Planning and Infrastructure Bill

Viscount Hanworth Excerpts

Committee stage
Thursday 4th September 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Miller of Chilthorne Domer (LD)]

My Lords, as well as moving Amendment 107, I shall also speak to the other amendments in this group in my name and the names of the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, and the noble Viscount, Lord Hanworth. I am not personally someone who naturally embraces the cutting edge of technology, and I am very glad that those two noble Lords have put their names to this, because I think they will know far more about it than me, but I was truly excited by the potential of the subject of these amendments, and that is digital twins. I will now attempt to explain what digital twins are.

I am excited because I know from my experience of years chairing a planning committee that explaining proposals and different options, examining different possibilities and translating them into plans is very hard. Doing a planning-for-real exercise with maps cannot really take on board all the changes that embracing various options can bring. The digital twin is a very positive evolution from static models to dynamic digital replicas of what is proposed.

These amendments are deliberately framed around the consultation elements of the various parts of planning law that we are seeking here to alter. That is because digital twins are not just about better project planning and delivery; they are also about winning public confidence and consent—an issue that my noble friend Lady Pinnock spoke about earlier—given the importance of taking a community with you when you are trying to deliver change. In the case of new towns, to which Amendments 195, 196, 198 and 199 relate, this is going to be incredibly important.

I am certain that the Government want to deliver on their housing target in a way that communities can buy into and will support, whether with new towns or extensions of existing developments. There will always be disagreements, but proper modelling of the kind advocated by these amendments would be a critical tool for engaging with those who will be affected by the developments and demonstrate the pros and cons of the various options.

For example, such modelling can take on board demographics when it comes to planning, from schools right through to care homes. It will model what is likely to happen with the population and whether that will be relevant to what is proposed. It would also be a critical tool when various transport options were being designed, as it can model traffic flow, taking into account the changing model of the working week, for example. That is a very dynamic issue—the changing way in which we work. We do not want to design transport systems that are rooted in something that happened 10 years ago. That is the part that I find the most exciting: the community engagement for a digital age and a digitally literate generation.

The other advantage is the one that should excite the Government and the Treasury more. As we know, this country’s record on delivering major infrastructure projects on time and on budget is sadly woeful. We need only look at the recent past. HS2 began life with an estimated cost of £37.5 billion. The latest figure is £80 billion, and that is with the northern leg cancelled altogether. Half the infrastructure has been gained for double the cost. There are lots of other examples, which I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, and the noble Viscount, Lord Hanworth, with their experience, will cite. I am sure that the noble Viscount, Lord Hanworth, will talk about Hinkley Point C, which was meant to be operational by 2023 at a cost of £18 billion but is now not expected to be online until the 2030s, with the price tag having more than doubled to £40 billion.

The Government are well aware that the public will oppose necessary infrastructure when they see inefficiencies, costs and overruns, no benefit to them and a big price tag. That is exactly what we are trying to avoid by tabling the amendments with this digital model. As a country, we must find a way to deliver more infrastructure, more quickly, on time and, crucially, on budget.

A digital twin is a virtual replica of assets that can be tested, stress-modelled and monitored in real time, and it offers precisely that capability. If advanced digital twins of the kind now available had been mandated from the start of projects such as HS2, Ministers and engineers alike would have had the data to foresee overruns and mitigate the risks. That is what I am hoping that we can achieve if we can bring this technology into common use.

In 2016, there was a digital technology known as building information modelling level 2. That was mandated for use in government projects in 2016. Level 2 is, in essence, about collaboration on static models. These amendments propose that projects requiring development consent—that is, nationally significant infrastructure projects and new towns and extensions—should be required to deploy building information modelling level 3. Meeting that standard would see construction use genuinely advance in a dynamic, integrated model of the asset that is continually updated. That is the important point: it is continually updated with real-time data and capable of simulating scenarios, predicting performance and informing decisions throughout the life of the project. The Government’s plans are in some cases decades long, so these projects have a long time.

Building information modelling level 2 allowed us to design better, but level 3 will allow us to build better. The good news is that we in Britain are leading the way on this digital twin technology. I have had conversations with the only British company—as far as I know—that is involved in building such simulations. It is called Skyral. Its models can be built in a matter of weeks, and they can simulate how populations of whole countries function and might be made better by new infrastructure.

In winding, I invite the Minister, the noble Baroness, Lady Taylor, to indicate whether she is willing to meet Skyral alongside me, the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, and the noble Viscount, Lord Hanworth, for a demonstration of these issues. It is exciting that this cutting-edge technology has been developed here, in Britain, by an independent British company.

Although we keenly feel the failures of cost and time overruns, they are far from a uniquely British problem. Research from the University of Oxford shows that more than 90% of big infrastructure projects worldwide go over budget and are delivered late. There is a huge opportunity here for us both in the Government’s plans for infrastructure and development and to export this technology. I hope the Government seize that. I beg to move.

[Viscount Hanworth (Lab)]

My Lords, Amendment 107 might appear to be of a technical and specialised nature, but I insist that it is fundamental to the modern methodology of infrastructure planning. I will talk briefly about the problems in planning before dealing specifically with the topic of digital twins.

The cost of making detailed plans is cheap relative to the costs of delivery. Good planning increases the likelihood of rapid delivery. With a speedy delivery, the chances are reduced of a project being thrown off course by unexpected events. Overruns of cost and time can be limited by careful planning. One is liable to imagine that recent infrastructure projects in the UK have been uncommonly affected by rising costs and delays, but, as has been mentioned, international comparisons have shown that such experiences are common to many countries.

Nevertheless, many of the dysfunctions of project management in the UK can be attributed to the economic nostrums that arose in the years of Margaret Thatcher’s Conservative Governments. During the period in question, the doctrine of outsourcing was widely propagated. It proposed that organisations should concentrate on their core activities, which are the things that they do best, and that functions that had hitherto been performed in-house should be assigned to external providers possessed of specialised expertise. It was proposed that this recommendation should be followed equally by the public and the private sectors.

The doctrine of outsourcing has been responsible for many of the problems that have beset the HS2 rail project. It was supposed that specialised contractors could be relied on to undertake both the planning and the delivery of the project. Frequent revisions of the master plan created confusion and delay. The overall direction and co-ordination of the project was the responsibility of a weak and ill-equipped company that was HS2 Ltd.

What is required in a major infrastructure project is a firm and detailed plan and the active co-operation of the contractors involved in its delivery. An example of how this can be achieved has been provided by the projects to build the Hinkley Point C and Sizewell C nuclear power stations. One can extol the arrangements at Hinkley C despite the delays and cost overruns that have affected the project. Some of those are attributable to political indecisiveness and some to the misfortune of the Covid pandemic.

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[Baroness Miller of Chilthorne Domer (LD)]

My Lords, I thank all noble Lords who have spoken. I appreciate that the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, managed in less than a minute and a half to explain, in a much more down to earth way, what it took me probably eight minutes to explain. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Cromwell, very much for his kind remarks, and for lending support to this. I thank the noble Viscount, Lord Hanworth, for his explanation of some of the other issues surrounding this. I was encouraged by the remarks of the noble Lord, Lord Jamieson. I am glad that we had a better sense of unity breaking out in the Chamber. If my amendments serve no other purpose, at least they have brought us back together in a certain way.

I thank the Minister for his positive reply. I am interested that the powers are there for the Secretary of State to require this technology. I think it is going to be necessary for the Secretary of State to really push this and use those powers. Very often it takes a long time for people to grasp the use of technology—whether because of the cost of investing in it or simply because of lack of vision. I hope those powers will be pushed. In the meantime, I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.

[Viscount Hanworth (Lab)]

May I interject? The Minister seemed to imply that adopting digital twins would impose extra time and cost on planning. I contend that in fact it expedites planning and reduces the costs. I hope the Minister will consider that assertion.

Amendment 107 withdrawn.