To ask His Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the potential impact of their proposed planning reforms on productivity in the United Kingdom, specifically in relation to the impact of the reforms on the cost of energy and housing.
My Lords, my noble friend points to the key role our Government’s steps to unblock a sclerotic planning system will play in delivering our growth mission. The Government continually assess the potential impact of our policies, including the proposed planning reforms. This is backed up by the independent OBR, which has forecast that the Government’s reforms to the National Planning Policy Framework will add around £6.8 billion to GDP in 2029-30 and raise UK housebuilding to its highest level in 40 years. The Government’s other planning reforms, including the Planning and Infrastructure Bill, will help deliver the Government’s clean power 2030 commitment, which, overall, is expected to unlock £40 billion of investment a year in clean energy infrastructure.
I thank my noble friend for that helpful response, and I refer the House to my entry in the register of interests. Working with not-for-profits, I have seen how vital and often popular projects can be delayed or derailed by the complexity of the planning system, which is often used by small, well-organised local opposition. Larger developers can usually navigate this; smaller organisations, especially those without a profit motive, can struggle. Do His Majesty’s Government consider planning complexity itself a barrier to progress that is worthy of attention as part of the planning system reform?
My noble friend is quite right. We have made it a priority of this Government to develop a simplified planning system with a policy framework that is accessible and understandable to all. Our reforms will streamline planning processes to help provide more homes of all tenures and accelerate the delivery of major infrastructure projects. They will modernise the decision-making process and increase local planning authorities’ capacity to deliver that improved service. We have also committed to establishing a clearer set of national policies for decision-making, so the system is clearer and more consistent. All this should help smaller developers.
My Lords, we are developing the future homes strategy, which will point to all the net-zero measures that we want to see. We do not want new houses being built that have to be retrofitted, or that are technology-specific, because the technology is developing at pace and we want to make sure there is enough flexibility in the system for new technologies to be adopted. Things such as solar panels and air source heat pumps are great innovations that are really changing our homes, keeping them warmer and making them more carbon neutral.
My Lords, in future, a number of major planning applications will require environmental development plans, which will be written by Natural England. Yet there is a great scepticism about the efficiency of that, because Natural England does not have the resources, and it is going to be very difficult to recruit them in time to meet the planning targets. Can the Minister assure us that, somehow, these plans and Natural England will be properly resourced to make sure that those efficiencies can happen, and that nature can be protected?
My Lords, it is important that, as we go forward with our ambitious target to build 1.5 million homes, we take care of the environment at the same time. Natural England’s role in that, which the noble Lord points to, is key in developing the plans that will protect nature as we build those homes. I understand the concerns that he and other noble Lords have about the resources in Natural England. We are working very closely with it, and we will provide it with additional resources to help it deliver with us what I do not think is a contradiction: the development and infrastructure that we all want to see, while protecting our precious natural environment at the same time.
My Lords, the Minister herself referred to the sclerotic system. I declare my interest as president of the British Chambers of Commerce. One contributor to that system is the chronic lack of planners themselves. We are working on a project with Aviva to try to help build that capacity, but it will only ever deliver a fraction of the Government’s ambition. Is the Minister aware of the project, and what other creative plans do she and her department have to turbocharge the number of planners in the country?
I thank the noble Baroness for her question. The Government have announced additional funding to support the recruitment and training of 300 graduates and apprentices for local planning authorities. However, I have worked in local government for a long time, and I am not naive enough to think you can pick planners from trees; they need to be trained. This forms part of a wider £46 million package of investment in the planning system to upskill local planners and ensure they can implement our reforms, including ensuring that everywhere has an up-to-date local plan in place. We need to inspire young people into these careers and make sure that they see the benefit of a career in planning. We are never going to be able to compete with the private sector on salary, but we can compete on the excitement of developing local places and good places for people to live, and I hope that will inspire people.