Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:

To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, with reference to the Written Statement of 12 December 2016, HCWS346, what plans he has to issue further guidance to planning authorities and Parish Councils on consideration of an absent five year land supply in Neighbourhood Plans.

Neighbourhood planning gives communities a powerful set of tools to shape their area. The Written Ministerial Statement of 12 December 2016 (HCWS346) introduced additional protection to neighbourhood plans where all of the following criteria apply:

•the written ministerial statement is less than 2 years old, or the neighbourhood plan been part of the development plan for 2 years or less;

•the neighbourhood plan allocates sites for housing; and

•the local planning authority can demonstrate a 3-year supply of deliverable housing sites against its 5 year housing requirement.

The Housing White Paper committed to take forward this important protection in the revised National Planning Policy Framework. Guidance for decision makers on interpreting the Written Ministerial Statement, in light of recent Court judgements, was published on 10 August 2017 https://www.gov.uk/guidance/neighbourhood-planning--2 (Paragraph: 083) and we will provide further clarification where necessary. Revised guidance will also set out more clearly how the five-year land supply should be calculated.