My noble Friend, the Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede), has today made the following statement:
My hon. Friend the Minister of State for Housing and Planning (Matthew Pennycook MP) and I are pleased to announce changes to the statutory judicial review process which will help to streamline and speed up infrastructure planning cases.
The delivery of major infrastructure projects is central to the Government’s mission to drive growth and unlock clean power. The largest and most complex of these projects currently require a development consent order (DCO) under the nationally significant infrastructure projects (NSIPs) regime established by the Planning Act 2008.
The number of legal challenges against DCOs has spiked in recent years, with 58% of decisions being subject to legal challenge. Delays to these major projects have serious implications, including holding back the delivery of essential benefits to the country and imposing considerable additional costs on development.
Despite 30 challenges being brought against major infrastructure projects, only four decisions to approve a project have been overturned by the courts. It comes as research shows that, on average, each legal challenge takes 1.4 years to reach a conclusion and the courts have spent over 10,000 working days handling these cases. Such cases impact upon the use of public money, with major road projects paying up to £121 million per scheme due to delays in legal proceedings. While it is fundamental that the public can challenge the lawfulness of Government decisions, there is scope for rebalancing the judicial review process to improve efficiency and reduce delays to NSIPs.
In October, we published Lord Banner’s independent review into the delays to NSIPs caused by legal challenges, which recognised that concerns with the process were well founded and outlined policy options for the Government to consider. Alongside publishing Lord Banner’s report, we launched a call for evidence which sought views on Lord Banner’s ideas. This closed on 30 December. We thank Lord Banner for his work in delivering the review and all those who engaged with the call for evidence.
The Government today confirm that the current permission stage for NSIP judicial reviews will be overhauled. Instead of the current position where a claimant has “three bites of the cherry”—a paper permission stage, an option to renew to an oral permission hearing and, if unsuccessful, a right of appeal to the Court of Appeal—the new process will be streamlined. Hopeless legal challenges will have just one attempt rather than three to challenge a development consent decision.
The current first attempt—known as the paper permission stage—will be scrapped. All applications for permission will go straight to an oral hearing resulting in less cost to the parties. Primary legislation will be changed so that where a judge in an oral hearing at the High Court deems the case totally without merit, it will not be possible to ask the Court of Appeal to reconsider. To ensure ongoing access to justice, a request to appeal second attempt will be allowed for all other cases.
In addition, we will: introduce non-mandatory case management conferences to NSIP judicial reviews; formally designate NSIP judicial reviews as significant planning court claims; and work with the judiciary to introduce target timescales for NSIP judicial reviews in the Court of Appeal and in the Supreme Court.
Taken together, these changes will ensure that the right to challenge NSIP decisions is protected, but with more proportionate and effective processes that give developers and investors greater confidence to get building.
The Government response to the call for evidence on this matter will be published in due course. It will set out how the measures announced today will be taken forward and will provide the Government’s views on the other options which we have considered as part of the call for evidence.
These changes will avoid needless delay, cost and uncertainty for major infrastructure projects, ensuring we can deliver the infrastructure this country needs to drive growth, cut energy bills over time, cut commuting times, and put more money in hard working people’s pockets. These reforms will drive progress of our plan for change by leveraging more investment, supporting more businesses, and getting Britain building.
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