Here are the climate-related sections of speeches by MPs during the Commons debate Planning and Infrastructure Bill.
13:30 David Simmonds (Conservative)
I am going to develop my answer to that, because that is the question we face as a country. We set ourselves a target in the last Parliament of delivering 1 million homes, and we fell just short of that, but when this Government set out their commitment to net zero, I do not think they intended 23 of the 33 London boroughs to have net zero new housing starts, according to a new Bidwells report on the housing market in London. They did not anticipate a 20% reduction in completions of new homes. They did not anticipate a 55.9% drop in the number of new housing starts here in our capital city or a Labour mayor delivering 4.9% of the target set for him by this Government, despite record levels of funding. The context, as we saw today, of growth in our country falling to just 0.1%, is a significant clue to the answer to the hon. Gentleman’s question.
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13:30 David Simmonds (Conservative)
On heritage sites and reservoirs, the Lords have done some excellent work. I am grateful to the Minister and the Government for their willingness to embrace the debate about electric vehicle charging, and I know noble Lords have been extremely keen to support the work being done to deliver that net zero agenda. However, so many elements of the Bill incorporate a tendency to centralisation. The lack of community-level accountability and lack of ability for local residents to have their say about what is happening in their area—for example, on assets of community value—remains a fundamental concern. If we want those communities to embrace development and new homes, they need to be able to see the benefits and opportunities that a development will bring to their lives.
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14:00 David Mundell (Conservative)
The key consideration is this: in a dangerous and difficult world, we must not water down our defence systems or let down our allies to squeeze out what, in a national context, is a small amount of extra electricity. The UK Government should robustly refuse to entertain novel technologies within the 15 km exclusion zone proposed by the Eskdalemuir working group, which would replace the existing 10 km zone. That should also apply to those applications already in the planning system that were submitted by developers who continued to pursue their projects aggressively, with full knowledge that work was ongoing to review the exclusion zone. Our national defence must come first. I am sure that most people would agree that this is an area where an abundance of caution is well justified. It would be concerning if Ministers and the MOD were pressured into going too far in the name of net zero.
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14:45 Roz Savage (Liberal Democrat)
Lords amendment 40 reflects a real cross-party consensus and is backed by the Wildlife Trusts, the RSPB and the Better Planning Coalition. It would offer clarity, reduce legal risk and support sustainable development while strengthening genuine nature recovery—which, incidentally, will also help in climate change mitigation. Above all, the amendment recognises that we are not, and do not need to be, in conflict with nature; we are part of it. This is our chance to show that good planning can be both responsible and ambitious, and that we can deliver the homes that people so urgently need while safeguarding the natural world that sustains us all.
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15:16 Mike Reader (Labour)
The amendments brought forward by the Lords that the Government are taking forward improve that certainty of the legal process. Even yesterday, in the Energy Security and Net Zero Committee, we heard evidence on the planning process for delivering community energy, and I am sure everyone would support more small-scale community energy. We were blown away by the complexity of planning regulation in trying to get, say, solar panels on to a community building or a small-scale district heating scheme delivered in a local community for their benefit. The scale of complexity of our planning process is such a big challenge. As well as improving certainty of the legal process, the Bill improves certainty around nature protection. The engineering design process will help us deliver more homes and protect nature.
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