Planning and Infrastructure Bill: motion to disagree with Lords Amendment 37

What happened: On 13 November 2025, the House of Commons voted to reject Lords Amendment 37 to the Planning and Infrastructure Bill, a modification that had been introduced by the House of Lords. The motion to disagree with the amendment passed by 254 votes to 129. The amendment would have exempted assets of community value from a permitted development right that allows demolition under part 11 of the general permitted development order. By voting to reject it, the Commons sided with the government's position that this exemption was unnecessary.

Why it matters: Assets of community value are properties formally listed by local councils as important to a community, such as local pubs, libraries, or sports grounds, which communities can nominate for protection when a sale is proposed. Lords Amendment 37 would have given those listed assets a specific shield against a permitted development right that allows demolition without going through a full planning application. With the amendment rejected, the government's broader planning reform agenda advances without that additional layer of protection for community assets. The vote is one of a series of divisions on the same day in which the Commons pushed back against a range of Lords modifications to the Bill, all of which sought to tighten environmental, democratic, or local protections that the government argues would slow down housing and infrastructure delivery.

The politics: The division followed near-perfect party lines. All 253 Labour and Labour and Co-operative MPs who voted supported the government, while Conservatives (72), Liberal Democrats (45), Greens (4), Reform UK (4), and a majority of independents voted against. There were no notable rebels on either side. The vote sits within a broader ping-pong process (the back-and-forth between the two chambers) in which the government has consistently moved to overturn Lords amendments across multiple divisions on the same day, reflecting a firm government view that the Bill must reach Royal Assent quickly and without substantial modification to its core planning deregulation framework.