Lord Randall of Uxbridge (Con)

My Lords, these regulations have been drawn to the special attention of the House by the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee on the basis that they are politically or legally important or are a public policy likely to be of interest. I have some points to raise. I am not necessarily coming from the point where my noble friends are, or from the point of developers, but I recognise the importance of getting developments properly done. The new impact assessment has not been conducted, despite the prior impact assessment not assessing impacts beyond those relating to nutrient pollution. This also means that we still have not seen sufficient evidence to justify the need for these new provisions. The draft regulations are not strong enough to safeguard against abuse of the system. The details set out in the draft regulations will not protect local protected species and sites from the Planning and Infrastructure Act 2025. Natural England will be expected to pick up the bill for developer obligations in several scenarios, despite being under massive, sustained budget pressures itself. These include not being able to apply surcharges for failure to pay sums under £1,000, not being able to enforce local land charges with less than £2,000 outstanding, and having to absorb some degree of cost where material changes occur that will cost more money. Under draft Regulation 23(2), Natural England could reduce levy fees if it is expecting other sources of funding, which I understand means that public money could be used to offset the harm done by private development. It is unclear to me whether Natural England can include the cost of designing the conservation measures in the levy amounts. Failure to do so will heavily incentivise generic copy-and-paste measures over more ecologically appropriate measures. The Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee has highlighted several issues, including the lack of clarity over what the fund levy would look like in practice. Environmental organisations strongly oppose the environment delivery plan model. Nonetheless, if it is going to go ahead—and I believe it will do—some measures must be taken to limit the damage done by this model. Natural England should be driven by environmental outcomes, not financial viability for developers. Public funding should not be used to reduce the rates in a charging schedule for private developers, as would be possible under Regulation 23(2) of the draft text. Natural England should be explicitly permitted to include the cost of designing conservation measures within the charging schedules. Appeals should be dealt with by independent, non-political actors and not a Secretary of State. A full assessment must be conducted on the impacts of the environment delivery plan system before the first plans are enacted. These impacts should be considered during the design of the plans to avoid avoidable harms to protected species, protected sites and other environmental features, and the stakeholders involved. I urge the Government to make meaningful changes to tackle the issues that are raised here as I suspect that, despite the endeavours of many, these regulations will go ahead. But as my noble friend has said, there is a good case for taking these away and thinking again.