Oral Answers to Questions

Tristram Hunt Excerpts

Monday 17th December 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Pickles]

The green belt remains very safe and sound in coalition care. The position is clearly laid out in the national planning policy framework, and the Bill does not affect the green belt one iota.

[Tristram Hunt (Stoke-on-Trent Central) (Lab)]

15. What estimate he has made of the amount of open land required for house building in the next 20 years; and if he will make a statement.

[The Minister for Housing (Mr Mark Prisk)]

This Government do not set top-down Whitehall housing targets. It is for elected local councils to determine, through their local plans, where development should and should not go and how best to meet housing need,.

[Tristram Hunt]

The Labour party in government believed in effective levels of urban density and city centre development. Rather than abusing the National Trust and other big-society opponents of sprawl as Luddites, why do not Ministers end their assault on the English countryside, start working with developers to ensure that the 400,000 homes with planning permission are actually built, and end the homelessness crisis now?

[Mr Prisk]

I understand that the hon. Gentleman is a historian, and he should know from the previous Government’s record that at that time we saw the lowest rate of house building since the 1920s. It is important to get the affordable homes built, sometimes making sure that we use empty homes and sometimes that we build on brownfield—and yes, we will occasionally want to make sure that greenfield land is used where that is appropriate.

--- Later in debate ---

[Nick Boles]

It is obviously difficult for me to talk about an individual case, but I would be happy to hear more about it from my hon. Friend. It is important that neighbourhood plans strengthen the powers of local communities to determine where development should and should not happen. If the neighbourhood plan is in general conformity with the local plan, the neighbourhood plan’s policies will take priority and will help protect her constituents from unwanted development on speculative sites.

[Tristram Hunt (Stoke-on-Trent Central) (Lab)]

T4. In towns and cities across England, local authorities are being forced to close museums, shut care homes and end library provision, but the Government found £250 million to empty the bins more regularly. What kind of abysmal, philistine, reactionary Government put dustbins above library books?

[Mr Pickles]

The people who are putting dustbins above those things are people who care about the general service provided to the electorate. The hon. Gentleman is a bit of a luvvie, so no doubt he is looking intensely at the drop in culture, but that is a matter for local decision, and he is wholly wrong. People should look at how an authority can get more money in by exploiting and using its cultural heritage. Frankly, he is just lining up a bunch of luvvies. He should listen a little bit more.