Planning and Infrastructure Bill

Lord Teverson Excerpts

Committee stage
Thursday 4th September 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Laing of Elderslie (Con)]

My Lords, it is interesting to hear what the noble Baroness has just said. Of course, I am sure we must all agree with her about the inappropriateness of hotels for asylum seekers to use as long-term accommodation. I am sure there is widespread agreement on that, but she seems to be ignoring the fact that this amendment clarifies, as the noble Lord, Lord Banner, most carefully and accurately explained, a degree of uncertainty in the current law that is causing considerable difficulties.

I must not pretend that I am not talking about Epping and I suppose I have to declare an interest because I live very close to the Bell Hotel and I represented the constituency in the other place for 27 years. I can tell the noble Baroness who has just spoken that the opinions and feelings of local people are important in planning decisions. The noble Baroness who has proposed Amendment 135HZB is trying to clarify the situation so that we do not have future situations like the one that has developed in the small town of Epping, where people are coming from all over the country every Thursday and Sunday to make their voices heard in a way that is inappropriate and unsuitable. When a situation such as that develops, it is incumbent on the Government of the day and the legislature to take action to try to make sure that it does not happen in future and to learn from the facts unfolding before us right now in real time.

The noble Baroness has brought forward this amendment and my noble friends have brought forward other amendments in this group to try to help the Government to clarify the situation. I sincerely hope that the Minister will look at this group in that light and that, rather than just sticking to the brief, which is “Do not accept any amendments”, she will be able to consider that the world changes all the time and that, in recent times, the world has changed as far as the way in which we look after asylum seekers is concerned, because there are far more. It does not matter when the problem started or who was in government at that time; what matters is what we do now as a legislature. That is our duty and responsibility. We have the chance today to enact this amendment, which would alleviate the situation and mean that the opinions and sensitivities of local people are taken into consideration in important planning decisions. That is not too much to ask of a democratically elected Government.

[Lord Teverson (LD)]

My Lords, I am sorry, but the past does matter. It is incredible to me that the party in opposition filled up 400 hotels with asylum seekers, did not think ahead about these issues and then complains about it once the horse has bolted. That is pretty shameful and I think the culpability is on my right rather than opposite.

[Lord Jackson of Peterborough (Con)]

My Lords, I contribute briefly to this debate to strongly support my noble friend on the Front Bench in her excellent amendments, both in respect of houses in multiple occupation and of hotels being converted to hostels.

I mention the specific case, in my own former constituency of Peterborough, of the Dragonfly Hotel in the west of Peterborough, which is a very pleasant residential area. Last November, without any consultation, the Home Office moved in 146—disproportionately male—asylum seekers. I raised the issue with the Home Office Minister, the noble Lord, Lord Hanson, earlier this year and he gave an undertaking that, henceforth, there would be better communication. Even the Labour Members of Parliament for the Peterborough area had cause to criticise the process of moving—decanting—those asylum seekers into the Dragonfly Hotel. The two Labour MPs, Sam Carling of North West Cambridgeshire and Andrew Pakes of Peterborough, said that

“the Dragonfly is the wrong hotel, in the wrong location and bad for Peterborough and nearby residents”.

There has been no indication of when it will cease to be used. They went on:

“We are a welcoming city but are playing more than our part already”.


The context of that is that there had been no attempt to speak to the Labour-led city council, adult social services, children’s services, the police or NHS primary care.

The context that we need to think about is that, hitherto, the planning process has been well recognised as a form of governance that works in this country. We have local development plans, we have county structure plans and—for those who really have nothing better to do with their time—we have mineral plans. I know that this is all meat and drink to my noble friend Lord Banner. The point is that it is a well-established idea that, where there is significant change in planning and development, particularly in urban development, there is a process of proper consultation between stakeholders and those affected. It might be informal discussions between planning officers and local residents or it might be a formal committee, but there is a process where people are invited to comment.

With any decision to significantly change and impact the residential amenity of a local area and people’s quality of life in that area, particularly where—as in the case of the Bell Hotel—there are a significant number of schools and young people in the area, there will be some legitimate concerns. No one is saying that all asylum seekers are criminals or are likely to be criminals but, when you bring forward very significant local change, you will cause concern.

I think a form of governance, a piece of primary legislation that obliges that information to be put in the public domain, is sensible and would prevent people listening to extreme points of view in pursuit of their particular political agenda. That is why I think that this amendment is sensible.

The noble Lord, Lord Teverson, can criticise as much as he likes. Let us hear the Liberal Democrats’ view on this and what they would do. It is very easy to criticise and put it on a focus leaflet in the opportunistic way that the Liberal Democrats do; it is much tougher, as this Government are finding and the previous Government found, to be in government, because politics is to choose and to make tough decisions—something that the Liberal Democrats are unfortunately not very used to.

My noble friend Lady Scott makes a very sensible point about accountability, transparency and clarity in the local community. If in future we are to avoid the social dislocation, violence and anger that we have seen in Epping Forest in the last few months, transparency will do that. It will allow people to have their say. It will allow their elected representatives to have an opportunity to properly represent them and ventilate their concerns, and I think that will be all to the good. The Government would be wise to do it, because they are now looking at some policies that we would have pursued. I think they are trying to tackle this issue in a sincere way. We on this side are offering these amendments as a way to ameliorate the issues because we know it is necessary so to do.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)]

Yes, there were 400 hotels—we have heard from my noble friend Lady Coffey the reasons for that. But in 2024, just before we left government, we were down to 213 hotels. By now, if we were still in government, we would not have any hotels; we were working the number down. It would have helped if the Government opposite, when they first came into power, supported the deterrent that we were going to have—we would then not have the problem.

[Lord Teverson (LD)]

That was a somewhat desperate contribution—seriously so.

[Baroness Pinnock (LD)]

The intervention by the noble Baroness, Lady Laing, seemed to distance where somebody lives from their behaviours. The intervention she made was irrelevant. The fact is that the previous Conservative Government started using hotels for temporary accommodation for asylum seekers and made no effort to increase the speed of assessment for those asylum seekers, so that they could have certainty in their lives and local accommodation would not be put under undue stress. It was not only a failure of public policy by the previous Government; it was inhumane. It surprised me that the noble Baroness, Lady Scott, for whom I have high regard, has seen fit to bring these amendments. It is out of character for her to do so. Perhaps on later reflection, she will regret bringing them.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Cromwell (CB)]

My Lords, I endorse completely the speeches by the noble Baroness, Lady Miller, and her supporters. She introduced it engagingly and comprehensively. I have therefore scribbled out most of what I was going to say. She has done the Committee a double service in that respect.

A common difficulty for those citizens who wish to examine or question a development proposal is the scarcity of information, expertise and resources they have, often when up against a large professional development company. Planning authorities have the same problem, and the risk of very expensive and protracted discussions and inquiries to get to grips with the proposed project. Some applications that I have seen seem almost designed to overcome planning authorities and public resistance through the sheer volume and number of boxes of paper that arrive, within which people have to try to find where the bodies are buried.

If such projects were obliged to produce a digital twin model, as the amendment proposes, not only would we have a more equitable process but it would also save a great deal of time, resources and money. I could say a great deal more, but I will not because we all dread the phrase, “My Lords, a lot of good points have been made” and I shall not repeat it. I genuinely shall not. I support these amendments, and I will now sit down.

[Lord Teverson (LD)]

My Lords, from these Benches I support this amendment and thank other Lords for their support. One thing the noble Viscount, Lord Hanworth, said is that if we had had a digital twin model earlier, the bat tunnel we talked about would probably never have been necessary in HS2.

Clearly, there are issues around this on data privacy, keeping information up to date, legacy systems and so forth. But one of the positives is that once you have a model, you do not just discard it once the project has finished; you continue using it into the future and update it. It allows you all the benefits into the future.

We on these Benches are very interested to hear where the Government are in the development of this area, which I certainly hope is an area where the UK, with its IT prowess, will move ahead of our competitors and use it for the kinds of not very successful infrastructure projects that we have had in recent years.

[Lord Jamieson (Con)]

My Lords, in speaking to the amendments of the noble Baroness, Lady Miller of Chilthorne Domer, I am also greatly pleased to say that we seem to have broken out into a spirit of co-operation. As noble Lords will know, modelling and simulation are used to drive efficiency in infrastructure and planning projects. I recall, as a project engineer more than 30 years ago, using simulations and realising just how valuable they are in avoiding mistakes and bringing people on board with exactly what you are proposing.

Therefore, they have the potential to reduce costly mistakes in the planning process, deliver infrastructure that is better, more adaptive and more resilient and, as Members have commented, bring residents and others on board because they can see what is there. They would also, I hope, allow developers to modify their plans to reflect what the public want because it can be done so much more easily through a model.

This technology is moving at pace, as are other technologies such as AI, and it is therefore likely that legislation will be required in future to keep pace with changes. Ensuring that the law remains sufficiently flexible and future-proof and does not inhibit development is going to be important, as is how this is integrated into the planning system as opposed to being a stand-alone, nice little model that you look at. If we are going to look at amendments and how changes can be made, we have to think about whether that means we need to produce a volume of paper documents or whether there is some output that we can integrate. It is a complex issue that we need more thought on, but it is a great opportunity. How do the Government intend to ensure that this planning law evolves, and how can it be integrated so that planners are able to realise the full potential of technology? I look forward to hearing the Minister’s reply.