Planning and Infrastructure Act 2025 (Consequential Amendments) Regulations 2026
House of Lords · Grand Committee · 23 Jun 2026 · 24 speeches · Official Report
Considered in Grand Committee
Moved by
That the Grand Committee do consider the Planning and Infrastructure Act 2025 (Consequential Amendments) Regulations 2026.
My Lords, these draft regulations were laid before the House on 27 April. The Government were clear in our manifesto that housing need in England cannot be met without planning for growth on a larger than local scale and that we would introduce new mechanisms for cross-boundary strategic planning. To that end, the Planning and Infrastructure Act, which received Royal Assent last December, legislated for the reintroduction of an England- wide system of strategic plan-making. The Act inserted a new Part 1A into the Planning and Compulsory Purchase Act 2004, placing a duty on strategic planning authorities to prepare a spatial development strategy. An SDS will form part of the development plan to which local planning authorities must have regard when determining planning applications unless material considerations indicate otherwise. Local plans will be required to be in general conformity with the relevant spatial development strategy. SDS are high-level plans that will define the overall scale and distribution of growth and development across an area, including the potential need for regeneration and environmental protection or enhancement. They may identify broad locations for development and the infrastructure required to support it, and can redistribute housing and other development needs between local planning authorities. These regulations will make two minor, consequential amendments to support the implementation of this new system, which we intend to commence later...
My Lords, I wonder if I might intervene at this stage. The Committee will recall-pretty much everybody in the Committee was present during the Planning and Infrastructure Bill’s passage-that, going back to the Levelling-up and Regeneration Act, I have been very supportive of strategic spatial planning, and we want to see that brought into effect as soon as possible. I declare my registered interest as chair of the Cambridgeshire Development Forum and as a supporter of and adviser to development forums in other locations, as detailed. For the development community in all those places, one of the consistent messages that comes through is about desirability, not simply of having sub-regional spatial planning at a strategic level, not confined to the territory of one local planning authority generally but embracing several, but of what is afforded by that opportunity-namely, the ability to bring together transport strategies, infrastructure strategies, growth plans and spatial development strategies into one document, which can then help guide and direct the planning infrastructure. As the Minister helpfully explained, as the Explanatory Memorandum does, this is one of several statutory instruments necessary to bring the procedure of strategic development strategies into place. The Minister said, “in the autumn”, but I want to find out is what is going to happen and when. I hope the Minister will be able to confirm that it remains the Government’s intention to publish the...
My Lords, like my noble friend I am certainly not opposed to these regulations; I am very much in favour of spatial planning. I have just one question for the Minister. I thank her very much for setting out so clearly the purport of these regulations and apologise for not being able to give advance notice of this question. It is a bit left field and if she wants to write, I quite understand that. It is in the context of development corporations. I appreciate there is ongoing work on this and that the emphasis may change given the experience of Liverpool. I wonder what the evolving thinking is within the department. Is the Minister able to say something about these measures, which make a massive difference to growth, and how that could impact the Thames estuary, the Solent and so on? I am happy for the Minister to write if that is more convenient.
Baroness McIntosh of Pickering
I thank the Minister for presenting the regulations. I am afraid I am going to break the harmony. The Minister will recall our debates on the previous legislation that my noble friend Lord Lansley rehearsed. I go back to the time I was first elected to the other place-on the same day as my noble friend-in 1997, when the Labour Government introduced regional planning and a regional spatial strategy. I ask the same question now that I asked then: where will the voice of rural areas be heard? Which space will rural areas be occupying? The population of North Yorkshire is 11% of the total population of the region of Yorkshire and the Humber, and yet, with the replacement of districts and boroughs with a combined authority and a mayor, I would say that the rural areas have lost their voice. Over the years of the previous Labour Government-perhaps the next Prime Minister was quite a dominant part of that- I saw that the rural voice was pretty much extinct. To give an example of why it is important that we consider the rural voice, there is a trend of building four-bedroom or five-bedroom homes, whereas in rural areas what we really need are one-bedroom or two-bedroom homes. Obviously, it is not necessarily of interest to developers to build that type of housing stock. The question then arises: what consultation will there be when these spatial strategies come out? I have been looking at the pages on North Yorkshire and the surrounding area-York, East Riding and Hull. They have...
My Lords, I declare my relevant interest as a councillor on a met council that will clearly be affected by these changes. On the changes to the development of strategic plans, during the course of the Planning and Infrastructure Bill I raised concerns not about the benefits of a strategic plan, which covers a wider area than a local planning authority, but about the way it is to be developed. This comes to the fore again in this instance. My first query is not what organisation will be responsible for the plan but who will be responsible for the plan. Paragraph 5.3 of the Explanatory Memorandum references a combination of principal authorities and combined authorities. One of my concerns is that these cover widely differing geographic and population sizes. For example, West Yorkshire Combined Authority covers 2.5 million people, whereas the York and North Yorkshire Combined Authority, with a mayor, has just a million people. There is a big disparity, which will have an impact on how a wider strategic look at development across an area is considered. It also has an impact on the engagement and involvement of locally elected members and residents who will be affected by the development of the strategic plan. So that is my first concern: who will do it? The Explanatory Memorandum talks about a strategic planning board but, if it is as undemocratic as the combined authority, I would have real concerns. I will say a bit more about the “who”. We learned from the devolution Bill...
Before I start, I declare an interest as a councillor in Central Bedfordshire, which will no doubt at some point be affected by this statutory instrument. At the outset, we accept the general principle that consequential amendments are a necessary feature of major legislative reform. But, as we debated on the then Planning and Infrastructure Bill, we remain concerned with the increasing centralisation of planning decisions- I think that was something that the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, raised. Strategic planning appears to be part of that strategy: moving decisions away from local councils and local people who know their area best. We agree with the Government that we need to get Britain building. We are not building enough homes, infrastructure takes too long and costs are too high, and that will require a simpler and streamlined planning system that is clearer and more consistent. The recently released Savills report on housebuilding, which forecasts that only 839,000 houses will be built in the five years of the Labour Government, compared to the target of 1.5 million, just highlights that the system is not working.
Spatial development strategies, when done correctly, could offer the opportunity to ensure greater consistency and co-ordination over a wider area, particularly when it comes to infrastructure. However, they need to be built on local and community knowledge and should not be just top down. I refer to some of the evidence of the London Plan, which is not auspicious: far from being a high-level document, it is a 526-page tome containing more than 100 separate policies, often in conflict with local policies, and has added complexity to the planning process, resulting in delay and additional cost. Given the declining housebuilding in London, it can be considered in many ways to be failing.
Can the Minister explain how the Government will ensure that the system remains bottom up and that local councils and communities can genuinely lead and influence development in their area, but will accept the need for wider co-ordination? Can she also explain how this will simplify the system, provide greater clarity and consistency and, in particular, ensure that lessons from London are learned?
During the passage of the Bill, we repeatedly raised the issue of using brownfield first. The Minister assured noble Lords that this would be the case. How will the Government ensure that a brownfield-first approach is followed throughout spatial development strategies? How will they ensure that mayors, particularly in areas based on a large city, do not take the easy option and focus building on greenfield rather than brownfield land? My noble friend alluded to that in North Yorkshire. The Conservatives have sought to enshrine brownfield-first into law, and the Labour Government have so far resisted. How will the Government ensure that this actually happens in practice and not just in words? It is a particular concern given recent announcements on local government reorganisation, in which there were several proposals for cities to expand into their rural hinterlands.
There is a broader institutional concern about the manner in which planning reform is being implemented. We are dealing here with a system that is already complex, capacity constrained and subject to significant public pressure. In that context, the cumulative effect of repeated structural changes implemented through a combination of primary legislation and consequential secondary instruments risks adding further uncertainty and lack of clarity. There is a case for just calming down and letting the system settle. Good legislative practice in planning form should prioritise clarity, stability and usability for local authorities and practitioners.
I would like confirmation from the Minister that these regulations do not go beyond what is strictly necessary to ensure legal coherence following the Act and that they do not have the effect of expanding ministerial influence over local plan-making or decision-taking beyond the scope envisaged in primary legislation.
I would like to follow up on a few of the questions that my noble friends raised. First, my noble friend Lord Lansley asked about the timetable. This is really important, because there is a lot of misunderstanding and confusion out there as to exactly what is coming, when and what it means.
Secondly, what geography are we talking about? Some mayoral combined authorities are very large, such as London, while others are geographically large, such as Essex, Kent and Lincolnshire. However, some are small, relatively speaking; my noble friend Lord Lansley mentioned Buckinghamshire and I could raise my own authority of Bedfordshire and Milton Keynes. I understand how something can operate over a big area, in a strategic sense, but how can it also operate over a significantly smaller area and population in the same manner? That needs clarification. Is there an implication that there may be a desire to combine some of these areas for strategic spatial planning?
My noble friend Lady McIntosh of Pickering raised the importance of the voice of rural areas. In relation to the comments I made earlier, we do not want the default presumption to be building on green fields simply because it is easier; we need a brownfield-first approach.
For those reasons, while we do not oppose the regulations in principle, I suggest that the Committee should view them as part of a wider system change, as their implications on local planning, autonomy, regulatory clarity and administrative burden will require continued scrutiny as implementation proceeds. I am grateful to the Minister for her explanation and look forward to her response to the many questions.
My Lords, I thank all Members for their considered contributions this afternoon. I am grateful to most noble Lords for supporting the overall direction of travel in relation to strategic development strategies. I hope the Committee agrees that the two minor amendments are appropriate. I will try to answer as many questions as I can. For any that I do not answer, I will respond in writing. I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, for his broad support for the SDS and I agree with him about sub-regional planning. He probably went through the same process with the East of England Plan that I sat through for many months. Pulling together into one place transport, infrastructure and strategic planning is key to getting the growth that we all want to see. The noble Lord asked me a number of questions. I will try to take them in the order he asked them. He asked me whether the SDS will contain affordable housing. The legislation is deliberately permissive, so, if the board wishes, it can specify levels of affordable housing within the plan. The noble Lord and the noble Lord, Lord Jamieson, asked about a timetable for the implementation of SDS and strategic planning boards. We intend to lay these SIs in the autumn. I cannot be more specific than that, but that is our intention. The strategic planning board regulations must be subject to consultation before being laid. That probably picks up one of the comments from the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock. We anticipate that...
I completely understand that the terminology of the Act says that the spatial development strategy may set out the amount and distribution of housing and affordable housing. My point is that, even the latter, in relation to affordable housing, was not included in the draft NPPF text for PM1 relating to SDS. I think it ought to be in there.
I thank the noble Lord for that comment. I will feed that back to the team. It is not completed yet, so I will feed his comments in. On planning practice guidance for SDS once the NPPF is published, we will consider the need for planning practice guidance, but we need to publish the NPPF first. We will have a look at that once the NPPF is under way. The noble Lord asked about the group 1 and group 2 SDS areas and the timetable for them to submit an SDS. The period within which the strategic planning authority needs to submit its timetable will be set out in regulations. We anticipate that most SPAs will be asked to submit a timetable within 90 days of the formal commencement of the SDS duty. Assuming that commencement is in the autumn, this will be, as the noble Lord rightly suggested, in the early part of 2027. There was a question about green belt and where changes to green-belt boundaries may need to be considered but the local plan has set the boundary. What happens if there is a disagreement? The noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, referred to this as well. Local plans have to be in general conformity with any adopted SDS for the area, and that applies to green belt as it does to any other aspect of an SDS, but that will be tested at the local plan examination. General conformity allows for some inconsistency but not a completely different approach. I suspect that that will be tested in examination processes, and it will be interesting to see where that falls. The noble Lord,...
Just to be absolutely clear, the Minister used the example of 1.5 million, which clearly Cambridgeshire, Bedfordshire and Northamptonshire do not hit. The Minister is clearly implying that there will have to be a board, not necessarily of those three, but of other geographies. Similarly, Norfolk and Suffolk do not hit those targets.
As I said, meeting the categories set out in the English devolution Bill is a clear goal. We want to make sure that they work as a spatial development strategy, and they have to meet certain criteria to do that. We want to get on with the job, so we are putting this process in place to deliver it now. There were a number of questions, particularly from the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, on authorities that are required to produce a spatial development strategy. Combined authorities, both mayoral and non-mayoral, combined county authorities, both mayoral and non-mayoral, upper-tier county councils and unitary authorities will all have the duty to produce spatial development strategies. These authorities will be known as strategic planning authorities. The Government will be able to group any of these authorities together, as the noble Lord, Lord Jamieson, suggested to jointly produce a spatial development strategy, through a committee known as a strategic planning board. In most cases, combined authorities or combined county authorities will produce an SDS for their area, and upper-tier county councils and unitary authorities will be grouped together under a strategic planning board. However, some upper-tier county councils may produce one individually, and some combined authorities or combined county authorities could be grouped with an authority outside their area under a strategic planning board. The noble Lord, Lord Jamieson, asked me specifically about brownfield land,...
Motion agreed.