Part of Planning and Infrastructure Bill – in the House of Commons at 9:00 pm on 9 June 2025.
Neil Duncan-Jordan
Labour, Poole
9:00,
9 June 2025
I rise to speak in favour of Amendment 69 and new Clause 32, which were both tabled by my hon. Friend Chris Hinchliff. I commend him for his work on the Bill.
I believe the Government have got it wrong with their changes to nature protection. I appreciate that Ministers will say that they come from a genuine desire to address the housing crisis, but the Bill removes the foundations of our nature Laws, including the mitigation hierarchy that requires developers to avoid harm. Nearly every major conservation group opposes the Bill and the Government watchdog, the Office for Environmental Protection, says that it degrades nature protections.
Amendment 69 offers practical improvements, ensuring that environmental delivery plans achieve their stated purpose of making developers pay to offset damage to nature. It ensures that plans result in an improvement to the specific feature being harmed, so that the Bill does not give a green light to degrading irreplaceable habitats.
A parliamentary bill is divided into sections called clauses.
Printed in the margin next to each clause is a brief explanatory `side-note' giving details of what the effect of the clause will be.
During the committee stage of a bill, MPs examine these clauses in detail and may introduce new clauses of their own or table amendments to the existing clauses.
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As a bill passes through Parliament, MPs and peers may suggest amendments - or changes - which they believe will improve the quality of the legislation.
Many hundreds of amendments are proposed by members to major bills as they pass through committee stage, report stage and third reading in both Houses of Parliament.
In the end only a handful of amendments will be incorporated into any bill.
The Speaker - or the chairman in the case of standing committees - has the power to select which amendments should be debated.
A parliamentary bill is divided into sections called clauses.
Printed in the margin next to each clause is a brief explanatory `side-note' giving details of what the effect of the clause will be.
During the committee stage of a bill, MPs examine these clauses in detail and may introduce new clauses of their own or table amendments to the existing clauses.
When a bill becomes an Act of Parliament, clauses become known as sections.
Laws are the rules by which a country is governed. Britain has a long history of law making and the laws of this country can be divided into three types:- 1) Statute Laws are the laws that have been made by Parliament. 2) Case Law is law that has been established from cases tried in the courts - the laws arise from test cases. The result of the test case creates a precedent on which future cases are judged. 3) Common Law is a part of English Law, which has not come from Parliament. It consists of rules of law which have developed from customs or judgements made in courts over hundreds of years. For example until 1861 Parliament had never passed a law saying that murder was an offence. From the earliest times courts had judged that murder was a crime so there was no need to make a law.
