Planning and Infrastructure Bill

Lord Hunt of Kings Heath Excerpts

Report stage
Monday 27th October 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Jamieson (Con)]

I remind the Minister of the state that her party left the economy in.

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab)]

Does my noble friend recollect that we left an economy growing by 2%; they crashed it with their ludicrous austerity drive in 2010?

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

It was the austerity programme that kicked the stuffing out of local government’s ability to support the cultural life of our country. I was there, so I remember that happening.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Lansley (Con)]

My Lords, I have signed my noble friend’s Amendments 105 and 113, and he very kindly referred to the previous debates, before he joined your Lordships’ House, on the then Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill when we looked at the issue and the consequences of Hillside and did so, I think, on the basis of amendments that I tabled at that time. The Government responded to my amendments then by bringing forward their own amendment, which is now Section 73B—Section 73 was inserted by the Planning and Compulsory Purchase Act 2004—as inserted by Section 110 of the Levelling-up and Regeneration Act 2023, which is about material variations in planning permission.

My original amendment that I tabled—back in 2022, I think—tried to resolve Hillside and say, effectively, that subsequent applications for planning permission would not invalidate an existing planning permission, even though they related to the same area of land, so long as the subsequent planning permission, if permitted, would not make the original permission physically incapable. This is done by reference to what is known as the Pilkington judgment.

My noble friend Lady Scott of Bybrook may well recall these debates, and the advice that she received was to try to tackle what I would describe as the least of the problems emerging from Hillside, which is that you arrive at a position where you have got an existing planning permission for a site of the kind my noble friend was describing and you want to vary it but not in a way which is significantly different from the existing permission. That is what Section 73B in the Levelling-up and Regeneration Act says: the local planning authority can do this so long as it is not significantly different.

As it happens, that has not been brought into force. On the basis of the helpful discussions I have had with the Minister, it is my expectation that the Government will bring Section 73B into force. If I am incorrect in that, I am sure the Minister would tell me, but I am hoping I am not incorrect about that.

As the noble Lord, Lord Carlile of Berriew, said, Amendment 105 sets out to deal with all the problems that emerged and, if I may say so, it is ambitious; I have signed it and agree with it, but it is ambitious. It is ambitious to be able to say that, if a local planning authority accepts this new permission in relation to the same area of land as an existing permission, subject to Section 106 obligations et cetera, that is all well and good; they can make that decision, and it does not invalidate the existing permission. If there are difficulties with the wording of Amendment 105, Amendment 113 is a basis for the Government to make further regulations to deal with any of the remaining issues that might emerge from it.

I have to say it is ambitious because it goes beyond Pilkington. Technically, there is an issue, in my view, about a new permission which would make the existing permission no longer physically able to be implemented. However, Amendment 105 seems to me none the less to be right, and we should proceed with it because it deals with a later problem than the Hillside judgment, which is about whether existing planning permissions are severable in relation to a new application for planning permission.

Amendment 105 would put beyond doubt that planning permissions would be severable for this purpose, because the existing planning permission would not be invalidated by the new planning permission, which, clearly, even if it made the original one physically impossible, would do so in relation only to part of the existing permission.

When I first discussed this with Ministers some weeks back, I was told, “It’s not so urgent because they are many workarounds”. I am afraid that the workarounds are deeply costly and difficult. They are such things as breaking down a master plan into a whole series of phases, each phase having to secure planning permission in its own right, without any certainty as to later planning permissions. One needs a master plan with outline planning permission that gives one assurance and certainty about the nature of the overall development. Even if one has to make what are, in effect, material changes to that, at least one has the existing permission. My noble friend’s Amendment 105 would enable developers under those circumstances to have that degree of assurance about the sustainability of the planning permission that they have received, so I strongly support it.

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab)]

My Lords, I am sure my noble friend will respond to this interesting amendment by saying that there are some technical issues that the Government need to reflect upon, and that there will be a future vehicle. I just ask her to be sympathetic to having a look at this, perhaps between now and Third Reading. I do not think there is any doubt that the Hillside judgment will inevitably have an impact on the objectives of the Bill, which, despite the many amendments we have been debating, is about planning and infrastructure and getting the process through much more quickly than we have in the past.

Clearly, there has been a lot of discussion about a second planning Bill, and no doubt the Hillside judgment could be dealt with in it. I would have thought that, if the Government could deal with it now and in the next few weeks, and between Report and Third Reading, it would benefit the ultimate objectives of what we are seeking to do here.