On the first day of debate on 9^th June, Housing & Planning Minister, Matthew Pennycook MP, said that the changes to environmental protections proposed by Part 3 of the Bill were needed because: “constraints like the requirements for nutrient neutrality in sensitive river catchments are stifling the building of new homes”. 

Backbench Labour MP Dan Tomlinson built on this suggestion, ‘imploring’ colleagues thinking of voting for an amendment to safeguard protections to remember children in temporary accommodation and “to think of those children and the vital homes that could be built, and built quickly and at pace”. These points were re-iterated by Chris Curtis MP, who argued that “hard-working families across this country…will pay the price” of nature safeguards.  

The Wildlife Trusts maintain that environmental protections do not stifle the building of new homes. Recent additions to the growing weight of evidence demonstrating this include: 

• Research published by Home Builders Federation (HBF) in June which looked at the causes of delays to community investment from development, including the provision of much-needed affordable housing. Under-resourced local authorities and lack of standardisation in process were listed as the primary causes of delay, with no mention made of environmental protections.
• A survey of 500 councillors published in June which asked those at the frontline of planning what they felt the biggest barriers to national housing delivery to be. The most cited reason for this was skills shortages in the housebuilding sector (33%) followed by developer land banking (19%). Environmental issues came 20^th out of a list of 24, cited by just 3% of respondents.
• Research published by The Wildlife Trusts in May found that bats and great crested newts, often maligned by Ministers as persistent blockers to development, were a factor in just 3% of planning appeal decisions in 2024. This means that in 97% of cases where developers appealed a planning refusal, it wasn’t because of bats and newts.
• The Government’s own impact assessment of the Planning & Infrastructure Bill, published in May, observed: ‘There is very limited data on how environmental obligations affect development.’
• Analysis by ENDS Report showed that 95% of the 16,000 new homes in Solent Catchment Area delayed in 2022 by nutrient neutrality rules had been greenlit by January 2024, due to strategic mitigation schemes delivered without any change to the law. Many such strategic schemes are now being delayed by the passage of the Planning and Infrastructure Bill and the regressive, confusing changes to the law it introduces. 

Minister Pennycook also said that the “suggestion by some that the new approach provided for by the Bill would allow for the destruction of irreplaceable habitats” was “patently false” as protections would continue to apply.  

Currently, irreplaceable habitats such as ancient woodland and lowland fens, are protected both through the National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF), and through the Habitats Regulations. Part 3 of the Bill would waive the Habitats Regulations element when an ‘overall improvement test’ is met.  

This represents a weakening of protection for irreplaceable habitats, as the Government’s environmental watchdog, the Office for Environmental Protection (OEP), has already warned: the overall improvement test will lead to ‘considerably more subjectivity and uncertainty in decision-making than under existing environmental law’.

This subjectivity could lead to the Habitats Regulations being inappropriately waivered, which would mean that irreplaceable habitats would lose their strongest protection. The Habitats Regulations are the UK’s most effective nature conservation laws and have demonstrably slowed the pace of nature’s decline.¹  

In contrast to the Habitats Regulations, the NPPF protections are weaker and continue to allow damage to irreplaceable habitats like ancient woodland. Research published by The Woodland Trust this June, as part of their ‘State of Woods and Trees 2025’ report highlighted that, due to loopholes in the NPPF protections, ancient woodlands are vulnerable to ‘deterioration and damage by adjacent development’. 

These factors led the OEP to raise specific concerns about irreplaceable habitats in their advice to Government on Part 3. The Minister’s comments effectively dismiss these concerns.  

The Minister showed more willingness to listen to the OEP on other points. He stated:  

‘‘I continue to reflect on the reasonable points made by hon. Members and the advice of the Office for Environmental Protection with a view to deliberating on what more might be done to ensure everyone is confident that the outcomes for nature provided for by this part of the Bill will be positive. For the purposes of clarity, that includes giving serious consideration to ways in which we might instil further confidence in respect of the rigour of the overall improvement test, provide for greater certainty in respect of the delivery of EDPs, and ensure that there is more clarity about the evidential basis and environmental rationale for strategic network level conservation measures.’’ 

This promise of consideration came after a number of Labour MPs joined with Conservative, Liberal Democrat and Green MPs to vote against the Government, in favour of adding nature safeguards to Part 3 of the Bill.² Over 30,000 people emailed their MPs in advance of report stage to raise the alarm about the environmental impacts of the Bill.  

Joan Edwards, Director of Policy and Public Affairs at The Wildlife Trusts, says: 

“Thanks to thousands of campaigners, and the principled stand taken by a cross-party group of MPs, there are signs that the Government is considering a few changes to make the Planning Bill work better at delivering a win-win for nature and development. We continue to urge Ministers to act fully on OEP recommendations and will closely consider any amendments the Government publish in due course.   

“There are, however, some serious changes needed to fix the Bill. Report stage saw a denial of the OEP conclusion of environmental regression, no sign that the Government will act to prioritise the avoidance of damage* to the most vulnerable wild places and wild species, and no Ministerial consideration of the problems created by the clumsy efforts to apply Part 3 to the marine environment, which is currently under immense threat from wind developments. As worryingly, inaccuracies about environmental protections stopping housing delivery continue to be stated, despite all the evidence to the contrary.   

“We urge the Government to abandon talking nonsense about environmental blockers, in favour of real evidence about how nature and development can be delivered together. Part 3 of the Planning Bill should be withdrawn, and an evidence-based approach adopted instead, to address the real delays to development whilst upholding environmental protections – just as the Government once promised to do.” 

References

¹ Wildlife and Countryside Link briefing, citing research that bird species protected by the Habitats Regulations fare significantly better than species not protected.  

² Vote on amendment 69, tabled by backbench Labour MP Chris Hinchliff. See coverage here.