Planning and Infrastructure Bill

Toby Perkins Excerpts

Thursday 13th November 2025 Commons Chamber

[Matthew Pennycook]

I am sure my hon. Friend will appreciate that I cannot comment on individual planning applications, but the Government have been consistently clear that meeting our ambitious development targets need not and should not come at the expense of the environment. Part 3 unlocks a win-win for nature and the economy. Although I cannot commit future Governments to anything, we are confident that the nature restoration fund and environmental delivery plans that part 3 facilitates will result in the delivery of more homes and infrastructure in a more timely manner, as well as improved environmental outcomes.

In respect of Lords amendment 40, I would simply say that there is no convincing rationale for arbitrarily limiting the application of EDPs to strategic landscape matters and thereby preventing their use in supporting the recovery of protected sites and species where appropriate. I remind hon. Members that the Bill is now explicit that the Secretary of State can only approve an EDP where the effect of the conservation measures will materially outweigh the negative effect of development on the conservation status of each identified environmental feature. Moreover, both Natural England and the Secretary of State will have to take account of the best available scientific evidence when preparing, amending or revoking an EDP, and EDPs will be subject to robust scrutiny.

On Third Reading in the other place, we amended the Bill to allow the Government to bring forward regulations setting out how EDPs would prioritise addressing the negative effect of developments. Lords amendment 40 would undermine one of the core principles of the Bill —namely, that the alternative approach provided for by the NRF can apply to both sites and species. For that reason, I urge the House to reject the amendment.

[Mr Toby Perkins (Chesterfield) (Lab)]

Will the Minister give way?

[Matthew Pennycook]

I will not, I am afraid, as I am bringing my remarks to a close, but I am happy to respond to any points when winding up the debate.

I appreciate the leave you have given me, Madam Deputy Speaker, to set out the Government’s position on the large number of amendments before us. I urge the House to support the Government’s position, and I look forward to the remainder of the debate.

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[David Simmonds (Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner) (Con)]

The Opposition join the Minister in thanking our colleagues in the other place for their sterling work. I also thank my hon. Friend the Member for Hamble Valley (Paul Holmes), who has been our shadow Minister and contributed enormously to the debate in Committee.

I welcome the Minister back to the Dispatch Box for a further discussion on planning and infrastructure, and congratulate him on being the last man standing from the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government team that was appointed in Labour’s golden summer of 2024. As he surveys the bombed-out wreckage of that ministerial team and knows that he is the only one not to have succumbed to friendly fire, I am sure that he shares my sense of disappointment that, after a year of debate and discussion, we have not made the progress that the British people expect from us in the delivery of planning and infrastructure.

The Opposition have three fairly simply tests to apply to the amendments and the Bill as a whole. First, does this deliver the required reform of our administrative state—the planning process, statutory undertakers, decision makers and all those who play a part—to ensure the swift delivery of infrastructure? Secondly, does this create the necessary incentives for host communities to support and embrace the opportunities that development offers? Thirdly—and most critically, we think, having undertaken many planning reforms during our time in office—does this get the market building the 1.5 million new homes that already have planning permission? The entirety of the Government’s target already has consent, with no further loss of green belt or environmental impacts.

[Mr Perkins]

Many people are concerned about this issue, which the shadow Minister’s party also faced when in government. Why does he think that developments do not get built despite their planning applications getting approval?

[David Simmonds]

I am going to develop my answer to that, because that is the question we face as a country. We set ourselves a target in the last Parliament of delivering 1 million homes, and we fell just short of that, but when this Government set out their commitment to net zero, I do not think they intended 23 of the 33 London boroughs to have net zero new housing starts, according to a new Bidwells report on the housing market in London. They did not anticipate a 20% reduction in completions of new homes. They did not anticipate a 55.9% drop in the number of new housing starts here in our capital city or a Labour mayor delivering 4.9% of the target set for him by this Government, despite record levels of funding. The context, as we saw today, of growth in our country falling to just 0.1%, is a significant clue to the answer to the hon. Gentleman’s question.

When we assess this Bill and these amendments against those tests, it is clear that whatever lofty ambitions some may have, this Bill fails in the eyes of the Office for Budget Responsibility, because it does not generate the level of growth and contribution that the Government promised. That is reflected in the hasty implementation of large-scale amendments in the Lords that were not even contemplated at the Commons stages. It fails in the eyes of homebuyers—the many people who aspire to get on the property ladder for the first time. It fails in the eyes of our farmers, who were hoping it would make it easier to create the infrastructure that would make our farming and food sector more efficient. It fails in the eyes of the developers, who are talking about packing up and taking their investment abroad because the UK market is so poor at the moment. It fails in the eyes of the builders, who see no measures in the Bill to address the shortfalls they all face.

It fails in the eyes of the travelling public, who have watched this Government cancel projects such as the expansion of the A12, which was set to support the delivery of thousands more homes. And it fails in the eyes of lovers of nature, because for all that has been said, there is still a grave lack of clarity about how the measures in the Bill will support the ambitions we all have to balance the delivery of new homes and infra- structure with the needs of a nature-depleted country, to protect the natural environment that we all cherish. The Government signalled before they even embarked on this legislation that their intention was to reduce green-belt protections, which raises the suspicion that this is not a holistic agenda; it is about making it as easy and cheap as possible to build on the green belt, without the strategic underpinning that delivers the homes and infrastructure that our nation needs.

[Mr Perkins]

The hon. Gentleman has not actually answered my question. He is talking about the policies of the last 15 months, but the problem he is alluding to of developers sitting there with planning permission and not building has been going on for 15 years or more. Can he be realistic about what his solution is to get developers to build the developments they have planning permission for?

[David Simmonds]

As the Leader of the Opposition said at Prime Minister’s questions, we would not start from here—we would not have made the mistakes this Government have made, which have led to the crash in house building that I outlined.

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[Neil Duncan-Jordan]

As several hon. Members have already mentioned, we have to find the correct balance between building the houses that we so desperately need and protecting our vulnerable nature and the habitats that we want to preserve.

The Wildlife and Countryside Link states that

“some species cannot be traded away for mitigation elsewhere. Once local populations are destroyed, they are unlikely ever to return.”

If we want the Bill to be a genuine win-win for development and for nature, and to keep our manifesto pledge to reverse nature’s decline, environmental delivery plans must be limited to where there is clear evidence they can actually work.

[Mr Perkins]

My hon. Friend is right that there are examples of where species should not be able to be moved, but Lords amendment 40 does not relate to some cases but to all cases, and it sets out in statute that species should never be moved. Does he agree that the Government’s approach, which will prevent species from being moved in many cases, is better than setting in statute something that could block so many opportunities?

[Neil Duncan-Jordan]

I was about to come to that very point, and how serious people feel this issue is. The Wildlife Trusts have nearly 1 million members. The Royal Society for the Protection of Birds has more than 1 million members, and the National Trust has more than 5 million members. There is a massive base of people in this country who care deeply about nature. If we get this wrong, the risk is not just environmental, but political. People will not take it kindly if their local chalk stream is degraded, for example.

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[Dr Savage]

On behalf of many of my constituents, I rise to speak in strong support of Lords amendment 40. Nature unites us in a way that few other things can. Even the hon. Member for Clacton (Nigel Farage) told me of his love for nature after the Second Reading of my Climate and Nature Bill. Our love for the fields, woods and waterways that shape our lives can cut across deep political divisions, ages and backgrounds. We all want future generations to walk the same landscapes, hear the same birdsong and feel the same sense of belonging to the natural world that so many of us have known.

Lords amendment 40 recognises that truth. It would ensure that nature is treated not as an optional extra but as an essential—something that must be protected and restored alongside meeting our urgent housing need. It would limit environmental delivery plans to areas where a broad, strategic approach genuinely works, as the hon. Member for Poole (Neil Duncan-Jordan) mentioned; examples include nutrient neutrality, and water and air quality.

Without this safeguard, the Bill risks undoing decades of progress in protections for our most vulnerable species. A big-picture approach cannot replace the precise protections that bats, dormice and great crested newts depend on. One cannot ask a dormouse to move house, or offset repeated local losses somewhere else. If we allow that pattern to continue, national extinction becomes a real possibility. This is how nature, the web of life, works. We cannot dismiss small snails simply because they are small. It is the smallest creatures that inhabit our topsoil that form the foundation of the entire ecosystem.

In South Cotswolds, the bond between people and nature is strong, but our area is one of the most environmentally constrained: about 80% of the Cotswolds district lies within the Cotswolds national landscape, and with much of the remainder already developed or at flood risk, we will struggle to meet our target of more than 1,000 new homes every year. Constituents who cherish our wildlife and landscapes have written to me expressing heartfelt concerns about what that level of development will mean for the places that have defined their lives.

The Labour manifesto promised planning reform that “increases climate resilience” and “promotes nature recovery”, yet the Secretary of State recently rejected amendments that would do exactly that. His “Build, baby, build” slogan suggests that we must choose between growth and nature, but that is not true: wildlife protections are not blocking new homes. Councillors and developers alike point to land availability, infrastructure and delivery capacity as the constraining factors. There is no justification for weakening nature protections when it is entirely possible to build in ways that benefit both people and planet.

Lords amendment 40 reflects a real cross-party consensus and is backed by the Wildlife Trusts, the RSPB and the Better Planning Coalition. It would offer clarity, reduce legal risk and support sustainable development while strengthening genuine nature recovery—which, incidentally, will also help in climate change mitigation. Above all, the amendment recognises that we are not, and do not need to be, in conflict with nature; we are part of it. This is our chance to show that good planning can be both responsible and ambitious, and that we can deliver the homes that people so urgently need while safeguarding the natural world that sustains us all.

I urge Members and the Government to support Lords amendment 40. I urge this House to choose clarity over confusion, evidence over ideology, and long-term stewardship over short-term slogans. Today we have the chance to choose a planning system that is efficient and fair, that is good for business and for communities and, above all, that is good for the wildlife and landscapes that define our country. We can choose to honour our responsibility to future generations, who will judge us not so much by how fast we built, but by what we protected and what we passed on.

[Mr Perkins]

Building 1.5 million homes to tackle the housing crisis at the same time as protecting British wildlife is an issue that the general public are rightly passionate about, and one that Government must get right for people, for nature and for the economy. The Environmental Audit Committee, which I chair, initiated an inquiry to explore that exact question last November, and we will shortly be able to share our conclusions and recommendations to Government. The Planning and Infrastructure Bill is a central plank of the Government’s plan to unlock the planning system in order to deliver the housing and infrastructure that Britain needs.

I was interested in the contribution of the hon. Member for Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner (David Simmonds), who rightly identified the issue of developers sitting on land. I have to say, as someone who has been in local and parliamentary politics for 23 years, that that has always been the case, so it was unconvincing that, having identified the issue, he did not seem to have any solutions. He listed a number of things that the Government might consider, without enlightening us as to whether he supported any of them, so it is clear that the Government will have to crack on alone if they wish to address this important issue.

The Bill has been significantly improved during its passage, and my original concerns about part 3—which were shared by many others—have been allayed. I have been through enough debates on legislation in this Chamber where people have accused Ministers of not listening to give credit to my hon. Friend the Housing Minister for having listened to criticisms and skilfully clarified how the Government will respond. I thank him for that.

Unfortunately, the Minister’s work has been made more difficult by briefings that characterise nature as a blocker to development. In fact, research from the Wildlife Trusts found that bats and great crested newts were a factor in just 3% of planning appeal decisions. I think these anti-nature narratives are at best lazy, and often unhelpful; they distract from some of the more significant challenges in the planning system, such as the lack of resources and skills in local authorities to support good planning applications. Tackling those genuine planning barriers, alongside this Bill, will be essential to building the homes that we need.

Lords amendment 40 would limit environmental delivery plans to only certain environmental impacts, including water pollution, water availability and air pollution. Addressing environmental impacts at a strategic level, as enabled by the EDPs introduced by the Bill, has the potential in some circumstances to deliver more benefits for the environment and faster planning outcomes. In some circumstances, this strategic approach would absolutely not be appropriate—for example, as my hon. Friend the Member for Poole (Neil Duncan-Jordan) alluded to, harm to a site-loyal species would often be impossible to redress in a different location.

I do believe, though, that it is reasonable to steer clear of stipulating on the face of the Bill which environmental issues EDPs could be developed for in future, as Lords amendment 40 would do. If guided by current robust scientific evidence, or evidence that might come to light in future, it is possible to imagine that a strategic approach for addressing environmental impacts could be found to be appropriate for issues beyond only water and air pollution.

[John McDonnell]

My hon. Friend is making an extremely considered speech. On that point, which was also made by my hon. Friend the Member for Poole (Neil Duncan-Jordan), we now have concerns being expressed by virtually every environmental organisation we have ever worked with, including SERA—the Socialist Environment and Resources Association—Labour’s own environment campaign.

Could there not be a compromise here? If the Government were really clear on the process for the future, the issues that my hon. Friend has just raised could be considered. Then, we could see that there was a strategic approach on some issues, but that there would be further consideration on others that the Government could come back to. There is potential there for a compromise with the other House as part of this ping-pong process.

[Mr Perkins]

I thank my right hon. Friend for that contribution. The Lords amendment is sensible and well-intentioned. Even if it is rejected, as the Government are minded to do, he makes an important point: we need to get clarity that, in the majority of cases, the approach would be of this narrower type. The Minister has given us some assurance that, in the event we start seeing certain EDPs misused, we will be able to scrutinise that process, so it will be interesting to hear what he has to say in response to my right hon. Friend’s point.

I welcome the Government’s package of amendments during the Lords stages, including one that specifies that robust scientific evidence must be used by Natural England to develop an EDP. These improvements largely address the original concerns of the Office for Environmental Protection. However, I urge the Minister to consider proactively providing a list of environmental issues that might be considered suitable for EDPs. That would provide reassurance that this new and powerful tool will be directed only towards diffuse pollution issues such as those set out in amendment 40, where EDPs will have environmental benefits and provide the most value for development.

Amendment 39 would embed a brownfield-first approach in the new SDS. Building on brownfield land can help to revitalise towns and cities, as well as avoiding developing greenfield land. However, it can be more expensive: there are often clean-up jobs to be done on site. In large urban centres, brownfield development is often still profitable, but, in smaller towns such as Chesterfield, the additional factors in developing brownfield land can make development unprofitable, so sites sit undeveloped, as the Robinsons site in my constituency has for more than 20 years now. It would therefore be good to hear from the Minister what more the Government can do to promote development on brownfield land.

Both nature and safe, secure housing are enormously important to people, and our constituents deserve both: they deserve to breathe clean air, to live in safe and healthy homes, and for their children to be able to play in a local river, free from pollution, but they also deserve to have affordable housing in the communities in which they live. That is the balance that the Government must strike. Although the EDPs introduced by the Bill are an important tool, they are only part of the answer to solving the housing crisis and to improving our natural environment.

This is an important Bill and is much improved. We need to ensure not only that we get it passed as soon as possible but that the work of protecting nature does not begin or end with this Bill and carries on long after it.

[Liz Jarvis (Eastleigh) (LD)]

I will focus my comments on Lords amendment 38. I have heard from many constituents who are deeply concerned about the potential environmental impact of this Bill and how it might affect the River Itchen, the precious chalk stream that runs through my constituency of Eastleigh. The River Itchen is a site of special scientific interest and a special area of conservation, but despite these designations, it has been subjected to repeated sewage discharges by Southern Water, threatening its delicate ecosystems and putting species at risk. We have incredible natural habitats that are being destroyed because existing protections have failed. Indeed, in the latest Environment Agency assessment, Southern Water was handed a two-star rating after causing a shocking 269 pollution incidents last year, including 15 classified as serious.

According to the 2024-25 chalk stream annual review, 83% of England’s chalk streams are failing to achieve good ecological status, which is disgraceful. That is why Lords amendment 38 is so important to my constituents and to communities across the country who live alongside these extraordinary habitats. There is no reason why we cannot have a thoughtful planning process that protects our precious natural environment and delivers the social and affordable housing that our communities desperately need, with the infrastructure to support it. We have an opportunity to show that development and environmental responsibility are not competing interests, but shared objectives. By embedding these principles in the Bill, we can address the housing crisis while simultaneously protecting our rivers, habitats and green spaces.

Lords amendment 38 would establish much-needed new protections for chalk streams and impose a responsibility on strategic planning authorities to enhance chalk stream environments. I saw the urgent need to address this issue when I visited with representatives of the Hampshire & Isle of Wight Wildlife Trust this summer, when I was able to test the water quality of the River Itchen. With the help of experts, we saw at first hand the very low levels of biodiversity and high nitrate levels. I fully support the proposition that spatial development strategies must list chalk streams in their strategic area, and safeguard them from irreplaceable damage by outlining clear measures to protect from environmental harm.

Greater and appropriate consideration for our chalk streams is long overdue. I welcome the fact that, under Lords amendment 38, local spatial development strategies would vary according to the needs of the particular area, allowing strategies to set different balancing points between local conservation and development needs in different places. It is disappointing that the Government are unwilling to retain the amendment. Will the Minister instead commit to strengthening existing planning mechanisms and ensure that water companies are held to account, so that chalk streams are protected? This is such an important issue for my constituents, and anything less than a cast-iron guarantee is not good enough.

People across the country deeply value and treasure our natural environment. We need to deliver the housing and infrastructure that are vital for our communities, but let us not treat our chalk streams, wildlife and habitats as an afterthought.

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[Mike Reader]

The hon. Lady is completely right that there are lots of empty homes. I am sure that there must have been some amendments tabled by the Greens that I have missed, and that they have been constructive and worked with Government to address that issue through the Bill.

Working cross-party is what I have always tried to do in this place. I am proud to chair the all-party parliamentary group for excellence in the built environment and the all-party parliamentary group on infrastructure and, even though the Minister and I do not always agree with the membership of the group—I have to say, some of the members do take unwarranted and quite grotty shots at the Minister—I am proud to chair the Representative Planning Group with Simon Dudley, the treasurer of the Conservatives.

I am pleased that the Government have recognised a point that I raised on Second Reading that solving the housing crisis will take action from the whole Government. The Bill is part of it, but there are many other things that we need to do to fix the mess that we inherited. I am also reassured that concerns that I and others raised on Second Reading around how EDPs will work have been recognised, particularly in some of the latest amendments, as well as by the Minister’s comments on how brownfield will be dealt with, which is so critical.

[Mr Perkins]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right about the housing issues that we all see in our constituencies, so it is interesting that there are so few advocates for building. Whenever there is a new housing application in Chesterfield, we get people who live nearby saying, “I’m a bit concerned about this.” We get lots of people saying that there are not enough houses around, but they never come to us and say, “Please can you support one of these new applications?” Maybe we should give some thought to how we do more to build for the huge number of people who are inadequately housed. We need more housing developments in order to actually create some movement in favour of these developments.

[Mike Reader]

My hon. Friend could not be more right. Part of why we set up the cross-party Representative Planning Group was to create an opportunity to bring forward legislation that ensures that all voices are heard in the housing debate, not just the loudest and angriest and those with lots of spare time on their hands.

I am surprised by the position taken by the Conservatives. I was fortunate to sit on the Committee for the devolution Bill. I recognise that the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner (David Simmonds), is an absolute expert on local government, and he made some amazing contributions in Committee. As I am sure many Members did, I listened to the Leader of the Opposition’s speech at the Conservative party conference. She spoke about cutting bureaucracy, making things easier and cutting down on Government waste, but many of the amendments the shadow Minister spoke to do just the opposite. Lords amendment 3 adds layers of process to how planning will work, increasing the risk of judicial review. Lords amendment 33, which the Minister picked up on in his opening remarks, adds more parliamentary processes to trying to fix our housing crisis. I hope when he sums up that the shadow Minister will reflect on whether his position on this Bill reflects the position of his party’s leader and her call to cut regulation and get us building.

A big point here is trust. Unfortunately, the debate on this Bill has focused on trust—trust in Government, trust in those who build our homes and trust in our planning system as well. If Members turn their mind back to May 2024, they will remember a soggy former Prime Minister standing with music playing behind him. I was at the UK Real Estate Investment and Infrastructure Forum to discuss housing and how we get Britain building. I listened to a whole industry that is completely fed up with the Conservatives. One of my engagements over the past couple of days was a discussion on trust in the housing sector. I cannot remember the specific numbers, but I am thinking of figures from a couple of years ago: less than 20% of people had trust in developers, and less than 20% of people had trust in our planning process. It is clear that the whole process is broken, and that is why we are working really hard through this Bill to try to fix it.

We have talked about the big amendments, but I want to turn to EDPs. If any Member wants to come in on that, I am very happy to discuss it. There are other great measures in the Bill that will get lost. Lords amendment 34 seeks to improve how heritage sites are dealt with. That is fantastic for somewhere like Northamptonshire, which has one of the largest volumes of country houses, manors and stately homes in the country. Lords amendment 39 addresses brownfield sites, and Lords amendment 31 addresses the provision of EV charging, which came up a couple of weeks ago when I was on “Politics East” alongside the hon. Member for Ely and East Cambridgeshire (Charlotte Cane) and we were asked for our views.

I am pleased that the Bill is returning to a focus on planning. Some of the amendments show that the Government have listened to those who build and those who want to see homes built across our country, and we are taking positive steps. EDPs have been the topic of a number of speeches. It is a contentious point both for my hon. Friends and Opposition Members. I have worked in the industry for 20 years, starting out fixing houses that were filling with sewage, and ending my career working on mega and giga projects around the world. I have experience of planning, approvals and consenting processes—in the most developed countries and in some developing countries as well—and I can tell Members that our process is so complicated.

I referenced the Corry review in my intervention on my hon. Friend the Member for Poole (Neil Duncan-Jordan). The review, commissioned by DEFRA, found that we have some of the most inefficient, inconsistent and difficult-to-navigate nature legislation in the world, and it is not fit for purpose to drive nature recovery. Those who argue against change argue for the status quo, which has led to our country being one of the most nature-depleted in the world. That is what those who argue against this Bill argue for. They argue for more of the same, more nature destruction and a process that does not deliver homes.