Draft Infrastructure Planning (Business or Commercial Projects) (Amendment) Regulations 2025

Peter Fortune Excerpts

Wednesday 12th November 2025 General Committees

[Matthew Pennycook]

That is a fair question and the hon. Gentleman pre-empts the next point that I was going to make, specifically about local accountability. This is important. The NSIP consenting process provides substantial opportunity for interested parties, including local communities and local authorities, to have their say on proposals going through that process.

Under the Planning Act 2008, local authorities are invited to submit a local impact report giving details of the likely impact of the proposed development on their area, which the Secretary of State must have regard to when deciding the application. The examination process, which all NSIP applicants need to go through, provides the opportunity for local communities, interested parties and statutory bodies to make representations and for them to be considered by the examining authority in examination of the application and in the subsequent report that will be made to the Secretary of State for a decision on whether to grant development consent.

[Peter Fortune (Bromley and Biggin Hill) (Con)]

This is a little parochial to London, but can we ensure that local authorities in London are consulted, along with the Mayor of London, so that their power to decide is not usurped by the mayor?

[Matthew Pennycook]

As I said, the NSIP regime provides for local communities, local authorities, other statutory consultees and stakeholders to input into that process. In a similar way to how a local planning authority undertakes a period of consultation to enable views on a planning application to be expressed, the examination process under the NSIP regime—which all NSIP applications must go through—provides the opportunity for local communities and interested parties to make representations to be taken into account by the examining authority in examination of the application and by the Secretary of State when they come to decide whether to grant development consent.

In the time I have, I should respond to a couple of other issues that were raised. Power usage was a point made by the hon. Members for Orpington and for Taunton and Wellington. Energy and carbon footprint are a key issue for data centres. The sector operates under a climate change agreement to encourage greater uptake of energy efficiency measures among operators. The UK has committed to decarbonising the electricity system by 2030, subject to security of supply, and data centres will increasingly be powered by renewable energy resources.

Newer, purpose-built and modern data centres can provide compute at a higher efficiency than older, converted data centres, in terms of the amount of power they draw on, but data centres will play a major part in powering the high-tech solutions to environmental challenges, whether that is new technology that increases the energy efficiency of energy use across our towns and cities, or development and application of innovative new tech that takes carbon out of the atmosphere. We are, however, very conscious that data centres draw on quite a significant amount of firm power, and the Government will take that into account in making decisions as to whether individual applications go through.

Lastly, I should address heat, which the hon. Member for Taunton and Wellington rightly mentioned. He is absolutely right to say that data centres produce a significant amount of heat. The technology exists to capture that heat and to use it in district heating networks, or to meet significant demand. There is potential, therefore, for the heat to be captured and used to further benefit than happens currently, but there have already been successful examples—which are worth highlighting—of using data centre heat for hospitals, homes and other uses. One such example is the use of a data centre to heat a local swimming pool in Devon. We will take that into account, as I am sure DSIT did in the drafting of its national policy statement and in its conversations with other Departments. However, I will ensure that the hon. Gentleman’s comments are brought to the attention of the relevant Minister.