David Simmonds MP: speeches 2025

Speeches

• 15 May 2025 · Planning and Infrastructure Bill (Tenth sitting) · Hansard source

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  This is a slightly technical question, but what consideration will be given to regional and local variation in the levels of cost? My hon. Friend the Member for Broxbourne highlighted the point about the interaction with section 106, which the Minister has accepted. One of the calculations under section 106 is child yield, which reflects the number of children we would expect in a development. Through the formula, that produces a payment in respect of the cost of provision of school places. Clearly, that cost will vary significantly depending on which part of the country the development takes place in. I would like to be confident that if, for example, a developer undertakes development in a very high-cost area, we will not see a significant corresponding reduction in the environmental yield from such a negotiation, and that viability will not, in practice, become such a barrier that developments do not go ahead or we end up forgoing the expected yield in some of these crucial areas in order to make housing viable.

• 15 May 2025 · Planning and Infrastructure Bill (Tenth sitting) · Hansard source

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  My hon. Friend is setting out the concerns eloquently. The Minister was clear earlier that the Government’s expectation is that this system will raise no net additional funds compared with the existing one, so the cost to the developers will be no different. The implication is that there will be no significant additional resource, if any, for Natural England to deploy as a result. Does my hon. Friend share my concerns that that raises a serious question about its capacity to do the work that is outlined in the Bill?

• 15 May 2025 · Planning and Infrastructure Bill (Tenth sitting) · Hansard source

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  Does my hon. Friend agree—he is making this point very clearly—that the risk with this process, and with the lack of clarity around the process behind the regulations, is that it will increase the number of permissions being delivered that are not viable? Essentially, all the money is coming from the same pot, and the developer will say to the local authority and Natural England, “You can have the kids or you can have the bats, but you can’t have both.” If the developer has to pay for both, the scheme becomes non-viable. We will simply end up with more units that cannot be built.

• 14 May 2025 · Planning and Infrastructure Bill (Eighth sitting) · Hansard source

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  I am grateful for the Minister’s response. There is a combination of indexation, which is always the relevant consideration. For example, we have been through the recent experience of covid, which unleashed a huge wave of construction inflation. If the EDP were to be negotiated at a certain point, the envisaged outcome of that might be a substantial investment in, for example, a chalk stream environment or the creation of a new habitat. There might be significant construction inflation between the point at which that EDP is first negotiated, the point at which sufficient contributions have been accumulated from the various parties that might have been involved in the development—which gives rise to the need for it—and the point at which that money is available to be spent. How will the level of the EDP be appropriately calculated so that we do not end up with what we already see in the section 106 system, whereby a contribution is secured from a developer, but by the time it comes to be spent, it is insufficient to pay for the mitigations that were necessary when it was negotiated?

• 14 May 2025 · Planning and Infrastructure Bill (Eighth sitting) · Hansard source

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  For the Opposition, support for the recovery of nature and the natural environment is a high priority. Amendment 77 and the arguments we will advance later are about ensuring that the additional capacity the Government are bringing to the process of nature recovery through their changes to the planning system is focused in a way that delivers. As we have heard, both in evidence and in the general debates around the comparison with the section 106 process, for example, where financial contributions are sought, they are accumulated until the point when the delivery of a plan—for school places, road improvements or whatever it may be—is viable. Clearly, the Government intend environmental delivery plans to work in the same way. As my hon. Friend the shadow Minister has ably set out, during the evidence sessions we heard concerns about the capacity of Natural England, as a further part of this already complex system, to deliver on that objective. In his rebuttal remarks earlier, the Minister relied on the proposed new section on chalk streams, saying that it was an example of something that could be dealt with through a local nature recovery strategy. That is one alternative to Natural England seeking to create a much larger process, but there are many others. In my constituency, we have the Hertfordshire and Middlesex Wildlife Trust, which might well be able to deliver a very substantial project in this respect. All of those bodies have a very direct relationship with the local authority, which is the planning authority. Rather than create an additional element of complexity, we should streamline the process so that a local authority becomes not only the planning decision maker, but is able, through its direct engagement with the developer and its detailed local knowledge of the environment in which the development is taking place, to take on that responsibility. Should it feel that Natural England is the best delivery partner for that, okay. I am sure we would all accept that, but there will be other options available, especially when the impacts the EDP is intended to mitigate are quite specialist or quite local in their effects. That is the thinking behind the amendment. I fundamentally disagree with my hon. Friend the Member for Hamble Valley in that I do not consider the Minister to be a small cog in this wheel. I am sure that his will be a significant voice in discussions with the Treasury, given the priority given to growth. I hope the Minister will take that into consideration, because this is an opportunity to step away from the previous delays, which were frequently cited in evidence on the role of Natural England, and to ensure that additional capacity goes into the part of the planning system that we know is already delivering at scale—the part that is under the control of local authorities.

• 14 May 2025 · Planning and Infrastructure Bill (Eighth sitting) · Hansard source

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  Yes, I know.

• 14 May 2025 · Planning and Infrastructure Bill (Eighth sitting) · Hansard source

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  The Minister mentioned moving to a cost recovery basis. Earlier, I mentioned a weakness of section 106: by the time funds are accumulated, maybe over a five or 10-year period, costs have risen and the delivered outcome is significantly less than was envisaged to mitigate the original impact. Could the Minister set out the process for establishing the relevant costs, with reference for example to the much-mocked £115 million HS2 bat tunnel, which came up in the evidence sessions? That has been hugely costly. We could end up with a very substantial bill that the developers and the promoters of the project had never expected in the first place, but that was judged necessary as a result of this process, despite it being entirely out of the view of the planning authority determining the original application.

• 14 May 2025 · Planning and Infrastructure Bill (Eighth sitting) · Hansard source

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  One question that frequently arises when there is a challenge to a development through the process of judicial review is about whether the processes of consultation have been correctly followed. Removing a requirement for consultation and replacing it with a discretion to notify dramatically lowers the ability of people who are very concerned that developments are brought forward within their strategic plans that would not have been acceptable and would have failed to meet the proper consultation standard—for example, on issues such as air quality or environmental impact. In fact, it would be in the interests of the development industry for proper consultation to take place, rather than its being forestalled in this way.

• 14 May 2025 · Planning and Infrastructure Bill (Eighth sitting) · Hansard source

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  This is an important and much debated issue. I would be grateful if the Minister could share with the Committee whether he has given consideration to bringing this issue within the remit of the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981, specifically in respect of species that are unique to those particular habitats. This is very much an area of cross-party interest; I am conscious of my own constituents, who have the Colne Valley, which has a chalk stream. I work closely with my hon. Friends the hon. Members for Beaconsfield (Joy Morrissey), and for South West Hertfordshire (Mr Mohindra), whose constituencies this affects as well. This issue often goes significantly beyond the scope of a local nature recovery strategy, simply because pollution discharge or run-off in one part of a river ecosystem results in a problem elsewhere. While I am sure the Minister will say he welcomes the measures that we passed in the Environment Act during the previous Parliament—which, for the first time, introduced comprehensive monitoring for issues such as sewage discharges—I believe there is still an opportunity to do a bit more to protect these unique habitats.

• 14 May 2025 · Planning and Infrastructure Bill (Eighth sitting) · Hansard source

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  When we were drafting amendment 78, we gave a good deal of consideration to the direction of travel set out by the Government. The concerns that underlay the drafting were reinforced in the evidence sessions, where the Committee heard from a cross-party panel of local government leaders that the consultation process in planning was an opportunity to get things right, and for a public conversation about the impact of any proposed development, large or small, in order to forestall, through the planning process, objections that might later arise, by designing a development that would meet those concerns. We have heard today a number of examples from Members that fall within that category. We have heard cross-party concerns about the impact on chalk streams, where consultation would allow effective parties with an interest to bring forward their views—for example, on the impact of run-off. A developer would therefore have the opportunity to build those concerns into the design of their proposed scheme to mitigate the impact and address the concerns. We heard about the impact of air pollution on asthmatics—including, for the record, me. If a developer says they are planning to use biomass or wood burning as the heat source for a development, and the stoves are on the DEFRA exempt list—that is, if the Government consider that they produce little or no environmental pollution—that might be acceptable to people with that concern. However, if it will simply be up to the developer to install whatever they wish, that will have a significant negative impact and there is no opportunity for mitigation. The consultation is therefore critical. There is a direction of travel: it feels very much that the Government’s view is that consultation and democracy are a hindrance to getting new units built. It is very clear from the views expressed by many Members—from all parties, in fairness, but certainly in the Opposition amendments that have been put forward—that we are keen to retain a sufficient element of local democracy and local voice to ensure that the kinds of concerns I have described are properly addressed. I invite the Minister to consider accepting the amendment, which would not in any way derail the intentions that he sets out in the Bill, but would achieve the opportunity for consultation, which is critical.

• 14 May 2025 · Planning and Infrastructure Bill (Eighth sitting) · Hansard source

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  For the edification of the Committee, they are also known as featherbed bogs.

• 14 May 2025 · Planning and Infrastructure Bill (Seventh sitting) · Hansard source

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  On a point of order, Dr Huq. May I seek your guidance? My hon. Friend the Member for Hamble Valley, the shadow Minister, has spoken to two amendments tabled in my name, which we intend to push to a vote. It is a departure from Committee procedure to vote on one amendment but not on the others, when a vote has been expected, and to set them aside. When, in the Committee proceedings, will we return to the amendments discussed earlier to vote on them?

• 14 May 2025 · Planning and Infrastructure Bill (Seventh sitting) · Hansard source

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  On a point of order, Dr Huq. The groupings have been negotiated by the Whips. The Chair’s selection of amendments is in that order, and votes have followed that process.

• 14 May 2025 · Planning and Infrastructure Bill (Seventh sitting) · Hansard source

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  Further to that point of order, Dr Huq. I return to the question: can you indicate when in the Committee proceedings we will return to vote on those amendments?

• 14 May 2025 · Planning and Infrastructure Bill (Seventh sitting) · Hansard source

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  My apologies, Dr Huq, for my late arrival to the Committee. I am grateful to the shadow Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Hamble Valley, for moving the amendment, which stands in my name. I seek a more detailed assurance from the Minister. I appreciate that he is not in a position to comment on the specifics of individual cases, but yesterday I raised something that is very pertinent: the decision of the Secretary of State on the Abbots Langley development. It was a longstanding principle of the approach to green belt that, where there were hard boundaries such as motorways, rivers and railway lines, the preservation of green space between them and adjoining settlements was very important, because it creates a green boundary and some additional space to reduce air pollution. The Secretary of State’s decision in respect of the national planning policy framework 2025 is effectively to redesignate all such land as grey belt. Areas that our constituents clearly understood were directly protected and were in the green belt have effectively, at the stroke of a pen, been redesignated as grey belt and eligible for development. That is why these amendments are so important. We need to guarantee that those vital green spaces, which provide a bit of a cushion between hard infrastructure and people’s residences, will be preserved and protected. Without commenting on that specific case, will the Minister address the legitimate concerns raised by that decision?

• 14 May 2025 · Planning and Infrastructure Bill (Seventh sitting) · Hansard source

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  Again, at the risk of a political love-in taking place, I am grateful to the Minister for the way in which he has dealt with all of the debates extremely courteously, and he has responded in detail. However, there is a genuine point of principle. I gently respond to him on a point that I raised earlier. We have had a lot of assurances that there is a shared direction of travel around the protection of the green belt. However, the first significant decision that has been taken by the Secretary of State, in line with the planning practice guidance from February 2025, has driven a coach and horses through the expectations that were set about how that protection will operate. I think that that has stiffened the resolve on this side, so that we are now saying that we need to press the issue, because it is clear that whatever undertakings appear to be made, the reality is that decisions to develop on the green belt, in places that constituents reasonably expect to be protected, are being taken. Therefore, we need to ensure that, as far as possible, we secure those protections in the legislation.

• 13 May 2025 · Planning and Infrastructure Bill (Sixth sitting) · Hansard source

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  May I press the Minister a little further? That is a really helpful answer in illuminating the Government’s thinking, but could he explain to the Committee how that will interact with the existing arrangements for planning performance agreements, which are very common in respect of larger-scale planning applications? Clearly, if a developer required to engage with all this wider statutory-consultee process is already entering into a voluntary agreement with the local authority to fund the process, there is a risk that that will have an impact. It risks either reducing the ability of the local authority, because that surcharge is effectively being taken by the Secretary of State, or increasing the cost base and therefore opening up the question whether the planning fees are reasonable in the first place.

• 13 May 2025 · Planning and Infrastructure Bill (Sixth sitting) · Hansard source

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  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.

• 13 May 2025 · Planning and Infrastructure Bill (Sixth sitting) · Hansard source

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  I gently say to the Minister, who I look up to in many ways, that it is a challenge for the Committee to rely upon, on the one hand, an argument that this is not a big deal because it would affect hardly any planning applications, and on the other hand, an argument that it is so important we have to push it through via a national scheme of delegation. The concern that Members have is considering the 4% of applications that go to committee as a major problem, when in fact, by general acceptance in today’s debate, they are not really much of an issue. We lose the important element of local democratic accountability without any corresponding benefit in planning delivery.

• 13 May 2025 · Planning and Infrastructure Bill (Sixth sitting) · Hansard source

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• 13 May 2025 · Planning and Infrastructure Bill (Sixth sitting) · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Jardine. The Opposition broadly understand the direction of travel that the Minister has set out and the principles underlying it are clearly quite sensible. Will the Minister give us a degree of assurance, particularly about the process for determining the circumstances in which the authorities that are listed and the circumstances that are listed may be set aside? That is significant because significant infrastructure developments are often close to heritage railway buildings and historic sites where there will be a legitimate expectation from both local authorities and residents that a proper consultation will be undertaken. We know that, in the past, the effect of that regime has been that in many cases developers, in places such as Royal Quay in my own constituency in Harefield, have chosen to put historic buildings back into use for a new purpose. For example, formerly industrial buildings connected with Victorian transport networks could be used for residential development, rather than simply demolishing and clearing the sites and losing that heritage asset in the process. It would be helpful to understand how we will ensure, through the regime as set out, that those considerations are fully taken into account. I appreciate that we will debate the green belt later on, but there is significant interaction in the Bill between the different types of regime that apply, and we have already had much debate about the green belt and the grey belt. I am aware that the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government yesterday issued a decision with respect to a site just north of London, and the effect of her determination is that any land on a transport corridor located between, for example, a motorway and a village, even if it is currently in the green belt, will be considered to be grey belt for the purposes of developability. That will clearly have a significant impact in similar situations in locations with a significant heritage element that are close to railways, motorways and other such transport networks that would potentially, from a developer point of view, benefit from swifter development without a consultation being undertaken. However, from the perspective of local residents and the wider community concerned about heritage and land use, they are losing the opportunity to have this.

• 13 May 2025 · Planning and Infrastructure Bill (Sixth sitting) · Hansard source

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  The Minister’s response has been excellent. Clearly, there will be a number of different arrangements at a local level. That should encourage us, as a Committee considering the legislation, to reflect a little further. In the example that the Minister talked about—the behaviour of local authorities—it may not be about those who have ill intentions. Some local authorities may have a planning and building control department—although the two regimes are separate, there is great commonality of skills—while others may have outsourced one or both those functions, or have them in-house but entirely separate. As part of the published council tax fixing, there is a requirement to set out a schedule of fees for building control. Some local authorities may choose to bundle that together, so when people put in a planning application, they pay for both; but others may do that separately. Some developers, including householders, may choose to purchase the building control privately, even though they could purchase it from the local authority. A lot of factors will determine what a reasonable cost base is. It would help if the Minister shared with the Committee some further thinking on how the Government might seek to establish a baseline, in particular in the light of potential challenges in the future by developers who feel that the level of cost at a particular spot is other than reasonable. I press the Minister a little on how that interacts with two further points that he made. Government new clause 39 refers to the power of the Secretary of State to implement a surcharge as a percentage of a planning fee that has been set. From what I understand of what the Minister said in his commentary, that will principally be to fund the work of the statutory consultees. Clearly, the imposition of a surcharge will then form part of the planning fees that have to be part of the statutory consultation on the legislatively fixed timetable that the local authority has to follow. How will the Government ensure that that timetable is respected, so that they themselves are not subject to the challenge?

• 13 May 2025 · Planning and Infrastructure Bill (Sixth sitting) · Hansard source

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  If we look at the statistics from the ONS on new household formation and the balance between that and the delivery of new homes, we see that they are reasonably in balance at the moment. We know that many people would like a bigger home or a different type of home, and that is why we have consistently argued that we need to focus on the nature of the homes we are delivering, not just on the units being delivered through the planning system. Members have consistently made the point about centralisation. The UK is already an exceptionally centralised country: we have fewer democratically elected politicians per head of population than most other developed democracies in the world. Our concern with these measures is that they further reduce the voice of a local resident through their democratic representative about a decision that may be the most significant thing affecting their home or their neighbourhood in their entire life. By creating a national scheme of delegations, we go beyond a point of saying that all local authorities must ensure, in the delivery of a quasi-judicial process, that they are following the law. We begin to say that this is no longer a delegation: it is compulsory. We are taking away the democratic power of the local authority, under which it delegates those decisions to planning committees and to officers, and we are deciding in Whitehall who will make those decisions. While I absolutely respect what the Minister is saying about expert planning officers, having served in the last Parliament as the chair of the all-party parliamentary group on housing and planning and worked very closely with the RTPI, I think we need to be realistic. In many cases, when the Minister says “expert planning officers”, we are talking about newly minted graduates who do not live in—and have no experience of—the local area. They arrive and undertake a desk-based exercise to make these decisions. They are not highly experienced people with a level of local insight who understand why particular aspects of design, materials, or the nature of a development will have a real impact on a neighbourhood. There are specific examples; one is applications by elected members themselves. I know from my time as a councillor in Hillingdon that a standard rule to ensure transparency is that any application by an elected councillor must be heard by a committee. If someone wishes to change the windows in their home, or build a loft extension, it has to go through a planning committee, even when those things are covered by permitted development rights. That was to ensure that level of transparency. It is not clear how such issues are dealt with through this proposed scheme of delegation. Matters of detail can be critical: ensuring the acceptance of a proposed development at a neighbourhood level may often come down to issues like overlooking or how it respects the privacy of neighbours. Does it have tree planting, to screen developments that people are unhappy to see? Will there be mitigations around noise? Those are not trivial matters; they have a huge impact on people’s quality of life. The ability of elected representatives to say, “This decision made, entirely in accordance with planning law, needs to be taken transparently in public so that these representations can be heard” is critical.

• 13 May 2025 · Planning and Infrastructure Bill (Sixth sitting) · Hansard source

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  Actually, the answer is both. We will all know of people’s experience with local authorities: they meet a planning officer to discuss a delegated planning decision and they receive advice, but when it is submitted, it is considered by a different planning officer who takes a completely different view. Given that that is how the vast bulk of planning applications are dealt with, if the Government’s aim is to bring consistency and certainty to the process—it is a laudable aim—it will be necessary to focus on the more than 90% of decisions that are already made under delegated powers, as well as this measure, which is for that small number considered by the planning committee.

• 13 May 2025 · Planning and Infrastructure Bill (Sixth sitting) · Hansard source

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