Member

Amendment 98, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Roborough, seeks to place a duty on the Secretary of State to lay before Parliament an annual report on the amount of land proposed for change of use through a spatial development strategy. It is essential that the planning system is transparent and that the public understand the effects of planning decisions in their area. As I mentioned in Committee, the Government already publish a range of statistics on planning and land use in England, including annual statistics on the extent of land designated as green belt and quarterly statistics about the number of planning applications made and permissions granted. The formal allocation of sites will remain the preserve of local plans, which will include working out the precise boundaries, site area and capacity for development. It would be impractical to calculate the amount of land that any spatial development strategy is proposing for change of use and report on it.