Baroness Miller of Chilthorne Domer (LD)

My Lords, I have added my name to this amendment. I have the honour to serve on your Lordships’ Built Environment Committee. It is no coincidence that two of us who have added our names to this amendment are on that committee, the second being the noble Lord, Lord Gascoigne, who is its chair. An issue that we have come across as we have made our inquiry into new towns—the first module of which was published recently, as was the New Towns Taskforce report—is that there is a lack of vision. There is no vision for blue and green space in the New Towns Taskforce report. Obviously, it is integral that houses are part of a new town; that goes without saying. It should be integral that green and blue space is part of a new town; that should also go without saying. Last week, we had a fascinating debate in your Lordships’ House on swifts and swift bricks. The noble Lord, Lord Krebs, taught me a lot about why swift bricks were perhaps less important, because they could not be positioned in the right place. But the fact is that if those swifts do not have any food, because there is no green space or blue space to produce the insects, all the debate we had about swift bricks is completely meaningless—and that goes for every single species. It is not just about the species. I will not repeat all the arguments we made in Committee and last week about the other amendment concerning green and blue space being in the NPPF. I simply say that it is equally essential, for all those reasons—for human health and well-being and for children—that green and blue space is as integral in the vision of development corporations as the houses themselves.