Lords Committee to hear from senior Government officials on policy priorities for Land planning and use in England

Senior officials from the Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) and the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (DLUHC) will give evidence to the Committee on Monday 28 February from 3.30pm.

The session will be available to watch live or on demand at Parliament TV.

Giving evidence will be:

3.30pm

• Joanna Averly, Planning Director, Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities and;
• Rachel Fisher, Deputy Director for Land Use Policy, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs

Questions will include:

• What are the emerging pressures on land use in England? How are departments coordinating with each other, with arms-length bodies, with local authorities and with other stakeholders to address trade-offs between competing land use demands?
• How do decisions about land use and planning interact with the Government’s Levelling Up agenda and targets to build more housing? 
• What are the challenges and opportunities for delivering measures on land use to tackle climate change? 
• What is being done to incentivise the positive environmental practices in agriculture and farming?   
• What are the challenges and opportunities involved in measures to support nature and biodiversity, including nature-based solutions, local nature recovery strategies (LNRS) and biodiversity net gain?
• How could land use pressures around energy and infrastructure, which currently fall under the system of nationally significant infrastructure projects, be better integrated with other land use decision making processes, including those within your own departments and at the local level?