Welcome, everybody, to the latest meeting of the Environmental Audit Committee. This session is on our current review into the impact on the environment of the planning and housebuilding reforms. I am very pleased to welcome our three panellists and I invite them to introduce themselves and their organisations.

I am head of policy at Shelter, the housing and homelessness charity.

I am director of policy and research at the National Housing Federation. We are the trade body for housing associations across England. We have more than 500 hundred members who, between them, provide 2.7 million homes to around 6 million people.

I am the chief executive of the Future Homes Hub. The Future Homes Hub is an organisation set up specifically to support the homebuilding industry and to meet the Government’s climate and environment targets. We are a membership body, bringing the homebuilding community together. We have 80 homebuilder members, including the largest 20 and a cross-section of smaller homebuilders, housing associations, financial institutions, supply chain and others. We have MHCLG, DEFRA, DESNZ and Homes England on our board as observers and we work very closely in partnership with the Government. We cover the full range of sustainability policies—climate, energy, nature and water particularly.

Thank you very much. If I may start with you, Mr Trew, to what extent do you believe that the building of new homes at the level that the Government are indicating is considered necessary is key to solving the housing and homelessness crisis facing us?

We have to look at the current situation to answer that question. There are 1.3 million households on social housing waitlists. Right now, over 160,000 homeless children are growing up in terrible situations in temporary accommodation, often with damp and mould in many walls and miles away from their school. Their lives are very significantly disrupted. It is not an understatement to say that we are in a housing emergency right now. There is a very significant problem to be resolved. This is as a result of decades of failure to invest in genuinely affordable social homes that have rents tied to local incomes. The Government have committed to two things—1.5 million homes over the term of the Parliament, so roughly about 300,000 homes a year, and also the biggest increase in social and affordable homes in a generation. The critical things to focus on are what is the thing that is going to end homelessness and what is the thing that is going to help those children who are growing up in these terrible conditions with no hope, at the moment, of ever getting a social home unless we build enough of them. That is social housing. For decades, we have failed to invest. For decades, we have focused entirely, essentially, on private supply and I think we need to rebalance that situation. When we talk about the housing situation, it is not enough simply to have a target of 300,000 homes. We must also have a target for social rented homes. We and many others in the sector are calling for at least 90,000 social rented homes every year for at least 10 years. That would be enough to house most people on social housing waitlists and to end homelessness for good.

I will stop you there for a moment, if I may. To clarify for the benefit of the benefit of the panel and anyone watching, this is the Environmental Audit Committee. We are particularly conscious of the environmental consequences of the housebuilding targets. When we think that something is important, we hear from people who also have a lot to say about why we need more housing supply but we are probably not going to get into too much detail about the makeup of those homes, with the exception of their environmental consequences. However, that is a very useful set-up from you, Mr Trew. I will turn to Mr Smyth now. Do you see the building of new homes as integral to tackling the housing crisis?

I certainly do. For our members who are housing associations, part of their core social purpose, part of the reason that they exist and, for most of them, the reason that they were set up, was to help to tackle housing crises within their local communities by providing low-cost rented accommodation. I will not repeat the points that Charlie Trew has already made about the symptoms of the housing crisis. We are all aware of them. We know that the housing crisis has been decades in the making and to that end we greatly welcome this Government’s focus on building more new housing and their ambition to publish a housing strategy over the summer. What is important from the housing associations’ perspective is that, yes, they are committed to building new homes. However, as part of their core social purpose, they are equally committed to playing their part in resolving the climate crisis, the climate emergency that we are currently living through. When we think about the built environment that will exist in 2050, it is important to know that 80% of that built environment exists now. Our approach to decarbonising our existing homes is hugely important and our members, housing associations, are leading the way in the effort to decarbonise existing buildings. The average EPC rating of a housing association home is 72. That is the highest of any housing tenure that exists and that is because our members are focused on decarbonising. They have actively been introducing measures to decarbonise homes over the last 10 to 12 years and 500,000, half a million, housing association homes, have improved their energy performance over the last decade. That is a great step. It is important to mention the scale of the challenge to come. More than 700,000 housing association homes still need to get too EPC C by 2030. I am sure we will come later to what more we think would be helpful from the Government to enable us to achieve that but our members are ready to step up to the plate on that, with the right support from the Government.

Mr Lockhart, to what extent do you see achieving these housebuilding targets as integral to tackling the housing supply and homelessness crisis?

Yes, it absolutely is. I have nothing much to add to what my two colleagues have said. Our focus at the Future Homes Hub is on working out how we can deconflict the acceleration in the delivery of homes with achieving environmental outcomes.

You have nicely predicted my next question. To what extent do you believe that the targets can be achieved without damaging the environment within the scope of what the Government have committed to?

It is possible to build homes at that scale without damaging the environment. I am particularly thinking about homes that are operationally net zero, so building homes that do not add to carbon emissions when you are running them and reducing embodied carbon in producing homes, building in a way that is more water efficient and that also improves nature and improves places, compared to pre-development. It is certainly possible and it is also possible to build homes that are more affordable to run, which is really important in the context of rising living costs. However, it is not possible to do all that overnight. A lot of hard work needs to happen at scale for us to get there. If we are going to be building over 300,000 homes a year, there will be a lot of work to do to make sure that we can achieve all those outcomes at the same time. Fundamentally, homebuilders and everyone else building new homes need a clear, long-term plan and we need a well-designed policy framework. For example, we need timescales, so that everyone can adapt and have the right designs. It is very difficult when changes are made in the middle of projects, that kind of thing. We need a timeline that enables supply chains to bring forward the products that we need, for us to have the skills, to have the right infrastructure in place and we need to move at a pace where costs can be absorbed so that the houses are affordable. It is absolutely possible but we need a clear plan to work to. We have set things out in Future Homes, One Plan—what is the plan that we need?—and then after the current Government came in with the 1.5 million target, we came up with, One Plan: Scaling Up Delivery—how can we achieve all those outcomes at scale. We have done a lot of hard work and thinking about how we can do that. However, we all need to work together to come up with a clear plan because supply chain has to move in lockstep with the industry, we need timescales, certainty and timescales and we need local authorities on the same plan. Then, the targets are very much achievable.

Mr Smyth, to what extent do you think the social rented sector is capable of contributing the homes that we need, at affordable prices, without damaging the environment and also taking on board the kinds of initiatives that Mr Lockhart referred to?

A number of our members are also members of the Future Homes Hub, where they can collaborate with and learn from others and influence the Government. As well as focusing on decarbonising our existing homes, our members are also thinking carefully about the overall carbon impact of their organisation and many of them are in the process of establishing or have already established their current carbon footprint and are setting meaningful targets for how they are going to get to net zero by 2030. That includes looking at the impact of the construction of the homes that they build. I can give you some examples. One of our members, Clarion—our largest member—from this year will build no homes that include fossil-fuel heating systems. They will be fossil-fuel free from this year on. Sanctuary, another of the sector’s largest landlords, has set itself a target to reduce emissions from the construction process by one-third by 2030. Almost all our members are committed to reducing all their homes to EPC C by 2030. Another member, Places for People, has set itself a target of 20% of its new homes being built with modern methods of construction, which are much less carbon-hungry. Another example, my final example: Plymouth Community Homes, down in the south-west, has developed a 72-new home development with all homes built up to full passive house standards. When it was completed at the end of 2021, it was the largest fully passive house certified residential scheme in the country.

So you do not believe that starting from where we are now, achieving the environmental standards that we need is unaffordable. They can be achieved hand in hand with these kinds of targets?

They can and must work together. As a country, we are faced with two crises and we cannot afford for them to compete with each other. They co-exist and they must be looked at together and in the round.

Mr Trew, the National Planning Policy Framework’s three objectives and priorities—economic, social and environmental—are supposed to be treated as equally important. To what extent do you believe that the framework as it is currently envisaged places those demands as equal? Do you see one as primary within current policy?

You have to assume that the three objectives are not in contradiction but are fundamentally working together. Our view is that the NPPF as it currently stands does get the balance right but I also think that we need to think about seeing it in different terms. For instance, there has been some controversy around certain words, such as using “considered” when talking about environmental impact. That is where the guidance comes into play. We do need to make sure that we are getting the balance between the three objectives right. I do not see any contradiction between the environmental, the economic and the social. There is no point in economic growth if people are not sharing in it. There is no point in a social purpose if you are not building environmental standards because otherwise people will end up living in homes that they will not be able to afford in the future if they are not built to the right standards. Homes will be built on flood plains, and so on. We must be thinking about environmental consequences because they have dire social consequences for people. Thirdly, if we get this right we can grow industry and the environment at the same time, particularly if we are investing in the supply of new homes at the right standards. We can start building the supply chains and demand for the technologies that help—

Do you think that the Government’s current planning framework has the balance right, or not?

Only time will tell what the effect is. We will monitor it closely. I would say that it looks now to have the right kind of balance but time will tell and we will have to see. We will have to look at it. I am concerned about one thing. If certain kinds of words, such as “considered” and so on, can cause problems, say when private developers get to their Section 106 contribution, are they going to start saying that it is not viable to build social homes and environmentally friendly homes? It needs to be clear, say that there is a requirement to do both. Then we set that standard and basically insist that developers deliver them. Only at that point will people stop trying to wriggle out of their commitments to build both. I think the framework needs a bit more strength. Time will tell whether it is right. Lastly, however, we do not want to keep tinkering with it. That is a problem. Certainty and clarity are critical in this situation. If private developers believe that things will change in the next couple of years, they will not be making the kinds of investments in their supply chains that we need.

My first question is to you all but let’s start with you, Mr Lockhart. The Prime Minister has said that he will put builders, not blockers, first and that in his view, blockers include planning committees, local councillors and local residents’ groups. My local councillors who sit on planning committees will be horrified to be considered as blockers, as will many of my residents, who care about their environment. Do you agree with the Prime Minister? Or do you see dangers in reducing the role of local voices, representatives and experts?

It is important that we come to a clearer consensus around both building homes and building better homes. The consensus is increasingly there. People understand the need to build more homes. We all need to get on the same page on that. Future Homes Hub’s perspective is laser-focused on making sure that as well as building more homes, those homes are better homes that perform better in environmental terms and that we are improving the environment and areas as we build them. That is how we can make sure that people are more accepting and that as well as recognising in principle that we need to build more homes, they will recognise that new homes bring benefits to areas.

We have already set out the case for building quite strongly and I will not repeat that except to say that we must build. We know that we need at least 300,000 homes a year to solve the housing crisis. However, in becoming a country that moves back to building that kind of volume of housing that we have built historically, we do need to bring people with us on the journey so that it is not done in a way that brings about significant opposition. We know from polling that we commissioned a couple of years ago and carried out by YouGov that there is widespread support for housebuilding and in particular for affordable housebuilding. The poll showed that 84% think that social housing is a good thing. It also showed that 70% of people would support housebuilding in the area that they live in and that number rises to around 85% when those homes are affordable to local people. So already you can see that there is significant public support for housebuilding and affordable housebuilding. It is important therefore to ensure that people can have their say and have a view on the area that they live in. Our challenge at the moment is that local plan coverage is very low, as you will know. Local plan adoption rates in recent years are also very low. Without up to date local plans in place, much of the building that happens is speculative development. It does not happen in a planned way. It does not necessarily happen in a way where infrastructure is planned alongside it. It is more likely to generate local opposition. It is right for the Government to focus on getting full local plan coverage in place. It is also good to see a return to higher-level strategic planning so that homes can be planned in the right sub-regional areas alongside economic growth, transport and rail growth and so on, so that people can see the benefits—services and amenities—that new housing brings to their communities. If we get all of that right, we can greatly reduce any opposition to housebuilding.

I agree with a lot of what has been said. I think that some false narrative, a false dichotomy between NIMBY and YIMBY, has been put out. I understand why it exists. The language around blockers and builders is not particularly helpful to either getting the right kinds of homes built and good mixed developments or bringing people along. Ultimately, it creates a longer backlash against building. We know that we have to build and it is not a question of whether we build but of what we build, where and how. We need to involve communities in that process. I agree with also making sure that we involve the right people in the process. One of our challenges with planning committees and the current way of doing things is that the people who are affected most by the housing emergency are completely excluded from the process. They are not there and able to give their voices. The communities that do manage to give their voices say, “No, we don’t want those homes. We don’t want more expensive homes near us. We are worried about house prices” when there are lots of homeless people nearby who need homes. We need to change that conversation, help grow the number of people who are feeding into it at a different level, bring the people who are affected by the housing emergency into those rooms and see how we can get them involved. I agree about the regional planning areas. There is a problem at the moment. If you have a housing problem or emergency in, say, Bristol, you cannot currently plan alongside the local authority in Somerset, which might be anti-building in that area. That sort of thing creates a major challenge. What you need to be doing is looking more holistically at the need across the region and across the country and at how we can build good quality places. This is where it is. Again, the same point. If you are looking at building homes that people can see are for them, that they know are for their kids, that they know are genuinely affordable and are somewhere where they can build a community, that are planned well, designed for community, there is no fight between the blockers and the builders. There are only people talking about what we build and where, not whether we build at all.

Moving now to regulations. The Deputy Prime Minister has said that she wants to remove the red tape that is blocking housebuilding. Can you highlight particular regulations that you think can be removed or reduced to open up housebuilding without damaging the environment?

We are not the experts on environmental regulation. We are a charity. We focus on housing. If I am honest, we have done limited work looking at the regulatory environment in this space. However, I can say that there are parts of the planning system that could be streamlined. You see lot of the stories around these things. One example is strategic environment assessments. You hear anecdotal evidence of things taking 50,000 pages, and so on, and several years to write. They do have a very important social value but sometimes the guidance around them is what drives people to have to spend years on them and that can cause delays. I am not an expert on this and I will not pretend to be. However, I can say that sometimes it is not so much about the regulation getting in the way as the implementation of the regulation and the guidance sitting around it. That is probably all I will say about that.

I am in a similar position to my colleague from Shelter on this point about regulation. The social homes and services in our sector are regulated by the Regulator of Social Housing and think that the regulator does a very important job in providing assurance to the sector’s stakeholders, including lenders, that we are doing a good job and even more importantly to the residents in our homes. That relationship works. If I may stretch the point, what we need—and the Government have said that they will set this out—is rather than a focus on regulation is a long-term housing strategy, which we hope is what will be published later this year. We have been pushing for that for a long time at the National Housing Federation. We think that there is a strong case for a 30-year housing strategy. Why 30 years? Because the National Infrastructure Commission produces 30-year assessments of the UK’s infrastructure needs. If we do that for infrastructure more broadly, why do we not do it for housing alongside it so that we have a long-term understanding of what we need and where and what it will cost? Alongside that, our members plan their activities—whether that is developing new homes or investing in their existing homes—over a 30-year horizon. They plan over a 30-year horizon so it makes sense. We also think that if strategy is focused on outcomes from the start, everything will fall into place beneath it. The outcomes therefore need to be things such as improving affordability, reducing homelessness and overcrowding, building higher quality homes, linking homes with transport and labour markets and, of course, also producing zero-carbon homes. I would prefer to answer the question in that broader way, if I might.

Do you have any observations, Mr Lockhart?

Yes. We are deeply involved in this area, looking at how homebuilders achieve all those outcomes together and how all the regulations fit together and fit with planning—that whole picture. I think we need to avoid falling into the trap of saying, “Let’s ditch this regulation or that regulation” because all the regulations serve a purpose. Take water, for example. Looking at the long term, if we think we need to get on with housebuilding so let’s forget about water efficiency, we will end up as a country with a shortfall of water. I think it is now 50 billion. Demand is increasing by 15% by 2050 and supply is going to go down by 15% so we do need to think long term about how we can become more water efficient, creating the capacity for homebuilding. We need to think about how regulations are introduced, how they fit together, how they are implemented. I come from a sustainability policy background and have been deeply involved in developing legislation, that kind of thing. Now that I work in the homebuilding sector and talk to homebuilders every day, getting them to walk me through how they comply with regulations, I realise that it is unbelievably difficult and complex for them to comply with everything. I have huge admiration for them, that they can build homes, because it can be very difficult, especially for the smaller builders. We, the Government and others have a lot of work to do to work out how we can make it better so that we can focus on the outcomes and achieve a better environment. I can send the Committee some examples of where dealing with regulations is particularly difficult and how we can get a much better result for the environment but I will give you one example now in a bit more detail. Over a period of time, local authorities have started to set energy efficiency standards at local authority level and local authorities explain to me that the reason why they have had to do that is because there has been a gap between 2013 and 2021 in national standards moving forward around energy efficiency. Local authorities have said that they have declared climate emergencies and need to set their own local standards. They tell me that they would much prefer to have, and move to, national standards. From a homebuilding perspective, it makes it very difficult if they have to develop different designs in every local authority they work in. It makes it very difficult to develop supply chains at scale. It makes it very difficult to develop the necessary skills. Ultimately, it will make it very difficult to build in factories, which is what we are going to need to do if we are going to build 1.5 million homes. Moving to national standards and having a conversation, bringing people with us to move to them, is very important if we are going to build at scale and achieve the sustainability outcomes that we all want.

I think Mr Lockhart has answered my third question, which was about which regulations to improve or strengthen. That is an example of an area of regulation to strengthen rather than remove blockers from. It would be helpful, Chair, if Mr Lockhart followed up in writing with some more examples of regulations that he would look to remove and maybe others that he would look to strengthen.

A lot of this is about how to get better join-up across government, between different teams within Government Departments, so that we are thinking about how to make it easy for developers to achieve the outcomes on the ground. That is where our focus needs to be.

You have mentioned the quality and availability of water. In Somerset, we have a huge problem with phosphates and housebuilding. About 18,000 homes have been caught up in a moratorium in the Ramsar catchment area. The Government are promising to reform nutrient neutrality and put nature at the heart of their building plans. The Planning and Infrastructure Bill is coming forward in March 2025. We desperately need more affordable homes and more social housing in Somerset. Do you think that the plans that the Government are putting in place go far enough to protect nature and deliver the homes that we desperately need?

The big move forward that I have seen is the proposal for a Nature Restoration Fund. It seems to be very well conceived. It is looking at nature at a strategic scale, saying, “Let’s assess what nature needs and what nutrient reduction is needed across a bigger area”. That is much better for nature because we are understanding what nature needs in total. John Lawton did a review of nature. The Lawton principles say that nature operates on a much bigger strategic scale and that we need to understand that and invest at that scale. So the proposal is good for nature. I think it is also good for development because it means that there is a way forward whereas lots of developers have been blocked, particularly smaller developers who might have one or two sites and cannot move forward because they get stuck in nutrient neutrality for a couple of years. So there is a way forward from the development perspective, immediately unblocking those homes that could not otherwise go ahead. However, the devil is in the detail of the design. We need to get the scheme’s design right. One area is working out how the private sector can also bring projects. Can we have a market mechanism so that different providers can bring nature restoration projects forward? However, there are risks. The scheme needs careful design but it must be a good idea.

Does anybody else want to come in on that? I am conscious that the Chair might want to move on.

Thank you.

I think that we have heard you unanimously say that we have to tackle the housing crisis as well as the twin crises in nature and the climate. The UK is one of the most nature-depleted countries in the world. My constituency of South Cambridgeshire is one of the most nature-depleted areas within one of the most nature-depleted countries. The planning system should not just be about how to minimise harm. It should be about what is in the NPPF and the Environment Act, which are about enhancing nature recovery. To that end, I would like to come back to a few things that you have mentioned. How strong does the NPPF reform need to be to ensure that this enhancement happens? You have mentioned that some language such as “consider” rather than “oblige” or “require” brings us to a situation that could be dependent upon local authority jurisdiction. My own area is South Cambridgeshire. The Greater Cambridge local plan includes a biodiversity supplementary planning document because there is political will to try to say what we need to enhance biodiversity. However, that part is still voluntary. The mandate is voluntary for developers. We have heard about the strategic level, the Lawton principle level, but when we get down to the levels that are critical for the connectivity of nature within smaller and bigger developments alike, what do we think about? We have the swift bricks, the bat boxes, the hedgehog holes but not in common practice across the country. They are voluntary. Do you think that this is sufficient and that these things will happen when we get to viability assessments? Or do you think that they should be mandated?

My colleagues suggest that I should come in here because we have launched an initiative called Homes for Nature. Developers can sign up to it. It commits them to installing swift bricks on every unit and having hedgehog highways on every site. Twenty-six of the largest and a cross-section of smaller developers have signed up so far. We launched it in September 2024.

Can I come in? Natural Cambridgeshire and the Greater Cambridgeshire Planning Authority have got, together with developers, a Building with Nature toolkit. They are toolkits. They are initiatives. What I am asking is this. Should stick with voluntary or should this be mandated?

My view is that we should start with industry-led schemes so that people are committed to them. We track them. We monitor them. We understand whether they work to improve species. It would be difficult to mandate them straightaway. Would you put it in the planning or the building—

Can I come back to one of your earlier responses? You said that we have to get this clear at the beginning because we cannot keep tweaking the system as we go along. How long have we needed to declare a nature crisis that says we need to be doing these things now? With the nature recovery strategies across the country, how long before we know that having the smaller connectivity works for species? I would like to ask again. Why do you think that there is not enough evidence now? The initiatives, toolboxes and toolkits have been in place for quite a few years.

Judge us on what we have achieved in a year’s time. We have been able to move much more quickly than legislation. Companies have committed for planning applications from September. If we had gone the legislative route, it would have taken two years to achieve that. We are a new organisation. We set this up. Judge us. I will be very happy to meet you and present the results nine months from now.

This is to the National Housing Federation as well, Mr Smyth. We know that when it comes to viability assessments in planning committees around the country, even if these initiatives have been successful in some areas, when it comes down to it, they are not obligatory and they are what fall away.

I will come back to your original question about whether the Government have gone far enough. I think they have taken some positive steps with the revised NPPF, which has been roundly welcomed and certainly will play a significant role in enabling us to get to 300,000 homes a year. To your point about biodiversity, similarly we have many examples of members who do build or redevelop schemes in a way that introduces green infrastructure. Yes, it is not yet nationally mandated. What could help us go further? You mentioned the upcoming Bill. If there were a national strategic framework that clearly mandated how housing growth can work alongside protecting the environment and nature, that mandate could be passed down to spatial frameworks, introduced at sub-regional level, in mayoral combined authorities, or whatever and then to local plans. I am talking about ensuring that local people can make decisions about what works best for them in their areas but knowing that there is a national mandate to ensure that housing development is sympathetic and works alongside protecting the environment and nature. I think that would be a positive step and enable the twin objectives to be pursued. We are only part way there. There is more to come.

That would give us the both/and. We can do both the housebuilding and the nature recovery alongside it if it were elevated to that level. Can I ask one more question about the same thing, about our still building however many years after the zero carbon home policy was first posited, I think in 2012?

In 2006, I think.

We are still waiting for the Future Home Standard. We are still building homes that are connected to gas, are poorly insulated, and do not have solar panels. We have a Private Member’s bill on Friday about finally getting solar panels on every roof. What can be done so that we are building homes for the future and do not become silent mortgages on homeowners who have bought at a certain price but then have to retrofit?

Our members are certainly keen to have the Future Homes Standard introduced as soon as it can be. I understand that it will be brought forward later this year. That is positive. That being in place gives a common baseline for development. Some of our members bought new homes via Section 106 planning obligations. The recent reduction in demand for those homes is largely driven by the lack of financial capacity. However, another reason that our members often cite is that they are potentially being handed over homes that come with gas boilers. Due to their commitment as organisations to EPC C by 2030 and then net zero, they are reluctant to purchase those homes for the obvious reason that they will be faced, in short order, with the cost of replace the gas boiler. It would certainly be helpful to have a common standard in place as soon as possible, mandating—among other things such as solar panels, for instance—fossil-free heating systems.

There is little to add to what Alistair Smyth has just said but the really key problem is that we are currently building homes that are not fit for the future. It is ridiculous. And it is because there has been no clarity in regulation, which do need to be clear. We need to have very clear, national-level standards—not necessarily regulation on the standards—because our big problem is with the Section 106 situation. It is silly that councils and housing associations cannot take some of that stock because it is not at the right kind of level and they will have to invest a lot of money to put them right. It is silly that we are building just any type of home that are not fit for the future. We also need to think about how we create access to green space for people within the communities. There are ways of doing that and there are some very good examples of good building going on. However, you will never get clarity across the whole piece unless the standards are brought forward. I don’t think that anyone is going to disagree with that.

Perhaps I could underline the uncertainty point. From an industry perspective, it is very important to have that certainty. The zero carbon homes policy that you are referring to, was introduced in 2006, I think, and was subsequently abolished, which reduced a lot of confidence, particularly in the supply chain. A number of different technologies are required to build zero-carbon homes. The supply chain is very cautious now about investing in heat pumps, solar panels and so on because of not know knowing for sure that the Government will introduce them. However, we are now in a position where we are sure that the Government will introduce the policy. The Future Homes Hub has just put out a blog that says what we think the timetable is likely to be. We think the timetable will be announced shortly and that we can expect the standard to be out in the summer. We also had the 2021 building regulations massively improve fabrics so we are already building with much better fabric. However, the 2025 standard will mean coming off gas to electric heat pumps and PV and as the grid decarbonises, we will be building homes that operate on zero carbon. It is a good-news story but it has been a long time in the coming.

It is good that we are moving in the right direction. Do you not agree, however, that it is concerning that there is still quite a gap between what we anticipate what the Future Homes Standard and ultimately what a net zero carbon building standard will be? Would you not also agree that it is concerning that embodied carbon is not included?

Thank you for raising embodied carbon. There is a good story on operational carbon, which I have just laid out, moving off gas and so on. However, you are right to raise embodied carbon—

What we are anticipating coming from the Government not taking us to zero, is it?

My understanding is that it will be operationally zero carbon as the grid decarbonises. If the grid decarbonises by 2030, we will be building homes that run on zero carbon. The big story, as you say, is around embodied carbon. As the grid decarbonises and homes become zero carbon in operation, there will still be all the carbon in the products, the materials, the transport and the construction. The Future Homes Hub is developing a sector-wide net zero transition plan. It shows the story in terms of how operational carbon now reduces very quickly with the Future Homes Standard. All the carbon will be in embodied carbon. There we need to work very closely with concrete, cement, bricks and asphalt. It is all about the materials and how we work with those sectors to reduce their carbon. We must also look at transport and construction activities on site. How do we move off diesel on sites to batteries, hydrogen and other, different technologies. That is a lot of work. We have set out in a transition plan that we will publish next month how we will tackle embodied carbon and the mechanisms that will be needed to reduce it. The first challenge with embodied carbon, which we have been working on, is measurement. How do we consistently measure embodied carbon to understand it properly and consistently? We have been tackling that while setting out how the sector is going to reduce embodied carbon. Ultimately, it will need close working with the Government. A lot of people argue for regulation underpinning the reduction of embodied carbon.

Last November, witnesses told us about the importance of infrastructure for making sure that the right houses are built in the right places. Are there any specific approaches to providing infrastructure that can minimise the environmental consequences of housebuilding?

Shall I start? Infrastructure is key and I am quite excited about the Devolution White Paper and its proposals for strategic authorities and starting to look at a more strategic scale for joining things up and spatial planning. It is important for transport, energy and water infrastructure. How do we join all those things up so that we have homes that are connected? It is very important in environmental terms as well, so how do we think about the environment on that scale and start to link green infrastructure? There is opportunity at the strategic level with strategic authorities to start joining the infrastructure up so that homes can perform better.

Do you think we should see nature and the environment as part of the infrastructure in a much more formal way?

That would be helpful for homebuilding because you start to join things up and you are not just looking at individual patches. It is a bit like the nature restoration point. You are starting to look more strategically at how you join up wildlife corridors and that sort of thing so houses fit in with the wider environmental context in which they are built.

I don’t know if anyone else wants to come in on that point.

I have a quick additional point to make. We have already talked about the importance of green infrastructure and the role that planning plays there. A separate point, which is linked, concerns the infrastructure that we will also need to have in place to accelerate the journey to net zero emissions from existing homes, operationally—the expansion of heat networks. Heat networks currently provide heat to around 3% of homes. That will expand to around 20% by 2050. If heat networks are delivered with clean energy, that will be a quicker way to decarbonise those homes. Our members and housing associations between them own around two-thirds of heat networks so we are very well placed to work with the Government on that journey. We are pleased that the Government is introducing heat network zoning to drive the scaling up of that process, requiring new developments and specific existing developments to be able to connect to heat networks. I want to flag that requirement and flag that it is something that our members are well placed to work alongside the Government to bring about.

I am coming back to you, Mr Lockhart. If we had a more formal way to talk about nature and the environment as infrastructure, what specific role do you feel new housing developments could have?

The proposal is that homebuilders could contribute to the Nature Restoration Fund. We have probably not talked enough about biodiversity net gain yet. BNG was mandated in February of last year and came in for smaller sites in April. It means that every new home improves biodiversity by 10%. That means every new home is contributing. Then there is nutrient neutrality. There is potential for developers to contribute to improvements to green infrastructure on a larger scale.

To you all, if that is okay: are there any lessons we can learn from anywhere else, internationally, about how we can do this more effectively to make sure that we are including this in our infrastructure planning and making it cost effective at the same time? Finally, is there anything that you think we should include in our recommendations on infrastructure, nature and the environment?

You can see from examples in the UK that there is a chance to build properly designed net zero homes. The Goldsmith Street development—famous social housing—has 93 social homes, 100% social homes. Norwich City Council built it to a certain standard and excellent design. It won the Stirling Prize for design. It has helped the tenants to have much lower energy costs. They have benefited for years. Even when everybody else’s bills have been going up, theirs have stayed relatively stable, compared with everybody else’s that is. One of the things we can learn from that is about looking at the whole piece. They looked at the social value, the design and the environment. They tried to create a beautiful place. They decided that they were going to do something different from how the speculative development model works. It was a structured approach. Also on the infrastructure approach, I am going to be intrigued by what the New Towns programme brings. That has historically provided a great opportunity to think about this holistically, to design a town from scratch, where you think about the connectivity, the green spaces, energy, transport and so on all in one piece. The key is the land value. The cost of the land is what drives competition between the environment and social value. If you can get that land at close to existing-use value, which you should be able to do, you can design excellent places that are built for the future and with genuinely green, net zero homes. The challenges, of course, will be supply chains and making sure there are enough skills and materials. I am sure we will get on to that. There are also some interesting things that you can do about existing homes. We need to see that investing in existing stock is not terrible. It can be a good way to also bring homes into value. For example, we are doing some work on you can get up to, say, 90,000 homes but some of that will be bringing empty homes into use again, including retrofitting them and making sure that we can bring them up to standard, installing heat pumps and so on so that tenants will have lower bills. If we can see that as an investment in the future and reducing emissions overall, it is much less harsh than building all new homes. There have been some interesting examples, which we send you information about. We are doing some work on those approaches. There is great evidence, internationally and locally, about how to do this effectively. It is a question of how to make it a national priority.

I will be quick. I am not well placed to cite any international examples. However, to your question about recommendations I will reiterate my earlier point about the importance of a national strategic framework for planning. With that in place, the mandate about how housing growth can work alongside protecting the environment will flow down to sub-regional spatial planning and local planning. That is an important thing to recommend.

Two things to the technology point: one echoes my colleague’s point. There are loads of good examples in the UK now. Now that people know that the Future Homes Standard is coming in, homebuilders are doing pilots and demonstrator projects right across the country. We have put them on a map so that developers are now sharing information about what they are doing, their results and so on. I will share that with the Committee. From my perspective, it is very exciting to see all the technologies and what people are piloting. There is massive opportunity to share learning, which homebuilders are now doing. Another point from my perspective is that one of the most effective ways to draw on international experience is to send very clear regulatory signals about raising standards over a period of time. That draws in a lot of the best research. Global companies and supply chains want to be in the UK to see how they can contribute to solutions in the UK. I will give you an example to do with water efficiency. The metric there is about how we can reduce litres per person per day. Now we are at about 125. We have set out a roadmap for improving that, raising water efficiency standards over a period. There are technologies such as airboost showers that are massively more efficient but just as good for the customer. They are not currently being produced at high levels but if manufacturers knew that we are going to be raising standards, the supply chains would scale up to the supply needed and reduce the cost in the UK. A lot of technologies from all around the world would come to us if they knew that we had a really clear regulatory framework.

Switching back to infrastructure, can you point to an example—say in planning a neighbourhood, so at neighbourhood level rather than individual property level—an example of something actively delivering better outcomes for nature, the environment and carbon?

Not off the cuff. Perhaps I can come back to you.

All right. Thank you.

You have referred throughout the session to the role of local authorities in this process. We often hear about the challenges local authorities have around capacity, in particular thinking about how they provide adequate assessments of environmental implications from proposed developments, building applications and so on. What is your view about those concerns about capacity?

My understanding is that those concerns are very real. We hear that every day. We hear concerns about morale and the resources within local authorities. As we are thinking about how to improve environmental outcomes we need to be very careful about loading requirements on local authorities without solving their capacity issues. There are solutions, however. Not everything needs to be regulated by local authorities. There are national regulators. There are different approaches. We need to look quite carefully before imposing new requirements on local authorities.

Can I take you back to the existing requirements? You can think of the existing requirement to sign off on those planning applications and the Section 106s but we are talking here about a larger scope, aren’t we, a larger scale coming through the same funnel? Do you see a problem there if local authorities currently do not have enough capacity?

I absolutely do. Part of that is that there is a danger of loading too much on the planning system. For example, we have talked about there being a strong case for regulation to be at national level rather than putting it through planning departments. We have building regs and a lot of things that are currently going through the planning system could be done through building regs.

It is a local council officer who will go out with the building reg form and sign it off. It goes back to your local councils, which have had budget cuts of 40% over the last 15 years. So you are still on a waiting list. Do you not see any consequences or implications if there is a deficiency at local council level?

This is not necessarily within my day-to day-expertise but I do think there is a problem and that Government are responding on local authority capacity and funding. As well as providing more funding, we can also look at the system to see what we load onto the planning system and other ways of achieving compliance.

So you think there are some specific areas that could be regulated at national level? If you could that information to the note that you are going to be sending, that would be helpful.

Yes, I will be happy to do that.

Do you have any comments, Alistair Smyth?

Just briefly, to reflect that, yes, our members who develop homes do report anecdotally that local authorities are under extreme pressure and that the lack of capacity in planning departments does impact the speed of decision making. To that end, we welcome this Government’s recognition of the challenges within the planning system. We welcome the allocation of £46 million of further investment in the planning system and the pledge to create 300 additional planning roles. These things will help. More broadly, the planning system will have to take on more day to day as we build more homes. Also, as the ambition clearly is to move towards a plan-led system rather than the current rather more development-led system, we will not only need more planning but also planners with the kinds of skills that perhaps used to exist more widely when we had strategic planning in place. That will also need to be assessed. The Government will need to keep a close eye on the skills required now and in the future as we move back towards that plan-led system.

Would you suggest that that should be a key recommendation to come out from today, that the Government look at increasing capacity around strategic planning and not just reactive officers?

Yes, I agree with that. It should work alongside what the Government set out in their housing strategy to be published later this year.

Thank you. We have heard Pippa Heylings talk about how at the end of a big planning application, sometimes it is the affordability that is squeezed out on viability. From my background as a local councillor, I know that sometimes resourcing is a factor in that decision because after many years of negotiating with an applicant, towards the end resources are so stretched. My pushback to you is that the consequences of inadequate resourcing might not just affect the environmental aspect of a bid but also affect the affordability aspect. I push that back to you.

We have seen many instances of that happening in recent years. Our members will almost always seek to maximise the percentage of affordable housing on any development because that is part of their social purpose, part of the reason that they exist. I recognise that but the reason that that is a challenge is because we do not have sufficient local plan coverage, because we don’t have a plan-led system in place so speculative development of course tends to drive these kinds of negotiations and the amount of affordable housing that can be brought forward. If that is clearly set out within a local plan and the expectation is clear from the outset, land values will adjust accordingly and you will be more likely to achieve the percentage of affordable housing set out in the plan. That is why we need to move back towards a plan-led system.

Thank you. Did you have anything to add, Mr Trew?

I fundamentally agree with what was said. It is very critical. Local authorities have been quite significantly decimated but have many, many more demands on them. The problems and the complexity of the cases—for example, even just on the homelessness side—are very significant. We welcome the Government investing in the 300 planning officers. That could be good. It could help significantly. Whether it is enough, time will tell. A big challenge is that councils are also being asked to build again. We need to invest in their build functions. They need to learn. They need to grow and get building and get back into that business. This is going to require significant investment from Government in the resource of those local councils so that they can get back to building the services that they used to provide, and they need to provide. The point you made about viability is very important. There is often a power imbalance between local authorities and private developers and as Alistair said, one of the key things is setting out clear expectations, having a good local plan that determines exactly what social housing in general is needed and what your standards are. Then we can get on and start building it to them. The point is that power imbalance gives a local authority much stronger capability to push back on private developers and insist on the requirements that are in there.

Finally, do you see any of the risks or consequences if local authorities do not have adequate resources? Do you see any problems or dangers there?

We will not get the affordable and social homes that we need. That is very clear. We will not get well-built, developed homes. The challenge is if you just let private developers or speculators build exactly whatever they want, wherever they want, you are not going to get the social homes you need, you will not begin to address the housing emergency and you will not begin to address the climate emergency. It is very critical that we do both.

Thank you. Thanks for your time.

I want to push a bit further on a couple of points. Mr Trew and Mr Smyth, I think there is a unanimous agreement about the urgent need to tackle homelessness and affordability crisis for housing. We have heard from both of you about the urgent need to build. Given the pressures that 1.5 million houses could potentially bring from that volume of development or loss of green space and fragmentation of habitats, and given the fact that ONS data shows that in 1971 there was roughly one dwelling for every three people in the country, and today we have one dwelling for every 2.25 people in the country, so we now have more homes per capita than we did 50 years ago, could you comment perhaps in a little more detail on the particular role of supply as aside from other issues when it comes to tackling affordability?

This is the point that I was raising at the beginning. It does matter what you build as well as how much you build. Our key focus at Shelter is on social rent because that is what is going to end homelessness. General market supply might have an impact on affordability. Whether 300,000 homes a year does that is up for debate at the moment. It does matter what you build. I would be happy if we got to the 90,000 social rented homes a year for 10 years and did it properly. However, we have been doing some work looking at the makeup of the numbers and it does not all have to be new building. I do have to say, though, new-build will be critical. You cannot get away from that and there is no way in which we cannot build more homes; however, we can look at long-term empty homes. We have done a 10-city report looking at some of the key cities in the country and at whether you can bring back some of those long-term empty homes, empty for over two years. Often they are derelict and you can use certain legal powers to acquire those homes, retrofit them, build them up, get them in. It is not just a question of new build, in some cases. There is another way of doing it. Some of the work that we have done has shown that you can get to that 90,000 figure for no more expense than if you were building entirely new standards, if you do some of that change of use, if you make some of that investment, and that obviously it has a lower carbon impact and a net zero impact.

Certainly, compared with our European comparators such as France, Germany, Spain, Ireland, and so on, the rate of housebuilding in this country compared with those comparable countries is slow and has been over multiple decades. Part of the fundamental challenge is supply. The Government have acknowledged that and have set ambitious supply targets and that is the right thing to do, ensuring that a considerable portion of buildings are social and affordable homes. Yes, we can make progress with empty homes. If we were to bring all of the empty homes back into use, that would potentially be two years’ worth of new housing supply. We would also have to invest huge sums of money in homes that are EPC E, F or worse to bring them up to an acceptable standard and make them decent. That is not to say we should not try. That should be a part of the puzzle. There is another school of thought around the redistribution of existing housing wealth. Certainly, if we built more specialist housing for older people—and there are reports that say we should be aiming to build 50,000 specialist homes for older people per year—we could free up family-sized housing in other parts of the chain, which would certainly help to improve the system. That is part of the jigsaw as well. All of these things must be brought together in an overarching strategy for how we want to solve housing in this country, and that is what the Government have set out to do. Supply is a big part of that. There are other levers that can be pulled alongside it, but supply remains the key one.

Okay, thank you. Mr Lockhart, I want to turn back to the Nature Restoration Fund. How would you respond to the concern that the fund is allowing developers to give money now, to cause pollution now, to habitats that are already damaged and are at the risk of functional death in some cases, in the hope that this money will be used in future to offset it as opposed to the previous system of preventing that pollution from going ahead in the first place?

We need a twin-track approach. It would be wrong to say that you can pay into the fund and forget the rest. It is important that we focus on mitigation as well. There is a mitigation hierarchy that looks at how we make sure that we are minimising the impact first and looking for opportunities to improve habitats on site and then you get to offset. I do not think there is a question that we are going to change that. There is a big focus on focusing on the development itself, improving nature on site as much as possible, and then moving off site. That is my brief answer.

Thank you very much. Thank you, gentlemen, for your evidence. It is much appreciated. I will bring the first panel to a close. Witnesses: Erika Lewis, Professor Rokia Raslan and Becky Pullinger.

Thank you very much to our second panel of the afternoon. Could I invite you to introduce yourself and your organisation, please?

Thank you. I am a Professor of Built Environment Decarbonisation at University College London Institute for Environmental Design Engineering.

I am the Chief Executive Officer at the Connected Places Catapult and our focus is on enabling innovation in transport, the built environment, cities and local growth.

I am the Head of Land Use Planning at the Wildlife Trusts. We are a grassroots movement of 46 charities with over 900,000 members.

Excellent. Thank you very much for joining us and thank you, also, for being in the audience to listen to the first panel. You are obviously well-informed about the evidence that we are hearing. Can I start with you please, Ms Lewis? How do you see that innovative approaches in planning and placemaking can contribute to creating well-connected communities while incorporating the natural environment?

They are key to doing that. You talked a lot in the earlier panel about capacity and about bringing different parts of infrastructure planning together. We very much believe that the answer to doing that in in a co-ordinated way is through innovative ways of thinking. It is through digital integrated planning and then using data and the beginnings of AI in thinking about how you can reduce the need for human-being elements in that planning process. It is really key as an underpinning enabler.

What role does the natural environment play in delivering sustainable social benefits for communities?

Putting all those things together, the natural environment is part of it, and you got a lot of the sense that from the panel before. It is very easy to start thinking about these things separately. We need to do is think about them together. That is fundamental. Trying to make sure that the outcomes that you are aiming towards are co-ordinated is key. I was really taken by the talk in the previous panel about the need for a national plan and broader co-ordination. We would absolutely be behind that for a number of reasons. The first reason is because that allows you to start using these innovative types of digital planning processes because you have a broader plan which you are trying to draw together. Perhaps more importantly, we are keen on ensuring that SMEs who have innovative ways of delivering some of these solutions are part of delivering the solutions. In 1990, 15,000 SMEs were working in the built environment. Now there are 2,500. That is a key issue. The earlier panel talked about building the supply chain. We are very, very keen on that. You need that grand plan. You need to understand the holistic outcomes that you want to achieve and you need to drive them together.

Ms Pullinger, from your perspective at the Wildlife Trusts, what role do you see the natural environment playing in delivering social benefits for communities?

The evidence of the roles of nature and biodiversity in providing us with nature-based solutions is well rehearsed. I am sure this Committee and its members will know about the wide variety of important benefits, from flood management to carbon sequestration and connecting nature and the climate crisis together, as well as the health and wellbeing of communities. One example is the Born in Bradford programme, which is tracking about 30,000 people in Bradford to understand what the key determinants are of health and wellbeing. Air pollution and high-quality green space are two of the most important factors in their lives and their health and wellbeing. We know that there are huge inequalities in access to nature and it is important to also bring that into this discussion about how you ensure nature and green spaces can support community wellbeing.

Professor Raslan, I will ask you the same question. What role do you see the natural environment playing in delivering sustainable social benefits for communities?

We have already covered the physical and mental health and wellbeing benefits that amenity and green spaces can bring to a community. I will also add that it can support livelihoods and local economies. We do not have to look far around the UK to see many communities where the economic prospects are all based around areas of natural beauty. I will add from the point of view of the built environment that we always look at how the built environment impacts the natural environment. However, the natural environment can also serve to protect the built environment from landslides and floods, and looking at the future, from overheating risks and urban heat islands. It brings a lot of benefits to communities that live within our built environment as well.

Expanding on that, in terms of local infrastructure, including facilities, utilities and community services, what do you see as the local infrastructure that is essential to ensuring long-term sustainability given the size of the increase in housebuilding that the Government is envisaging?

Some of this was covered by the earlier panel where they spoke about transport.

They might have been wrong; we cannot rule that out.

To deliver sustainable housing, you need to look at sustainable networks that heat and power the homes. In future, we might need to cool these homes. Renewables and heat networks are a big part of the infrastructure considerations. We need to think about the transport that will get people to these homes back and forth from their places of work. I think the previous panel also mentioned a lot about the blue and green infrastructure that is needed to protect these homes as well as to create more value around nature.

Thank you very much. Ms Lewis?

I agree about economic infrastructure and ensuring that there are places for people to live in. For us, it is very much about building places rather than homes. People need to be able to get there and back and all the things that we have just been talking about, but also, they need to be able to have good sustainable jobs.

We heard from a previous panel, before today, that the Government’s approach seems to be starting with homes first and then working the rest out afterwards. Then the advocacy for a more place-based approach was made. Do believe that the Government have the balance right in their current planning policy framework with an approach focused on place-building first and then the homes within that? Or do you share the view that at the moment the framework is about homes first and that place-building is somewhat secondary?

You can see that the intention is there, particularly when you look at the work that has being done around local growth planning. It is a much more holistic way of thinking about local areas and places. Whether the levers that needed to be in place to make it happen are there yet is something that we would need to look at over the coming few months. The aspiration is definitely good.

Ms Pullinger, do you have any concerns about where the current planning policy framework is on infrastructure and place-building?

Yes. It is still very difficult for local planning authorities to say no to development when it is in the wrong place and where it does not meet the high standards that the previous panel said that we need to be building for a future world. We need climate resilience. We need nature-friendly homes to be built right from the start rather than thinking, “Let’s get those homes built now and think about everything else that we need to do later”. I also agree with the points made about green and blue infrastructure being fundamental to considering what infrastructure is and how we connect communities to it. That is very important. Everyone should be within 15 minutes of a natural green space. At the moment, a third of people do not have that access.

There are many levers for that. I believe, from what I have read, that the current planning framework focuses on increasing the supply of land to enable the building of more housing. There are things in there that might encourage better consideration of how these houses are built. However, the framework does not provide a lot of encouragement or support for retaining existing housing and avoiding demolition when it is possible. There could be better provisions for that. Also, from what I have read, although many of the provisions suggest that whole-life-cycle carbon should be taken into place, it is implied but it is not clearly required or mandated. There could be improvements on that side that can fundamentally improve how we look at embodied carbon and reducing it. Alison Taylor Okay, thank you. Does anyone else want to comment?

We have been looking at different ways of thinking about digitising environmental impact assessments and thinking about how you can understand not only the intentions that you have for how you build and what you are looking for in terms of the carbon efficiency of a home but monitoring it once it is in place. That is key.

I will talk about two things. We have already mentioned the use of digital infrastructure and technologies to help. We believe there is a massive opportunity in data-driven digital technologies that can support decision-making, making it simpler, more accessible and easier to implement at various levels, including at local planning authority level. At UCL, we have worked on trying to develop some of these technologies and that has led to the development of one tool that can help designers to look at the life cycle carbon of different designs at very early design stages. We have also been looking at integration plug-ins that help us assess LCA—life cycle assessments—that are integrated with building information modelling, which is a big driver in the construction industry now. That is on the digital side. There is also scope to look at various modern methods of construction and how they can support the delivery of homes that have less embodied carbon.

The first thing that springs to mind with this question is that currently part of Natural England’s Natural Capital and Ecosystem Assessment Programme is funding wildlife trusts to undertake work to map local wildlife sites. The sites are locally selected and identified for their value to wildlife and people. There is no single map of those at the moment. The work is done with local partnerships. Several local nature recovery strategies that are in development will be looking at using local wildlife site data. That is more about identifying places that we should be protecting because they are important. They are often of a similar level for wildlife as Sites of Special Scientific Interest. They are very important. There is lots of mapping work to be done. Connecting this to the technology question, some of those local partnerships are using artificial intelligence and drones as part of establishing the initial baseline, to understand what habitats are there, what is present. Work is evolving in that area. It is obviously a very live area and people are interested to find out what works and what we can identify using drones, versus what we need to go out on site to understand. We are also very keen to suggest a new term for the planning system which is wild belt. This would be a new designation to protect land that is in recovery for nature. At the moment our existing network of protected sites are all focused on designating and protecting land that is already delivering benefits and already meant to be in good condition for nature and for our wildlife. Wild belt would help us on that journey to meet wider nature targets such as the international commitment to protect 30% of land by 2030. Wild belt, working with communities to identify sites that they value and where action is being taken locally, could be an opportunity to both inspire local action and protect land that is part of the wider nature recovery space.

I want to briefly follow up on the social and environmental objectives of the planning system. We have touched on a couple of aspects with you, Ms Pullinger. Do you feel that warm homes and the impact on social, financial, and health outcomes should be more heavily weighed as that is a spin-off benefit of being carbon neutral in housing? Anyone on the panel may also want to comment on that.

From our perspective, the quality of homes is so important. I also look back to some of the earlier questions about the emphasis on meeting the target of 1.5 million homes when the economic, social and environmental aspects of planning require a different range of metrics to measure success. That is where my response on warm homes comes in.

From my point of view—and perhaps also in response to earlier questions—is that using digital in the whole life cycle, you are in a position now where you can digitally build first. You do not have to make mistakes as you build. You can make mistakes in the digital environment first. That is something that we are probably not doing enough. Thinking about how you can think about managing that home—it is really likely that all of the things that we are going to build moving forward, no matter what the regulations are, will be absolutely full of the internet of things, IoT, devices that would allow people to manage those homes in a way that is fundamentally different. If you think about how you are going to use that data, potentially allowing you to put in place digital-twin-style technology so that you can test things out, you can use all of that data to get the best types of management that you might want for these new places that we are talking about building. There is a massive opportunity there.

I will add that we are already using data with AI and machine learning to determine optimal development configurations, to compare them with what would happen if you retrofitted a building rather than demolished it. It is giving us a lot of food for thought and an opportunity to weigh future scenarios that might happen.

How can the planning system be used to balance the need for new housing developments with the opportunity to retrofit and repurpose existing buildings to meet housing demand while supporting environmental sustainability? I will come to you first, Professor Raslan.

It is important that in aiming to deliver the 1.5 million homes we do not neglect, or there is no lack of consideration for, the over 25 million homes that do exist. We have heard that among these homes are many properties that are vacant for a number of reasons. It is estimated that about 75% to 85% of the homes that will exist in 2050 have already been built. This is a problem that will continue into the future if we do not pay enough attention to that. One area of research that I am currently undertaking is into a specific sector of existing homes called complex-to-decarbonise homes and they make up to about 20% of all existing homes, so about four times more than the 1.5 million target that we are trying to get to. These homes are difficult to decarbonise because of various social factors, locational factors and also physical factors to do with the buildings themselves. A lot of the problems or barriers that keep them from being decarbonised easily—and I will use that term broadly—have to do with some planning constraints. For example, and this is just one example of many, there are 11,000 conservation areas across the UK. Planning constraints impact what you can install in terms of energy efficiency and retrofitting within these homes. There has been some movement with some technologies such as solar panels, but there is a lot to be done. I have to say there are things that have been done in terms of decision-making to support retrofit at local planning area level, but of course, this causes variability. Councils such as Westminster and now Kensington and Chelsea do encourage retrofit of these homes by relaxing some considerations, however, this is not something that you see a lot of around the UK. While we build, we need to look at what planning considerations need to be revised to enable us to address problems within these 29 million homes.

Erika Lewis, please.

All I would add to that is that quite often when we are thinking about retrofit, we purchase from a quite static supply chain, well-known solutions. The kinds of things that we try to advocate in the Catapult is that there is a different type of way of procuring solutions, and that is a challenge-based way of procuring solutions. We are doing quite a lot of work with local authorities on how they can do that. This is very applicable in this kind of scenario. It is a very different way of going through procurement. Ideally, it is well advertised and well planned. What you are trying to do, again, is bring in a broader supply chain that is dwindling, and get smaller enterprises that have different ideas about how to do this to be part of it. If you can actually pull this off, then the benefits are huge and not only because you get incredibly innovative solutions. At the moment, we know when we have been looking at it, that if 5% of public sector contracts—this is more broadly—were actually done in this challenge-based procurement way, that would actually bring about £19 billion into a space where it is about innovative solutions and obviously that creates a situation where the UK potentially is leading the world in terms of how we are doing this work.

Two quick points. I am thinking about the value of retrofit. There is a lot of competition for land in this country, so the more we can do to reuse spaces that are otherwise out of use is a good thing. Retrofitting is generally something that we strongly support. Secondly, the role of planning is really important to make sure you deliver that high-quality home for people to live in, that you are not just creating small boxes that are not warm, that do not stay mould-free in winter and so on, and that is one of our concerns with permitted development rights and the recent quite significant expansion of permitted development rights. While they might support the reuse of some buildings, they do not necessarily create homes that are fit for purpose for the people who live in them.

Could you expand a little on the environmental benefits of retrofitting as opposed to new build in general?

From a wildlife perspective, it is more about preventing increased pressure on wildlife-rich spaces. In highly urbanised areas where you need more homes, it can be a really valuable way to reduce that pressure.

Thank you very much. Do any of the other panellists have a comment on that point?

Yes. From our perspective, the environmental benefits of retrofit centre around the ability to retain and extend the usefulness and lifespan of buildings that are already there. Of course, the impact of retrofit in terms of disruption on the local environment can happen but is going to be a lot less than major construction on that site, and even if that site is restored there will be a temporal lag in terms of how the natural ecosystem within it functions. I would like to add that from an embodied carbon perspective, retrofit tends, in many cases—I will not generalise—to be better than new build. Some research we undertook at UCL, led by my colleague, Dr Yair Schwartz, looked at various archetypes and what would happen if we demolished and replaced them with new builds versus retrofitting what was there. This research showed that the life cycle carbon was about 20% better for the archetypes that we looked at. I cannot generalise, but it gives an indication of what might be possible. That said, retrofitting is not always the best solution from an embodied carbon perspective.

Thank you for that. You mentioned previously that relaxing planning considerations was very useful in certain areas but that it was not something that you had seen widespread. Could you expand on that?

Yes. I gave the example of two local councils here in London where the local planning authority had a lot of guidance about what could be implemented in homes that were in conservation areas given that they had many within the remit of their councils. There was guidance there for prospective developments, for retrofit, what could be achieved and what you could opt for. For example, I believe that now in Kensington and Chelsea, they are allowing things such as slim profile double glazing much more than before. These are local decisions made by well-informed planners who have been able to balance these considerations. We would like to see this be more widespread.

That would be a recommendation for the Committee to look at that further. Ms Lewis, do you have anything to add on that point?

No.

Thank you very much.

In recent years, my constituency of North East Hertfordshire has experienced a lot of building that is palpably unsustainable. Given the changes within the NPPF towards a stronger-tilted balance in favour of the presumption of sustainable development, do you believe that these changes to the NPPF will lead to better or worse outcomes for the environment? Ms Pullinger.

Ultimately the tilted balance does shift it further away from a comprehensive look at sustainable development and the environmental and social aspects that we have already covered. However, there does not have to be conflict between delivering new homes and protecting and recovering nature and meeting the climate crisis. Existing policies are not strong enough. A planning appeal decision that was on the same day as the new NPPF— National Planning Policy Framework—was published, where a local wildlife site will be lost to a development up in Cheshire, showing that protections for important sites just are not strong enough, even where a local council has said no because of the nature value of the site. There are probably other places within that community but it was a space that was accessed by the local community who are not rich and wealthy. They might be next to a green space, but they were not that well-off as a community and now they are devastated by this loss. There are other examples of a peatland local wildlife site also under threat from a housing development. We expect this trend to continue. We have been promised another update to the National Planning Policy Framework and a consultation. I think this spring is when we are expecting it. We hope that this coming review will be much more comprehensive and cover more than just housing and housing targets to make sure that that nature protection and recovery are given more weight.

Thank you. Following on neatly from that, in a previous session of this inquiry Dr Hugh Ellis from the TCPA told us that the previous NPPF framework was not fit for purpose on nature and the environment and urged us to encourage the Government to go back to the beginning and give a proper definition of sustainable development. Would anyone on the panel like to comment on what you would recommend should be in that definition of sustainable development?

The definition implies or mentions that the full range of potential climate impacts should be taken into account in preparing and assessing planning applications. Some things are implied. From my perspective I will talk again about the operational embodied carbon, that is implied. That is not specifically laid out.

Can I just interrupt briefly. Would you like to see it explicitly laid out rather than just implied?

If it is something that is part of the overall strategy for ensuring that environmental impact is managed well, where we have thoughts on various metrics, carbon being one of them, then yes, it should be explicitly in there rather than implied because that creates confusion. It shifts the burden of having to look for these things on to local authorities who might or might not have the capacity to understand and look at that information. So, yes.

We would very much advocate access to the national environmental data sets so that you can discover, analyse and assess. Rather than making a comment on what is sustainability for us, it is more about how you allow the people who are trying to make those assessments to access the data sets that allow them to do that well.

That, presumably, would be a recommendation you would like to see this Committee make?

I think that would be good, yes.

From my perspective it is about having nature at the heart of the definition of what sustainable development is. Without healthy ecosystems, without high-quality nature, we do not have the positive social and economic outcomes that come from them.

Again, would you like to see that explicitly stated within the definition?

Yes.

Okay. The final question from me relates to the stronger tilted balance in favour of the presumption of sustainable development. Does anyone on the panel have anything they would like to comment about whether there are any specific areas of England that could be particularly affected, either positively or negatively, by that change within the NPPF?

Not from my point of view.

The Government have indicated that they want to shift more towards what I think they call a strategic, more regional approach to nature protection rather than a site-specific basis. Can I ask you, perhaps, Ms Pullinger, first, what you think are the environmental impacts of a shift in that direction in policy?

There is a lot to get your head around in the Government’s proposal. Before Christmas, we only had the working paper that is quite short, quite brief, does not really cover everything. It is difficult to outline all of the implications that that shift could have. From the Wildlife Trusts’ perspective, it could be beneficial for some environmental impacts. It could mean that the money that is spent on mitigating environmental impacts of development could be spent strategically, and create those bigger, better joined-up Lawton principles that previous panellists have mentioned. However, without clear safeguards, preferably written in law, in the upcoming Planning and Infrastructure Bill, without clear ambition for nature’s recovery alongside housebuilding targets, and without resourcing the systems or having the right data to actually inform the decisions, there is a risk that it would weaken the environmental protections that we currently have in place for key species and habitats.

Thank you. Would other panel members like to comment on that?

I would like to add that area-based approaches may miss out on, say, issues that might impact new builds on small infill plots, for example, that might be within areas that are already built up, but have a very important role within that small-scale neighbourhood. It is great to see the area-based approach open up opportunities for more joined-up thinking and more strategic thinking, but there will be cases where a generalised approach or an area-based approach might miss small issues—small in terms of size rather than impact.

The only other advantage I can see from the area-based way of dealing with things is including communities in that discussion. It is much easier if you are thinking about local areas and local communities. From our point of view, that is a really key way of helping to think through holistic outcomes and also potentially thinking about different ways of dealing with solutions. As authorities, it is very easy to imagine that you have the right answers and sometimes you do not.

Thank you. I am hearing a somewhat more nuanced and cautious view from this panel than from some members of the previous panel who were fairly bullish about it. The Government have proposed setting up the Nature Restoration Fund. How would you respond to the suggestion that that might be a little bit like sinners buying indulgences from the Catholic Church back in the day? What do you feel the likely impact of the Nature Restoration Fund-based approach to addressing potential environmental damage from development might be overall? Perhaps Ms Pullinger first.

Our concerns with the Nature Restoration Fund is that it does not address the fundamental root causes that we are seeing in terms of the environmental impact assessment process and the delivery of environmental mitigation. The Office for Environmental Protection published a report last year on the subject, which identified access to data, access to expertise, and then post-decision monitoring and evaluation as the three root causes of problems in the current system. Having a fund does not necessarily solve the problems of how you understand where to spend that money and all of those other questions. Having the expertise and capacity to actually go and deliver those projects on the ground is also going to be a key factor. In general, having the fund might make some things easier, so it is something that we will be thinking through, having various discussions across the network of Wildlife Trusts on some of those details to see what safeguards would need to be in place for the Nature Restoration Fund to be a success. I am so very happy to share that with the Committee as that thinking develops.

We would be very interested in any suggestions for recommendations.

From our perspective, if you look at carbon offsetting as a similar precedent, there are now debates as to the fact that carbon offsetting might be one of the biggest barriers to actually achieving proper carbon reduction targets within specific sectors, so is there anything to learn from that when we are looking at the Nature Restoration Fund? Another thing that I am aware of is the level of funding that will be required to actually make a change. I think there was an estimate that about £43 billion would actually be needed as a minimum to deliver the ambition for the Government. That is a lot. There are issues where it does not lend itself to private investment in a sense, the biodiversity angle. Again, those are some concerns that should be taken into account when thinking strategically about the fund, but it does have some very worthy commitments and aspirations.

Thank you. I think you raise an interesting point about the analogy with carbon offsetting, but I think there is a crucial difference because whereas global warming is a global phenomenon, nature damage is very much a localised phenomenon. Offsetting is more complex in that context. Ms Lewis, anything to add?

I do not think I have anything to add.

Can I just come back in? We already have some strategic approaches to some environmental impacts. District-level licensing for Great Crested Newts is one that often comes up. Some monitoring does take place of ponds that are created through that funding, and we know that they do attract the newts that they are designed for, but what we do not have is a consistent monitoring report of what is already happening that we can then learn from. Learning from carbon offsetting is one thing, but learning from the stuff that is already happening is also really important. That is something we would like to see—an understanding, is a report on what is already working. Suitable alternative natural green space, or SANGs, provision is another area where strategic approaches are already being delivered. Is it possible to learn more about what benefit they are having for the habitats they are designed to protect?

I want to focus in particular on threatened species. I will start with you, Ms Pullinger, with the Wildlife Trusts’ view on this. Does the current planning system, in your view, do enough to provide for protection for endangered and threatened species?

The short answer is no. There is always more that can be done. You briefly touched on biodiversity net gain with the previous panel. That is useful to provide a consistent metric to look at habitats, but what it does not do is enable us to look at species and the value of habitats to the wildlife that uses them. There are various bits of research on invertebrates. Insects are particularly hard done by in some of the scoring that is in the metrics. That is something that we would be looking to address in future iterations of the metric. The updated NPPF did include some small references to swifts and hedgehogs in the revised version. We would like to see stronger support to mandate those small-scale nature actions that can be very beneficial for species that have been in decline. We know that several species use swift boxes, for example. If every home had a swift box—it is not just swifts that you might be helping, it might be house sparrows, house martins and so on.

What potential changes to planning would you like to see?

Wild belt is our key ask for a new designation. The Environment Act sets targets to halt the loss of biodiversity. In order to turn that around, we need more wildlife-rich habitats, so we need to protect those habitats that are in recovery to help us get there. One of the benefits of making biodiversity net gain mandatory, from talking to ecologists who are working with developers, is that they are being asked about what they think of designs much earlier in the process than they had been before. Anything that we can get through to make sure that minimum standards are there as a requirement can be really important. On the flip side of that, where local authorities want to be more ambitious, that should be encouraged rather than prevented through guidance that makes it just too difficult to ask for more. That is something we are seeing with biodiversity net gain guidance, which sets the bar really high for local authorities to justify asking for more than 10%. Given the 10% value that is in the Environment Act is enough to maintain the status quo, based on the evidence that DEFRA published, obviously we want to gain more if biodiversity net gain is to genuinely deliver gains.

I am trying to think through what you are saying. You mentioned wild belts. You mentioned having stronger minimum standards, but also that encouragement in the system to go further than minimum standards. You also mentioned metrics in your previous answer. Is there something about the metrics that we need to be looking at in terms of reforming?

The metrics, in terms of how you measure success of what the planning system is trying to achieve and making sure that it is not just one metric of how many homes have you built in a year; there are other things that you should be looking at. How many homes are being built that meet high energy efficiency standards? How many include swift bricks? And so on. There are other metrics. The biodiversity metric is quite specific and will be reviewed regularly. Making sure that it uses the latest available evidence on how to score different habitats to make sure that they support biodiversity is very important.

Finally coming to the central debate here, would these reforms and further protections for threatened species slow down the ability to respond to the need for more houses, more homes for people?

It does not have to. One of the challenges to the work to encourage species is the post-development side. A report commissioned by World Justice found that about half of the nature-friendly design measures that had been secured as part of being granted planning commission were not being delivered in new developments. They went round various housing estates counting the number of trees that had been planted or numbers of holes in fences and swift bricks they could see. It is not just about securing them as part of the planning process, it is also about ensuring that they are delivered afterwards.

One further thing you would want is more after the process of the planning, looking at whether it has been put into practice.

Yes, indeed. That is where local authority resourcing comes in. I know it was a topic that got covered before, but we know ecology and biodiversity skills are some of the biggest skills gaps in local authorities. Bridging that gap is going to be important for that process.

Thank you. Do the other panellists want to add anything on that?

When you get to that level of complexity, the push to need a digital planning system is really quite key because you are dealing with so many different metrics at the same time and you have the undercapacity in the local authority environment.

We have heard from both the previous panel and you that in broad terms the housebuilding targets themselves could be achieved without a detriment to nature and the environment, but the question is will they. On the basis of what you have seen in the new planning policy framework, how confident can you be that we are currently on target to be able to deliver these houses with the necessary protections for the environment for nature? I will start with you, Ms Lewis.

For me, it is not really about what we write in the framework; it is more about how we enact it and that is really important. It is important that we are saying, yes, we are aiming for the right kinds of things and that the balance is there and that is what we have been talking about. Thinking about using all of the modern technology that is available to us to ensure that we are driving everything in the same direction, understanding all the different trade-offs that we are making, thinking about that circular use of digital data in how you are thinking about the building, how you are going to be doing the building and then how you are going to manage the building afterwards and the environment around it is key to making that happen.

Trying to push you now, do you have confidence based on the approach that is currently being taken that this level of increase in housebuilding can be done without detriment to nature and the environment on the basis of the way it is currently being envisaged?

I still think we need innovative practices in place.

It is not a straightforward solution to the problem. Even if we do build more, there have been questions raised as to the quality of what we build and the impact of it, not only immediately but also in the long term. Are we building homes that are resilient? How will they function or perform in the future? Will they need to be replaced in 15 years because we have built them with materials that are not resilient? We theoretically could build the 1.5 million homes, but whether they will be resilient is another question and I think there should be more protections to ensure that.

The publication of the NPPF in December felt like the first of several things that are to come out following the General Election last year. The previous panel mentioned the land use framework and national level strategic spatial planning. I very much agree that that is key if we are to deliver homes and meet the nature and climate crisis together. The devil will always be in the detail, so obviously the Planning and Infrastructure Bill and getting the words right on the page of legislation will be really important in making sure that we do not go back on our environmental protections. Another key point is about trust and making sure that all stakeholders trust the planning system. It has come under quite a lot of bashing from various quarters about its role in either allowing too much development or not allowing enough development, depending on where you are and which stakeholder you are talking to. We must make sure that the language is there, language that means that the planning system is a positive tool. We have all agreed that the planning is a really important way to deliver on all of these outcomes together and that we can deliver new homes and address the climate and nature crisis together.

The Prime Minister was pretty clear in his appearance at the Liaison Committee about where he stands on that balance. He thinks that the planning system is preventing too many houses from being built rather than the other way around. He referred to bats and newts getting in the way of planning applications. Does this make you at the Wildlife Trusts feel that the progress you have made historically on nature protections is under threat?

It is very frustrating to hear newts once again coming under fire. They are relevant in very few planning applications each year, so it is frustrating. I did see the term “scapenewt” being used on social media, which I did enjoy but it is frustrating. One thing that has changed a little is the amount of engagement between MHCLG and DEFRA, which are clearly working closely together on some of these reforms. They are talking to stakeholders about them at a stage before a fully realised proposal is made, and that is a step in the right direction in getting those details right.

To Professor Raslan, Ms Lewis, Ms Pullinger, thank you so much for the evidence we have heard from you today. I will bring this sitting to a close.