Reeves plans legal reforms to speed Britain’s energy projects

Rachel Reeves is trying to trade speed for scrutiny, giving Parliament a bigger role in approving Britain’s most important energy schemes while narrowing the route for legal challenge. The Treasury said the changes are meant to help power plants, wind farms, grid connections and other projects move faster through a system ministers say has been slowed by judicial review and procedural delay.

The centrepiece is a new parliamentary authorisation mechanism. Under the plan, Parliament could designate selected clean-energy schemes as being of Critical National Importance, which would reduce their exposure to judicial review except on human-rights grounds. In practical terms, that would move the most politically sensitive projects closer to a direct Westminster decision, rather than leaving them vulnerable to long and repeated court fights after planning approval.

For other nationally significant infrastructure projects, including transport and water schemes, ministers would create a fixed legal challenge window. Once that window closed, planning consent could be updated only to deal with any legitimate remaining issues, and courts would be able to reject claims that clearly lacked merit. The government said the aim was not to erase legal oversight, but to stop projects being trapped in open-ended litigation after they had already cleared the main planning tests.

The reforms build on the existing Planning and Infrastructure Act, which the government says already streamlines consultation, keeps National Policy Statements up to date and blocks delays from meritless judicial-review claims. They also sit inside a wider push to accelerate delivery: the government’s March 2026 implementation plan said it wants at least 150 major infrastructure projects determined by the end of this Parliament and 1.5 million new homes supported over the same period.

Ministers have been pressing the case with hard numbers. In January 2025, the government said 58% of recent major-infrastructure decisions had been challenged in court, that each challenge took about 18 months on average, and that more than 10,000 working days of court time had been spent on these cases. A government-backed call for evidence on Lord Banner KC’s review of NSIP judicial review ran from 28 October 2024 to 30 December 2024, and the independent reviewer said there was a clear case for streamlining judicial reviews of consenting decisions because delays caused real detriment to the public interest.

The push is likely to please large utilities and investors who want firmer timelines for grid and clean-power projects. Ofgem said on 4 December 2025 that it had unlocked £28 billion of investment for Britain’s energy networks, including £10.3 billion for electricity transmission, with total networks investment expected to rise to about £90 billion by 2031. That spending is intended to expand grid capacity, support electrification and reduce exposure to volatile gas prices.

But the political risk is obvious. The Law Society warned in March 2025 that tighter restrictions on judicial-review appeals could prevent legitimate cases from being heard, even though judicial review checks legality rather than the merits of a project. Reeves is betting that faster decisions, lower bills and better energy security will outweigh the objections, and that Parliament can move Britain from planning gridlock to visible construction.