Planning and Infrastructure Bill (Fourth sitting)

Debate between Michael Shanks and Matthew Pennycook

Committee stage
Tuesday 29th April 2025 Public Bill Committees

[Matthew Pennycook]

I thank the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Hamble Valley, for his constructive tone on this clause—and others; I do not mean to confine his constructive attitude to just this clause. I welcome his praise for Lord Banner’s review, which I agree was thoughtful and insightful. As part of that review Lord Banner made it clear that although the duration differs between different applications, each attempt to apply for a judicial review currently extends the duration of a claim by, on average, several weeks, and in some cases by several months. In large numbers of cases, time is added by legal challenges that are unsuccessful. The changes made by the Bill aim to strike the right balance between improving efficiency and ensuring access to justice.

To be clear, this clause does remove the paper permission stage, but only makes changes by removing the right to appeal for cases that are deemed “totally without merit”. Other cases will retain that right of appeal if they are deemed to be with merit and able to be considered. We think these changes will make a difference to the time that projects take to work their way through the system, and we will work with the judiciary to advance a number of other changes to the process for NSIP judicial reviews, such as introducing target timescales for cases that we think will have a beneficial impact. On that basis, I commend the clause to the Committee.

Clause 9

Connections to electricity network: licence and other modifications

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero (Michael Shanks)]

I beg to move amendment 36, in clause 9, page 14, line 6, after “distribution system” insert

“(and such an improvement may include changing the order in which connections are made)”.

This amendment clarifies that the purpose for which the power under clause 9(1) may be exercised may include the making of changes to the order of the queue for connections to a transmission or distribution system.