Business of the House

Jason McCartney Excerpts

Thursday 25th October 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Lansley]

I shall gladly ask my friends at the Department for Work and Pensions to reply on how the statistics are calculated. The latest figures show an increase of more than 50,000 in the number of young people in employment and a decrease in the number of people on out-of-work benefits, and he should celebrate that.

[Jason McCartney (Colne Valley) (Con)]

My local council, Kirklees, is going through the latest stage of its consultation on the local development framework. May we have a debate on the five-year land supply and the scrapping of the regional spatial strategy housing targets to ensure that development is sustainable?

[Mr Lansley]

I know from my own circumstances of the importance that was attached to abolishing top-down housing targets set under the regional spatial strategy, and why the local development framework is so important. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government has said that the local development framework must meet the test of providing locations for sustainable housing sufficient to meet an area’s need for a number of years ahead. To help my hon. Friend, I shall ask my right hon. Friend to write to him.