Planning and Infrastructure Bill

Lord Lucas Excerpts

Committee stage
Thursday 11th September 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Lansley (Con)]

I make one suggestion to the Minister, if I may. One way of achieving the objective that many of us seek for chalk streams would be to include specific reference to them in footnote 7 to the National Planning Policy Framework. That would carry through very successfully into many other decisions.

[Lord Lucas (Con)]

My Lords, I very much hope that, when considering how to implement what I hope will be agreement with these amendments, the Government pay close attention to the need to gather much better data than they have at the moment. The financial strictures on the Environment Agency over the last couple of decades have meant that its water quality monitoring is a long way short of what it should be.

I take this opportunity to praise my brother, Tim Palmer, for what he and other farmers on the River Wylye in Wiltshire have done to create their own farmer-owned laboratory to monitor water quality and to take action which has considerably improved it.

There is a lot that can be done, but you cannot take decisions on how things are going to affect rivers unless you are collecting good data, and that is not happening at the moment. If the Government work with farmers to collect better data, they will find that they get better results from this and other aspects of their environmental policy.

The other aspect I want to raise is this. Please can we end the snobbish definition of chalk streams that seems to have crept in during the last Government? I put in a plea for the Lottbridge Sewer, which is Eastbourne’s chalk stream. These little chalk streams that occur in odd places around the hill and the escarpment are important parts of the natural tapestry of life. They need protection just as much as the Test or Itchen. The definition of a chalk stream should be water type and water quality, not whether or not I can catch a big trout in it.

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

As ever in your Lordships’ Committee, it has been a very interesting and wide-ranging debate on this group of amendments. I thank noble Lords for tabling amendments on the important topics of the protection of rivers, wildlife and animal welfare.

I will pick up a couple of general points. The noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, mentioned the Environment Agency’s dataset assessment. I will reply to him in writing, if that is okay, because I do not have the latest update.

The noble Baroness, Lady Parminter, said that I had said there was a chalk stream in Stevenage. I hope I did not say that, because that would not be accurate. There is a chalk stream just outside Stevenage, in the village of Aston, in East Hertfordshire. I think I remember commenting that I visited there with Feargal Sharkey a few months before the election. We had an interesting discussion with Mr Sharkey about chalk streams. It is not technically in Stevenage—it is just outside our borough.

Amendments 146, 147 and 148 all seek to add new requirements on strategic planning authorities in relation to the protection of rivers and streams, notably chalk streams. I point out to the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, that I am not responsible for the definition of “chalk stream”, but I am sure it is not just to do with how big the trout are that you can catch in them; there is a much more scientific method of defining chalk streams. I reaffirm the Government’s commitment to restoring and protecting chalk streams. They are a source of national pride. As one of Britain’s most nature-rich habitats, they support some of our rarest wildlife, from chalk salmon to trout, and are home to beloved and endangered species. There are just 260 chalk streams in the world and, as one noble Lord commented, 85% of them are in this country, which we can all be proud of.

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Moved by

[Lord Lucas]

158: After Clause 52, insert the following new Clause—
“Planning: duty of candourAfter section 8A of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 (The Homes and Communities Agency) insert—“8B Planning: duty of candour(1) A local planning authority who have the function of plan-making and determining applications for planning permission or permission in principle shall, in its interactions with applicants and those who make representations in connection to such applications, operate with a duty of candour.(2) A local planning authority operates with a duty of candour where—(a) in general, it acts in an open and transparent way with respect to its decision-making process in preparing and approving the development plan for its area;(b) in general, it acts in an open and transparent way with respect to its decision-making process in determining whether a planning application should be approved, and in making determinations in connection with the approvals process of such applications;(c) where it has made a decision, including with respect to the approval or otherwise of a planning application, the acceptance or otherwise of submissions or representations with respect to a planning application, or in connection with other activities inherent in the processing of a planning application, it outlines the reasoning for that decision in a way that is—(i) publicly accessible,(ii) written in clear language,(iii) consistent with the Nolan Principles on Standards in Public Life, and(iv) in accordance with national planning policy guidance.(3) An officer of a local planning authority shall, in their interactions with elected members of the authority, operate with a duty of candour in respect of their professional obligations.(4) An officer of a local planning authority operates with a duty of candour where they explain, clearly, accurately and in accessible language, what the rights and duties of the local planning authority are in respect of any application, potential application or development plan matter, regardless of the policies or preferences of the elected member concerned.””

[Lord Lucas (Con)]

My Lords, if I may I will start by being grumpy in the direction of the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, and others. This is Committee, and it is inappropriate to say, “Before the Minister sits down”. Saying that, as a Back-Bencher, suggests that allowing us to speak again is in some ways a concession on the part of the Minister. In Committee we can speak as many times as we like, whenever we like. That is a right which I do not see much exercised today, but we really should preserve it. On Report we are restricted; Committee is a free-for-all. It is important for getting to the bottom of things that we assert our right as Back-Benchers to speak when we wish to, and do not act as if this is a concession by the Government or Ministers.

Anyway, to turn to my amendment, my object here is to see whether we can make the planning system work better and improve the flow of national planning policy into decisions taken on the ground by imposing a duty of candour on the system. At the bottom end, the duty of candour is a strengthening of the power of officers because it removes from them the pressure to bend their advice to what they think will please the members of their authority, or maybe the public beyond that. It gives them a duty to be straightforward, honest and open about what things actually are. It is a considerable help to an official in dealing with members that they know they have to be clear—that they cannot say things just because they will get it in the neck from members if they do not say what members think they want.

Similarly, it helps members in their dealings with the public if the public know that the members are under a duty of candour to say things as they are, rather than trying to pretend that things are difficult or duck awkward decisions. In addition, operating the system in such a way that everybody knows that it has to be open and truthful, and that what is said is the way things are, is a great help to the public in dealing with change, which is naturally often unwelcome, and understanding how that fits into the development of the country as a whole.

Everybody I have talked to is committed to us having more houses. We want the Government to succeed in their ambitions, but it is often painful when it comes down to individual decisions, as the last group of amendments has demonstrated. There are always reasons not to do something. Having a system that we trust, and really understanding how it works, must be helpful, and having a duty of candour would make a difference to that. I beg to move.

[Baroness Coffey (Con)]

My Lords, I thank my noble friend Lord Blencathra for signing my Amendment 185. This amendment was originally in a separate group but, for the benefit of the Committee, I put it into what I would call the odds and sods group—I am not suggesting that any of the amendments are odd or, indeed, that any noble Lords are sods. Nevertheless, this is about addressing a particular situation where it is right that Members of Parliament should be calm, considered, important consultees on any nationally significant infrastructure projects that are proposed in their constituency. Many constituents fully expect Members of Parliament to have opinions on such matters. I appreciate that, at times, many Members of Parliament will say that they have no say on planning because it is a matter for the council. Well, of course, with NSIPs, it is different: it is a matter for the Secretary of State, who may delegate. It is therefore important that Members of Parliament have, in effect, an automatic right to participate in the examination.

The other thing—this came up for me when I used to be an MP—is that it is not always straightforward when modifications to NSIPs are made once consent has already been granted. That part of the process tends to just fly by with very little awareness but can be hugely significant. There is limited resource for MPs compared to, say, councillors, who can access their council officers in local authorities. For me, this would be a helpful check in both ways: first, being guaranteed not only to be notified of the original application and being able to speak at the various examinations but also to be made fully made of subsequent changes. I am very conscious that noble Lords may suggest that this is a barrier; it is not. It is about empowering the rights of local communities through the inclusion of their Member of Parliament.

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I hope that, for the reasons I have set out, noble Lords will not press their amendments.

[Lord Lucas (Con)]

My Lords, I am very grateful to the Minister for his comprehensive reply.

The common theme between the amendments is empowering officials to do their job well. I will pick up an example from the noble Lord, Lord Mawson. If an official in the local hospital is only looking up the line to someone in the health department, it is very hard for them to take into account the needs of other aspects of the community.

If there is something in law or secondary legislation—whatever it is, I look forward to seeing it—that the Government produce that says, “You must consult, you must talk to these people and you must take them into account”, that empowers the official to do so. It does not make it happen, but it sets out a structure where we can communicate properly between silos. We can get things done as a community and not in little bits.

I am sure that we can all think of examples of where things would have been done much better if the community had been involved. In fact, we do not need to look much further than our own front door. I do not know whether the noble Lord, Lord Mawson, has a lot of experience with construction, but when I took one of my friends who is in the industry through the front door and asked him how much he thought it cost, he was at about a 50th of what it was. We were not involved; the community was not consulted. This has been done to us; we were not part of that decision. The same applies to our “HMP Westminster”-style enclosure. I therefore really encourage the noble Lord, Lord Mawson, to work with my noble friends Lord Hayward and Lord Forsyth to see whether we can get our own mechanisms to be rather better than they are.

[Lord Mawson (CB)]

My Lords, I have commented on the door and had conversations with various people around the House, which was very fascinating as a parable of this problem.

Christine Gilbert was a very good local authority leader who understood the limitations of the state and understood that just the processes and systems alone would not get us there. Something else needed to happen in which the local authority, the NHS and the normal players were obviously key partners. It was about the people and relationships; the machinery was not going to get us there, and she understood that as a very capable leader.

[Lord Lucas (Con)]

I also felt that the Minister’s reply to the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, was good, but I would be grateful if he could send him and us a link to the guidance that he referred to so that we can check through it and understand how it works before Report. In the case of my amendment, I await the Hillsborough law. If it can do what Amendment 158 is setting out to do and a lot more across government, it will make a huge contribution. For now, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 158 withdrawn.