Oral Answers to Questions

Dominic Raab Excerpts

Monday 17th September 2012 Commons Chamber

[Dr Alan Whitehead (Southampton, Test) (Lab)]

10. What his policy is on altering green-belt boundaries.

[Mr Dominic Raab (Esher and Walton) (Con)]

14. What steps he is taking to protect the green belt.

[The Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government (Mr Eric Pickles)]

The green belt is an important protection against urban sprawl, providing a green lung around towns and cities. The national planning policy framework delivers the coalition’s agreement to safeguard the green belt. Inappropriate development should not be approved in the green belt, and boundaries should be altered only in exceptional circumstances.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Pickles]

What I have said is absolutely compatible with what the Chancellor said; there is no difference between my views and those of my right hon. Friend. We have said from the Dispatch Box that a proportion of the green belt is former brownfield land—a disused quarry, for example, or a scrap yard—and the national planning policy framework envisaged careful consideration of those boundaries. Does it not make sense to get those kinds of sites back under development, and protect and enhance the green belt?

[Mr Raab]

I understand that the Government want to legislate further to streamline planning as part of their economic growth strategy. Elmbridge in my constituency is 57% green-belt land. Will the Secretary of State confirm that the proposed legislation will not contain any new proposals that might weaken protection of green-belt land, and, critically, that planning inspectors will have no right to trump local democratic decision making?

[Mr Pickles]

I have good news for my hon. Friend. Based on calculations, it is not 57% green belt, but 60%.