Planning and Infrastructure Bill

Lord Lucas Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 9th September 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord in Waiting/Government Whip (Lord Katz) (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank the Deputy Chairman of Committees. Just to confirm, we will be going to target this evening, so I urge brevity from everybody in making speeches, so that we can make progress and get through the business.

[Lord Lucas (Con)]

I am tempted to make a 10-minute speech in response to that. If the Government decide they want to go to such a ridiculous length, it really is for the Government to—

[Lord Katz (Lab)]

I apologise. I should have added that it was agreed through the usual channels, with the Front Benches, that that would be an appropriate way to arrange business.

[Lord Lucas (Con)]

My Lords, I accept that it has been agreed by the usual channels, but this is a revising Chamber and we are supposed to be looking at a serious Bill and taking its provisions seriously. If the Government want to get through 20 groups today then it will take the time it takes. None the less, when it comes to Amendment 135G, I shall be brief.

The main reason I hear for planning processes taking longer than they should is that planning authorities take longer than they should. The Government should have the power to do something about that, and that is what my amendment seeks to achieve.

[Lord Jamieson (Con)]

My Lords, I begin by thanking the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, and my noble friend Lord Lucas for bringing their amendments to the attention of the Committee. They have raised a number of important points, and I look forward to hearing the Minister addressing both noble Lords’ concerns.

I turn to the amendments in my name. The purpose of Amendment 135HZG is to reduce costs and delays in the planning system by putting beyond doubt in legislation the principles that currently rely on case law. Where planning permission has already been granted and remains extant, decisions on subsequent planning applications relating to detailed matters, whether determined by an officer or a committee, should not reopen issues that were settled in the original planning permission. This matters because uncertainty in the system not only increases costs for applicants but creates unnecessary duplication of effort for planning authorities and applicants. Greater clarity will enable both sides to proceed with confidence, efficiency and speed.

Amendment 135HZH, in my name and that of noble friend Lady Scott of Bybrook, is a probing amendment intended to test whether the planning system provides sufficient certainty once a permission has been granted and to explore how necessary changes prompted by new national legislation might be handled without reopening matters that have already been settled. The principle of finality is essential, particularly where significant work has already been undertaken and applications are well advanced. This amendment invites the Government to consider whether clearer statutory guidance on finality could help improve efficiency and reduce delay.

Finally, Amendment 185SE, tabled in my name, aims to provide clarity to the planning system, so that project delays are minimised where legislative changes necessitate modifications to an already approved permission—for instance, as we discussed earlier today, legislation that might require solar cells on all new homes.

In such circumstances, such modifications should be deemed to have planning permission in principle. It is vital, because projects can be significantly delayed and costs increased, and developers are required to seek fresh planning permissions simply to comply with new legislation that has come about after they receive their original planning permission. By ensuring that those modifications are covered in principle, we can safeguard progress while maintaining the integrity of the planning system.

If we are to achieve the Government’s objective of 1.5 million new homes, the planning system needs to deliver. These three amendments are guided by the same underlying principle. Clarity and certainty in planning law reduce unnecessary delay, avoid wasteful duplication and allow both applicants and authorities to focus their energies on what should be their priority, which is delivering high-quality developments of high-quality homes that support our residents and our communities.

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[Baroness Thornhill (LD)]

My Lords, I will speak to my Amendment 134 with a butchered, watered down and much shorter version of my speech than the one I was going to give, so forgive me if it is not quite up to my usual standards.

This amendment seeks to reverse the decision of previous Governments to give permitted development rights to allow the conversion of non-residential properties into dwelling houses—in other words, to get back to where we were, when they would have had to apply for planning permission. The incremental changes were brought about over 10 years ago. Now, there is loads of evidence, including the Government’s own, that this is failing, and on three main grounds. Given that, in future, with more working from home, there are likely to be—and there already are—a lot more empty office blocks, we feel that this needs to be looked at fully and seriously before our town centres and business centres are hollowed out.

First, on quality, there is no doubt that many of these conversions are substandard. Indeed, in my own borough, Watford, there is a case study of a small factory that had been made into several flats with no windows. This happened with PDRs. The case was brought to government—with a body of other things, obviously—and made the previous Government include that such dwellings should have windows.

Secondly, and close to our hearts—I am looking at the noble Lord, Lord Best, here—we have lost loads of affordable housing. Had planning permission been collected, we would certainly have had more. Indeed, the LGA reckons that we have had a loss of 28,000 affordable homes. Think how many could have been housed off the temporary accommodation list had we had those homes.

Thirdly, it rides roughshod through local plans and policies, and the design, sustainability and accessibility that have been worked up with local councils and communities to build the places that they want to see.

Amendment 134 is not anti-housing; it is pro quality housing. The amendment was drawn up by the LGA, and many councils and development partners have contributed. Some 39 organisations and many individuals have signed an open letter to the Government—I heard only today that Mayor Burnham has added his name to the letter—to ask them to seriously consider rescinding PDRs. This shows the strength of opposition. In opposition, several government Members, including the Minister, had strong feelings and concerns about PDRs. My question is very simple: what has happened? I will listen carefully to the Minister’s response. I beg to move.

[Lord Lucas (Con)]

My Lords, I am delighted to find that I take exactly the opposite point of view to that of the noble Baroness, Lady Thornhill. I see permitted development rights—as in my Private Member’s Bill, and as in my amendments to this Bill—as having a large potential to contribute substantially to housing expansion. Like the noble Baroness, Lady Thornhill, I shall curtail my remarks in the hope that what the Minister says will be so enlightening that I shall not need to ask her further questions.

My amendments propose a targeted set of expansions to permitted development rights to boost uptake and delivery by methods such as: removing unjustifiably onerous restrictions, including those concerning the ability to convert commercial buildings in areas of outstanding natural beauty, or the inability to extend upwards on pre-1948 buildings of no defined heritage value, or buildings postdating an arbitrary date; clarifying the wording of prior approval conditions to remove vagueness, which leads to a lack of consistency in decision-making between LPAs and more uncertainty in their application to, for example, natural light, flood risk or transport impacts; and removing the subjectivity currently allowed for within external appearance conditions for upward extensions, which are regularly used to refuse or frustrate upward extension in classes A and AA to AD and which act as a strong disincentive for the use of these permitted development rights by SME developers and housebuilders.

Instead, the local design code-based conditions in my amendments would provide certainty and consistency to decision-making, permitting the combined use and application of class MA and classes A and AA to AD, to maximise the development potential for existing buildings to deliver new homes.

Design codes are hugely important in this. Mandatory local design codes, already supported by the NPPF, are essential to make permitted development rights work at scale. They would replace subjective judgments on external appearance with rule-based certainty, define acceptable height, density, daylight and amenity standards to reduce the risk for developers, and be capable of delivery via a public/private model with some costs recovered through planning fee reforms, which could target PDR applications.

Reforms would bring consistency, reduce risk and make PDR a viable route to delivery. Local design codes would improve outcomes and boost developer confidence and certainty in the uptake and use of PDR. PDR allows for greater numbers of conversions and extensions of existing buildings to provide new housing and sustainable urban environments. This would help to reduce the demand and strain of granting housing developments in less sustainable greenfield locations.

Together, the amendments that I suggest would unlock new housing capacity in the most sustainable and accessible locations and benefit smaller building firms, while still maintaining quality and control over the urban environment.

[Baroness Warwick of Undercliffe (Lab)]

My Lords, I will speak briefly in support of the noble Baroness, Lady Thornhill. With the Government’s ambition to increase the supply of social and affordable housing and the reforms to improve the capacity of the planning system, now seems the right time to reform PDR. The Government have rightly made the quality and safety of housing a priority, but conversions to PDR are not subject to the same standards compared to developments going through the full planning system.

The Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors, in its report on the impact of extending permitted development rights on public authorities and communities, found that the quality of office-to-residential conversions was significantly worse than those which had been brought through the planning process. Other than the nationally described space standards and requirements around natural light, there are no minimum standards for these converted homes relating to safety, facilities, communal space, or connection to amenities.

It is essential that the housing that is developed is the right housing to meet local needs and make a positive impact on the lives of residents. It is necessary to make it a viable solution for addressing the housing crisis. At a minimum, conversions should meet the healthy homes principle brought forward by the Town and Country Planning Association’s Healthy Homes campaign. I hope that the Minister will be able to respond positively to these points.

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As I have already explained, we acknowledge the concerns around the quality of residential units that have been created through permitted development rights. We would therefore not want to make changes to the rights that could remove or weaken some of the protections currently set out in the rights. Overall, changes to permitted development rights come forward in secondary legislation, as I have explained, as amendments to the permitted development order, generally following on from public consultation. That ensures that the views of the public, including those who would benefit from the rights, are taken into account. Of course, we will continue to keep permitted development rights under review, and we are grateful for the views that have been put forward in this regard and the discussions that have taken place this evening.

[Lord Lucas (Con)]

I am grateful for the answers that the Minister has given, and I will think hard on what she said. I certainly understand what she said about the way of dealing with these things not being through the Bill. However, I urge the Government to remember that lots of small improvements—as the Minister has pointed out in terms of the last 10 years of permitted development rights—make a difference. They nourish the small end of the builders’ market and give some balance to the domination of housebuilding by the big housebuilders. It is really important that that end of the market works well.

[Baroness Thornhill (LD)]

My Lords, I will make a quick comment. Article 4 directions are actually a very challenging process; the Secretary of State really gives you a hard time about it and you usually have to justify covering a larger area. The problem with PDRs is they are all over the place and that makes an Article 4 direction a little bit more difficult.

I would like to challenge a fundamental misconception. The Minister talked about the 113,000 homes that have already been created. The misconception is that they would not have happened anyway. I am sure some of them would not, but the majority, if they had gone through the planning process, would have had things suggested, altered and improved to pull up the standard. But, of course, it would not have happened quite as quickly.

I am going to end on a slightly tangential anecdote that shows that we really need to look at this. The people in the house next door to me have informed me that they will be erecting a 12 metre by 20 metre single-storey building in their garden directly adjacent to mine. They do not need planning permission. It is half the size of the garden and they are allowed to do that. If I want to erect a fence to cover the hideous wall of brick that I am going to be looking on instead of a beautiful garden with mature trees, I will have to apply for planning permission. Therefore, I think it is time to review the whole set-up, but particularly office to residential. I wish to withdraw my amendment.

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[Lord Fuller (Con)]

My Lords, I rise to speak in support of Amendment 135 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Coffey, and declare an interest in that the sponsor of her amendment, Richard Bacon, was the Member of Parliament for South Norfolk, where I represented the council for many years; it is worth putting it on record that he devoted the greater part of his parliamentary career to pursuing the importance of self-building in our nation. Self-building is not just the right thing to do because it is going to deliver more homes; it enables striving families to build a house of their dreams. Of course, they do not actually build it themselves. Self-building is not about getting all the tools; it is about procuring and possibly designing a home for you to live in for the long term—the basis of community and empowerment in that sense.

I welcome the amendment, not least because we have sleepwalked into a situation where a small number of national housebuilders have created for themselves a substantial monopoly, not just in the building of homes but in their design. Local distinctiveness and vernacular have been lost. A bungalow that has gone a bomb in Barnsley is built in Bunwell, 200 miles away, yet it is the same design language. We need distinctiveness. The logical conclusion, the spirit of what this amendment seeks to achieve, is that not only do we give those wanting to build their own home or procure their own residence the chance but local authorities can be very distinctive about making sure that we are capturing the correct need for those people who have the wherewithal to do it—not just the casual want, as was the original case and has now been tightened up.

[Lord Lucas (Con)]

My Lords, I have Amendment 135H in this group. This is another of my attempts to help the Government make the way that housing is delivered slightly more efficient. I live in Eastbourne, and Eastbourne Borough Council has a long-standing partnership with a modular house builder called Boutique Modern, which has produced some very effective houses in the town, looking quite different from one another because it is easier to customise the outside of those modular homes; but the structure, what is happening inside, is the same. It is produced in a factory. It is daft, when you are producing identical goods, to have to go through type approval for them as if they were being built on the ground.

You have a design, which has passed all the tests and been approved by the Buildoffsite Property Assurance Scheme, I suggest—though it could equally be some other body—then you avoid all the processes and costs associated with whether it is an acceptable design for a place for someone to live in and can concentrate on how the site is laid out and what the building looks like. That makes a really effective way for people to build and procure their own houses, to go with my noble friend’s excellent amendment.

I urge this on the Government as a way in which they can make another small improvement that will, over time, decrease the cost and increase the rate of housebuilding.

[Lord Lansley (Con)]

My Lords, I want to say a word or two about self-build and custom housebuilding, in support of my noble friend Lady Coffey—although I also want to ask a question about the precise terms in which her amendment is phrased.

I declare an interest, in that my nephew is seeking to build his own family home and has been on the register in Tandridge for a number of years now. He has received nothing from Tandridge by way of an offer of any plot anywhere, although he is entirely eligible, including being a locally connected person and so on.

I remember that we discussed this during the Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill—I remember talking to Richard Bacon about the provisions. My noble friend is absolutely right: we put a regulation-making power in with the objective of trying to ensure that the development permissions that were granted for self-build and custom housebuilding were genuinely for that and not for something else. The question to Ministers is whether, at this stage, they will use this power and how they will they use it.

The phraseology in my noble friend’s amendment, in so far as it says that only the specific development permissions that are referred to are to be treated as meeting a demand, may have the benefit of excluding some things that should not be treated as such but may have the disbenefit of excluding some things that should be treated as such, including people who bring forward their own plots for this purpose that do not form part of a wider development. It is rather important that we bring in what should be part of development permissions that meet demand for self-build and custom housebuilding and exclude those that do not and get the structure of it right.

Where we need to think more, if I recall correctly, is about what we do in relation to local planning authorities that have persistent unmet demand on that basis for self-build and custom housebuilding. There is an enormous potential benefit here. Look at other similar countries that have very large numbers of self-build and custom housebuilding. If the Government are looking for an opportunity to add to the extent of building, and indeed to support small housebuilders, this is absolutely the right territory to be working on.

To return to a familiar subject for me, the use of national development management policies in relation to decisions on planning applications for people who wish to build for themselves may well be one of the routes that the Government might like to consider for taking this issue forward.

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We recognise the opportunities offered by modular construction. That is why we and the British Standards Institution published a publicly available specification for residential properties in April this year. It offers greater clarity to the insurance and warranties market and supports delivery of quality homes. We may have some more work to do on insurance and warranties here, but I think we can get there. The industry is very keen to move this on and we are happy to work with it to do that. For all these reasons, I kindly ask the noble Baroness to withdraw her amendment.

[Lord Lucas (Con)]

I am grateful to the Minister for her answer. I welcome her to 10 September.

[Baroness Coffey (Con)]

My Lords, I thank noble Lords who have spoken—my noble friends Lord Fuller and Lord Lansley, and also the noble Lord, Lord Best. In response to my noble friend Lord Lansley, I am very conscious that perhaps there is a proper definition that can deal with this, so I will reflect on that and see what I can work through. He is absolutely right in saying that national development management policies are the way forward.

I inferred from what the Minister said that it is early days, and we will see where it goes. There is a group of willing people who want to get on. This is designed to make it as straightforward as possible for people to have homes. I know she supports that outcome, and I hope I can potentially work a little more with her and the noble Lord, Lord Best, in order to make that a reality. On that, I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.

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[Baroness Coffey (Con)]

My Lords, Amendment 135A may perhaps look a little innocuous, but it is actually critical in considering how Part 3 of the Bill will work. By the way, I did not determine where this appeared in the Bill; that was done by the clerks.

It has arisen due to evidence given by the chief executive of Natural England, who was asked by the Environmental Audit Committee in the House of Commons to address Part 3 of the Bill. I appreciate this is before the Government backtracked and made a number of changes to try and address the significant number of concerns, which have not been fully alleviated, in regard to the potential for environmental damage.

I am very pleased to set out this suggested amendment to the planning Bill, which would, in effect, put into place what was said by the chief executive of Natural England—the body being allocated all this power not only to create but to deliver the increase in biodiversity in compensation for the development the Government want to see.

Marian Spain, when asked about these powers being given to Natural England—it will be tasked with writing, delivering, monitoring and reporting on EDPs—responded by saying that developers will be able to choose not to pay the levy if they do not have the confidence in the relevant EDP, and also that planning authorities can refuse to grant planning permission to developers if they are not convinced that the EDP would work. That is not what is in the Bill today, but the chief executive—the accounting officer—of Natural England has said to Parliament that this is what the Bill is doing. This amendment, in effect, puts that into place.

She specifically said that, in terms of not choosing to pay the levy, there is a risk that developers could not have confidence in the EDPs. This is worrying. It means that, if developers promote a new scheme through the planning system, they will not know whether or where an EDP will land or what environmental features it will cover. They do not actually know if levies will be mandatory or voluntary or how much the levies will be. They will not know whether the local authority considers an existing EDP to be ineffective. Developers would need to navigate the added very real risk that planning permission is refused because a planning authority does not trust that an EDP is being or will be delivered properly.

As a consequence of what the chief executive has said, it seems that the planning authority would need to police the progress and effectiveness of EDPs in their local authority areas. That was not in the Government’s impact assessment and may not be the intention of the Government at all. I say to the Minister that the very person who will deliver exactly what is left out in Part 3 of this Bill is saying that is the case. Frankly, if it is the case, and that is what the chief executive has told Parliament, then this will be exceptionally worse than the status quo for developers.

Developers can already access strategic solutions for nature that are competitively brought forward by a range of actors, including landowners, charities, Natural England itself and private companies. These alternative solutions will be crowded out by EDPs, and we will get to that more substantial debate next week in Part 3. At the same time, there is a risk that planning permissions will be held up because local authorities will not trust that an underfunded, unscientific, non-locally led EDP will actually be delivered.

I have greater concerns about the whole concept of Part 3. However, what I think is good is that, by my amendment, we can put back in exactly what the chief executive of Natural England says this legislation is supposed to do. That is why I am moving this amendment.

Speaking to my noble friend’s amendment on planning information, it is a very straightforward amendment, and I support my noble friend. It is basically saying, “We are looking at biodiversity, we need to know what it is, why don’t we get it all ready and we can share it with the developers, so we can know what the basic part is”. I am sure my noble friend will explain it far more eloquently than I have tried to do in those 15 seconds. With that, I beg to move.

[Lord Lucas (Con)]

My Lords, I have two amendments in this group. Amendment 135F is basically saying, “Look, we are generating a lot of quality biodiversity information within the planning system, but we are not capturing it”.

As a previous Government—this Government are too, I believe—we were committed to restoring biodiversity in this country from a very unfortunate, low level. To do that well, we need really good data. There are a number of potential sources of that data, but the great majority of the quality biodiversity data—that which can absolutely be believed because it has been collected by people who are qualified and has been properly checked and done carefully—is generated by the planning system.

But the majority of the data collected by the planning system never finds itself going anywhere else. We have a system in the country of local environment record centres, where this data should be deposited; it is not. This is what I want the Government to do. I know there are those within the Government who are working in this direction, but they are in Defra not in MHCLG, so what I would like MHCLG to do is to say, “Yes, it is important that we collect this data; we will mandate that”. When it is created as part of the planning system, it should find its way into the national data record. This is not something that would impose huge costs, because the data will almost always be in an easily accessible format. If you are applying for planning permission, and you have done a biological survey, you have to say where you found what. That is basically all that is needed for the environmental record centres. What we need to do, though, is get the data flowing.

The other side of this is—within the limitations of the Bill—my second Amendment 253A is saying that we ought to be using this data much better than we do. We create things and make decisions without accessing the best possible data that we already hold, and we ought not to do that. We ought to be making the best possible informed decisions when it comes to biodiversity; otherwise, we will do stupid things that damage the environment even further. The best possible data—the best possible decisions. That requires that, when we are taking a decision which affects the environment, we go and get the best available data. Again, the planning system is central to that. There ought not to be an application within the planning system which does not use the best data. My amendment asks that we put that right.

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The proposed amendment would take this further and require Natural England to gather information that is not specifically relevant to the environmental feature that the EDP is intended to address. In practice this would add further cost to Natural England when drafting EDPs, which would then be passed on to developers through the levy. Broadening the scope of information required from EDPs risks drawing focus away from their targeted focus on specific environmental features. With that explanation, I would kindly ask the noble Lord to withdraw his amendment.

[Lord Lucas (Con)]

My Lords, I am grateful for that answer by the noble Baroness, but she did not go as far as I hoped on my first amendment. I know that there is a lot of information being gathered as a result of the biodiversity net gain process. I am comforted that the noble Baroness appears to assume this will continue, because it has been a matter of doubt, given the recent consultation. But the problem is not that it is not generated; it is generated, but then nothing happens to it. It is locked up within that particular planning application; it never gets into the national records.

What I would really like to see coming through as planning policy is that where this information is generated, it must find its way into the national database because otherwise we lose it—it is inaccessible. We do not know what was found. We cannot draw on this information to take other decisions; we are depriving ourselves. Having generated this information and people having paid for this information, it then just disappears. That cannot be the right way of doing things. We must have a planning system which contributes to the national understanding of our biodiversity. The information that we gather as part of planning surely must become part of the national biodiversity database. That is something I would really like to pursue with the noble Baroness, if she will allow me to write to her further.

[Baroness Coffey (Con)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for her reply and, indeed, all noble Lords for speaking. I do not want to get into the whole Part 3 debate; we will be debating that next week. I say to my noble friend Lord Fuller that this is based on evidence given to the Environmental Audit Committee on 30 June of this year by the chief executive, Marian Spain, rather than the chairman, Tony Juniper, over a year ago. I thank my noble friend Lord Lansley for giving me confidence—it was in the right place, after all—and for providing the clarity. The key point right now is that what the Minister has said tonight contradicts what the chief executive—the accounting officer—of Natural England told Members of Parliament about the effect of the Bill. I am going to read more carefully tomorrow what the Minister has said: I am not suggesting in any way that she is misleading the House either, but I think there is a problem. Putting this amendment in has got the outcome that I would like to see but perhaps not that of the Government. With that, I withdraw the amendment.