Planning and Infrastructure Bill (Seventh sitting)

Nesil Caliskan Excerpts

Committee stage
Wednesday 14th May 2025 Public Bill Committees

[Matthew Pennycook]

Let me begin with amendment 76, tabled by the hon. Member for Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner, which seeks to remove provision for the establishment of strategic planning boards that would allow two or more authorities to produce a spatial development strategy jointly. The main purpose of strategic planning is to provide a mechanism for cross-boundary planning between local planning authorities and to plan for growth on a scale that is larger than local. For that to be done as effectively as possible, it is essential that spatial development strategies are produced across the most appropriate geographies. To that end, it will be necessary for some strategic planning authorities to be grouped together so that they can produce a spatial development strategy across their combined area. Unless SDSs are produced across appropriate geographies, they will not be as effective as they could be and the full benefits of strategic planning will not be realised.

To address the perfectly reasonable point made by the hon. Member for Hamble Valley, establishing strategic authorities nationwide will be a gradual process, as I said, and the Government want all areas of England to benefit from effective strategic planning as soon as possible. Therefore, in some cases, responsibility for producing an SDS will transfer between different authorities while the broader reforms are being undertaken. We are seeking powers in the Bill to complement existing powers to make regulations for transitional arrangements when such scenarios occur, similar to how responsibility for a local plan can transfer when a local authority becomes a unitary authority. On that basis, I hope that he will withdraw the amendment.

I turn to amendment 122, which seeks to add provision for infrastructure delivery plans and funding to the list of matters in proposed new section 12C(3) to the Planning and Compulsory Purchase Act 2004 that the Secretary of State may consider, including in regulations establishing a strategic planning board. I should make it clear to the hon. Member for Didcot and Wantage that that list is not exhaustive. Indeed, proposed new section 12C(2) is clear:

“Strategic planning board regulations may make provision about…such…matters as the Secretary of State considers are necessary or expedient to facilitate the exercise by a strategic planning board of its functions”.

In general terms, the Government are clear that new development must come with the appropriate social and physical infrastructure and amenities for new communities to thrive. The hon. Member for Broxbourne challenged my hon. Friend the Member for Dartford, saying that there are not provisions in the Bill directly relating to things like infrastructure delivery plans. That is right, but the Bill is not the sum total of the action the Government are taking in housing and planning. As my hon. Friend alluded to, we are talking action in other areas. However, to address the point made by the hon. Member for Didcot and Wantage directly, it is not the Government’s intention for strategic planning boards or any other strategic planning authority to be required to produce an infrastructure delivery plan, although I am more than happy to pick up the wider discussion about infrastructure with him outside the Committee.

[Nesil Caliskan (Barking) (Lab)]

I thank the Minister for reiterating the Government’s position and commitment to infrastructure delivery alongside housing. Will he comment specifically on infrastructure that allows people to get on a train and go to work? Does he agree that transport infrastructure is critical and that we must not build homes in the middle of nowhere, which condemn people to poverty? The ability of people to connect to places by getting on a train or a bus to go to work and earn a decent wage, and then to get back home, is crucial for an economy that works for everyone.

[Matthew Pennycook]

I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend. As we know, done properly, transport infrastructure and effective interventions in that regard can unlock huge numbers of homes. As I said, the Government have already taken action to support the provision of infrastructure, for example in the changes to the national planning policy framework in December last year, and we are looking at what more can be done, but it is not necessary for the clause to introduce that.

I will make a final point about how IDPs work now. IDPs are put in place where local authorities decide to take them forward, on the basis that they support the delivery of a local development plan. Local development plans have to be in general conformity with spatial development strategies. There is a clear link here, even though we are not asking strategic planning boards to have responsibility for bringing forward IDPs in the way that the hon. Member for Didcot and Wantage suggests. I hope that I have given him some reassurance and, on that basis, that he will agree that amendment 122 is not necessary. I also request that the hon. Member for Hamble Valley withdraws his amendment 76.

--- Later in debate ---

[Gideon Amos]

I rise to speak to new clause 104, which relates to green belt protection. We recognise that the Government’s proposals are set out in the national planning policy framework. We do not support the way in which the standard method is being imposed on local authorities, nor do we support the way in which green belt release will be forced on local authorities through the requirement that they review and effectively release land for green belt. However, among the rules that the Government have put forward, we sympathise with the strictures they have come up with for the release of green-belt land where local authorities decide to do that, which should support higher levels of social housing.

Our new clause would require a quid pro quo for the release of green-belt land, which clearly will happen—it must happen, because it has been required and dictated in an NPPF. Local areas want to see proper protection for their green-belt land. Indeed, many areas would like to have a green belt, but it is extremely difficult for areas that have not historically had green belt to introduce it, such that there are hardly any areas where that has ever happened.

There is therefore an inequity in terms of protecting land. Greenfield land can be just as valuable and important in Taunton, where we have green wedges stretching into the centre of town, as it is in and around London, where there is official green belt protection. Our new clause would provide for local authorities to carry out a review of the green belt and then to protect that land from development for 20 years. That semi-permanent protection would be a quid pro quo for the loss of green-belt land that many authorities will see under the NPPF.

It gives people a real sense of the planning system’s failures when they have believed for years and years that a piece of land near them is protected green belt, but then they attend the planning committee or some meeting, and a planner—possibly like myself in the past—comes up and says, “Oh, no, no. It’s not actually protected any more. It’s not got long-term protection; that protection didn’t mean anything,” and it is wafted away. Communities want to know how their most precious areas of green land will be protected. Our amendment seeks to provide them with a mechanism to establish green belt protection for at least 20 years.

[Nesil Caliskan]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Dr Huq. I would like to make a couple of points about the green belt, not least because I would like to address the direct comments from the shadow Minister.

[Paul Holmes]

Oh no!

[Nesil Caliskan]

I do not expect him to have followed my very short career to date or my position on the green belt, but just for the record, my long-standing position has been to identify appropriate areas on the green belt, particularly in London, where we have a housing crisis, that can be built on. The truth is that there are many areas of the green belt—areas that could, indeed, be described as grey belt—that already have some kind of development, perhaps without planning permission, or where enforcement is needed, that are entirely appropriate for housing development, and many of those areas are already well connected.

In my constituency, a new train station has been built in the Barking Riverside area in recent years. It is not green belt, but it is strategic industrial land. In our discussions about well-connected neighbourhoods, we often forget the pressure on strategic industrial land, too. That is a good example of where infrastructure was delivered and houses have followed. The rest of the country can follow that example.

On the point about urban areas needing to be the priority for development, of course, we have to see urban development intensify in housing delivery, but many of our urban areas already have high density, and overcrowding is a familiar picture. It is simply not possible to deliver the housing numbers we need by looking only at urban areas. I often hear the argument that it should be brownfield sites first. Of course, they should be first, but if people think there is a secret drawer full of brownfield sites that will deliver the housing numbers we need in this country, they are out of touch with the housing pressures facing our communities.

[Paul Holmes]

The hon. Lady is right that I have not followed the minutiae of her career, but I know from her comments in the Chamber and this Committee that she has an expertise that we should all listen to, even if we disagree. She led a council for a good while, so I know that she is an expert in these areas.

She outlined in her comments that urban areas should have a higher rate of delivery because they are of higher densities. Why is it, then, that on the Floor of the House, that is not matched by what she is voting for? Housing targets under the new algorithm in her area and her constituency are being reduced, while in rural areas, where she is concerned about the lack of infrastructure, they are being increased exponentially. How does she defend that, with what she has just said?

[Nesil Caliskan]

The hon. Member gives me the opportunity to make two points. First, the Planning and Infrastructure Bill will allow the Government to spearhead infrastructure delivery in this country in rural areas that do not have the necessary infrastructure. That is why the Bill is so important. With the necessary infrastructure, we will be able to see the delivery of homes not just in urban areas. Secondly, to the point about housing delivery in Barking and Dagenham, the area has some of the most impressive stats for house building in London and the rest of the country. It has been delivering housing at a much better rate than areas not just in London, but in the rest of the country.

My final point is about the threat to the green belt, which the hon. Member for Taunton and Wellington mentioned. The biggest threat to the green belt is not having a strategic approach to planning in this country. If we take the absence of local plans in areas, as it stands, the legal framework means that if a planner says no to a planning application, and there is no up-to-date local plan, then on appeal, the appeal process can enforce such that the development happens in the green belt anyway. We need a strategic approach across the country that not only encourages or, in fact, forces local authorities to have up-to-date local plans, but ensures that house building—alongside infrastructure, which I firmly believe the Bill will help to deliver—is fair in its approach to delivering homes.

We cannot just build in urban areas. We do not have that capacity. It is unfair for those who are already living in overcrowded accommodation. People deserve to have access to open and green spaces, and our rural communities deserve to have the infrastructure necessary for well-connected neighbourhoods. I firmly believe that the Bill supports that, and that the debate around green belt and access is more nuanced than some Opposition Members have set out.

[Lewis Cocking]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Dr Huq. I rise in support of amendments 72, 75 and 82. I await with anticipation what the Minister will say, because surely we can all agree that green belt should be protected and that we should do brownfield first. Sometimes, under the current planning system, green-belt land gets developed on through the back door.

Even if a council has an up-to-date local plan, there can be issues if it does not meet its five-year land supply or housing targets in terms of its build-out rates, which the council has very little control over. The council has control over the speed and determination of planning applications. However, it can approve all the applications it wants—it could approve thousands—but if the developer or developers are not building them, the council then gets punished. Someone else will come along and say, “I want to develop on this piece of green-belt land,” and when that goes to appeal, the Planning Inspectorate will say to the council, “You haven’t got a five-year land supply, and you’re not meeting your build-out rate targets.” It is the community and the council that get punished for developers not building what they have been given approval to build.