Matthew Pennycook

This is where I come back to the importance of having up-to-date local plans. If a local planning authority has in place an up-to-date local plan, it may or may not include grey-belt sites, as the policy feeds through the system. At the point that an authority has a plan in place that meets demonstrable unmet need, it has robust safeguards against grey-belt applications that come through the decision-making route. That is why we are encouraging local areas to get local plans in place. We have inherited a situation in which we have extremely low up-to-date local plan coverage. That has exposed communities to speculative development, and it is happening all over the country. We have to put in place policies that, through the decision-making route, allow homes still to be brought forward in that interregnum, but then we have to push heavily to drive towards universal plan coverage. At that point, the protections are in place. Over the 10-year plan period and, as we roll out spatial development strategies on a sub-regional level, over a 20-year horizon, that will ensure that there is a strategic plan for green-belt land designation and release. To come back to the point I made earlier, it is not as if no green-belt land was released before 2024. I know the Conservative party likes to give the impression that it did not, but it oversaw plenty of green belt release, in a completely haphazard and unplanned way. We are taking a strategic approach, which we think is right. I have addressed the right hon. and learned Gentleman’s point about what is likely to constitute grey-belt land. Let me directly address his other two specific points. Is this a significant policy? Absolutely, and it has been judged as much by the Office for Budget Responsibility and other external commentators. Is it deliberate? Absolutely. We want, as the right hon. and learned Gentleman asserted, to release more land into the system. This is where I take a principled different view from the CPRE and other commentators that say we can simply meet housing need through existing brownfield land. There is not enough land on existing brownfield land registers to meet the volume of homes that our country needs, let alone enough that is viable and in the right location. Where it is necessary, we want to see green-belt land released to meet demonstrable unmet need. It is right that when we look to release green-belt land, we focus on the lower-quality grey-belt land that does not make a strong contribution to those purposes. To conclude, I again thank the right hon. and learned Member for Kenilworth and Southam for securing the debate, and other Members for their contributions. I hope that, while I may not necessarily have been able to convince Members in my response, I have been able to provide some valuable clarity on the national policy with respect to grey-belt land, and particularly the different approaches to plan making and decision making. As set out in the Government response to the consultation on the new NPPF that was published last month, we have already recognised that further guidance may be helpful to support spatial development strategy-led strategic reviews of the green belt, and we will consider producing guidance on the considerations that should inform that process. As we update PPG to fully reflect the changes made in the new NPPF—and we absolutely must do that—we will of course consider whether any further clarity might be helpful to inform decision makers. To that end, I will reflect on a number of the points made in the debate.