Planning and Infrastructure Bill

Rachel Taylor Excerpts

2nd reading
Monday 24th March 2025 Commons Chamber

[Rachel Taylor (North Warwickshire and Bedworth) (Lab)]

I am surprised to hear the hon. Member for Broxbourne (Lewis Cocking) trashing hard-working local builders in his constituency and calling the homes that his constituents live in dreadful trashy houses. Before I came to this place—

[Lewis Cocking]

rose—

[Rachel Taylor]

I am not going to give way; you have had your time. Before I came to this place—[Interruption.]

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Judith Cummins)]

Order. I call Rachel Taylor.

[Rachel Taylor]

Before I came to this place—

[Lewis Cocking]

On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. I wish to seek your advice. I have just been cited as saying something in my speech that I did not say. I was merely talking about developers and my time on the planning committee, when developers would come forward and propose utter rubbish. I did not say the houses my residents live in are rubbish.

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

The hon. Member has made his point. It is a matter of debate, but his point is now on the record.

[Rachel Taylor]

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker—[Hon. Members: “Withdraw!”]

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

Order. I have made my ruling clear.

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[Rachel Taylor]

Before I came to this place, I was a property solicitor, and I cannot say how many times I had developers in my office, swearing and cursing at yet another of their projects having been put on hold because of an arcane planning system. Bat tunnels are only the half of it.

I will never forget the day a developer told me that Warwickshire county council had asked him to build a pavement outside his new development but had then refused to let him put up traffic lights to enable the works because there was a vaccination centre a mile up the road. After months of legal wrangling, which delayed the home buyers moving in, the county council eventually gave in, but not before wasting everyone’s time and resources.

There are already half a million fewer young homeowners since 2010, and millions are stuck in expensive, poor-quality and insecure rented housing. Despite that, planning permissions dropped to their lowest number on record under the last Government, because the planning system is outdated and no longer fit for purpose. I want my constituency to be a place where young people feel they can put down roots, whether in our towns or our villages, and I want to ensure that there is the necessary infrastructure for them and their young families to create a life in our towns and villages.

I welcome this Bill to fix our broken planning system and get Britain building again. As a solicitor, on many occasions I saw unacceptable delays in determining planning applications, which cost developers money. There were insufficient resources to deal with complex legal agreements or to consult in a meaningful way about necessary infrastructure. All too often, developers then bypassed the correct processes, only to end up with whole estates being built without key approvals, which have sat empty for more than 12 months because access on to the road has not yet been sorted. This Bill will properly fund planning departments, and I hope that that will extend to the associated legal work. It is rare that developers even go down the route of getting new roads adopted, because for them the delays that that causes are financial risks they cannot take, but that leads to more and more residents paying freehold management charges, which new homeowners can ill afford.

I am glad that the National Infrastructure Commission has welcomed the provisions in this Bill, calling them a

“bold and broad-ranging package of measures”.

After years of the Conservative party letting the planning system crumble, a bold approach is exactly what is needed. Just last week, I met those from National Grid in my constituency. They welcomed the Bill and said that this sort of sensible approach could not come soon enough.

Of course, it is crucial for us to get the balance right. Most people I have spoken to understand that if they want their kids to be able to afford a home and live nearby, we need to build more houses. I agree with the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors, which has said that the Bill

“provides a necessary balance between the need to boost building developments, whilst protecting the natural world through a nature restoration fund, driving green initiatives.”

It is vital we get this balance right. Every person should have access to an affordable home, and green and natural spaces they can use and enjoy.

[Paul Holmes]

On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. I appreciate being able to make this point of order. I would like to seek your guidance on the speech from the hon. Member for North Warwickshire and Bedworth (Rachel Taylor), in which she defended developers and also solicitors. Did she have to declare her interest as a practising solicitor, for which privilege she was paid £7,500 this quarter?

[Rachel Taylor]

Further to that point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. I no longer have a practising certificate as a solicitor, and I gave up practising as soon as I came into this House.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Judith Cummins)]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his point of order, and I thank the hon. Lady for putting her clarification on the record.

Planning and Infrastructure Bill (First sitting)

Rachel Taylor Excerpts

Committee stage
Thursday 24th April 2025 Public Bill Committees

[Gideon Amos (Taunton and Wellington) (LD)]

I was a planning consultant until the general election, but not any more. I am a chartered town planner member of the Royal Town Planning Institute and a chartered architect member of the Royal Institute of British Architects. I am a vice president of the Town and Country Planning Association, but that is an honorary position, so I have no pecuniary interest.

[Rachel Taylor (North Warwickshire and Bedworth) (Lab)]

Until the election I was a commercial property solicitor acting for a number of residential and commercial property developers. I was also a North Warwickshire borough councillor until I resigned a couple of months ago.

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[Rachel Taylor]

Q I was delighted recently to visit a National Grid substation at Hams Hall, in my North Warwickshire and Bedworth constituency. It is almost doubling in size to accommodate connections for High Speed 2, but people there also talked to me about the massive queue of projects that need connections if there is to be expansion right across the west midlands. Have you carried out an assessment of the backlog of connections? To what extent will these changes enable us to achieve our ambition of net zero by 2030?

Beatrice Filkin: I am very happy to take that question. We have had an ongoing process of reform to the approach to the connections queue with NESO and Government for quite a while now. We reached our conclusions last week and made a decision on how the reordering of the queue should work. As part of that, as Charlotte mentioned, we have been looking at how we move away from the idea that we had previously—a first come, first served application process—to looking at what we need as a country and which projects are most ready.

The decision we have taken on how that process will work now needs to be implemented by NESO. It will be implemented very rapidly over the next year, with the network operators, to give industry confidence and security that it can continue to invest to deliver clean power targets, as well as all the growth targets that we want.

One point that we did not touch on previously was that the demand connections are really important for the growth story. The queue connections reform deems all the connections that are already in the queue as needed, so they pass the first test. That is very important in making sure that we are prioritising access to our network, and that will enable growth in the country.

Charlotte Mitchell: Bringing forward the legislation at pace will enable us to move to the new system. It is important that measures in the Bill are brought forward quickly, so that we can move towards the new reordering and prioritisation.

[Rachel Taylor]

Q As a follow-up, also at Hams Hall, JLR has a battery assembly plant, and its representatives told me that it could probably power the whole of the industrial estate there, but that there was no chance that it would be able to get a grid connection. Is there an estimate of those sorts of things, which are feasible and possible but have not entered your radar because they have not applied?

Beatrice Filkin: One of the purposes of the queue reform is to make sure that the projects that we need and are ready earliest get earlier access to the network. At the moment, we have a lot of projects in the queue that are at an early stage of development, and are not so critically needed by the strategic plans that we are setting out. Projects such as connections for demand or for factories are already in the queue and are deemed as needed. They will therefore be prioritised for the queue, and we expect their connection dates to improve as a result of the connections reform process.

[Luke Murphy]

Q It was not that long ago that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine resulted in a massive income shock because our energy system is not that secure. Building on the Minister’s question earlier, what impact will the Bill have, in terms of expediting connections to the grid, on securing our energy supply in future? Can you also say a bit about what impact it will have on economic growth?

Dhara Vyas: I think that the Bill is going to be crucial. It was as true for the previous Government as it is for this Government that clean energy and investment in clean power is seen as the safest and surest way to ensure the UK’s energy security. There is a programme of work for investing in clean power, but there is absolutely nothing to be gained from all of that net investment unless we can move it around the country. That is why this part of the energy industry is so crucial.

In terms of the impact on bills, the reality is that, at one point, energy bills were four times what they were in 2019. We are now seeing bill debt of £3.8 billion and growing. It is also important to note, generally speaking, that households are under more pressure now than they have been for well over a decade. I think more than half of households who go to Citizens Advice have a negative budget. Households are really feeling the pressure, and the conversation about energy bills has not really been off the front pages for the last four years.

As for being able to expedite the investments in clean power and make sure we are reducing the amount we are spending on curtailment costs, that should mean that in the future, if we experience an energy shock again, we will not spend the £40 billion that was spent in 2022-23 to support people. That is why this is so important.

Planning and Infrastructure Bill (Second sitting)

Rachel Taylor Excerpts

Committee stage
Thursday 24th April 2025 Public Bill Committees

[Lewis Cocking]

Q Sorry; yes. We have spoken about local plans and outline planning permission, and I will link those two together. There is a lot of consultation around development that comes forward, and the public in the area buy into it, because it is almost like it is painted in gold. The developers say that they can deliver all the amenities and everything the residents want, and then when they come forward for full planning permission, the proposal is completely changed. The residents have bought into something that they want, in the form of the fantastic development that the developers proposed. But when the developers come for full planning, it is completely different, so the residents are up in arms because they have not really bought into that. Would you make some comments on the differentials there?

Faraz Baber: The outline, as you say, is an outline, but the reality is that any full application that comes forward should be aligned with the agreement on social infrastructure and all the other elements that are required, whether that is the affordable housing, social infrastructure, civil payments or whatever. There was an earlier question: what is planning for? Well, planning is for that—to ensure that those community benefits are derived from development and to ensure that it is inclusive, not just for new residents but for existing residents as well.

I think that is a guardianship point, where the planning team or the local authority have to ensure that what they said they wanted to see from the plan is ultimately delivered. People will go into viability discussions and say, “I can’t afford that and I can’t afford this.” That is a judgment that has to be made about what can be delivered in the public interest. In answer to your question, that is very much where planning sits at the fore, to ensure that the right development with the right social infrastructure comes forward, and that it is fitting for the place it is sitting in.

[Rachel Taylor (North Warwickshire and Bedworth) (Lab)]

Q I would like to focus again on local planning authorities. I am acutely aware, from my constituency in North Warwickshire and Bedworth, of the under-resourcing of planning authorities, and this Bill enables us to charge increased fees, but I am also aware of the frustration from local developers and businesses about delays in the planning system. Do you think that the ability to charge extra fees will strike the right balance, and should they be ringfenced to make sure that decisions are made in a timely manner?

Victoria Hills: We have been advocating for the ringfencing of fees since time began. It is absolutely essential, and—I am sure that Faraz will pick this point up in a moment for his clients—I have not met a single developer that is not willing to pay for more for a service. The problem is that they are paying more but not getting the service. In some places, they are, but not in others. The opportunity, through this Bill, to strengthen the ringfencing and ensure that the money stays within the planning team to deliver the service cannot come soon enough to help to reduce some of those delays.

Having the opportunity for local areas to work out what good looks like for them is absolutely a sensible way forward within that. Again, we do feel that having the right level of seniority within the department to ensure that the money stays there is going to be a key part of it.

Faraz Baber: Moving towards this ringfencing idea within the planning service is hugely positive, although when I say the planning service, it may extend slightly to the legal side as well, because you have to get those section 106 agreements signed off to make things happen. The key, though, is that it has to stay ringfenced for that resource to happen. We often see that PPAs—planning performance agreements—are paid up front for meetings, and that there is a very uneven balance in how well those deliver, in terms of the service that the clients receive when they pay those large chunks of change for that service. So, developers are right—applicants are right—to get frustrated when they think they are getting a premier service to help facilitate the bringing forward of an application, then find that it does not move the dial one iota.

I think the very basic premise is that instead of the chief executive or the finance director of the council saying, “I’ll take that because I need to put it into social care or into education,” the money actually stays there. Remember, if we keep that money inside the planning service, it will drive the growth that the Government have said that they want to achieve. The devil is in the detail, and we need to see that more, but it is the right direction to take.

Hugh Ellis: I would say that it would stabilise issues for development management, but, for the policy officers who we work with, it would not necessarily support their work.

Also, a piece of heresy, if it is okay: the private sector complains a lot about delays, despite getting 86% of all its applications approved, but I think that there needs to be more debate about competence in the private sector. When a private sector developer applies for a category 3a floodplain development and then complains that the Environment Agency wants it to go through a flood risk assessment process, my blood boils. Planners are doing life-and-death stuff. For example, no house built after 2009 is part of the insurance compact, so if we get this wrong, negative equity will look like a picnic. Planning is trying to do really complicated stuff and it needs time to do that. Statutory consultees are also crucial to that, and they need to be resourced properly to play that role as well.

[The Chair]

We are coming to the last few seconds so I am going to call an end to the session. Sorry that we did not get everybody in. As it is the end of the time allocated to the Committee to ask questions, on behalf of the Committee I thank our witnesses for their evidence.

Examination of Witnesses

Jack Airey and Sam Richards gave evidence.

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[The Chair]

Rachel Taylor, you have about a minute and a half; maybe you will get a quick answer.

[Rachel Taylor]

Q I am interested to hear your quite controversial views on the role of local councillors in the planning process. I am sure that a lot of developers might agree with you. We heard from the previous panel that planning with consent is key to securing good communities. How do you feel it is best to consult the public? Should it be via their elected representatives, or should there be something in the local planning framework to do so?

[The Chair]

You have less than a minute.

Sam Richards: This has been more Jack’s point than mine, so I will let him come back to it, but I think it is reasonable that that is handled through the local plan.

Jack Airey: Sorry, another controversial opinion: I do not think development necessarily has to have consent. Lots of development happens that does not have consent—for example, things that go through the permitted development rights regime. I lived in a home that was built through the PDR regime, and it was perfectly nice—it was really nice. You see lots of homes that are built that way. There is no democratic engagement because MPs grant national planning permission for that through the general permitted development order. I get what people are saying and I am not trying to question it entirely, but you can have nice homes that are delivered outside that system.

To answer your second question on whether consultation should be done through representatives, the most important thing is that you go and ask people what they think.

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[Gideon Amos]

Q May I ask a supplementary of James? We hear a lot from the federation about the viability challenge of sites. Without rehearsing the whole system and the pressures on development value, what is the HBF’s approach to resolving that issue so that there are fewer schemes going back to appeal, with 106s renegotiated and affordable housing targets reduced? That is something that we see in all our constituencies.

James Stevens: We think that affordable housing, as part of section 106, is probably one of the most important planning obligations, and our members generally support that, because they know how to build houses. Capturing an element of development gain is a real feeding frenzy, particularly among every public agency. They are all attempting to finance their policy objectives off the back of capturing an element of the developed land value. That can result in very difficult competing claims over viability. I have looked at viability plans supporting lots of spatial strategies and local plans up and down the country, and very often large elements of a local authority area are unviable because they just cannot afford the cumulative claims upon that development value. Greater scrutiny at the examination level, and perhaps a stronger steer from the Government that affordable housing and public contributions to public transport are the foremost claims upon development value, would be a major step forward.

Savills has identified that the viability system—section 106 and the community infrastructure levy—is fairly successful. It is pretty successful at capturing the majority of development value that is out there. The Government could go further by being very clear that these are the requirements in local plans, they are not negotiable and schemes are expected to be policy compliant, but that would need to be underpinned by a more rigorous system of assessing viability of the local plan stage. That would provide the Government with the certainty.

[Rachel Taylor]

Q James, I would like to ask you a question first. We heard a lot on earlier panels about the number of permissions that have been granted but not yet delivered. How do you think your members can be helped by the Bill to deliver those homes? Also, when we talk about affordable housing, how much of that really needs to be socially rented housing to help deliver homes that homeless people need? That second question is more for Kate.

James Stevens: On the first element of that question, we really dispute the notion that house builders just bank land and are not interested in building out. Craig Bennett of the Wildlife Trusts cited a figure on Radio 4, I think, of 1.4 million homes that have granted permission but that have not been built out. We strongly contest that. A lot of those things are not counted as a completion until they are actually completed. A lot of those schemes have to work through very complicated discharge conditions. A lot of those permissions can just be outline planning permissions, and not the detailed planning permissions that you need to be an implementable consent. A lot of those figures are just poor figures that do not reflect the true numbers that have actually been built out.

Lastly on that, this accusation of land banking has often been levelled at the house building industry over the last 20 years. Consistently, independent studies, including one by the Competition and Markets Authority last year, have given us a clean bill of health on that. There is an issue about absorption rates—the ability of a local market to absorb certain sales—but house builders do not make their money from sitting on land. That costs them money. We make money from the sale of homes.

The issue of social housing—I will allow Kate to come in shortly—is very important. The problem is that we have a severe housing crisis. As Kate said, we have many thousands of children in temporary accommodation. Local authorities had to spend something like £2.3 billion last year on temporary accommodation; local authorities would go bankrupt there. Therefore, the tendency is to try to maximise social housing provision—social rented housing. We can understand why local authorities want to do that. However, to follow up on the point I made to Gideon Amos, the problem is that if local authority policies are too prescriptive on the tenure split, that can make it very difficult for house builders to contract with registered providers, to provide registered providers with the type of tenure mix that they need. We need to be a bit more realistic and flexible about that.

The key issue is to get houses built—to focus upon the quantity—in order to alleviate the affordability problems that make people so dependent upon social housing in the first place. But absolutely, social rented housing is very important. We are not trying to say that we do not want to build it.

Kate Henderson: Social housing is needed in every part of the country. What is really important is that we have objectively assessed needs and that those needs are then incorporated in local plans, and that we deliver mixed, sustainable communities that reflect the needs of those areas.

I will just dispute a little bit the point about the London situation and the London plan. London is the only part of the country where we have a strategic development strategy. The reason that we have a crash of supply in London is not because of strategic planning. It is because of a building safety crisis, hugely high inflation, huge land prices, an absolute crisis in temporary accommodation, and huge pressures that have happened across the social housing sector over the last 15 years in terms of cuts and caps to our income.

To get out of the situation in London and in the rest of the country, we need a comprehensive planning system that is based on objectively assessed need; a long-term housing strategy that looks at our existing homes as well as new homes; a rent settlement, including convergence, and funding that addresses building safety as well as new supply. Those are all things that the Government are looking at, which is welcome.

As for bringing forward those spatial development strategies in the rest of the country, it is really important that they have a focus on social and affordable housing, and that that should be mandated within them. The percentages will need to reflect the context of the areas and the need in those areas, so there will need to be a degree of flexibility in accordance with place, but it is vital that that is mandated as part of the remit of those strategies. We welcome their introduction.

[Olly Glover]

Q Mr Stevens, you mentioned local plans briefly in one of your previous answers. Do you feel that the draft Bill sufficiently considers the interaction between the proposed spatial development strategies and existing local plan processes? Kate Henderson, it would also be good to hear your views on that.

James Stevens: I have been involved in commenting on, I think, all the last four iterations of the London plan, so I can see that it is a successful model, in that it does a lot of the heavy lifting for local authorities in terms of identifying broad locations of growth, but in particular setting out the housing requirement for all the constituent local authorities. Once that strategic plan is adopted, it becomes part of the legal development plan, and it means that whatever stage the local authority is at with developing its plan, at least the policies, including the policies for the number and distribution of housing set out in that spatial plan, become part of the development plan, so it does assist the Government in ensuring that their new mandatory standard method is embedded within the planning system as quickly as possible.

I have been involved also in all the spatial strategies produced by the mayoral combined authorities to a greater or lesser extent over the last six years. I think the Government’s measures to reform the governance so that with spatial development strategies, the Mayor only needs majority support rather than unanimity is a very important step forward.

Kate Henderson: Returning to a system of strategic spatial planning is really welcome. Trying to work out our housing need based on 300-plus local authorities does not get us up to the sum total of actually doing things comprehensively. In terms of addressing the housing crisis, economic growth and opportunity, nature recovery, landscapes, our utility provision and how we get to work, we need to work on a larger than local scale. The ability to co-ordinate all that infrastructure at a spatial scale where authorities are working together makes a lot of sense.

What is going to be a challenge is how we do this in a comprehensive way when there are huge capacity pressures on local authorities. There are some welcome measures in the Bill around ringfencing planning fees to give some additional capacity there and we support that, but how do you do the strategic planning function, in getting local authorities to have local plans in place and getting strategic plans in place at the same time, while also recognising that we are having local government reorganisation in the forthcoming English devolution Bill?

We would really like the long-term housing strategy, which is due to come forward this summer, to be the overarching framework for at least the next decade for how we transform the housing offer to people in this country. There is a question here about boosting capacity in the system. There is also about where levels of primacy are going to sit when it comes to decision making. There are lots of different things coming forward, so we need to be really clear, if there is a spatial development strategy coming forward and local plans coming forward, about how they will interact, how they will be democratically consulted on and agreed, and where the primacy of decision making is. That is what we expect more detail on in the secondary legislation and consultations to come.

James Stevens: There is a risk, though, that the prospect of a spatial development strategy will slow down local plan making. That is something we are quite anxious about. That is what we saw in Greater Manchester. The promise of a spatial strategy for Greater Manchester meant that for about 10 years, I think nine of the 10 constituent local authorities did not bother producing a local plan, so the Government need to be very clear. It is set out in the explanatory notes to the Bill, but the Government need to be very clear that local plan production must not stop under any circumstance.

Planning and Infrastructure Bill (Sixth sitting)

Rachel Taylor Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 13th May 2025 Public Bill Committees

[Olly Glover (Didcot and Wantage) (LD)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Ms Jardine. I thank the Minister for speaking to this clause, and I am pleased to say that the Liberal Democrat Benches are keen to support it. I am also pleased to agree with the Conservative spokesperson on this, although I was disappointed to hear that his preferred method of transport involves hydrogen, rather than joining me on my bicycle, which I very much enjoyed riding in his constituency a couple of months ago.

It is important that we do everything we can to support the roll-out of electric vehicles, which is essential to our goals on air quality and climate change. The United Kingdom has a long way to go, with just 20% of vehicle sales last year being electric, compared with 90% in Norway. Hopefully, these measures will help us to close the gap.

I also welcome the Minister’s assurance that this will not undermine the requirements to make sure that street works are done professionally and repaired with full competence. For any Members with an interest in the subject, the Transport Committee is doing a detailed inquiry into it. Hon. Members are right to point out that that is often a major source of frustration for our constituents. I am very pleased to support this clause.

[Rachel Taylor (North Warwickshire and Bedworth) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship this afternoon, Ms Jardine. I strongly support the clause and was really glad to see that the Electric Vehicle Association England welcomes the change. It will make it easier, cheaper and faster to install public chargers for EVs.

There is a battery assembly plant run by JLR in my constituency. We are making more components for electric vehicles, but my constituents find it really difficult to make the jump to invest in an electric vehicle, because there are just not enough electric vehicle charging points in the town centres around my constituency. Anything that makes it easier and removes the blockages will be extremely helpful.

I echo some of the points made by the Opposition spokespeople. We must make sure that the charging points are installed carefully and thoughtfully, which means taking into account the pavement requirements of pedestrians, particularly those with pushchairs or using wheelchairs. Will the Minister explain how that will be taken into account?

I definitely welcome this change, and it is a huge step forward. Particularly in more rural constituencies like mine, people need to be able to drive their electric vehicles in and out of town centres for work, and to be able to charge them.

[Lewis Cocking (Broxbourne) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Jardine. I support giving consumers choice and making it easier to install electric car charging points. This will be a massive help for people in flats—if they want to make the switch to an EV and cannot charge their vehicle at home, the more public charging points there are, the better—but we need to think about it carefully.

My constituents are fed up with multiple utility companies digging up the roads willy-nilly—sometimes, the same stretch of road. There does not seem to be any logic behind where roadworks will be, and multiple roadworks happen at the same time.

We need to issue guidance. If utility companies, councils and other authorities are going to install loads of charging points, it needs to be done in a logical way. What work are the Government doing with all the different companies and operators in this space? We do not want to see consumers turning up to different charge points that all have different connectors. We need to make this as easy as possible for the consumer, no matter what car they drive.

I reiterate that we cannot just dig up roads willy-nilly. What discussions are the Government having with the companies in this space to make it as easy as possible for consumers to access charge points?

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[David Simmonds]

I know that my hon. Friend the Member for Hamble Valley wants to raise some points, but I want to ask a couple of slightly technical questions.

The first relates to clause 44(6), on directions in relation to planning fees. The publication of a schedule of planning fees is part of the statutory council tax-fixing process, which every local authority is required to undertake. As we hear from our residents, that generally takes place in February and comes into effect at the start of the following financial year. If a local authority publishes its proposals, as the Minister described in respect of cost recovery, it needs to be confident that any change—in the form of a direction from the Secretary of State—will come in a timely manner that enables further consultation so that the lawful council tax fixing can occur. What provisions will be in place to ensure that any objection from the Secretary of State will come in a timely manner?

My second slightly technical question is this. My experience of planning authorities is that there is huge variation in their cost bases. That partly reflects a shortage of staff, but it also reflects different local arrangements. An authority with large numbers of householder applications may use an outsourced service to process them at a relatively low cost. However, if senior, experienced, in-house planning officers are responsible for managing all planning applications, that will significantly increase the cost. Neither of those things is illegitimate; each is a manifestation of the democratic decision making of elected politicians about what is appropriate for their community.

It would be helpful to understand what process the Secretary of State will go through in determining what a reasonable level of planning fees is. For example, will she consider the requirement for specialist input at a technical level because there is a significant amount of radon gas, which is found in certain challenging sites because of their topographical nature? Whether there is a requirement for remediation and specialist consultancy will be critical to a proper assessment of that planning application. Other local authorities may have development opportunities of a different nature. Will the Minister set out his thinking on that? That would be enormously helpful.

[Rachel Taylor]

When the Committee met the witnesses a week or so ago, we touched on section 106 agreements and the role of planning authority lawyers in that process. I think that the fees for processing and determining applications include the process for agreeing a section 106 agreement. Is it the Government’s intention to include costs arising from the legal department’s time and efforts in determining those applications in the ringfenced planning application fees? I am aware that there is a severe shortage of qualified and experienced property lawyers in both local authorities in my constituency, as well as a shortage of planning officers.

[Gideon Amos]

I rise to support the thrust of clause 44. For a very long time, we Liberal Democrats have called for local authorities to be free to set their own fees for planning applications, so we welcome the approach.

I seek a couple of clarifications from the Minister. Does clause 44 refer to planning applications and not to listed building consent? I think we all share a desire to keep listed building applications free of charge, so will the Minister let us know about that in due course? Local authorities are struggling for funding. In my own Somerset council, £2 out of every £3 of council funding is spent on care for adults and children, leaving £1 out of every £3 provided by council tax for everything else, including planning, housing, enforcement and environment, so funding is crucially needed.

Somerset council has asked for the freedom and flexibility to set its own planning fees. One challenge it faces, in common with other planning authorities and planning departments, is the market rate paid to professional town planners, who frequently find that the level of remuneration in councils is worse. Will the Minister confirm that local authorities will be free to set salaries above the market rate to attract planning officers in circumstances when the market conditions make that necessary? The Minister may not wish to answer all my questions now, but I hope that he can address them at some point.

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[Lewis Cocking]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Jardine.

I have a few questions for the Minister. I am pleased to see this clause. When I was leader of Broxbourne council, we changed the council constitution to do exactly what the Government are trying to do here. I want to know how many local authorities will be affected, because I know that many of them already have mandatory training for planning committees in their constitution.

What I have not seen in the Bill is how often council officers will be required to carry out the training—will it be once per term of office, which means once every four years, or annually? I cannot seem to find any detail on when elected councillors will be required to do the training. I would like the Minister to comment on what he envisages as a workable interval. Obviously the training has to be timely, because there are always changes to the national planning policy framework and local plans, but not too exhaustive, so that councils can still make planning decisions.

The Minister speaks about speeding up planning decisions. I would not want councils to fall into the trap of not having enough people with the right certificate, and the right training at the right time, to carry on their quasi-judicial function of planning. I should be grateful for the Minister’s comments.

[Rachel Taylor]

Amendment 152 is well intentioned and sets out a number of matters that planning authorities should take into account when organising training. There are also other aspects of the planning process to consider, including how we make better provision for electric vehicles. The last major piece of planning legislation from 1990—it has endured for 35 years—is very prescriptive about the content of training for members and officers, but it will be extremely difficult to encapsulate everything that is needed.

I certainly think that the requirements for people with disabilities and for climate and nature are sometimes conflicting. I have seen a number of planning schemes where trees are put in the middle of the road or pavement. Although those environments look nice, they do not accommodate people with disabilities, such as sight or mobility problems.

We have to adapt as things move on, and this is exactly the sort of thing that I would ask the Minister to consider in guidance that could be regularly updated, as opposed to it forming part of the Bill. I certainly support the amendment’s intention, and I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley (Anna Dixon) for tabling it.

[Gideon Amos]

I rise to support amendment 152. The Liberal Democrats have a similar measure on the amendment paper, new clause 11, which also refers to the accessibility of housing. We are pleased to support this amendment, and we support training for planning authorities in general. In the Minister’s summing up, can he address the concern of some organisations that, as well as accessibility, the training needs to include conservation and heritage?

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[Matthew Pennycook]

I refer back to my point: the hon. Gentleman may take the view, which is a perfectly coherent and respectable view, that a national scheme of delegation is wrong in principle. That is not the Government’s view, because we think there are significant advantages to be had from introducing greater consistency and certainty about what decisions go to a committee, so we can have a uniform approach across the country.

[Rachel Taylor]

Does the Minister agree that very often the controversial decisions that go to planning committees and are declined by them, leading to an appeal, result in higher council tax for residents, because of the huge cost of appeals, reviews and so on? A national scheme of delegation, where it is clear which decisions can be made under delegated authorities and which cannot, will therefore simplify the process for developers, remove the delays and costs for them, and keep costs down for local residents.

[Matthew Pennycook]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right that it is not a cost-free decision to refuse an application where a committee does so on grounds that are not robust. That does not apply in the vast majority of instances. As I say, most committees are comprised of elected members who are diligent, considerate and aware of the risks. Through the mandatory training that we have just discussed, we are trying to get to a situation where elected members are trained and are more cognisant of planning law and the considerations they have to take forward. We want to ensure that there is consistency across the country.

As I say, there are two issues at play here. Some Members may take the view that a national scheme of delegation is wrong in principle. If Members do not take that view, which is not the Government’s view, the debate that we should be having, and will have—as I said on Second Reading, we will bring forward details, so that we can consider them alongside the Bill—is what the most appropriate national scheme of delegation would be, to achieve the right balance between making sure that the most controversial, major applications come before committees and entrusting expert planning officers to make other decisions.

Planning and Infrastructure Bill (Fifth sitting)

Rachel Taylor Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 13th May 2025 Public Bill Committees

[Paul Holmes]

We welcome clause 25, and I welcome the Minister to his position. He has a lot to live up to after those clauses, and I will continue to be nice to him. I say well done also to the other Minister for the constructive way he has been working on this Committee. Opposition Members do appreciate that. Because we are not stupid, we realise it is sometimes a challenge to win votes. Although the votes we undertake here are closer than the ones on the Floor of the House of Commons, let that not be an encouragement to us to call more.

As I said, we welcome clause 25, which allows public authorities to charge fees for services related to specific highway schemes. None the less, some clarity is needed on several points. While recovering costs is reasonable, the clause must be carefully implemented with safeguards to ensure fairness, accessibility and consistency across England and Wales.

The Minister has stated that this is a reserved matter for certain statutory bodies and local planning authorities, but will he outline how this goes with his perfectly admirable stance on devolution? Will he look to allow new combined authorities and mayoralties to take on some of the powers, or is he planning for them to be devolved even further, to mayoral authorities coming on stream rapidly from the Department under this Government? We would like some clarity on how he sees the powers being amended once local authorities and some of those statutory bodies no longer exist or are reformed.

Has the Minister considered the impact of the fees on small developers, charities and community groups? Could they create barriers or delays in any process? Will there be provisions allowing fee waivers or reductions for certain applications, such as for community-led or rural projects? How will disputes about fee fairness be resolved, and will there be an appeals process? What guidance will there be to ensure consistency in fee application across regions, to avoid significant variations from one local authority or statutory body to another? Finally, could the fees delay or discourage essential infrastructure development, especially in areas with planning capacity challenges?

[Rachel Taylor]

I acted for developers before coming into the House, and I know their biggest concern was always delays, not the fees that the local authority charged for doing these things. As a result of the lack of capacity in local authorities, there has been a move to more unadopted roads on small estates, which has its own problems for property owners going forward. I really welcome this provision, because it lays sensible steps toward making it easier for developers to complete their projects sooner, which enables them to make more money.

I think that the offset in costs will be welcomed by small developers. This provision is particularly important in the small authorities that cover large geographical areas, because it will enable them to go out and make visits. To give an example, my client was required to build a pavement but could not do so while there was a vaccination centre up the road. The local authority could not, under the fee structure, find the time to come out and visit the site, which would have enabled it to make a more sensible decision. In general terms, this provision is really welcome and developers, both small and large, will see this as a very positive step forward.

[Lewis Cocking]

I have a few comments, although I support the principle of this provision. There is not enough capacity in some planning departments, so I agree that fee cost recovery and some of the additional fees, particularly those relating to highways matters, are really important for local authorities, but I have a few questions. When will the money be paid? Will it be paid before the development has started, so there is capacity in the system? People sometimes make planning applications and get planning permissions but do not actually build out the development, so will the fees still need to be paid in those cases?

I have some concerns that I would like the Minister to comment on. Some authorities still have section 106 agreements, and I am concerned that developers will just move money from those section 106 agreements—money that is to be put into education or healthcare, for example—by saying in a viability assessment that they now have to pay these fees to the local authorities, particularly around highways. How can we stop it being the same money, just moved around? These fees should be additional to the money from section 106 agreements that the council was already getting, as they are going directly into capacity issues within planning departments. I am worried that developers will try to play games by just moving the same money around the system or cutting the same pie in a different way, which will not help local authorities. I would like to hear the Minister’s response to those comments, but I wholeheartedly support what the Government are trying to do in this specific case.

Planning and Infrastructure Bill (Eighth sitting)

Rachel Taylor Excerpts

Committee stage
Wednesday 14th May 2025 Public Bill Committees

[Rachel Taylor (North Warwickshire and Bedworth) (Lab)]

The shadow Minister is making important points about how we consult the public, but we heard clearly from him this morning that that was the role of local councillors. I refer him to new section 12I to the Planning and Compulsory Purchase Act 2004, which provides that any spatial development strategy must be examined by the public. Another layer of consultation would be an unnecessary addition when there is already in-built public consultation in the Bill.

[Paul Holmes]

I genuinely thank the hon. Lady for that intervention. She has clearly examined the Bill, which is such a big piece of legislation—in the right way. I simply say that an examination of and consultation on the creation of a spatial development strategy would not always have what people want in it, or do not want in it, as its ultimate end goal once the draft has been put together. When a draft spatial strategy has been put together, people should be able to have their say on it.

The hon. Lady will know from her previous career, as I do from mine, that when people want to have their say on something in a consultation that an authority proposes, some will be happy—maybe they are getting what they want from it—but some will never be happy. They will always want to grumble; we have all had a few of those in our inboxes. However, we believe it is right that once something as key and new as these strategies is brought together, local people should be able to have their say.

The hon. Lady is absolutely right that there is a requirement on strategic planning authorities to consult prior and during. We are saying that once the draft strategy is put forward, it is crucial that local people have their chance to have a say. If a strategic planning authority is confident that it has made the right decision on a local development based on the consultations it has already done, it should not be scared or hindered by a consultation to see what happens in respect of the finished product.

--- Later in debate ---

[Rachel Taylor]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Paul Holmes]

I will, but then I want to ask the Minister a question to see whether he will answer, in which case we might not press the amendment to a vote.

--- Later in debate ---

[Matthew Pennycook]

I come back to the point I have made several times now: SDSs cannot allocate sites. There is a role for local plans underneath SDSs, which must be in general conformity with them. We would have failed if we simply ensured that SDSs were big local plans with the level of detail required on site allocation for a local plan. I gently say to the hon. Gentleman that SDSs will not opine on whether a particular development on a particular plot of land is acceptable. They may outline the areas of general housing growth that the strategic authority or constituent member authorities want to be brought forward in that sub-region.

Again, I am more than happy to go away and set out in chapter and verse the way we think the clause might operate—if we ever get to clause stand part, I might be able to outline it in a little bit more detail—but I think that when hon. Members grasp the full detail of what we want these strategies to do and how we think they should be prepared and developed, they may be reassured. If not, we can come back to the matter on Report.

[Rachel Taylor]

This really is a semantic point about language. I fully appreciate that there is a massive difference between notification and consultation, but new section 12H(5) is very clear that that notification is also required to contain an invitation to the relevant person to make representations. Surely an invitation to somebody to make a representation is a consultation?

[Matthew Pennycook]

I did not teach the subject, so I do not know. I am content to be schooled by the hon. Member for North Herefordshire on the philosophical meaning of a consultation versus notification. As I read it, the relevant strategic planning authority has a duty to produce and then publish a draft SDS, and they are required to notify all the groups under subsection (2). It is not exhaustive; they can add additional groups if they want to consult further. They must include, as my hon. Friend the Member for North Warwickshire and Bedworth rightly says, an invitation to those persons to make representations, which will be considered.

Strategic planning authorities have the discretion to go further. There is nothing stopping relevant authorities undertaking wider or different forms of consultation if they wish to inform their strategy. I think what we are talking about is somewhat a semantic difference. I will leave it there. I have spoken enough about this and the reasons why the Government do not think the amendment is necessary. If hon. Members feel strongly enough, they can either press it to a vote in Committee or we can return to it on Report.