Planning and Infrastructure Bill

Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts Excerpts

2nd reading
Wednesday 25th June 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts (Con)]

My Lords, as they say, follow that. It is a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Rooker. He is always trenchant and always given with verve and determination. I will pick up on the issue he raised of departmental silos in a minute.

I want to make two points, one strategic and the other tactical. I will deal with the strategic one first. This is an ambitious plan for 1.5 million homes while meeting clean power targets and, at the same time, making sure we have an adequate degree of nature recovery, as mentioned by my noble friend Lord Goldsmith. However, it does not deal with the point made by my noble friend Lord Lilley: that, over the next 10 years, we will have an additional 6.6 million people in this country. That is a huge number; it is about two cities the size of Manchester. Manchester covers an area roughly the size of Berkshire. Together, all these issues will have some substantial consequences. For my part, I am concerned that some of them may be unintended. In the short time I have available, I want to draw the House’s attention to one: the growing danger and risk to our food and water security.

When this Bill comes into effect, a lot of agricultural land will be taken out of food production. Partially, obviously, that will be because we are going to have to build houses and the ancillary facilities that go with them. Also, less obviously but still very important, there will be massive amounts of agricultural land lost to solar farms—not just to solar farms but to the production of maize for feeding biodigesters to generate electricity. It is all part of the push for green energy targets.

It is obvious that you cannot eat solar panels. When the Minister comes to wind up—perhaps I could ask the noble Lord on the Front Bench to pass this on to her—could she tell the House how many acres of agricultural land are expected to be taken out of production as a result of this Bill? How will the Government square this with the conclusion of their own national security review, published today, which concludes, as headlined in the Times, that the risk of war on home soil is now the greatest in years?

People tend to forget that we grow just over half our food, about 55%, and we must go on to the world market to buy the balance. It is a question not just of buying the food but of shipping it here. The Russian invasion of Ukraine and the impact of four or five pinch points, such as the Strait of Hormuz, show how vulnerable we are to world events. As an island—an already relatively crowded island—we are particularly vulnerable to these shifts. In the early 1940s, this country was within a few months of starvation until the Royal Navy was able to crack the U-boat threats to our convoys. Today, the threats are much shorter. As mentioned in the national security review, supply chains now run very thin. It is estimated that there are three days of supply for this country in the food chain at any one time. As someone put it, rather overdramatically, we are nine meals away from anarchy. The situation regarding water, as mentioned by my noble friend Lady Coffey, is no better.

If the prime task of the Government is to protect citizens and keep them safe, that must include providing adequate supplies of food and water, but that does not come into this debate because—this was the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Rooker—it falls into another silo. It is important that, somehow, those silos interconnect, communicate and make sure that the implications of one are read into the conclusions and policies of the other.

In my last 30 seconds, I turn to my tactical point. I want to interrogate the Minister about footpaths— I declare an interest as a member of the Ramblers. The UK’s network of footpaths plays an important role in giving people a chance to exercise and to improve their physical and mental well-being, but there are 40,000 miles of footpath which are currently unrecorded and which, under the drop-dead date of the Countryside and Rights of Way Act 2000, will disappear on 31 December this year—gone for ever.

The previous Conservative Government gave an extension. Instead of 31 December this year, they would disappear on 31 December 2030. However, the incoming Labour Government bravely said that we should remove all the drop-dead dates and they should be left to be sorted out over time, but—in the hallowed phrase—when parliamentary time permits. Now, we have parliamentary time, so I hope the Minister will welcome some amendments to give effect to this very important commitment that this Government have given us.

Planning and Infrastructure Bill

Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts Excerpts

Committee stage
Monday 15th September 2025 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts]

213: After Clause 106, insert the following new Clause—
“Review: rights of wayWithin six months of the day on which this Act is passed, the Secretary of State must publish a review of the effect of the provisions in this Act on—(a) access to,(b) enjoyment of, and(c) preservation of,rights of way, especially unrecorded rights of way.”Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment seeks to probe the effect of the Bill on rights of way, including unrecorded rights of way which are due to be extinguished on 31 December 2030.

[Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts (Con)]

My Lords, I have not spoken in Committee so far, but in my four-minute contribution at Second Reading I raised two issues, which are the subject of these next two amendments. The first may be described as being in the weeds and the other in the stratosphere.

Perhaps I should begin with the weeds. Amendment 213 is about footpaths. I have three asks to make of the Government. The footpath issue is one that a cross-party group of Members of your Lordships’ House have been following—“chasing down” might be a better phrase—for many years. I am therefore grateful for the support of two of the group, the noble Baroness, Lady Scott of Needham Market, and the noble Lord, Lord Thurlow. The noble Baroness, Lady Scott, asked me to give an apology as she cannot be here this evening. I am sorry that the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman of Ullock, has left the Chamber because we had extensive debates on the footpath issue when she had her responsibilities as a shadow spokesman before the general election, and I wish her well in her new role.

However, one name is missing from the Government Benches, that of Lord Rosser. I hope that the Committee will forgive me if I add a short personal note. Lord Rosser was a doughty supporter of the footpath cause over many years and, despite his increasing frailty and looking exceptionally unwell, he came, possibly to speak for the last time, in support of a regret Motion that I had tabled. It is of course quite right that when one of us leaves your Lordships’ House the water should close over us quietly and soundlessly, but I wanted on this occasion for one last time to record my thanks to Lord Rosser for his support over the years.

With that, to horse. First, I need to declare an interest, as I am a member of the Ramblers, which campaigns on behalf of footpaths and open access. I am currently making use of our footpaths by walking from Land’s End to John O’Groats—in stages, I hasten to add—and I am just reaching Inverness. In the 1,000 or so miles that I have so far covered, I have seen at first hand how our network of public rights of way provides physical and mental support. In effect, it lifts the soul, even if, after seven hours on the road, the feet and the muscles may be a little sore.

The background to this issue is as follows. The National Parks and Access to the Countryside Act 1949 required local authorities to provide and prepare official records of public rights of way, known as definitive maps. As a result, some 120,000 miles of rights of way were recorded in England. That leads me to my first ask of the Government: the reason for paragraph (c) in my amendment, “preservation”, is to get the Minister’s commitment that nothing in the Bill will be allowed to end the network of these paths in whole or in part. The key word here is “network” because, if a path can be brought to an end, even for a few hundred yards, the utility and value of the surrounding paths is greatly reduced. Can the Minister confirm that the provisions of the Bill will not put at risk this important national asset, which is the primary means by which the public can get outdoors?

There is a further challenge. While the recording of 120,000 miles of footpaths was a terrific achievement, research suggests that some 40,000 further miles were not recorded and therefore remain unprotected. There are over 3,000 miles in Cornwall and just under 3,000 miles in Herefordshire. The Countryside and Rights of Way Act 2000 attempted to bring this issue to a conclusion by setting a deadline for applications to be submitted to local highway authorities for adding these hitherto unrecorded rights of way to the official definitive maps. The deadline was set for 25 years later, 1 January 2026, three months from where we are now. After that date, applications for adding unrecorded public rights of way based on historic evidence will no longer be possible and any of those miles would be lost for ever.

Progress on recording those 20,000 miles was disappointingly slow: first, because local authorities had many other uses for funds and found it hard to justify putting additional resources into this activity, balanced against all those other pressures; secondly, because the actual process of recording is rather clunky and expensive, both financially as well as in management time and effort. I have first-hand experience of that because my family company owns a few acres of agricultural land in Shropshire, where we needed the diversion of a footpath; although it was not contested, it took over three years to achieve. I place on record my thanks to Shropshire County Council and Mr Rodenhurst, who is the county council footpath officer, but he too had to work to an existing system.

Some anecdotal evidence suggests that many councils can process only two or three applications every year. At one point, a working party of interested stakeholders was set up to streamline the system, but it seems to have gone nowhere. Therefore, my second ask of the Minister is whether that working party still exists and whether it has any role in the Government’s thinking on how to speed up this recording process.

Finally, as the deadline of 1 January 2026 became ever closer, I, together with a cross-party group of Members of your Lordships’ House, began to campaign for a better, permanent solution. At first, it looked as though we had had success. In February 2022, the then Conservative Government announced that the deadline would be abolished entirely, but a year later, in March 2023—presumably after lobbying by landowners and farmers—that decision was reversed and, instead, the deadline was extended by regulation by five years, to 1 January 2031. In my view, this is an exercise in pushing the pea around the plate, if ever I saw one.

On Boxing Day 2024, the new Labour Government announced that they would fulfil the prior undertaking of the Conservative Government to repeal the deadline but that they could do so only when, in that hallowed phrase, parliamentary time allows. This Bill provides parliamentary time within which the Government could fulfil that commitment, so my third and final ask of the Minister is whether the Government are prepared to bring forward amendments to the Bill to fulfil the commitment they have given to remove the recording deadline for ever. If the Government cannot accept and answer my questions, perhaps they could accept Amendment 213, which provides for a review in six months. That at least enables your Lordships’ House to monitor progress on this important topic. I beg to move.

[Lord Thurlow (CB)]

My Lords, having heard such eloquent advocacy for swifts and other birds, I will make a case for humans in Amendment 213. I will explain. First, let me thank the noble Lord, Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts, for tabling this amendment. I am very keen to support him.

My particular interest is actively to promote the case for the restoration of ancient rights of way—the unregistered ones that we have heard about already. I declare my interest as the owner of a property, a family farm, with a right of way laced right through the middle. I am also grateful to the Ramblers for its briefing.

In considering this, we should start from the premise that rights of way, whether registered or not, are a national asset. They belong to the nation—to citizens and individuals. No reasons were given except for the need for certainty as to whether these unregistered rights of way would be terminated or disallowed in future. The only certainty was that UK citizens would be stripped of their property rights because, in that rediscovered but unregistered place, these rights of way would have been disallowed. What possible benefit to the community arises from disallowing the registration of rights of way?

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[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

I thank the noble Lord, Lord Hodgson, for his amendment, which seeks to probe the effects of the Bill on rights of way, including unrecorded rights of way. I thank him for his kind comments about Lord Rosser; we still miss him very much, so I am grateful.

As we heard, the Government announced on Boxing Day 2024 their intention to repeal the cut-off date of 1 January 2031 for recording historic rights of way. This means that paths used by walkers, cyclists and equestrians can continue to be officially recorded after this date and will not be lost to the public. This is a significant step in preserving access to well-used but often unrecorded paths across England, many of which have been in place, as the noble Lord, Lord Roborough, said, for hundreds of years.

Local highway authorities have statutory duties to record and maintain public rights of way, allowing them to be accessed and enjoyed by the public. They must also have a rights of way improvement plan which explains how improvements will be made to public rights of way, preserving them and providing a better experience for users. Given the statutory duty placed on local authorities to maintain and protect public rights of way, an additional review is not necessary.

A thorough and meaningful review would also not be possible within six months of publication of the Act. Local authorities are already handling a significant volume of unrecorded rights of way registrations, and the requirement to conduct a review would result in further delays to this process. In addition, the repeal of the cut-off date means that historic public rights of way can still be officially recorded, so will not be lost but can continue to be enjoyed by the public.

I will pick up a couple of the questions asked by the noble Lord, Lord Hodgson. I will check whether the working party is still in place; I do not know the answer to that. I hope it is, because working parties like that help us to shape government policy. On the question of why we should not use this Bill for the repeal, I suspect that a deal of consultation would have to be carried out, and that is probably why it is not in this Bill, but I will respond in writing to him on that point.

For these reasons, I hope the noble Lord will withdraw his amendment.

[Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts (Con)]

My Lords, I am grateful to all those who have taken part in this short debate. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Thurlow; I say to my noble friend Lord Roborough that the reality is that unrecorded does not mean unused. I mentioned that over 3,000 miles of footpath in Cornwall and about 2,700 in Herefordshire are used but unrecorded, so he is not quite right to say that if they are unrecorded they are unused. There are certainly some that have not been recorded that are unused, and I understand the force of his point. But I do not think it gets to the nub of the matter to say that, because they have not been recorded, they must be unused.

I am also grateful to the Minister for her reaffirming the intention to bring forward legislation that will enable this cut-off debt to be removed for ever. I am sorry she cannot find a way to put it into the Bill, on the grounds that it will be gratifying to have a conclusion to this as soon as possible. But two-thirds of a loaf is better than no bread, and I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 213 withdrawn.

Moved by

[Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts]

214: After Clause 106, insert the following new Clause—
“Review: impact on food and water security(1) At the end of the period of 12 months, beginning with the day on which this Act is passed, and annually thereafter, the Secretary of State must publish a report detailing the total area, in hectares, of any land that has been taken out of food production as a result of the provisions of this Act—(a) in the previous twelve months, and(b) cumulatively since the Act came into force.(2) The report must include the total area, in hectares, of any land taken out of food production and used for—(a) the construction of houses and associated infrastructure,(b) the construction of reservoirs or other water catchment devices,(c) the installation of solar panels, and(d) the production of maize and other crops grown to support the generation of electricity.(3) The report must provide an assessment of the increased risk, if any, to the food and water security of the United Kingdom.”Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment seeks to ensure that the Government provides annual updates on any agricultural land lost as a result of this Bill and any consequent risks to this country’s food and water security.

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[Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts (Con)]

My Lords, we now move from the weeds to the stratosphere. I begin by expressing some sympathy for the Minister and her department, which is being asked to provide housing for a very large number of additional people without upsetting those people already here, whose communities and immediate environment will be radically reshaped for ever.

It is worth putting a couple of numbers on the record as background to this issue and indeed to my amendment. We are expecting the population of this country to increase by 6.6 million people by 2035—that is equivalent to two and a half cities the size of Greater Manchester. By the 2040s, this country will have overtaken Germany as the most populous country in Europe; by the way, Germany is one and a half times our size in geographical area. So, as regards population pressure, you ain’t seen nothing yet.

Let me be clear that this is absolutely not a rant or an attack on refugees and asylum seekers. While there are clearly many knotty problems to be addressed, those unfortunate people make up less than 10% of the total increase in our population. The major reasons behind the growth are British industry’s insatiable desire to recruit overseas—the “default option”, as the Migration Advisory Committee has described it—and British higher education, which has built its business model on overseas recruitment, many of whom then morph into our permanent population during or at the end of their degrees. The consequences of these increases and decisions ricochet around Whitehall and impact on nearly every aspect of our national life. For the Minister’s department, the policy about housing can best be described as, “Please empty the bath, but you can’t touch the taps”. That is why the Minister and the Government find this such a difficult area to tackle.

As the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, said at Second Reading, no one anywhere in the Government—this Government or the previous Government—is responsible for joining up the dots. Amendment 214 is an attempt, for once, to join two of the dots, because it is about the security of this nation’s food supplies. In February 1945, with the war in Europe nearly won and the U-boat menace history, the Cabinet was alarmed to receive a report that the country had food reserves for only about two months. Now, 80 years later, how long would our food reserves last? Essentially, they would last for three or four days. Modern supply chains are run to minimise the use of working capital. It is believed that they carry about three days’ supplies at any one time, a situation which some have described as being nine meals from anarchy.

We currently grow just over half the food that we need as a nation. This Bill, when enacted, will undoubtedly result in the loss of yet more land capable of producing food, as we cover it with houses and solar panels and we grow maize and similar crops not to feed people but to feed biodigesters to generate electricity in pursuit of net zero. All the while, our population is growing by half a million a year, and we are in a confused, uncertain and ever more dangerous world. Yet with the exception of our farmers, and groups such as the NFU, the discussion of food security, our ability to feed our population, is nowhere to be seen.

What is the reason for the silence on this critical issue? Essentially, it is because it falls between two stools of different government departments. Today we are discussing the Planning and Infrastructure Bill. It is the child of the Department of Housing, Communities and Local Government, which has no knowledge of or responsibility for the provision of food. Food is the responsibility of the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, but Defra has no influence on planning decisions—which are likely to impact directly on its areas of responsibility. My amendment is an attempt to join up these two dots by seeking to require the Secretary of State for this department to provide annually an account of the land being taken out of food production.

I will say a brief word about why food security should be an issue of increasing concern. For the past couple of centuries, the economic theory of comparative advantage has dominated Treasury thinking and, in turn, has had major influence on government departments’ policies. The theory of comparative advantage argues that the country will be better off if it specialises in producing things that it is best at producing rather than trying to produce everything that it needs. If you accept this theory, it follows that we do not need to worry that we produce only half the food we eat; we can buy the remainder on the world market more cheaply than we can produce it ourselves.

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[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

I set out for the noble Lord all the measurements already taken, in respect of the take of agricultural land. That is an important part of the system. As regards solar generation, the Solar Roadmap sets out how much land we estimate could be taken by solar farms as part of our clean power 2030 commitment. Even in ambitious scenarios, we expect only up to 0.4% of total UK land to be occupied. Solar farms can operate alongside farming activities but, to answer noble Lords’ points about the provision of solar on non-domestic buildings, we will be setting that out shortly, as we have done already for domestic buildings. For these reasons, I ask the noble Lord to withdraw his amendment.

[Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts (Con)]

My Lords, I thank all noble Lords who have spoken in this debate, particularly my noble friend Lord Bellingham about the importance of audit, my noble friend Lord Fuller—I am sure that this amendment could be improved with a bit expertise and a sharp pencil—and my noble friend Lord Deben. Building on his question about water, Southern Water is making plans to introduce 40 billion litres in summer months from next year, because we do not have enough water. My noble friend’s points about water are absolutely on the button and, of course, he was right to say that the Minister’s speech—and I absolutely know that she means well—was aspirational; it was what we hope to do.

I say only that until we are able to get our arms around the whole of this issue, join the dots, look at it, think about it and explain it to the British people, we are going to have a very difficult time. It is not a party-political issue. It is an issue for our society. Earlier this summer, I published a booklet called Don’t Stop Thinking About Tomorrow. I got the help of the noble Lord, Lord Glasman, and his Common Good Foundation, a centre-left think tank, and I got nine experts without any political background. What they concluded, absolutely, was that the way we are handling this, in silos, is completely hopeless. Each silo may be reporting brilliantly about what is happening in its silo, but no one is joining the dots together, and this is beginning to seep into society.

Up until now, this has been a fringe effort on the extreme left and the extreme right, seeking to make trouble. If noble Lords have a moment, they should look at today’s Times and Trevor Phillips’ article. He says this about yesterday’s march:

“The usual suspects, left and right, who always show up at events like this, took the opportunity to throw bottles at police … But for the most part, the 150,000 people who showed up to march the mile or so from Waterloo, across Lambeth Bridge and past the Palace of Westminster to Whitehall, were unaware of any commotion. Only the hard core stayed to hear Robinson’s peroration. This was not an angry, activist crowd. And therein lies the danger to our democracy. When ordinary people are ready to brave the first cold weekend of the autumn at the behest of a serial convict and self-confessed fraudster, something is very rotten in the state of Britain. These are the people you meet at the country pub with their dogs, or in a queue for drinks at half-time”.

[Lord Wilson of Sedgefield (Lab)]

The Companion says that, whether or not a noble Lord wishes to push their amendment to a vote, they have to be brief. We are going here into areas that are not affected by the amendments, and the noble Lord has been speaking for three minutes.

[Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts (Con)]

I have been commenting on the comments made by various noble Lords. I just wanted to be clear about how this is part of a wider issue of which this Committee and the country need to be aware. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment now but give notice that I may wish to bring it back on Report.

Amendment 214 withdrawn.