This paper has been prepared for House of Commons Second Reading of the Infrastructure Bill, scheduled for 8 December 2014. It was initially published in the House of Lords and completed its Parliamentary stages there on 19 November 2014.
This is a ‘portmanteau’ bill, covering a number of separate but related areas. It provides for:
- a new Strategic Highways Company, a Road Investment Strategy and a new monitor and watchdog for the company;
- a new regime for the control of invasive species and species that are no longer normally present;
- changes to planning law affecting development consent orders for nationally significant infrastructure projects and discharging some types of planning conditions;
- the direct transfer of surplus public sector land held by an arm’s length body of a Government department to the Homes and Communities Agency or Greater London Authority;
- the transfer of responsibility for Local Land Charge searches from individual local authorities in England and Wales to the Land Registry;
- the introduction of zero carbon homes, through building regulations;
- an electricity community right to buy for onshore renewables;
- a new strategic approach for the recovery of oil and gas reserves;
- streamlined access to onshore oil and gas reserves (for example when fracking for shale gas) and geothermal energy; and
- the implementation of the international agreement, the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative.
Date: 04/12/2014 Date of publication
Author: House of Commons Library
