Planning and Infrastructure Act 2025 (Consequential Amendments) Regulations 2026

Considered in Grand Committee

15:45:00

Moved by

Baroness Taylor of StevenageThat the Grand Committee do consider the Planning and Infrastructure Act 2025 (Consequential Amendments) Regulations 2026.

The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (Baroness Taylor of Stevenage) (Lab): My Lords, these draft regulations were laid before the House on 27 April. The Government were clear in our manifesto that housing need in England cannot be met without planning for growth on a larger than local scale and that we would introduce new mechanisms for cross-boundary strategic planning. To that end, the Planning and Infrastructure Act, which received Royal Assent last December, legislated for the reintroduction of an England- wide system of strategic plan-making.

The Act inserted a new Part 1A into the Planning and Compulsory Purchase Act 2004, placing a duty on strategic planning authorities to prepare a spatial development strategy. An SDS will form part of the development plan to which local planning authorities must have regard when determining planning applications unless material considerations indicate otherwise. Local plans will be required to be in general conformity with the relevant spatial development strategy. SDS are high-level plans that will define the overall scale and distribution of growth and development across an area, including the potential need for regeneration and environmental protection or enhancement. They may identify broad locations for development and the infrastructure required to support it, and can redistribute housing and other development needs between local planning authorities.

These regulations will make two minor, consequential amendments to support the implementation of this new system, which we intend to commence later this year. They will amend Section 114 of the Planning and Compulsory Purchase Act 2004 so that SDS examinations are classed as statutory inquiries within the meaning of the Tribunals and Inquiries Act 1992, enabling the Lord Chancellor to make rules related to the procedure to be followed during the examination of an SDS. They will also amend the Marine and Coastal Access Act 2009 so that marine planning authorities must notify strategic planning authorities of their intention to start preparing a marine plan. Strategic planning authorities are the local government bodies that will be responsible for preparing an SDS.

Unless the Secretary of State directs otherwise, a draft spatial development strategy must be examined by a person appointed by them. The matters to be examined are for the examiner to determine. However, the draft National Planning Policy Framework sets out that the purpose of the examination should be to assess that relevant procedural requirements have been met and that the strategy is sound, alongside any other matters that the examiner considers appropriate.

Regulation 2 will amend Section 114 of the Planning and Compulsory Purchase Act 2004 to allow the Lord Chancellor to make rules, under Section 9 of the Tribunals and Inquiries Act 1992, governing the procedures for examinations. Any such regulations will support the effective examination of a strategy.

Regulation 3 will amend paragraph 1 of Schedule 6 to the Marine and Coastal Access Act 2009 to require a marine plan authority to notify a strategic planning authority whose area adjoins or is adjacent to marine plan areas of its intention to prepare a marine plan. This requirement already extends to local planning authorities and will enable strategic planning authorities to consider how they wish to participate in the marine planning process and to put in place appropriate arrangements for that participation.

This is the first part of a wider package of secondary legislation that we are preparing to support the implementation of the new system of strategic plan-making. Other statutory instruments, which we intend to make in the autumn, will include regulations that will make further consequential amendments to secondary legislation, rules on the procedure to be followed during an examination, and regulations setting out the procedure to be followed in connection with the preparation of a spatial development strategy. I trust that the Committee agrees that these minor, consequential regulations are necessary and will support the effective implementation of the new system of spatial development strategies. I beg to move.

Lord Lansley (Con)My Lords, I wonder if I might intervene at this stage. The Committee will recall—pretty much everybody in the Committee was present during the Planning and Infrastructure Bill’s passage—that, going back to the Levelling-up and Regeneration Act, I have been very supportive of strategic spatial planning, and we want to see that brought into effect as soon as possible.

I declare my registered interest as chair of the Cambridgeshire Development Forum and as a supporter of and adviser to development forums in other locations, as detailed. For the development community in all those places, one of the consistent messages that comes through is about desirability, not simply of having sub-regional spatial planning at a strategic level, not confined to the territory of one local planning authority generally but embracing several, but of what is afforded by that opportunity—namely, the ability to bring together transport strategies, infrastructure strategies, growth plans and spatial development strategies into one document, which can then help guide and direct the planning infrastructure.

As the Minister helpfully explained, as the Explanatory Memorandum does, this is one of several statutory instruments necessary to bring the procedure of strategic development strategies into place. The Minister said, “in the autumn”, but I want to find out is what is going to happen and when. I hope the Minister will be able to confirm that it remains the Government’s intention to publish the response to the consultation on the draft NPPF in July, before recess, so that we can see the final NPPF—without having to wait for the customary publication just before Christmas—and get on with it. On the timetable, I hope that will mean that it will be possible for there to be planning policy guidance published in relation to the preparation of spatial development strategies and for that to happen as soon as possible in the autumn, but certainly, I would have thought, by the end of the year.

Together with the statutory instruments, that will, I hope, enable the Government to set a period during which combined authorities are asked to publish and submit their spatial development strategy timetable to the Secretary of State.

I assume that this will be applied in relation to groups 1 and 2. The Minister and the Committee will recall that, just a little earlier, the Government published a geography of spatial development strategy areas. Groups 1 and 2 are the existing strategic mayoral combined authorities and the devolution priority programme. I am looking for groups 1 and 2 to have their SDS timetables requested to be submitted in the early part of next year at the latest. I would be grateful if the Minister could give the Committee a sense of the complete timetable for SDS.

I turn briefly to the content of the NPPF and the overview. The overview in the draft was not explicit about the requirement in the statute for a spatial development strategy to set out the amount or distribution of housing and the amount or distribution of affordable housing. I have mentioned this in an earlier debate on the English devolution Bill, but I hope that the Minister can assure the Committee that the NPPF is being amended to make some of these requirements of a spatial development strategy a bit clearer.

We should be under no illusions about the difficulties that will potentially emerge. We may well have spatial development strategies that are born of an ambitious local growth plan. My own area of Cambridgeshire and Peterborough, for example, has a very ambitious growth plan published by Paul Bristow, the mayor. If local authorities in Cambridgeshire and Peterborough were to assess housing need based simply on the standard method, there would be no way in which the growth plan that the mayor is looking for could be accommodated by the level of housing supply implied. For local plans to be consistent with the spatial development strategy, they will have to go further.

The same may be true for, and considerable questions could be raised by, green-belt policy. For example, Stockport could not agree with the other local authorities in Manchester on a joint development plan, not least because of their difficulties in agreeing on green-belt policy. A spatial development strategy could, according to the guidance published thus far, set out where changes to the green belt need to be considered in local plans, but the local plan would set the boundaries. What happens if a local planning authority seeks to adopt a local plan that does not change the boundary of a green belt? Having considered it and decided not to change it, does that mean that the local plan is consistent with the spatial development strategy or not? As we go along, we have to be increasingly clear about what consistency with the spatial development strategy looks like. I say that because we will have a number of these debates—not necessarily on every statutory instrument—and, as guidance is published, it will bring some of those important issues to the forefront.

I ask the Minister about the follow-up to the geography document. The Committee will recall that, although the geography of many of the combined authorities is established, it is not for others. For example, we simply do not yet know whether Buckinghamshire will be included in Thames Valley or if it will be a single foundation strategic authority. We need to learn more about what the final geography will look like and when we might hear that. Unless we get that information, I do not think strategic planning boards will be established in areas where a mayor and combined authority are not being put in place relatively soon. I hope that there will be a timetable for that, as well.

My final question is prompted by my being up in Warrington yesterday. Liverpool is relatively advanced in the preparation of a spatial development strategy and, as I understand it, is looking to have it examined and adopted next year. Will Liverpool City Region’s spatial development strategy be treated as consistent with the requirements of a spatial development strategy as set out by the Planning and Infrastructure Act? I hope that, because it was designed alongside the SDS for London, it will be and that the Minister will say that, through Liverpool’s SDS, we can begin to see the process of spatial planning being implemented in places across England.

Those are my questions arising from the statutory instrument. I do not want to be thought of as opposing it, in any sense. I support the SI.

Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth (Con)My Lords, like my noble friend I am certainly not opposed to these regulations; I am very much in favour of spatial planning. I have just one question for the Minister. I thank her very much for setting out so clearly the purport of these regulations and apologise for not being able to give advance notice of this question. It is a bit left field and if she wants to write, I quite understand that. It is in the context of development corporations. I appreciate there is ongoing work on this and that the emphasis may change given the experience of Liverpool. I wonder what the evolving thinking is within the department. Is the Minister able to say something about these measures, which make a massive difference to growth, and how that could impact the Thames estuary, the Solent and so on? I am happy for the Minister to write if that is more convenient.

16:00:00

Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con)I thank the Minister for presenting the regulations. I am afraid I am going to break the harmony. The Minister will recall our debates on the previous legislation that my noble friend Lord Lansley rehearsed. I go back to the time I was first elected to the other place—on the same day as my noble friend—in 1997, when the Labour Government introduced regional planning and a regional spatial strategy. I ask the same question now that I asked then: where will the voice of rural areas be heard? Which space will rural areas be occupying? The population of North Yorkshire is 11% of the total population of the region of Yorkshire and the Humber, and yet, with the replacement of districts and boroughs with a combined authority and a mayor, I would say that the rural areas have lost their voice. Over the years of the previous Labour Government—perhaps the next Prime Minister was quite a dominant part of that— I saw that the rural voice was pretty much extinct.

To give an example of why it is important that we consider the rural voice, there is a trend of building four-bedroom or five-bedroom homes, whereas in rural areas what we really need are one-bedroom or two-bedroom homes. Obviously, it is not necessarily of interest to developers to build that type of housing stock. The question then arises: what consultation will there be when these spatial strategies come out?

I have been looking at the pages on North Yorkshire and the surrounding area—York, East Riding and Hull. They have produced a spatial framework looking ahead to 2035 to 2050. I am aware of rural house prices being higher but, until I read that framework report, I was not aware that urban house prices in parts of North Yorkshire and Hull are higher. It will not have escaped the Minister’s attention that the incomes are predominantly lower in these areas, so there is the challenge of lower wages and higher house prices.

I would like to ask two questions. What consultation will there be, both at national level and at a more strategic level and how, in that consultation, will the rural voice be heard? As we now have a Mayor of York and North Yorkshire—I do not see mayors mentioned, but there must be an answer of which I am not aware —what will the relationship of the mayor be to producing answers to a spatial plan?

I echo my noble friend Lord Lansley’s request that the Government publish the responses to the National Planning Policy Framework. An underlying concern in all of this is that we do not develop areas on the functional flood plain of zone 3b.

Baroness Pinnock (LD)My Lords, I declare my relevant interest as a councillor on a met council that will clearly be affected by these changes.

On the changes to the development of strategic plans, during the course of the Planning and Infrastructure Bill I raised concerns not about the benefits of a strategic plan, which covers a wider area than a local planning authority, but about the way it is to be developed. This comes to the fore again in this instance.

My first query is not what organisation will be responsible for the plan but who will be responsible for the plan. Paragraph 5.3 of the Explanatory Memorandum references a combination of principal authorities and combined authorities. One of my concerns is that these cover widely differing geographic and population sizes. For example, West Yorkshire Combined Authority covers 2.5 million people, whereas the York and North Yorkshire Combined Authority, with a mayor, has just a million people. There is a big disparity, which will have an impact on how a wider strategic look at development across an area is considered. It also has an impact on the engagement and involvement of locally elected members and residents who will be affected by the development of the strategic plan. So that is my first concern: who will do it? The Explanatory Memorandum talks about a strategic planning board but, if it is as undemocratic as the combined authority, I would have real concerns.

I will say a bit more about the “who”. We learned from the devolution Bill that, in combined authorities, mayors will be able to appoint up to nine or 10 people —the number escapes me—who will be responsible for different areas of the combined authority and the responsibilities of the mayor. Perhaps the Minister can put me right if I am wrong, but my assumption is that those relevant people—such as those in charge of transport, planning and infrastructure—would be part of the decision-making process and of this strategic planning board. I like democracy, and I am concerned that the plan will be created without due consideration of locally elected people, apart from the mayor—who is just one among many. There is a lack of accountability to local residents who will be directly affected by any plan that is created. I can tell noble Lords, from long experience, that planning is one of the issues that really gets residents concerned and involved, opposing planning decisions where necessary. That is a big area that I am concerned about.

My second concern is this. In the current fairly febrile and volatile nature of our politics, there is clearly a possibility of a significant change of political leadership in these combined authorities—there already was last year. If there is a change of political leadership and the new leadership wants to significantly change the strategic development plan, is that possible?

My third question is about local plans that local planning authorities and councils have already agreed. They potentially have a 15-year lifespan, although they have to be reviewed and updated every five years. Nevertheless, the basic plan and the policies that underpin it are determined. How does a strategic development plan sit with that if they are already in existence? The noble Lord, Lord Lansley, asked a similar question. Which one will override the other in this instance?

The fourth issue that I want to understand a bit better is the examination of an SDS. We have here at paragraph 5.7 that the Lord Chancellor will make these rules. But hang on, is that not something that should be determined, for instance, in this sort of forum—that these will be the rules that will determine how an SDS will be examined? To not have that openly discussed, debated and agreed puts a big question mark in my mind about it. When local plans are examined and inspected, yes the planning inspector is appointed by the Government and there are opportunities for representations by those concerned about particular elements of the plan, but that does not seem to be what is being suggested in the brief mention here or by what the Minister said.

Finally, the Minister said that local planning authorities must have regard to—that is a standard planning phrase—and be in general conformity to this. Presumably, that means that local planning authorities and local planning committees can, if they have good, sound reason, disregard the decisions that are made at a strategic development plan level. If not, I do not know why we have local democracy.

Although I am in favour of this and was in favour of the previous iteration of strategic development, at a regional level—it is very helpful to have a wide scheme—there are a lot of questions around how this will operate and who will make the decisions. I hope the Minister can put my mind at ease.

Lord Jamieson (Con)Before I start, I declare an interest as a councillor in Central Bedfordshire, which will no doubt at some point be affected by this statutory instrument.

At the outset, we accept the general principle that consequential amendments are a necessary feature of major legislative reform. But, as we debated on the then Planning and Infrastructure Bill, we remain concerned with the increasing centralisation of planning decisions— I think that was something that the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, raised. Strategic planning appears to be part of that strategy: moving decisions away from local councils and local people who know their area best.

We agree with the Government that we need to get Britain building. We are not building enough homes, infrastructure takes too long and costs are too high, and that will require a simpler and streamlined planning system that is clearer and more consistent. The recently released Savills report on housebuilding, which forecasts that only 839,000 houses will be built in the five years of the Labour Government, compared to the target of 1.5 million, just highlights that the system is not working.

16:15:00

Spatial development strategies, when done correctly, could offer the opportunity to ensure greater consistency and co-ordination over a wider area, particularly when it comes to infrastructure. However, they need to be built on local and community knowledge and should not be just top down. I refer to some of the evidence of the London Plan, which is not auspicious: far from being a high-level document, it is a 526-page tome containing more than 100 separate policies, often in conflict with local policies, and has added complexity to the planning process, resulting in delay and additional cost. Given the declining housebuilding in London, it can be considered in many ways to be failing.

Can the Minister explain how the Government will ensure that the system remains bottom up and that local councils and communities can genuinely lead and influence development in their area, but will accept the need for wider co-ordination? Can she also explain how this will simplify the system, provide greater clarity and consistency and, in particular, ensure that lessons from London are learned?

During the passage of the Bill, we repeatedly raised the issue of using brownfield first. The Minister assured noble Lords that this would be the case. How will the Government ensure that a brownfield-first approach is followed throughout spatial development strategies? How will they ensure that mayors, particularly in areas based on a large city, do not take the easy option and focus building on greenfield rather than brownfield land? My noble friend alluded to that in North Yorkshire. The Conservatives have sought to enshrine brownfield-first into law, and the Labour Government have so far resisted. How will the Government ensure that this actually happens in practice and not just in words? It is a particular concern given recent announcements on local government reorganisation, in which there were several proposals for cities to expand into their rural hinterlands.

There is a broader institutional concern about the manner in which planning reform is being implemented. We are dealing here with a system that is already complex, capacity constrained and subject to significant public pressure. In that context, the cumulative effect of repeated structural changes implemented through a combination of primary legislation and consequential secondary instruments risks adding further uncertainty and lack of clarity. There is a case for just calming down and letting the system settle. Good legislative practice in planning form should prioritise clarity, stability and usability for local authorities and practitioners.

I would like confirmation from the Minister that these regulations do not go beyond what is strictly necessary to ensure legal coherence following the Act and that they do not have the effect of expanding ministerial influence over local plan-making or decision-taking beyond the scope envisaged in primary legislation.

I would like to follow up on a few of the questions that my noble friends raised. First, my noble friend Lord Lansley asked about the timetable. This is really important, because there is a lot of misunderstanding and confusion out there as to exactly what is coming, when and what it means.

Secondly, what geography are we talking about? Some mayoral combined authorities are very large, such as London, while others are geographically large, such as Essex, Kent and Lincolnshire. However, some are small, relatively speaking; my noble friend Lord Lansley mentioned Buckinghamshire and I could raise my own authority of Bedfordshire and Milton Keynes. I understand how something can operate over a big area, in a strategic sense, but how can it also operate over a significantly smaller area and population in the same manner? That needs clarification. Is there an implication that there may be a desire to combine some of these areas for strategic spatial planning?

My noble friend Lady McIntosh of Pickering raised the importance of the voice of rural areas. In relation to the comments I made earlier, we do not want the default presumption to be building on green fields simply because it is easier; we need a brownfield-first approach.

For those reasons, while we do not oppose the regulations in principle, I suggest that the Committee should view them as part of a wider system change, as their implications on local planning, autonomy, regulatory clarity and administrative burden will require continued scrutiny as implementation proceeds. I am grateful to the Minister for her explanation and look forward to her response to the many questions.

Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)My Lords, I thank all Members for their considered contributions this afternoon. I am grateful to most noble Lords for supporting the overall direction of travel in relation to strategic development strategies. I hope the Committee agrees that the two minor amendments are appropriate. I will try to answer as many questions as I can. For any that I do not answer, I will respond in writing.

I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, for his broad support for the SDS and I agree with him about sub-regional planning. He probably went through the same process with the East of England Plan that I sat through for many months. Pulling together into one place transport, infrastructure and strategic planning is key to getting the growth that we all want to see.

The noble Lord asked me a number of questions. I will try to take them in the order he asked them. He asked me whether the SDS will contain affordable housing. The legislation is deliberately permissive, so, if the board wishes, it can specify levels of affordable housing within the plan.

The noble Lord and the noble Lord, Lord Jamieson, asked about a timetable for the implementation of SDS and strategic planning boards. We intend to lay these SIs in the autumn. I cannot be more specific than that, but that is our intention. The strategic planning board regulations must be subject to consultation before being laid. That probably picks up one of the comments from the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock. We anticipate that consultation will be after the Summer Recess and, once that is complete, we will lay the SIs.

The noble Lord, Lord Lansley, asked about the publication of the NPPF and whether the SDS overview will include clear requirements for the statutory requirements. We intend to publish the revised NPPF in the summer. While we are considering responses to the consultation, I cannot comment on its content, but the NPPF cannot change the statutory requirements for SDS set out in the Planning and Infrastructure Act. That is important. In the Act that we got after we finally finished, following some very late-night sittings, we set out what an SDS is there to do. It cannot change that.

Lord Lansley (Con)I completely understand that the terminology of the Act says that the spatial development strategy may set out the amount and distribution of housing and affordable housing. My point is that, even the latter, in relation to affordable housing, was not included in the draft NPPF text for PM1 relating to SDS. I think it ought to be in there.

Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)I thank the noble Lord for that comment. I will feed that back to the team. It is not completed yet, so I will feed his comments in.

On planning practice guidance for SDS once the NPPF is published, we will consider the need for planning practice guidance, but we need to publish the NPPF first. We will have a look at that once the NPPF is under way.

The noble Lord asked about the group 1 and group 2 SDS areas and the timetable for them to submit an SDS. The period within which the strategic planning authority needs to submit its timetable will be set out in regulations. We anticipate that most SPAs will be asked to submit a timetable within 90 days of the formal commencement of the SDS duty. Assuming that commencement is in the autumn, this will be, as the noble Lord rightly suggested, in the early part of 2027. There was a question about green belt and where changes to green-belt boundaries may need to be considered but the local plan has set the boundary. What happens if there is a disagreement? The noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, referred to this as well. Local plans have to be in general conformity with any adopted SDS for the area, and that applies to green belt as it does to any other aspect of an SDS, but that will be tested at the local plan examination. General conformity allows for some inconsistency but not a completely different approach. I suspect that that will be tested in examination processes, and it will be interesting to see where that falls.

The noble Lord, Lord Jamieson, echoed the question of the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, on the areas for strategic planning boards. We intend to respond to the strategic development strategy area consultation in the summer, setting out the areas that the Government think should produce strategic development strategies. Where boards will be needed, the regulations to establish those boards must be subject to statutory consultation. We anticipate that consultation will happen after the Summer Recess and that, once that consultation has happened, the regulations will be made so that the strategic planning board can formally come into being. That is when the geography finally gets confirmed.

The noble Lord, Lord Lansley, asked me about Liverpool being well advanced—I say well done to Liverpool for cracking on with the job—and whether this will be adopted under the new NPPF and guidance. We understand that Liverpool SDS is likely to go out to consultation either late this year or early next year and, as such, it will be subject to the policies in the updated NPPF.

The noble Lord, Lord Bourne, asked me about development corporations; he has probably heard me say that I am a big fan of them. We discussed them a great deal during the Planning and Infrastructure Bill and the English devolution Bill. I cannot answer his specific questions around the Solent and the Thames estuary, but I will reply to him in writing on those questions, if that is okay.

The noble Baronesses, Lady McIntosh and Lady Pinnock, and the noble Lord, Lord Jamieson, asked me about rural representation. It would probably be most helpful if I explained the right to be heard at examination. It is quite correct that, unlike the position for local plans, there is no formal right for individuals to appear and be heard at the examination of a spatial development strategy. This is the same approach as that for examinations of, for instance, the London Plan. It is proportionate and effective that that should be the case for strategic plans, but each SDS has to consider its whole area, both urban and rural. So the SDS area consultation proposed, for example, that York and North Yorkshire would do its own plan, on which the mayor would lead.

In practice, experience demonstrates that inspectors take considerable steps to ensure that a wide range of relevant interests and perspectives are heard during, for example, the London Plan examinations. By way of illustration, the most recent examination of a spatial development strategy—the 2019 London Plan—was conducted over 12 weeks, with a participant list extending to 27 pages. I expect that that is why we ended up with the extensive plan that the noble Lord, Lord Jamieson, referred to.

The Government’s intention is that spatial development strategies operate as those high-level documents, establishing the strategic framework within which the subsequent local plans, which are required to be in general conformity with them, are prepared. Importantly, and in contrast to local plans, spatial development strategies do not allocate specific development sites. It is appropriate that the formal right to appear is preserved for local plan examinations, while examinations of spatial development strategies remain proportionate to their strategic role. I agree with what the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, said about people being interested in planning and engaged in it, but my experience is that they are much more engaged when you are discussing the site-level stuff, which is in the local plans, rather than the more esoteric discussions around a strategic plan.

The noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh, asked me some further questions about what the geography of SDS should be. The English Devolution White Paper sets out the criteria for sensible geographies, including the principle that devolution geographies should ensure the effective delivery of key functions such as SDS. So, where mayoral devolution arrangements already exist, it is proposed that these will be used as a basis for producing SDS, with the exception of the West of England Combined Authority, given the discussions on North Somerset’s place in the region.

Where devolution arrangements do not yet exist, we propose to prioritise existing local consensus on geographies for working together where proposals for devolution have previously been submitted to government with full local agreement, provided that these meet the other sensible geography criteria. These include scale—populations over 1.5 million where possible, to create genuinely strategic SDSs—as well as public service boundary alignment and ensuring that no islands are created.

If a future devolution agreement comes forward on a different geography once the geographies of SDS are confirmed, any SDS will have to be amended, reviewed or replaced to fit that new devolution geography. Of course, we have the ambition to align SDS and the devolution geography, but we have to accept that the devolution picture is still emerging. We need to get on with strategic planning, so we may have to make changes in due course to that.

16:30:00

Lord Jamieson (Con)Just to be absolutely clear, the Minister used the example of 1.5 million, which clearly Cambridgeshire, Bedfordshire and Northamptonshire do not hit. The Minister is clearly implying that there will have to be a board, not necessarily of those three, but of other geographies. Similarly, Norfolk and Suffolk do not hit those targets.

Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)As I said, meeting the categories set out in the English devolution Bill is a clear goal. We want to make sure that they work as a spatial development strategy, and they have to meet certain criteria to do that. We want to get on with the job, so we are putting this process in place to deliver it now.

There were a number of questions, particularly from the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, on authorities that are required to produce a spatial development strategy. Combined authorities, both mayoral and non-mayoral, combined county authorities, both mayoral and non-mayoral, upper-tier county councils and unitary authorities will all have the duty to produce spatial development strategies. These authorities will be known as strategic planning authorities. The Government will be able to group any of these authorities together, as the noble Lord, Lord Jamieson, suggested to jointly produce a spatial development strategy, through a committee known as a strategic planning board.

In most cases, combined authorities or combined county authorities will produce an SDS for their area, and upper-tier county councils and unitary authorities will be grouped together under a strategic planning board. However, some upper-tier county councils may produce one individually, and some combined authorities or combined county authorities could be grouped with an authority outside their area under a strategic planning board.

The noble Lord, Lord Jamieson, asked me specifically about brownfield land, and it is a question he has asked me a number of times. I will try to again answer the question. The English Devolution and Community Empowerment Act 2026 places a requirement on the Secretary of State to make regulations prescribing the desirability of prioritising development on land that has been previously developed as a matter that strategic planning authorities must have regard to. These regulations will be combined with the regulations setting out the procedure for preparation of a spatial development strategy. So, I hope that that has clarified the issue. I hope the Committee will agree that it has considered these regulations.

Motion agreed.