Planning and Infrastructure Bill

Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park Excerpts

2nd reading
Wednesday 25th June 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park (Con)]

My Lords, it is a great pleasure to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Bakewell. The Bill is trying to do what is needed to boost housebuilding. I do not think there is anyone who disputes the simple fact that the gap between demand and supply continues to widen. We know, as many noble Lords have said, that this is at least in part the consequence of a planning system that is unbelievably complex and cumbersome, and often just flies against common sense, and we have heard lots of examples today.

I will focus on one aspect of the Bill. I start by saying that I appreciated the Minister’s opening remarks in relation to nature. I know from my own experience of dealing with the Minister that he believes very much what he said, but I have concerns about the Bill.

The Bill, like others before it on this issue, seems to pitch nature as a kind of blocker to development. In addition to there not being any new measures that I can see to ensure that new developments are built in a more nature-friendly way, some valuable protections are being removed, even if by default.

Clause 67, for example, says that nature improvement needs to be

“funded … by developers in a way that does not make development economically unviable”.

But in a country such as ours, which is so nature-denuded, and where our biodiversity continues to plummet, surely some development in some genuinely sensitive and important areas should be economically unviable. In the proposed equation that we are seeing here, it is hard to see how nature can ever win that contest.

In addition, it is not clear what the Bill means for the future biodiversity net gain obligations. I remind noble Lords that this is a new market, created more or less by consensus between the two Houses, that has generated myriad businesses and schemes, exactly as intended. Students, businesses—anyone who has moved into this new space—will undoubtedly be feeling unsettled about their own future, so I hope we will have clarity from the Minister on that point.

There are lots of ways in which the Bill can be strengthened. I hope, for example, that we will see significant, stronger protections for irreplaceable habitats such as chalk streams, ancient woodlands, peatlands and so on as an insurance against the risks that have been highlighted in the Bill. We have 85% of the world’s chalk streams but only 11 out of 220 are currently protected. Given the huge cost of flooding to communities, it just makes no sense that the National Planning Policy Framework still permits development on some functional flood plains. We have an opportunity here to change that, as well as pursuing opportunities to simplify regulations and give nature a boost at the same time.

There will be plenty of opportunities to outline those examples in due course, but I want to focus on one particularly important measure, which is among the easiest, most cost-effective—and effective—steps that we can take. It is one that I previously championed in this House, with tremendous support from the then Opposition, now Government. At the time of tabling my amendment, the noble Baroness, Lady Taylor, said —I love these words:

“We were delighted to see Amendment 221A … relating to the provision of swift bricks … We believe that specifically including swift bricks as a measure in the Bill, to be incorporated in planning law, is justified because of the unique nature of these precious birds’ nesting habitats … There is definitely a clear and present threat to these species. We hope the Government will accept this relatively a small step, which could make a world of difference to protecting our swift population, and that it will not be necessary for the noble Lord, Lord Goldsmith, to divide the House—but I hope he knows he has our full support in this amendment”.—[Official Report, 6/9/23; cols. 540-541.]


So noble Lords can imagine my delight when that amendment was resuscitated in previous debates in the other House. It reappeared as Barry Gardiner’s new Clause 73, which would require the installation of swift bricks in any development higher than five metres.

Noble Lords will know, because we have debated this already, that the breeding population of swifts collapsed by a staggering 60% between 1995 and 2020. We have known since 2002 that this rapid decline in swifts—and, it has to be said, other cavity nesting birds—is primarily the consequence of a lack of cavity nesting sites. The way we build new homes and renovate older homes today just does not accommodate nature in any way.

This month, we heard a welcome—in my view—announcement from the Government: confirmation that the national insulation budget of £13.2 billion will be spent in full, mostly on wall insulations. That is good news, but there is no mitigation or protective legislation for cavity nesting habitats. The birds do not stand a chance.

We know swift boxes work; there is a reported 96% occupancy in boxes on the Duchy estates; there is unanimous support from ornithologists and zero real opposition from the developers. The parliamentary petition that was started by the author and campaigner Hannah Bourne-Taylor was, at the time that it was launched, the fastest to reach 100,000 signatures. So, there is popular support for this, and it is so easy to do. It is cheap and requires zero maintenance and expertise.

I strongly encourage the Government to look again at some of the great things that were said by the then Opposition when I was trying to get my amendment through—I failed, as noble Lords will know—and ensure that, when the times come, it will not be necessary to divide the House.