Wild Justice presses ahead with legal challenge against the government’s Planning and Infrastructure Bill

The judicial review challenge will look to correct a statement made in Parliament and in official guidance by Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner in April 2025, who said that the bill would not reduce the level of environmental protection in law.

In May, Wild Justice sent a pre-action protocol letter to the government in a first step towards legal action, arguing that the statement was not correct. Now, the group has filed an application for a judicial review in the High Court to challenge the statement. 

Wild Justice refers to a legal opinion provided by expert planning barristers, who they commissioned to review the bill. The opinion states that the bill will weaken existing levels of environmental protection in law. 

The legal opinion says a key factor in weakening environmental protections would be the removal of the requirement to be sure beyond reasonable scientific doubt that a development would not have a negative impact on a protected site. 

Instead, developers would be able to pay into a levy scheme in an attempt to mitigate any environmental harm caused.  

The Office for Environmental Protection (OEP), which is listed as an interested party in the claim, has also labelled the bill a “regression” for environmental protections in law. 

The bill was introduced in March 2025, and has now been through the committee stage in Parliament.  

Wild Justice says the Deputy Prime Minister’s statements to Parliament and elsewhere about the bill did not offer a legal explanation or rationale for the view that it would not reduce environmental protections.  

The claim, which names the Speaker of the House and OEP as interested parties, will argue that the statement made by the Deputy Prime Minister was wrong in law and/or irrational. 

Bob Elliot, CEO of Wild Justice said: 

"Our laws were already failing to defend nature, and we believe this bill continues to take us from bad to worse. The government's claim that it will do no harm is just not true. It has also been suggested that concerns raised about the bill are 'spurious'. This is an insult to everyone fighting for our wildlife. We will not stand by and watch while they dismantle the very foundations of environmental protection." 

Dr Ruth Tingay, Co-Director of Wild Justice said: 

“Ministers have a responsibility to ensure that claims they make are accurate and not misleading. In this case, we gave the Deputy Prime Minister an opportunity to correct her earlier statement about the bill being a ‘win-win’ for people and the environment, which we say was inaccurate and misleading. Instead, the government has doubled down on its unsubstantiated claim and has dismissed three separate legal opinions that say the bill will lead to a regression of environmental protection laws. There’s too much at stake for our precious habitats and wildlife for us to let this claim go uncontested.” 

Leigh Day partner Ricardo Gama, who represents Wild Justice, said:  

“The 2021 Environment Act put an obligation on the government to be clear about whether any changes to the law post-Brexit would mean a reduction in current environmental protections. That transparency is important so that the public, but also MPs, are clear about the trade-offs involved in changing the law. By bringing this challenge, our client hopes to force the government to be transparent about what the Planning and Infrastructure Bill will mean for existing environmental protections.”