Planning and Infrastructure Bill

Lord Hunt of Kings Heath Excerpts

Committee stage
Thursday 24th July 2025 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath]

51: After Clause 12, insert the following new Clause—
“Carbon capture and storage(1) The Planning Act 2008 is amended as follows.(2) In section 14(1), after paragraph (q) insert—“(r) carbon dioxide spur pipelines;(s) carbon capture equipment.”(3) After section 21 insert—“21A Carbon capture and storage(1) The construction of a carbon dioxide spur pipeline is within section 14 (1)(r) if it is a pipeline used wholly or mainly for the conveyance of carbon dioxide for the purposes of carbon capture and storage. (2) The construction of carbon capture equipment is within section 14 (1)(s) if it constitutes infrastructure or facilities used wholly or mainly for the capture, compression, or processing of carbon dioxide for the purposes of carbon capture and storage.(3) A developer is not limited from seeking consent for infrastructure projects which fall under sections 14(1)(r) and 14(1)(s) through alternative consenting routes available under any other legislation.””Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment amends the Planning Act 2008 to clarify that carbon dioxide spur pipelines and carbon capture equipment are eligible for designation as Nationally Significant Infrastructure Projects (NSIPs).

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab)]

My Lords, I shall speak also to Amendment 91. My noble friend Lady Liddell is not able to be with us today, so I have taken on the mantle of championing carbon capture, usage and storage. Seeing the noble Lord, Lord Naseby, in his place, I hasten to add that I equally would champion the benefits of hydrogen in the future; he has spent the last year telling the House why it is so important.

CCUS, as it is known, is a technology aimed at capturing carbon dioxide emissions from industrial processes, power plants and other sources. It prevents them entering the atmosphere. The captured CO₂ can be reused in various industrial applications or stored permanently in geological formations deep underground. The CO₂ can then be monitored to make sure it is stored securely.

This is a great opportunity for the UK to lead on technology development, and our resource of the North Sea offers huge potential opportunities to store carbon from other countries in Europe. I am convinced that CCUS is safe. It clearly contributes to a low-carbon society and offers great opportunities for growth in our country.

The UK is home to seven major industrial clusters, which produce 50% of all UK industry emissions. The Government, quite rightly, are supporting development of CCUS in those clusters. Deployment in the first two of those clusters is called track 1. The first two clusters were chosen by a process called phase 1, launched in 2021. They are HyNet, in the north-west of England and north Wales, and the East Coast Cluster in Teesside. In October last year, this Government announced that they had made available £21.7 billion in funding for the first CCUS projects in the UK. Looking at the timescale, I recognise that the last Government were very supportive of CCUS as well.

We are at a pivotal moment. The first carbon capture projects in the UK have reached financial close, and the Government are clearly making strong commitments to support deployment across the industrial heartlands, but progress is at risk from outdated or inconsistent planning rules. At present, the treatment of certain CO₂ infrastructure, especially short spur pipelines and capture plants, is ambiguous under the current system. As an example, projects under 10 miles in length do not fall within the nationally significant infrastructure project regime, despite being essential components of major decarbonisation efforts. There are also legacy legal barriers, such as the requirement for special parliamentary procedures under the Pipe-Lines Act 1962 for compulsory purchase of land related to CO₂ pipelines. This process is not required for other comparable infrastructure and risks introducing unnecessary delay.

My two focused amendments seek to ensure that CO₂ capture plants and shorter spur pipelines are designated as nationally significant infrastructure projects under the 2008 Act, and to remove the need for special parliamentary procedure under the Pipe-Lines Act where it applies to CCUS infrastructure. These are very limited but important changes. As the spirit of this legislation—despite much of the debate we have seen so far—is about growing our economy and making it easy to develop infrastructure, I very much hope that my noble friend will agree to have a look at this. I beg to move.

[Lord Grayling (Con)]

My Lords, I rise to support the principle of what the noble Lord is suggesting, but with a “but”, which I hope the Minister will give some careful thought to across the summer before we come back to debates in the autumn. The noble Lord, Lord Hunt, is absolutely right that CCUS is extremely important to this country, needs to be progressed expeditiously and provides an important part of how we deal with carbon emissions in the atmosphere, so he is right to bring forward this proposal. My “but” is more broadly related to the range of types of project covered by NSIP. I declare my interests as an adviser to Hutchison Ports and to AtkinsRéalis.

My concern is more about the implications of more and more categories of project being covered by these processes. The issue I want the Minister to address across the summer, before we come to it in Part 3, is that this legislation, when it comes to major projects of this kind, allows developers to simply move ahead, provide compensation to the fund that the Government are setting up and, in effect, clear a site. I strongly believe that the balance of presumption should be that a developer has a duty to examine what is on a site and to take precautionary measures around the biodiversity on that site before they come to take action away from that site. The more we grant permission to those seeking to pursue major projects simply to move away from any environmental responsibilities, the more damage will be done to biodiversity and our environment.

It is not that we do not need change. I was involved very clearly as Secretary of State in the process of taking the expansion of Heathrow Airport through Parliament six years ago, and there were some issues we faced that were nonsensical around the way the habitats directive was applied and which I think defied all realistic common sense. Change is clearly needed, and I accept the principle of what the Government are doing, but I want to see the precautionary principle left in or put back into the legislation, requiring a developer, whether for CCUS or another kind of major project, to look carefully at what is on a site and at how they ameliorate the impacts before they can simply pay money into a fund and wash their hands of what is on the site. My request to the Minister, as he thinks this through across the summer, is to look at what could be done with the legislation to stop the slash-and-burn approach and to leave us with proper safeguards for nature but also to allow us to move ahead with precisely the kind of thing that the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, is rightly saying we need to do.

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[Lord Khan of Burnley (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank my noble friend Lord Hunt of King’s Heath for tabling these amendments, which relate to carbon capture and storage designation. Amendment 51 would amend the Planning Act 2008 to enable the designation of

“carbon dioxide spur pipelines and carbon capture equipment … as Nationally Significant Infrastructure Projects”.

As my noble friend knows well from his time as Minister of State at the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero, this Government recognise the pivotal role of carbon capture and storage in securing growth, achieving their climate goals and transitioning to a low-carbon economy. That is why we have committed to substantial investment to support the development and deployment of carbon capture and storage across the UK.

However, although the Government are committed to the deployment of carbon capture, transport and storage, this amendment could lead to confusion for developers, as it would, in effect, provide a choice for developers in consenting routes. Onshore electricity generating stations with a capacity exceeding 50 megawatts, including those using carbon capture technology, are classified as NSIPs under the Planning Act 2008 and require a development consent order—a DCO. Onshore carbon dioxide pipelines over 16.093 kilometres in length also classify as NSIPs and require a DCO. However, smaller pipelines and industrial carbon capture facilities sit outside the NSIP regime, and applications for development are determined by the local planning authorities under the Town and Country Planning Act 1990. This is consistent with the consenting process for pipelines and industrial facilities more broadly and, as far as we are aware, experience from the planning process for the first carbon capture and transport projects has not identified significant issues for projects determined by the local planning authorities thus far.

Nevertheless, carbon capture, transport and storage remain nascent sectors in the UK, and officials in my department are working closely with the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero, and the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, to ensure that the full range of consenting and permitting regimes for carbon capture, transport and storage remain effective and appropriate.

Amendment 91 seeks to amend the Pipe-Lines Act 1962 to disapply the requirement for special parliamentary procedure in relation to pipelines or lengths of pipeline that are to be repurposed for the conveyance of carbon dioxide. It should be noted that, as drafted, the amendment would not legally achieve its intended purpose as a relevant subsection of Section 12A allows a Secretary of State to revoke a compulsory rights order rather than grant one.

Nevertheless, even with that to be addressed, and while I certainly sympathise with the spirit of the amendment, it would not be practical. Section 12A of the Pipe-Lines Act allows a Secretary of State to make an order for the compulsory acquisition of rights over land that are necessary for the conversion and use of a pipeline to convey carbon dioxide. The making of such an order is subject to special parliamentary procedure.

The Government recognise that it can be more efficient to repurpose existing pipelines for use in a carbon capture, transport and storage project compared with building new pipeline infrastructure. Where the pipeline infrastructure is considered suitable for reuse in this way, the Government support this. For example, we have recently legislated to remove a tax barrier that oil and gas companies have told us would prevent the transfer and repurposing of suitable assets from use in oil and gas, such as pipelines and platforms for use in carbon dioxide, transport and storage.

However, as the works involved in the repurposing of pipelines for the conveyance of carbon dioxide could impact local communities and landowners, enabling the compulsory acquisition of rights over land to remain subject to a special parliamentary procedure would ensure proper scrutiny of such proposals.

The Government support the repurposing of onshore and offshore infrastructure for use in carbon capture, transport and storage projects as part of the UK’s drive to net zero. We are already seeing this in practice, where the HyNet carbon capture and storage cluster in the north-west will be served by a combination of new and existing infrastructure. We are committed to ensuring that the right support and mechanisms are in place to enable the repurposing of suitable onshore and offshore infrastructure, and I hope with this reassurance my friend will feel able to withdraw his amendment.

Before I sit down, I want to refer to the important points made by the noble Lord, Lord Grayling, which I take seriously. I note that consideration of Part 3 and wider environmental issues will take place after the summer. We will consider his points over the summer, as requested. The points the noble Lord is making are mainly being debated in September, so we can pick them up in response to similar amendments, including in relation to Part 3. For the reasons I have just outlined, I ask my noble friend to withdraw his amendment.

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab)]

My Lords, I am grateful to all noble Lords who have taken part. I thought the intervention from the noble Lord, Lord Grayling, was very interesting. I very much take his point about the precautionary principle. A degree of proportionality is required by our regulators in the way they operate. One of the concerns that I and a number of noble Lords have is whether the current regulators are up for the kind of dynamic change we need in the way they perform, and that is really why there are concerns around Part 3.

There are concerns from people very concerned about nature protection, which I well understand. Equally, my concern is that we are putting a hell of a lot of responsibility on Natural England in relation to EDPs. The way I read it, this Bill is largely written around housing requirements, and I can see how EDPs can apply to housing, particularly if you have a number of housing developments within a particular area. A pretty unknown quantity is how this is going to apply to major infrastructure projects as well—but I take the noble Lord’s point.

The noble Lord, Lord Jamieson, is absolutely right. We are taking a punt on CCUS. I am confident about it. His Government continued the work in this area. I think we see in Norway enough to suggest that we can pull this off. The potential for the UK here is enormous, in terms of both our approach to climate change and decarbonisation and the huge export potential.

On the wording of the Bill, I have checked the Planning Act, and in Section 14 there is an order-making power for the Secretary of State that I think can deal with the flexibilities around the length of the pipeline. I should say, as I took the energy bits of that Act through your Lordships’ House, that I feel a particular affinity towards that perfectly formed legislation.

I am grateful to the Minister, because clearly he and his officials are having a look at this. I noted that he did not think much of my Amendment 91, so I will have to go away and reflect on that. I think his main argument was “We don’t really think this is a problem, but we will have a look at it”. My intelligence is that CCUS developers think it could be a problem. If we can iron out some of these things, which are really not mega-principal, that would be very helpful. Having said that, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 51 withdrawn.

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[Lord Grayling (Con)]

My Lords, I listened carefully to the noble Baroness’s comments. I was not planning to speak but, given that I was the Secretary of State alongside the Mayor of London when we had the bad news about Crossrail, I thought I would contribute a thought to this discussion.

First, the noble Baroness is right about many of the issues. What happened in 2019 was a combination of head in sand and a lack of understanding of the complexity of the Crossrail project. It was outrageous that the mayor and I discovered only as late as we did that the project was as far off track as it was. That is the reason I set up the Allan Cook review into HS2 that identified the following spring that the project could not be delivered for the budget that was there. I said clearly, “That’s your budget. You have to deliver it for that amount of money—otherwise, there’s a real question over whether it can happen at all”.

Although the noble Baroness makes an important point, equally we have to remember the problem of disaffected employees. How do you deal with a whistleblower who has a separate agenda—somebody who has been dismissed, somebody who is unhappy at work and so forth? I am not convinced that setting up a separate agency is the right way to deal with what she is suggesting, but she is making a salient point. There probably needs to be a much earlier mechanism to raise a danger flag about a project that is not going the way it should, because there is a reluctance to tell truth to power. In these projects there is an optimism bias and always a feeling that, “Well, something will come along to bring it in okay after all”. I suggest to the noble Baroness and to Ministers a possible route for NISTA, the new infrastructure body, to have some form of investigatory role. If somebody says, “This project appears to be going badly wrong” early on, that might be a better way of doing it than setting up a separate body altogether.

The reality is that the mayor and I should never have been in the position we were in of discovering so late in the day about a project that we had been told clearly was on track and was going to open, with the first trains running the following December. The noble Baroness makes a valid point in saying that there should be safeguard mechanisms in the system, but the mechanisms that should exist are probably best handled through the national infrastructure bodies than through a separate organisation in its own right.

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab)]

My Lords, I am very sympathetic to what the noble Baroness said but, rather like the noble Lord, Lord Grayling, I am not sure that another statutory body is the right way to deal with this. Thinking back to my experience in the NHS, I cannot think of the number because there have been so many whistleblowing initiatives. There have been edicts and circulars, and I think we have some legislation as well. But I think we would find it hard to say that we think the NHS has a culture in which whistleblowers feel confident to come forward; they do not.

The noble Baroness has raised an important question, which I hope the Government will consider. We need to start talking to the leaders of organisations to understand what the issue is in relation to whistleblowers. It is, of course, partly the point that the noble Lord, Lord Grayling, raised; sometimes whistleblowers can be awkward people and therefore have already built up a feeling against them. Sometimes they could be making trouble, but very often they are raising legitimate points.

Part of the problem is the punitive culture for senior managers in much of the public sector. Why do NHS chief execs discourage whistleblowing? It is because we have a punitive culture. The turnover rate of CEOs in the health service is frightening; it is so rapid. Somehow, to deal with whistleblowing, you have to look at a much wider issue of whether we set conditions in which leaders have greater freedom to develop and grow their organisations from the current micromanagement they often come under. We also need a culture in which, if CEOs really do encourage their staff to raise concerns, the system then does not come down.

There is clearly a tension. I am sure that many CEOs know that, in their hospital trusts at some point, there are unsafe services. They know they do not have enough clinical staff. The penalty for admitting it, however, is to have regulatory intervention and managerial intervention from above which basically says, “You get on with it. We are much more concerned about finance and throughput”. Unless we are realistic about why senior management does not encourage whistleblowers, the reality is that any of these kinds of initiatives will not be effective in the end.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, I briefly and with pleasure offer support for the noble Baroness, Lady Kramer, who is the House’s acknowledged expert and champion in the area of whistleblowing. Reacting to some of the comments made, the noble Baroness said she would prefer to see an overarching system rather than operating within the frame of this Bill. With the huge changes the Bill is potentially making, it is clearly very important that, if things are going wrong, we are able to see them and whistleblowers can safely speak out.

The noble Lord, Lord Hunt, raised the health service. It is useful to reference our earlier debate on the infected blood scandal. The noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, went through a very long list and ran on a theme she has long been running on; we have this cascade of continuing scandals and crises with all sorts of harrowing outcomes. I do not think she mentioned this, but issues such as sodium valproate and vaginal mesh are quite recent and possibly ongoing. There is a systemic problem with the structure of government and the way it is working. We are potentially giving the Government much more power here.

I want to fulfil my traditional Green role and add to the thoughts about the impact on the environment and when environmental issues go horribly wrong, as they potentially will. I note that since we were last in Committee the Government have brought in some changes to the highly controversial Part 3, which the noble Lord, Lord Grayling, referred to. In response to those changes, the Office for Environmental Protection has said:

“We are clear that even after the material amendments the Government proposes, the Bill would, in some respects, lower environmental protection on the face of the law”.


The OEP is saying that if we are lowering environmental protections, there is a real risk—“environment” usually means human health impacts as well—and environmental whistleblowers need to be able to speak up and point out what is happening. These are people from within organisations who may be the only ones who really know what is happening.

Finally, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Kramer, for mentioning HS2 so that I do not have to.

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Moved by

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath]

53B: After Clause 12, insert the following new Clause—
“Removal of duplicative regulatory justification decisions(1) Where a specified consent is granted for a nuclear generating station—(a) the practice of the generation of electricity or heat from that nuclear generating station which is so consented is deemed to be justified for the purposes of the Justification of Practices Involving Ionising Radiation Regulations 2004 (SI 2004/1769) (“the Regulations”),(b) the decision to grant a specified consent is deemed to be a justification decision for the purposes of the regulations, and(c) without limitation to sub-paragraphs (a) and (b), regulations 14, 17, and 18 of the Regulations do not apply.(2) Where a specified consent is granted by a person other than the Secretary of State, regulation 19(2) of the Regulations is to be construed as though that provision applied to that person.(3) Nothing in a national policy statement designated under section 6 of the Planning Act 2006 (review) prior to this Act coming into force affects the operation of this section, and any national policy statement designated prior to this Act coming into force is to be construed so as to give effect to subsection (1).(4) Nothing in this section affects any power to review, take enforcement action in respect of, or otherwise vary (with conditions or otherwise), a justification decision under the Regulations. (5) In this section—“nuclear generating station” means a nuclear installation used, or proposed to be used, for the purpose of generating electricity or heat with a view to giving a supply to any premises or enabling a supply to be given;“nuclear installation” means any installation the operation of which requires a licence under section 1 of the Nuclear Installations Act 1965;“specified consent” means a licence under the Nuclear Installations Act 1965, permission under Part 3 the Town and Country Planning Act 1990, development consent under the Planning Act 2008, or a consent under the Infrastructure (Wales) Act 2024 (provided, in the case of that consent, the Welsh Government provides an approval for the purposes of this section), or any other equivalent planning or land use approval, permission or consent for the development of a nuclear generating station.”Member’s explanatory statement
Before a nuclear power station is built (and in addition to the planning process) an assessment must be made of whether the social, economic or other benefits outweigh the health detriment of ionising radiation. This amendment seeks to disapply the need for this assessment where planning consent is given.

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab)]

My Lords, my Amendment 53B seeks to remove the current requirement for what is known as “regulatory justification” in relation to new nuclear power stations. I want to acknowledge the work of Mustafa Latif-Aramesh on inspiring the amendment and Stephen Tromans KC, who has produced an opinion for Last Energy on the Justification of Practices Involving Ionising Radiation Regulations 2004.

I read with great interest the Opposition’s amendments coming from the noble Lord, Lord Offord—Amendments 346B to 346D, which have not been grouped with mine but which we will be debating later in September. He is much more radical than I am in his three amendments: he would disapply all the provisions of the Conservation of Habitats and Species Regulations 2017 in relation to the development of new nuclear power stations.

The noble Lord, Lord Offord, would give the Secretary of State the power to grant planning consent to a nuclear power station regardless of an environmental impact assessment. The Opposition also want to prevent applications for judicial review of the Secretary of State’s decision to grant development consent for a nuclear power station on the grounds of non-compliance with habitat regulations or environmental protection obligations.

It is a bit of a turnaround from what the Opposition were saying last week. The point I am making is that my amendment is very modest in comparison with the one from the noble Lord, Lord Offord. I hoped that I would get support around the House for this.

Only a few days ago, we had the very welcome conclusion of the final investment decision for Sizewell C. That followed on just a few weeks from the decision to give Rolls-Royce financial support after an exercise conducted by Great British Nuclear to develop a fleet of small modular reactors in the UK.

Globally, we are seeing a renaissance in new nuclear power. The International Energy Agency this year reported that more than 70 gigawatts of new nuclear capacity is under construction globally, one of the highest levels in 30 years. The IEA in its report also comments that to take advantage of the opportunities that nuclear power offers, which are low carbon and essential baseload to an energy infrastructure largely moving towards renewables, we need a stable regulatory framework. I very much welcome the appointment by the Government of the Nuclear Regulatory Taskforce, which has been asked to look at how the regulation of safety, environmental planning and other relevant areas could be improved. It is charged with publishing a final report this autumn and its recommendations will go direct to the Prime Minister.

One area that I hope the task force will be considering is the current ludicrous requirement for regulatory justification. Before a nuclear power station is built,

“its design must be assessed to find out if the social, economic or other benefits outweigh the health detriment of ionising radiation. This assessment process is known as Regulatory Justification … In the UK, this principle is set out in the Justification of Practices Involving Ionising Radiation Regulations 2004. These regulations require any new class or type of practice involving ionising radiation (such as nuclear power stations) to undergo a generic, high-level pre-optimisation assessment of whether the social, economic or other benefits outweigh the health detriment”.

This is a completely arcane, wasteful process, costing a huge amount of money and delaying an application process by about two years. It achieves absolutely nothing, given that we have world-renowned extensive regulatory systems in place to ensure the safety of nuclear power stations.

I suspect my noble friend might say that we will have to wait and see what the task force says. I get that, but I hope the Government will be prepared to amend the Bill on Report if the task force comes up with very strong recommendations around this area. In the meantime, the Government could take a small step to improve the situation. I am grateful to Catherine Howard of Herbert Smith Freehills Kramer for her work on this. Our understanding is that under the current regulatory justification procedure, each and every small modular reactor developer has to submit their design for regulatory justification. I think we should go back to why we have these regulations in the first place. Examples might be the use of X-rays in prisons or bone density scanners for sports performance assessments, which are required to obtain regulatory justification. Basically, this is to ensure that the small risks to human health that they pose are outweighed by their benefits.

The regulatory justification applies not to each and every type of X-ray machine and bone density scanner but to them as a class of ionising radiation practice. Under Regulation 5, something

“is an ‘existing class or type of practice’ if either—(a)”

it is a practice carried out lawfully without regulatory justification before 6 February 2018; or

“(b) it has been found to be justified; or both”.

I argue that the small modular reactor designs coming forward could be included within both (a) and (b). The result is that we could do away with what seems to be the current position, that each SMR developer has to make separate applications for regulatory justification.

I am very grateful to Stephen Tromans KC for the opinion he produced. It made me then look up a 2010 justification decision by the relevant Secretary of State on European pressurised reactors. In essence, the Secretary of State basically says, “It is justified because we have a strong regulatory system in practice”. So if ever a regulation was completely useless, this is it. The trouble is that once we have such a regulation, it is very difficult to move away from it. All sorts of reasons will be given, but here is a simple way of speeding up the introduction of SMRs. It is clear that Rolls-Royce has government support, and many other SMR developers are bringing forward proposals in the UK. It is perfectly possible that we may be able to get entire private sector investment in developing this. We need to encourage it, not put a wasteful, useless regulatory system in place to disadvantage those developers. I hope the Government will be sympathetic to this. I beg to move.

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[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab)]

My Lords, it has been a very interesting debate. I say to the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, that I know the Green Party does not like nuclear, and I would just point to the complete mess that Germany is in because it is turning its back on nuclear. It is then dependent on Russian oil and gas, and, geopolitically, Germany is in a very weak position still because of it.