Planning and Infrastructure Bill

Lord Deben Excerpts

Report stage
Monday 20th October 2025 Lords Chamber

[Earl Russell (LD)]

My Lords, I support Amendment 20A in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Ravensdale. We welcome this amendment; it is a well-judged and timely proposal which will give practical effect to the commitments Parliament has already made in law to achieve net zero, protect biodiversity and promote sustainable development within the planning system and nationally significant infrastructure projects.

In essence, this amendment is about coherence—ensuring that the way we plan consents and deliver low-carbon infrastructure genuinely aligns with the environmental and climate obligations this country has already bound itself by. At present, there remains a troubling gap between our statutory climate targets and the machinery through which we approve major energy projects. The Planning Act 2008, however good it is, pre-dates our key climate primary legislation. This amendment would help bring the planning regime for major projects into line with a more modern legislative landscape. It would create a new Section 35E, placing a duty on the relevant authorities—conservation bodies, the Environment Agency and others—to have specific regard to four key objectives when they make representations on nationally significant projects.

I will not detain the House any longer, but we support this sensible amendment.

[Lord Deben (Con)]

My Lords, I support this amendment. It seems that all the experience we have is that there is not coherence where there ought to be. I thank the Minister for her earlier willingness to react to the House and show that she was able to make the changes the House asked for. I hope she will say to her colleagues how much it helps the Government if we feel that they listen on things which are not party political but about how best to organise ourselves.

With the range of regulators we have, it is crucial to get coherence. I believe that we all know we have not got it at the moment. The amendment from the noble Lord, Lord Ravensdale, may not be ideal—I do not think he sees it in those terms—but it seeks to get from the Government a coherent programme for coherence. We all know that every day the urgency that climate change forces upon us gets more and more obvious. I have just come back from Northern Ireland, where businesses right across the board were saying how important that was and—I have to say to my noble friend—pointing out how unacceptable it is to try to change the architecture we have to try to deal with this. That architecture will work much better if we get a greater coherence across the board.

Therefore, I hope the Minister will be kind enough at least to give us some understanding of the way in which the Government hope to bring about that coherence and, in that, give us something about dates and times. I was a Minister for rather a long time and I know perfectly well that it is very easy to promise in general about the future almost any nice thing but what really matters is when and how it is going to be done.

[Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)]

My Lords, Amendment 20A, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Ravensdale, was considered in Committee. A number of questions were asked, and I think a number of questions remain unanswered. While we fully recognise the importance of sustainable development, we are not persuaded that this amendment is necessary. It appears to us that the Government already have—or should have—the tools they need to guide public bodies in their engagement with the development consent order process, and I think we are satisfied that these powers are sufficient.