Oral Answers to Questions

Tony Baldry Excerpts

Monday 16th December 2013 Commons Chamber

[Anna Soubry]

Absolutely. As all my predecessors have said, if any hon. Member has any difficulty at all, they should write to me and we will make sure that we speed up the process. If hon. Members have any difficulty they should contact the Minister—at the moment, it happens to be me—and we will do everything we can to speed that up, because that is very important.

[Sir Tony Baldry (Banbury) (Con)]

In respect of the defence estate, we are very keen to get on with building new housing on the surplus Ministry of Defence land at Craven Hill in Bicester, but there appears to be some confusion about where the new housing will go and where tank transporters will be stored. Will my right hon. Friend please intervene to make sure that that is sorted out as soon as possible? We want to ensure that he gets a financial receipt for his Department.

[Mr Philip Hammond]

I have, indeed, already done so. I think that there has been a miscommunication and a misunderstanding by Cherwell district council. We are clear that our proposals for the possible continued use of part of the land for military purposes will not have any negative impact on the wider proposed housing development. We hope to be able to proceed with the sale imminently.