PIB in Committee: Planning Fees, Training and the National Scheme of Delegation
For most of this week, the Public Bills Committee has been debating the Planning & Infrastructure Bill.
Most of the headlines and commentary I have seen to date has focussed on Part 3 of the Bill, which deals with Environmental Delivery Plans and the Nature Recovery Levy*. As such, you could be forgiven for missing the debate on the planning sections of the Bill, which took place on Tuesday 13 May.
It was an eventful session, so I thought I would catch you up.
By way of a reminder, Part 2 of the Planning & Infrastructure Bill seeks to introduce:
- Locally set planning fees
- A new power for the government to levy a “surcharge on planning fees"
- mandatory training for planning committees; and
- a national scheme of delegation - deciding which applications go to committee and which don't - which would apply across all of England.
Before we get into the debate, I am going to give you a few spoilers:
- All of the Government backed clauses and amendments made it into the Bill; and
- None of the others did.
Given the committee is majority Labour, this is unlikely to come as a surprise, but, nonetheless, I thought it was worth getting out of the way early.
So… what did we learn….
Locally Set Planning Fees and Surcharges on Planning Fees
It probably won't be a huge surprise to learn that there was near universal support for the move to locally set planning fees. Both the Liberal Democrats and the Conservatives supported it.
The debate on the new surcharge, however, was a little more insightful. In particular, the following:
Which makes it clear, for the first time that I have spotted, that:
- The additional planning fee surcharge IS to fund statutory consultees
- That it will be additional to fees already charged for pre-application engagement (and other planning fees); and
- That there will be a consultation before any secondary legislation is introduced
Later on in the debate, it is mentioned that the surcharge will be paid to the Secretary of State and then (presumably) distributed centrally.
We shall have to wait for the regulations for the actual details - but this is certainly more information that I had previously!! Albeit that it remains a lot less information than is available about the other (arguably more controversial) levy in this Bill.
Mandatory Training
The proposals for mandatory training also went down remarkably well with the committee. There was some debate about precisely what the training should cover, which it was eventually agreed should be left for the detailed regulations, but on the whole, the discussion was a remarkably good-natured.
It also gave rise to one of my favourite extracts from this committee session:
It is rare to see such expressions of religious fervour in the House of Commons.
National Scheme of Delegation
The final section of the debate was…. somewhat different….
The proposals for a National Scheme of Delegation generated the most heated debate of all of the planning provisions discussed that day.
There were fears that it might impact the political balance of decisions:
Accusations of “power grabbing” and undermining local democracy:
and again….
and finally, an allegation that the entire process was motivated by a hatred of local government (I paraphrase… but judge for yourself):
Nonetheless, parliamentary arithmetic won the day, and the provisions made it through unscathed.
Conclusion
The Bill is due to leave committee on 22 May 2025, which means that next week is set to be another popcorn heavy extravaganza for my fellow committee watchers (well, listeners, but you get the point).
Although, given how the votes have gone so far, I would not be surprised if the version of the Bill that emerges from committee is remarkably similar to the one that entered it.
*This is not that blog. If you want all of that gossip, and are heading to Leeds next week, then I strongly recommend you pop along to our joint event with the LPDF. Claire will tell you all about it. Sign up details are here: Join our UKREiiF events - UKREiiF 2025
The new clause will allow the Secretary of State to make regulations to apply a surcharge to planning application fees. This would apply to development that is permitted by local planning authorities, and to other bodies that are able to charge planning fees under the Bill. It will be used to fund bodies, such as statutory
consultees, that provide advice and ancillary support that enables good decision making.
Through regulations, we will develop detailed proposals that will establish the level at which any surcharge would be set, and the types of planning application it should be applied to. In doing so, we will be highly conscious of the need to balance the burdens that we are placing on developers with the benefits that will accrue to them
......
We will consult on such proposals before any regulations are introduced.”
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