Minister rejects claim that planning reforms designed to penalise farmers

The Guardian

11-03-2025

Good morning. The government's planning and infrastructure bill is being published later today, and in an article for the Times Angela Rayner, the deputy PM and housing secretary, claims it will be 'a major step forward in getting Britain building again'. The measures in the legislation have already been well publicised and Rayner sums them up like this.
A new road for Norwich was set to make life easier for 44,000 homeowners, speeding up journeys to East Anglia's biggest hospital and creating 33,000 new jobs. But it was delayed by spurious legal challenges for two years until the case was dismissed as having no logical basis. This government gave it the green light last week.
The many organisations that must be consulted in the planning process are also putting up unnecessary obstacles. A row over balls hit from a cricket club has delayed 139 new flats in Bradford. The wait for a development consent order increased by 65 per cent between 2012 and 2021. It now takes around four years to get a decision on major infrastructure.
That will change, thanks to our new planning and infrastructure bill. As part of our Plan for Change, we're fast-tracking decisions for more than 150 major infrastructure projects this parliament …
We will streamline consultation requirements for projects such as roads and railway lines while keeping them robust. Wind and solar projects will be prioritised for grid connections, helping us achieve clean power by 2030, with those living within 500 metres of new pylons given up to £250 a year off their electricity bills.
And we're fixing a system that both stops development going ahead and fails to protect our habitats and species. Developers will pay into a Nature Restoration Fund which Natural England experts can use to achieve better outcomes.
The bill itself will be published later today.
Matthew Pennycook, the housing minister, has been giving interviews this morning to promote it, and he has had to respond to a fresh line of attack from opponents of the legislation that has made the Telegraph splash. The government has been saying for some time that it wants to give councils in England the powers to acquire land for housebuilding via compulsory purchase orders (CPOs) at market prices without having to pay 'hope value' – what the land would be worth assuming planning permission for housing were granted. The Telegraph story presents this as a fresh Labour attack on farmers. It quotes Tim Bonner from the Countryside Alliance as saying:
We have been supportive of many of the Government's changes to planning policy, but giving councils more power to reduce the value of land is a step too far, especially in the context of such a challenging outlook for farmers and the inheritance tax fiasco.
This is not about people blocking development, it's about the state paying the market price for land. We need more houses and more economic development, but not at the cost of basic principles.
In his interviews Pennycook did not challenge the facts of the story. He told LBC the government was giving councils the power to disapply 'hope value' in a compulsory purchase acquisition 'where there's a site with a significant public interest involved, higher affordable levels of housing, for example, or health and education facilities'. But he said this was not aimed at farmers.
We are obviously and very clearly not setting out to target agricultural land. The land use framework we're consulting on currently will ensure that prime agricultural land is protected, and food security is protected.
I see this power being used in particular, to much greater effect – and that's where I want to see it come forward – specifically in urban areas, on previously developed brownfield land where regeneration projects with a significant public interest can be unlocked more easily.
When he was asked to admit that the Telegraph was right to say farmers could be affected, Pennycook said he did not think the Telegraph was right – 'and it's not often right, I must say' – because the final decision would rest with the local authority. Ministers would not be saying that prime agricultural land should be sold, he said.
Asked about the same issue on the Today programme, Pennycook said that he was 'somewhat mystified that the Telegraph have looked through our CPO powers through the lens of farmers and prime agricultural land' when he expected them to be used mostly 'for regeneration projects on previously developed brownfield land in urban centres'.
Here is the agenda for the day.
9.30am: Keir Starmer to chair cabinet.
11.30am: Shabana Mahmood, the justice secretary, takes questions in the Commons.
11.30am: Downing Street holds a lobby briefing.
After 12.30pm: MPs start debating the remaining stages of the employment rights bill.
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