Matthew Pennycook MP: speeches

Speeches

• 29 Apr 2025 · Planning and Infrastructure Bill (Third sitting) · Hansard source

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  Let me be clear. I appreciate the concerns that hon. Members have expressed. I hope that I can provide some reassurance, but I am more than happy to have further exchanges on this point, which is an important one. The clause introduces a new streamlined procedure for making material policy amendments to national policy statements, where the proposed amendments fall into four categories of changes to be made since the NPPS was last reviewed: reflecting legislative changes or revocations that have already come into force; relevant court decisions that have already been issued; Government policy that has already been published; and changes to other documents referred to in the NPPS. A good example is our recent changes to the national planning policy framework—consulted on publicly and subject to a significant amount of scrutiny in the House. If a relevant NPPS had to be updated to reflect some of those policy changes, which have already been subject to consultation and scrutiny on their own terms, as I said, that would be a good example of where this reflective procedure might be useful. The primary aim of the clause is to expedite the Parliamentary process for updating national policy statements. By doing so, it ensures that amendments that have already undergone public and parliamentary scrutiny can be integrated more swiftly into the relevant NPPS. In enabling reflective amendments to be made, the new procedure will support the Government’s growth mission by ensuring that NPPSs are current and relevant, increasing certainty for developers and investors, and streamlining decision making for nationally significant infrastructure projects. Hon. Members should be assured that, where applicable, the statutory and regulatory prerequisites of an appraisal of sustainability and habitats regulation assessment will continue to apply to amendments that fall within this definition, as will the existing publication and consultation requirements for material changes to a national policy statement. The clause does, however—this is the point of debate that we have just had—disapply the requirements for the Secretary of State to respond to resolutions made by Parliament or its Committees. We believe that change is necessary to enable reflective changes to be made to NPSs in a more timely and proportionate manner.

• 29 Apr 2025 · Planning and Infrastructure Bill (Third sitting) · Hansard source

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  I simply disagree with the hon. Gentleman. It is a matter for the House rather than the Government. On their own terms, we think the changes made through the clause are proportionate and will ensure that the system is more effective. Again, I make it clear that we are talking about reflective amendments to national policy statements in the four specific categories I have given.

• 29 Apr 2025 · Planning and Infrastructure Bill (Third sitting) · Hansard source

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  I thank the shadow Minister for his question, and I look forward to what I know will be constructive debates over the days and weeks to come. He makes a fair point, which I am just coming to, in relation to the clause also providing for the ability to delay a mandatory update when there are exceptional circumstances that the relevant Secretary of State considers make the delay unavoidable. I stress to the hon. Gentleman that those circumstances must be exceptional. We have in mind an extremely high bar: for example, if Parliament was suspended and could not sit. He will know that in instances where a national policy statement, for example, does not need to undergo a material change, a rapid update can take place on that basis. It does not have to go through consultation or the necessary parliamentary scrutiny requirements. The vision is that this particular part of the clause will be used with an exceptionally high bar, in very limited circumstances. If he wishes, I am happy to provide the Committee with further examples, but I think they will be extremely limited. In such circumstances, as the shadow Minister said, the Secretary of State must, before the five-year deadline expires, lay a statement before Parliament explaining the reasons for the sought-after extension and when they expect to update the national policy statement, with the delay lasting only as long as the exceptional circumstances exist. In summary, the changes give Ministers the power to ensure that national policy statements are kept up to date so that they can effectively support the delivery of the critical infrastructure that our country needs and the economic growth that its provision will deliver. I commend the clause to the Committee. I turn to amendment 32, which, as the hon. Member for Taunton and Wellington set out, seeks to insert a requirement for the land use framework—on which the Government consulted between January and April this year—to be complied with whenever a national policy statement is reviewed. We believe that the amendment is unnecessary because the Secretary of State is already obliged to take into account all relevant material considerations when reviewing national policy statements as a matter of law, under sections 104 and 105 of the Planning Act 2008. If a future Secretary of State considers the final land use framework to be relevant in the circumstances of the specific national policy statement being reviewed, it must therefore be taken into account. The Secretary of State will, in those circumstances, give the land use framework the weight that they consider appropriate in their planning judgment, but their assessment of relevance cannot and should not be prejudged by writing such a requirement on to the face of the Bill. The majority of national policy statements are not site or project-specific. For national policy statements that do identify locations as suitable or potentially suitable for a particular development, those locations will already have been the subject of strategic level environmental assessments and appraisals for inclusion in the national policy statement. When deciding whether to grant development consent for a nationally significant infrastructure project, sections 104 and 105 of the 2008 Act require the Secretary of State to have regard to any matter that they think “both important and relevant” to the decision of whether to grant consent. Once published, the land use framework could be given such weight as the Secretary of State considers appropriate, where they consider it “both important and relevant” to the particular consenting decision that is in front of them. For those reasons, the Government cannot accept amendment 32, which seeks to introduce an unnecessary layer of regulatory complexity, undermining our ambitions to streamline the NSIP planning system.

• 29 Apr 2025 · Planning and Infrastructure Bill (Third sitting) · Hansard source

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  All I would say is that if the hon. Gentleman looked at the history of the response times on some of these matters he would see that in not every instance is there a timely response. It can delay the process quite significantly. We appreciate the concerns, but the procedure cannot and will not be used to bypass due parliamentary scrutiny. Any court decision change being reflected in the NPS will have been scrutinised by the public and Parliament on its own terms. We are adjusting the parliamentary scrutiny requirements to update an NPS, so that it is more proportionate and enables those documents to be updated more quickly. The process retains scope for Parliament to raise matters with the Government. The Secretary of State is required to lay a statement in Parliament announcing that a review of the NPS is taking place. The Government will write to the relevant Select Committee at the start of the consultation period, and Ministers will make themselves available to speak at the relevant Select Committee during the consultation period, so far as is practical. Finally, the NPS as amended will still be laid in Parliament for 21 days and can be prayed against. I turn to amendment 8, tabled by the hon. Member for Taunton and Wellington; we have covered many of the issues it raises. In seeking to remove clause 2(3)(a), it is a wrecking amendment, in our view. It would fatally and fundamentally undermine the introduction of a new streamlined procedure for updating national policy statements by requiring the Government to respond to a Select Committee inquiry before being able to lay a national policy statement before Parliament. We will therefore resist it. As I have set out, the new procedure introduced by clause 2 will help to unlock growth in our country by enabling policy to be updated more easily, providing certainty for applicants using the NSIP regime and for decision makers. On that basis, I ask the hon. Gentleman to withdraw his amendment, and I commend clause 2 to the Committee.

• 29 Apr 2025 · Planning and Infrastructure Bill (Third sitting) · Hansard source

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  Thank you, Mrs Hobhouse. Those of us on the Government Benches will certainly take that stricture into account and limit the length of our contributions. On the specific point, I must say, in all candour, that I struggle to foresee how the dynamics that the hon. Gentleman has just outlined will operate. It is not for the Government to make a judgment on any particular application that a developer may wish to make. It is not the Government’s position to take a view on which consenting regime would be most appropriate, other than on which will produce the most timely and proportionate determination of an application. It will be for the applicant to decide in writing to the Secretary of State, and to make a request to use an alternative consenting regime. All the Secretary of State will do is decide whether the circumstances at play are such that there is a good case for an alternative to the NSIP regime to be used in a given scenario. As I say, we will set out in policy and guidance more detail about the regimes to which we think this alternative can apply and how we foresee the redirection power being used. On that basis, I commend the clause to the Committee. Question put and agreed to. Clause 3 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill. Clause 4 Applications for development consent: consultation

• 29 Apr 2025 · Planning and Infrastructure Bill (Third sitting) · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mrs Hobhouse. Before I speak to clause 1 stand part and respond to the hon. Gentleman’s amendment, I put on the record my thanks to the large number of witnesses who gave up their time last week to give evidence to the Committee and inform our deliberations. Sustained economic growth is the only route to delivering the improved prosperity that our country needs and the high living standards that working people deserve; that is why it is this Government’s No. 1 mission. The failure to build enough critical infrastructure, from electricity networks and clean energy sources to public transport links and water supplies, has constrained economic growth and undermined our energy security. That is why the Government’s plan for change commits us to fast-tracking 150 planning decisions on major infrastructure projects by the end of this Parliament. While nationally significant infrastructure project applications are already being processed 50 days quicker on average than in the last Parliament, achieving that milestone will require the planning regime for NSIPs to fire on all cylinders—yet we know that the system as it stands is too slow and that its performance has deteriorated sharply in recent years. The Government are determined to improve it and to deliver a faster and more consenting process for critical infrastructure that will drive down costs for industry, bill payers and taxpayers. Key to an effective NSIP regime is ensuring that national policy statements are fit for purpose. To be clear, those statements are the primary policy framework within which the examining authority makes its recommendations to Ministers on individual development consent order applications and against which the relevant Secretary of State is required to determine an application. However, as the hon. Member for Taunton and Wellington just noted, despite their importance many national policy statements are outdated, with some having not been refreshed for over a decade. Clause 1 addresses that problem by establishing, on enactment, a new requirement for every national policy statement to be subjected to a full review and updated at least every five years. NPSs can be reviewed at any point within that five-year timeframe, at the discretion of the Secretary of State. Additionally, any statement that has currently not been updated for over five years must be brought up to date within two years of the clause’s enactment. Having taken on board the views of consenting Departments, a wide range of industry stakeholders and the recommendations of the National Infrastructure Commission, we believe that a five-year timeframe strikes the right balance between ensuring that statements are kept up to date, while avoiding rapid change and the consequential uncertainty for the infrastructure sectors that would be caused by a more rapid review timeframe.

• 29 Apr 2025 · Planning and Infrastructure Bill (Third sitting) · Hansard source

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  The hon. Gentleman makes a reasonable point but, if I have understood him, it is a slightly different issue from the one we are considering. I will give him some extra clarity about the land use framework and any other material consideration that would need to be assessed. When looking at a national policy statement, the Secretary of State will have to have regard to such material considerations, be they the land use framework or any others, for the decision to be legally sound. The reason we cannot accept the amendment in the name of the hon. Member for Taunton and Wellington is that it is not necessary to specifically require that, as it would effectively repeat public law decision-making principles on the face of the Bill that would have to be taken into account anyway. For that reason, we cannot accept the hon. Gentleman’s amendment, so I hope he will withdraw it. I commend the clause to the Committee.

• 29 Apr 2025 · Planning and Infrastructure Bill (Third sitting) · Hansard source

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  It will be for the Secretary of State to consider applicants’ requests when they are made. They will issue their policy on redirection decisions, and issue guidance for clarity about precisely how the process will operate in certain circumstances. The access road example that I gave the hon. Gentleman is a good one. In that type of scenario, there is a very strong case for an access road application not to go through the full NSIP regime, particularly if the applicant in question is dealing with a local authority that is well skilled and well resourced, and that they feel is able to better deal with the application in a more timely fashion. They can apply to the Secretary of State to make such a redirection, but we will issue guidance on specifically how the power could be used.

• 29 Apr 2025 · Planning and Infrastructure Bill (Third sitting) · Hansard source

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  May I correct the hon. Gentleman? Local people in any part of the country affected by a development consent order will still be able to have their say on it. Nothing in the clause affects that arrangement.

• 29 Apr 2025 · Planning and Infrastructure Bill (Third sitting) · Hansard source

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  I think the thrust of the hon. Member’s question was about a numerical analysis. No, we cannot account for the behavioural change that would come if this clause is enacted. What we do know, from significant engagement with stakeholders in the infrastructure sector, is that lots of applicants would make use of the redirection route and are eager to do so. The examples I have heard from particular major economic infrastructure providers are where, as I say, they have a constructive and healthy working relationship with a local authority that they are confident is resourced and able to take the decision to approve or reject an application in a timely manner and they do not want to have to take it through the NSIP regime, which is currently their only route. As I said, section 35 already allows the Secretary of State to pull applications from other regimes into the NSIP regime. This will work the other way, and just provides a necessary flexibility. The point of clause 3, though, is to ensure that any given applicant can make a case to the Secretary of State to go into the regime that they feel is the most appropriate and proportionate for the application in question.

• 29 Apr 2025 · Planning and Infrastructure Bill (Third sitting) · Hansard source

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  I am struggling to follow what the hon. Gentleman’s specific concern is. He keeps throwing out the after-dinner speech example; that would not meet the threshold for a reflective amendment through this route. If the Government have made a policy change that has been subject to consultation and scrutiny in this House—

• 29 Apr 2025 · Planning and Infrastructure Bill (Third sitting) · Hansard source

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  The hon. Gentleman has already made it clear that he will press the amendment, but let me take one last opportunity to reassure Members on this point. We have to be clear what the current requirements entail: they do not require the Government to agree with a Select Committee report, if it is issued in a timely manner; they just require the Secretary of State to respond to resolutions made by Parliament or its Committees. Those resolutions can ultimately be set aside if the Government disagree. As I said, we are not trying to remove wholesale parliamentary scrutiny or the ability of the public to engage and consult. All the changes that will come down this route, when it is appropriate and necessary to use, will have been scrutinised by Parliament and, in many cases, by public consultation on their own terms. However, we think that the removal of an aspect of parliamentary scrutiny is justified by the nature of changes that can be better reflected in policy within a national policy statement. We have had extensive engagement with the Chair of the Treasury Committee, my hon. Friend the Member for Hackney South and Shoreditch (Dame Meg Hillier), and the relevant Select Committee Clerks on what guarantees we can provide, while removing this requirement, to ensure that there is still adequate parliamentary scrutiny when the procedure is used. Finally, I want to bring home to Members what we think the change will allow. We estimate that, in many cases, the requirement to respond to resolutions, particularly in cases where a Select Committee’s response is not timely, adds at least three to six months to the process of updating a national policy statement. Given that we are talking about minor changes that are already policy and court decisions, we think that this is a necessary and proportionate means of ensuring that policy statements are up to date and that investors have confidence in the policy framework being applied. We therefore think that we can streamline the process, and will resist the amendment. Question put, That the amendment be made.

• 29 Apr 2025 · Planning and Infrastructure Bill (Third sitting) · Hansard source

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  In the interest of focusing the debate on the actual changes that we are making in the clause, when a national policy statement has been reviewed and is to be updated, and involves material changes, all the assessments and consultation that need to take place, including laying the NPS before the House of Commons, will remain in place. We are talking about a specific set of categories of reflective, small changes that, as I will make clear in my remarks later, have already been debated by Parliament in their own terms.

• 29 Apr 2025 · Planning and Infrastructure Bill (Third sitting) · Hansard source

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  I will give way in one second, if the hon. Member will allow me, because I think this is some useful context for some of the discussions that have taken place over recent months. The Government are grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Hackney South and Shoreditch (Dame Meg Hillier) and the relevant Select Committee Clerks for engaging with me and my officials on the implications of the new procedure. We have agreed on certain guarantees to ensure that there will still be adequate parliamentary scrutiny when the procedure is used. As such, I am happy to restate today that, when the Government intend to use the reflective amendment route to update a national policy statement, we will write to the relevant Select Committee at the start of the consultation period. We would hope in all instances that the Select Committee responds in a prompt and timely manner, allowing us to take on board its comments. Ministers will make themselves available to speak at the Committee during that period, in so far as that is practical. The process retains scope for Parliament to raise matters with the Government in the usual fashion. Should a Select Committee publish a report within the relevant timeframes of the public consultation period—in a sense, that is one of the challenges we are trying to get at here: not all select Committees will respond in the relevant period, therefore elongating the process by which the reflective amendment needs to take place—the Government will obviously take those views into account before the updated statement is laid before the House in the usual manner.

• 29 Apr 2025 · Planning and Infrastructure Bill (Third sitting) · Hansard source

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  As hon. Members will be aware, last week the Government announced that we will reform the pre-application stage for nationally significant infrastructure projects to remove the statutory requirement for applicants to consult. Although the Government are committed to consultation and the value that early and constructive engagement plays in developing high-quality infrastructure schemes, feedback on Second Reading and since the Bill’s introduction has shown that the status quo is not working. Evidence indicates that the statutory requirements, which are unique to the NSIP regime and not found in any other planning consenting regime, are now creating perverse incentives. Rather than driving better outcomes and improving infrastructure applications, statutory pre-application procedures have become a tick-box exercise that encourages risk aversion and gold plating. The result is that communities suffer from consultation fatigue and confusion, with them having to cope with longer, ever-more technical and less accessible documentation. The arrangement also actively disincentivises improvements to applications, even if they are in the local community’s interests, because applicants worry that any change will require further repeat consultation and added delay to the process. As the Deputy Prime Minister and I set out on Second Reading, we would not hesitate to act boldly if a compelling case for change was made, to ensure that the NSIP regime is firing on all cylinders to deliver on our ambition for building the homes and infrastructure needed to grow our economy.

• 29 Apr 2025 · Planning and Infrastructure Bill (Third sitting) · Hansard source

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  I thank my hon. Friend for that point, and I completely agree with him. The system was set up with very specific objectives in mind. It was created initially without a role for Ministers. That was addressed by the Localism Act 2011, but the statutory pre-consultation requirements were kept in place on the basis that they were helping to improve applications prior to submission. However, according to lots of the evidence we have received in response to our working paper on the subject, the feedback from external stakeholders and the calls on Second Reading for us to look again at this specific area, the statutory requirements are now driving perverse and often bad outcomes, including for the communities affected by them. Last week, I made a written ministerial statement explaining the changes that the Government intend to make. We are tabling a clean package of amendments to implement these reforms through the Bill. The amendments fall into three broad categories. First, new clause 44 will remove the relevant sections of the Planning Act to give this change effect. That includes removing the sections that require applicants to consult local authorities, landowners, statutory consultees and local communities before submitting applications for development consent. It will also remove from the Act definitions for those groups.

• 24 Apr 2025 · Planning and Infrastructure Bill (First sitting) · Hansard source

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  Q Thank you both for your time this morning. I also wanted to ask you about the nationally significant infrastructure projects regime. As you know, the objective of the Bill in this area—chapter 1 of part 1—is to provide for a more certain regime, but also to speed up the process through which applications are taken, because we have seen, as you are both aware, a deterioration in the performance of the system over recent years. We have done a huge amount of consultation on this legislation—statutory consultations, working papers, calls for evidence—but we are still very much in listening mode on whether any further changes are required. I want to get your views, picking up on the comments that you just made. In terms of the critical barriers to bringing forward major economic infrastructure, where do you think the Bill gets things right, and where does it not go far enough? Sir John Armitt: The Bill seeks, to a large extent, to provide a regime of compensation to offset where people are going to be affected. That, in a sense, is no different from what we have seen in the housing sector in section 106, for example, for a very long time. The real challenge here is the ability of the process to actually slow things down. We know that judicial review is one of the big difficulties in this area. You could argue that the recent recommendations made for judicial review do not go that far. The only way in which it can be held back is where the court decides that the issue being raised is, perhaps not frivolous, but immaterial. But I would imagine that the nature of the legal system is such that people will find ways around that. Judicial review constantly acts as a brake, and influences those who are developing projects to try to cross that bridge before they get there: you put in more mitigation than ideally you would wish, which raises the cost, and you potentially finish up with a more expensive project than ideally you would have had. That is the nature of people trying to second-guess what is going to be raised and how the judicial review will be handled. I am not sure that the recommendations will go far enough to have a serious impact on that aspect, which is one of the central aspects of what has been holding up these schemes quite significantly. Each year of judicial review is likely to potentially add a year to the process, and that is why it is difficult to see that these changes will benefit the overall process by more than six to 12 months, at the end of the day. Robbie and I were talking about this before we came in; he is more of an expert in it, so I will turn to him for any other observations. Robbie Owen: Minister, I absolutely support what is already in the Bill. I think that every provision on national infrastructure planning is appropriate, including what I hope will be added to the Bill through the amendments that you tabled yesterday, in relation to pre-application consultation and some other measures. As you say, those are all good measures that have followed extensive consultation and engagement. There are two areas where I believe the Bill needs to go further, be bolder and be strengthened. The first relates to the further streamlining of the development consent order process. That should focus on allowing the standard process to be varied, on a case-by-case basis, where there is justification for doing so. That was trailed in your planning working paper in January; I encourage you and your officials to have another look at that, because there is a justification for giving some degree of flexibility to reflect the nature and requirements of individual projects and how the standard process might need to be adapted to them. Secondly, we need to look again at the ability of the DCO process to be a one-stop shop for all the consents you need for construction of these big projects—that was the original intention back in 2008. All the discussions around that have yet to fully come to a conclusion. I note the review by Dan Corry, published a couple of weeks ago, but I do not think that it provides a full answer to allowing development consent orders to do more than they have been doing in practice, in terms of all these subsidiary consents, which, beyond the development consent order itself, are quite important for some of these big projects. The other area where the Bill should and could go further relates to the whole area of judicial review. The changes that were announced in January, following the call for evidence off the back of the Banner review, are not particularly significant. They are really quite modest, and relate largely to the permission stage of judicial review. Approximately 70% of judicial review applications get permission and go forward, therefore we need to focus beyond the permission stage. There are two other areas where the Bill could make some worthwhile changes. The first relates to the interaction between judicial review and national policy statements. As you will know, national policy statements are approved by Parliament, and the Bill contains some proposals to change that process. It has always struck me as strange that national policy statements can nevertheless still be, and are, judicially reviewed. The final point on judicial review is that Parliament should be able, if it wishes, to use a simple one-clause Bill to confirm decisions to give development consent for projects of a critical national priority. This used to be the case: we used to have lots of provisional order confirmation Bills. I think that is a very good way for Parliament, where it wishes, to express its support for a big, critical project. That could easily be done through some amendments to the Bill.

• 24 Apr 2025 · Planning and Infrastructure Bill (First sitting) · Hansard source

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  Q Marian, thank you for giving your time today and for the work that you and the organisation are doing to ensure that the new system will be operational shortly after the Bill gets Royal Assent. Can I get you on the record in terms of the objectives of part 3 of the Bill? Is Natural England confident that the nature restoration fund will deliver better outcomes for the environment than the status quo? Specifically on the powers that will be available to Natural England in bringing forth EDPs, do you think the Bill gives you enough flexibility to consider a wide enough range of conservation measures to deliver those plans? Marian Spain: We are confident that this will be an improvement on the current system. We have already run versions of the nature recovery fund for recreational impact, for great crested newts and for nutrient mitigation, so we have seen enough that these schemes can work. We are confident that they will work. We are also clear that it is an improvement because at the moment the current arrangements are sub-optimal for developers and for nature. We see that developers are investing disproportionate amounts of time on data gathering that could be better done once and centrally. We see that investment in mitigation and compensation in the sequential scheme slows things down and does not always create the biggest impact. We also see that there is less transparency than the public and indeed developers themselves sometimes want about how the money is being spent. We are confident this will be an improvement. The other important point to note is that many of the pressures nature is facing now, particularly water quality, air quality and recreation, are diffuse. They are not specific. They are widespread. They are cumulative. It is impossible for an individual developer to adequately consider, mitigate and compensate. We need to do that at much more of a scale. We think the measures in the Bill and the associated measures of having more robust spatial development strategies that look at nature and development together, and of having the plan up front that tells us what the impact will be and how to mitigate it, and then the fund to allow that discharge, is a major step forward. It is unknown—well, it is not unknown, forgive me. It is a risk, of course, and people will be concerned that it will not be regressive and that it will not be a step back, but we think there are enough measures in the Bill that are clear that this is about improvements to nature—maintaining the current protections, but also allowing development to make its adequate contribution to restoration of nature.

• 24 Apr 2025 · Planning and Infrastructure Bill (Second sitting) · Hansard source

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  Q The Bill will mandate it, so I am asking you what you think is the most effective design for the national scheme of delegation that we intend to introduce. It is perfectly fine if you do not want it, but I am trying to get to that, given that we are intending to introduce it. Councillor Hug: I think there should be a common core. I am not quite sure how the mayoralties and others will feed into responding to particular issues around the urban and rural geographies. I think there should be a basic common core to this. Looking at how it might operate, again, I am coming from an authority that has only 3% going to committees—all told, it is about 1.4%, if you include all the advertising and listed building concerns that get through. A very small amount go through, so there is a lot of good practice happening already. In terms of how that works, one of the things that we want to ensure that we do not lose is the ability, for example if a scheme is likely to be rejected by officers, to put that to a committee that might come to a more pragmatic decision than just a rigid response based on policy. There are some other things, such as we want to ensure that there are opportunities for councils to go beyond the scheme of delegations; if there was a nationally set thing, you want to make sure that it is not just a cap on what is delegated. I think that some flexibility around urban and rural, and working with local authorities about the design of the specific scheme, would be good. It is clear that they will want as much guidance as possible about the types of things that the Government are wanting to see happen. Obviously, from our perspective we understand the point about the centrality of getting the local plans and making them as robust as possible to give people clarity about what goes on in future. The challenge comes when quite a lot of schemes come forward that are not in full compliance with policy, because the real world is messy and things have to be traded off against each other. The question is basically to what extent can those trade-offs be dealt with at office level versus at committee. That is why we want to get into the details of that with you, to make it work effectively.

• 24 Apr 2025 · Planning and Infrastructure Bill (Second sitting) · Hansard source

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  Q In some cases, an astronomical value. Rachel Hallos: Ultimately, it is a person’s life and livelihood. They are going to get paid only the basic agricultural value, out of no fault of their own, and they have to start up elsewhere. This is not going to happen just once or twice; if we follow the huge infrastructure plans that we all know the country needs—we accept as a union that we need to grow—this will inflate land prices elsewhere, as people choose to continue their livelihoods elsewhere and go looking for that land. That is the difference.

• 24 Apr 2025 · Planning and Infrastructure Bill (Second sitting) · Hansard source

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  Q Thank you, Catherine, for giving up your time this afternoon. I have two questions on the NSIP regime and development consent orders, which is your specialism. First, you will have seen that the Government tabled a series of amendments yesterday to remove the statutory requirement to consult as part of the pre-application stage. Could you give us your sense of the impact you think that will have on the speed of the consenting process overall? What do you broadly expect applicants to do now that those requirements have been removed, but new statutory guidance will be introduced setting out what we expect? Is it a mature enough system now that we can expect most applicants to still consult and engage meaningfully, and what are the incentives at play there to ensure that they will? Secondly, on the broad ambition to provide for a faster and more certain consenting NSIP process, do you think there is anything that we are missing here that we should still look at? Catherine Howard: I hugely welcome the change that was made yesterday, in terms of speeding up and cutting out unnecessary bureaucracy that helped no one, except for helping professionals like me to spend more time and gain more fees out of our clients. There is, as we just talked about, a lack of enough professionals in the whole industry to staff the system. The Government’s ambition is to triple the rate of DCO consenting to get 150 DCOs through in this Parliament. We cannot magic up more comms consultants, lawyers, environmental impact assessment consultants and planning consultants in that period, so we desperately need a way to apply those professionals most efficiently in a really focused way across all the projects we need. I have seen it in my career, having consented a number of projects since 2008, when the regime came in. Without the law changing at all, custom and practice has built up gold plating and precedent to slow the system down hugely. That is particularly true for the pre-app process, which I think the Government’s stats say has gone from an average of 14 months in 2008 to 27 months a few years ago—I suspect it is even longer now. I have seen more and more rounds of consultation on small changes. I have seen developers not putting through other changes that would be really beneficial and that communities or statutory consultees want, because they would have to have a three, four or six-month delay to do more consultation on the change. I think the cart is before the horse. It has become a very clunky and bureaucratic legalistic process, rather than what planning should be and is in all other regimes—town and country planning, and even hybrid bills—where you have more latitude to change your mind, do some lighter-touch consultation if appropriate and do some focused consultation with the key statutory consultees on the key issues, rather than producing these huge preliminary environmental information reports, which are incredibly daunting and time-consuming for everyone to read. The public sector, local authorities, regulators and the public are feeling overwhelmed by the amount of information that is put out there, which is ultimately just a form of legal box-ticking without the laser focus that you really need on key issues, so I hugely welcome the change. I was with an international investor yesterday who is interested in investing in a big portfolio of solar projects in the UK that have not yet been consented, and I was asked to explain the regime. The pre-app is always something I feel I have to apologise for and explain, and give the best story about how quick it might be, but it was great yesterday. They really welcome this change. I can see it being highly beneficial for investors who can shop around Europe and elsewhere, in terms of bringing development here.

• 24 Apr 2025 · Planning and Infrastructure Bill (Second sitting) · Hansard source

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  Q Should every small site application come before a committee? Councillor Hug: No. We had a thing where someone in a public report was saying we had only built x number of houses, but the reality was that far more homes had gone through under delegated authority than had actually gone to committee, so we were being wronged by the fact we had done that process. Councillor Clewer: But there may be some specific circumstance that creates a nuanced judgment where it absolutely should go to committee. And please do not just talk about the big projects; it is those small ones that are deeply personal to people where national policy says no, but circumstance actually says that you can get round national policy.

• 24 Apr 2025 · Planning and Infrastructure Bill (Second sitting) · Hansard source

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  That is very useful. Thank you.

• 24 Apr 2025 · Planning and Infrastructure Bill (Second sitting) · Hansard source

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  Q Could I ask you about the reforms in the Bill relating to planning decisions, and specifically our intention to take powers to introduce a national scheme of delegation? How do you think that could be best designed? What are the types of applications that you think should always be taken by planning committees, and which types of applications could be appropriately delegated to expert planning officers? Councillor Wright: For a start, the vast majority of planning permissions or planning applications are already decided by officers anyway in many councils—something like 97% in my authority were decided—so what exactly do you think we are now going to pass when under more pressure?

• 24 Apr 2025 · Planning and Infrastructure Bill (Second sitting) · Hansard source

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  Q I want to be really clear, because this is important, given what we are asking Natural England to do. Without causing any tension between you and Marian Spain, do you disagree that, as she put it, “the Bill effectively maintains the mitigation hierarchy”? Richard Benwell: Yes, certainly at the project level. There is more of a requirement for Natural England to consider some of those circumstances at the EDP level. When it comes to specific projects, where it is all-important for the particular site or species, we think it is short-circuited. We will check in with Marian on that afterwards.