Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Tristram Hunt and Brandon Lewis

Monday 8th February 2016 Commons Chamber

[Brandon Lewis]

As the hon. Lady will appreciate, it is absolutely right that local communities can make local decisions about what is right for them and that her local authority can look at its local housing need and make a decision about what is right for it, as it is looking to do in York.

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

In 2012, the Secretary of State told the House that the new planning policy framework offered “clear and unequivocal” protection of the green belt, yet the number of green-belt approvals has increased fivefold in the last five years under this Government. The new permission in principle powers in clause 102 of the Housing and Planning Bill will only further undermine the green belt. When will the Government put urban regeneration first, rather than ex-urban sprawl?

[Brandon Lewis]

Through the national planning policy framework and the guidance that has come out since, we have actually strengthened green-belt protection. With the new planning permission in principle, the new requirement for a brownfield register and the £2 billion fund, we are going further than any Government before in making sure that brownfield sites are developed first.