Member

Amendment 39 seeks the prioritisation of building on brownfield land. The Minister has said that this Government have a “brownfield first” approach, but they have actually widened the definition of what brownfield means. It is really quite extraordinary. Even as things stand, despite Governments saying for quite a while that they are pro-brownfield building, the actual rate of prioritisation of brownfield building has declined significantly over the past 15 years. Figures from the CPRE were cited earlier by the hon. Member for Mid Buckinghamshire (Greg Smith); the CPRE has also said that there is already planning permission for 770,000 new houses on brownfield land. We could get halfway to our house building target if those buildings were just put up. Again, it is not the planning process that is holding back building.