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

To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, how many recovered planning appeals he has refused in each of the last five years.

To assist the hon. Member, the attached table shows the figures for recovered appeals for the last ten years.

To place these figures in context, in 2013-14, 15,982 planning and enforcement appeals were decided by planning inspectors, whilst just 149 appeals (0.9%) were decided by Ministers.

Where an appeal is dismissed, the application is refused in line with the original decision by the local authority to reject the planning application (non-determination appeals excepted).

The number of recovered appeals has increased in the last year in light of the intentionally revised recovery criteria (as explained to Parliament in previous Written Ministerial Statements) to consider recovering more appeals in relation to traveller sites in the Green Belt, and on renewable energy.

All decisions are made with due process, based on the material considerations of the case.