Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:

To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, with reference to the Written Ministerial Statement of 23 April 2025 entitled Further reforms to the Nationally Significant Infrastructure Projects regime, HCWS594, which projects were used to calculate the difference in the average processing time of applications in this Parliament compared to the last Parliament; and what (a) projects in the pipeline were and (b) methodology was used to calculate the estimated reduction in expenditure.

Nationally Significant Infrastructure Projects (NSIP) applications once accepted by the Planning Inspectorate are being processed on average 50 days quicker in this Parliament than in the last. This was calculated using the average time taken by projects processed in the parliamentary term July 2019 to July 2024 compared to projects in this parliament between July 2024 to February 2025.

Information on applications for Nationally Significant Infrastructure Projects, and their decisions, can be found on the Planning Inspectorate’s website here. This page includes information on projects already determined, projects due for decision and projects at an earlier stage in the application process.

In Written Ministerial Statement of 23 April 2025, the government announced that it will amend the Planning and Infrastructure Bill to remove the statutory requirement to consult as part of the pre-application stage for NSIP applications, bringing requirements in line with all other planning regimes. We estimate that these changes could result in a cost saving of £1bn across the pipeline. This estimate is based on analysis from the National Infrastructure Commission which identified that delays can cost a project around £1.5m per month of delay. Together with evidence from key stakeholders in the NSIP process which shows that these changes could save projects 12 months, we estimate a saving of £18m per project. If you apply £18m in savings to the number of expected projects that would benefit from these changes within this Parliament, it will give a total saving of over £1bn.