James Gray
Main Page: James Gray (Conservative - North Wiltshire)
Mr Prisk
I am sorry to disappoint the right hon. Gentleman, who was an experienced Minister performing my role in the last Government, but if we look at completions—homes that families can actually move into —we see that there has been a rise of 8% over the past two years. I would have thought that the Labour party welcomed that.
Mr James Gray (North Wiltshire) (Con)
19. Does the Minister agree that one problem is that developers buy large quantities of land and get planning permission for it, but do not build on it? That means that when the next lot come along and ask for planning permission for more land, they get it because not enough houses are being built. Surely it is time that we had time-limited constraints on planning permission so that developers are required to build on land before the planning permission runs out of time.
Mr Prisk
The key issue is that by getting rid of regional spatial strategies and moving towards local plans, under this Government local people and their representatives will have the opportunity to set that agenda. I take my hon. Friend’s point. We want to ensure that planning permissions are used properly.