressed.

[Lewis Cocking (Broxbourne) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mrs Hobhouse. I draw your attention to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. I concur with my colleagues. I have concerns about removing the response from Ministers to Parliament. We are told that constituents and residents will be kept at the heart of such decisions—they will have some say in the national planning policy framework through consultation on national infrastructure projects when they are in their area. Indeed, I asked the Prime Minister a question on the topic at PMQs. I was not convinced by his answer.

How can the Government, on the one hand, say that we will keep local people at the heart of those decisions and allow local people to have a say on them, while on the other, in this part of the Bill, remove parliamentary scrutiny? That will fill the British people with dread, that they will not have such a say in some of those infrastructure projects in their area.

[Matthew Pennycook]

May I correct the hon. Gentleman? Local people in any part of the country affected by a development consent order will still be able to have their say on it. Nothing in the clause affects that arrangement.

[Lewis Cocking]

My point is, if we remove parliamentary scrutiny, the British people out there watching this will think, “Well, hang on a minute, the Government are saying on the one hand that we will still have a say and feed into that process, but on the other they are removing parliamentary scrutiny from the process, so how do we weigh that up?” When the Bill has been through the full process to Third Reading, how can we and the British people trust that they will still have a say over national infrastructure projects in their area if parliamentary scrutiny is being removed? That is taking with one hand and giving with the other, and it could be perceived that people will not have a say; they might not believe the Government saying that they will have a say. I hope that the Minister will comment on that.

[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.

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[Matthew Pennycook]

I simply disagree with the hon. Gentleman. It is a matter for the House rather than the Government. On their own terms, we think the changes made through the clause are proportionate and will ensure that the system is more effective. Again, I make it clear that we are talking about reflective amendments to national policy statements in the four specific categories I have given.

[Lewis Cocking]

Will the Minister give way?

[Matthew Pennycook]

I will give way one last time, and then I will make some progress.

[Lewis Cocking]

If we are talking about small, minor changes, surely the consultation period does not need to be that long—it will not take Select Committees long to produce a report to feed into the process if these are only minor changes. I do not see the need for change that the Minister is setting out.

[Matthew Pennycook]

All I would say is that if the hon. Gentleman looked at the history of the response times on some of these matters he would see that in not every instance is there a timely response. It can delay the process quite significantly. We appreciate the concerns, but the procedure cannot and will not be used to bypass due parliamentary scrutiny.

Any court decision change being reflected in the NPS will have been scrutinised by the public and Parliament on its own terms. We are adjusting the parliamentary scrutiny requirements to update an NPS, so that it is more proportionate and enables those documents to be updated more quickly. The process retains scope for Parliament to raise matters with the Government. The Secretary of State is required to lay a statement in Parliament announcing that a review of the NPS is taking place. The Government will write to the relevant Select Committee at the start of the consultation period, and Ministers will make themselves available to speak at the relevant Select Committee during the consultation period, so far as is practical. Finally, the NPS as amended will still be laid in Parliament for 21 days and can be prayed against.

I turn to amendment 8, tabled by the hon. Member for Taunton and Wellington; we have covered many of the issues it raises. In seeking to remove clause 2(3)(a), it is a wrecking amendment, in our view. It would fatally and fundamentally undermine the introduction of a new streamlined procedure for updating national policy statements by requiring the Government to respond to a Select Committee inquiry before being able to lay a national policy statement before Parliament. We will therefore resist it. As I have set out, the new procedure introduced by clause 2 will help to unlock growth in our country by enabling policy to be updated more easily, providing certainty for applicants using the NSIP regime and for decision makers. On that basis, I ask the hon. Gentleman to withdraw his amendment, and I commend clause 2 to the Committee.

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[Matthew Pennycook]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for that question. I want to be very clear about the circumstances in which this measure can be used. As he will appreciate, I will not comment on a specific application, for reasons he will well understand, but, in such a scenario, I struggle to see how that application could feasibly come within the NSIP regime process at all. It sounds like a straight-down-the-line application that would be made by the applicant, across two local authorities, through the Town and Country Planning Act regime.

What the clause seeks to do is ensure that, in cases where, due to the nature of the development, the only route to go down is the NSIP regime via a development consent order, an applicant can apply to have that application determined in a different consenting order if it will lead to a faster, more proportionate and more effective decision-making process. As I say, it will therefore be for the Secretary of State to consider the unique circumstances and impacts of any specific development so that the consenting of certain developments can be undertaken by whatever body the applicant appealing to the Secretary of State says is the more appropriate route. In most instances, I would assume that that would be the local planning authority, but I gave the example of the Transport and Works Acts regime for roads.

We are trying to get at the type of examples where developments need limited consents or may not need compulsory acquisition—in a sense, when the one-stop-shop nature of the NSIP regime may not be the most proportionate means to take that through. The redirection under the clause will not be appropriate for all developments, and, for a direction to be given, the Secretary of State must consider that it is appropriate for an alternative consenting regime to apply rather than the Planning Act.

[Lewis Cocking]

I thank the Minister for giving way. Has his Department done any analysis of how many requests the Government are likely to get under the clause, and how many applications will want to change how they are determined?

[Matthew Pennycook]

I think the thrust of the hon. Member’s question was about a numerical analysis. No, we cannot account for the behavioural change that would come if this clause is enacted. What we do know, from significant engagement with stakeholders in the infrastructure sector, is that lots of applicants would make use of the redirection route and are eager to do so.

The examples I have heard from particular major economic infrastructure providers are where, as I say, they have a constructive and healthy working relationship with a local authority that they are confident is resourced and able to take the decision to approve or reject an application in a timely manner and they do not want to have to take it through the NSIP regime, which is currently their only route.

As I said, section 35 already allows the Secretary of State to pull applications from other regimes into the NSIP regime. This will work the other way, and just provides a necessary flexibility. The point of clause 3, though, is to ensure that any given applicant can make a case to the Secretary of State to go into the regime that they feel is the most appropriate and proportionate for the application in question.

[Lewis Cocking]

I thank the Minister for giving way again. I just want to press him a little more. He is saying that people can choose to go through the Town and Country Planning Act regime, but we were always told by this Government that that is a long, arduous process that developments take a really long time to go through. Why are they suggesting that they might want to put more development through that process if, as they are saying, it is not working?

[Matthew Pennycook]

The Government are agnostic on which route a developer will wish to go down. As I say, developers will have to apply to the Secretary of State and make a case that, in the specific circumstances in which they are operating, there should be an alternative consenting route. The hon. Gentleman will know that we are making significant efforts to speed up and streamline the town and country planning regime. From previous debates, I know that he takes issue with some of that, but if he has had a conversion, I would very much welcome it.

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[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.

[Lewis Cocking]

Does the hon. Lady not agree that getting rid of the pre-planning application consultation completely will disenfranchise residents and constituents from engaging with the process? Sometimes that process can solve some of the issues down the line. I understand that it takes too long—I agree with and have strong sympathy for her points—but should we not be able to speed it up while allowing that engagement to take place?

[Nesil Caliskan]

I thank the hon. Member for his intervention, but I do not think that the change would prevent applicants from continuing to engage with residents and elected Members. All it would do is avoid putting additional onus on a process that is costing the taxpayer a huge amount of money.

I will go further. Having spoken to members of our community, I have heard over and over again that there is consultation fatigue with the endless stream of negotiations. Before we even get to a statutory consultation period, we have had many years of something that has been proposed with no statutory framework. This proposal has the good intention of a material change that will shorten the consultation period.

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[David Simmonds]

I understand the point the hon. Member makes, but part of me thinks, “Well, they would say that, wouldn’t they?” For a business whose profits come from expediting the grant of planning consent as much as possible, removing potential obstacles to that is important.

However, as has been outlined in many of the examples that we have debated, there can be crucial points of detail that either would make all the difference to the level of consent and support in the local community for a project, or would engage other legal obligations that Parliament has placed on the local authorities, either to carry out an impact assessment—an evaluation of what that will mean—or, in some cases, to engage with that process to oppose the development taking place, because it contradicts other legal obligations placed on the authority by Parliament in respect of environment, health or whatever it may be. Clearly, we need to ensure that there is a functional process.

[Lewis Cocking]

Does my hon. Friend agree that removing the pre-planning application consultation entirely places too much trust in developers? Sometimes developers build absolute rubbish. I do not want them to spend too much money on something that does not have some sort of community support, or support from Government agencies. The Bill could jeopardise that, if we remove the consultation completely.