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Mr. David Rendel (Newbury): I was delighted to hear the hon. Member for South Suffolk (Mr. Yeo) support a green-field development tax, which sounds like a Liberal Democrat policy. Perhaps we shall see another Member crossing the Floor.

Although much of the Secretary of State's statement was, sadly, just a list of things on which he wants to consult, there was one very definite proposal that I--and I am sure my party--welcome: the move towards more of the housing requirement being put into urban areas than has previously been proposed. In making that proposal, he should answer one or two further questions. What, for example, is he going to do with the housing partnership fund? Will that continue to be funded? It has, of course, been one of the main ways in which empty housing has been brought back into use in urban areas up until now.

Despite saying that he wanted to encourage the conversion of houses and offices into flats, has the Secretary of State provided any incentives for doing so? Will he provide any in future? Will all this mean that the efforts to force housing on the shire counties through their structure plans will be changed? Will he give some further advice to the shire counties--those that have produced structure plans and those that are in the process of doing so--on how much housing should be in more urban areas as opposed to green-field sites?

Mr. Gummer: This is a continuation of policy. We used to get about 38 per cent. of new housing on brown-field sites. That figure is now nearer 50 per cent., and I want to increase it to 60 per cent. and beyond. We are talking about percentages. Does the hon. Gentleman not understand the difference between percentages and absolute figures? The policy has been going on for the past 15 years. As usual, he does not know his figures.

I want to answer the questions asked by the hon. Member for Newbury (Mr. Rendel), but I would be much happier to do so if I did not know what is going to happen.

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I shall tell him what will happen. Liberals in the country will say that the idea is very good, but Liberal Democrats in the towns will say that they do not want the houses. We know exactly what the Liberals will say; it is always like that.

I challenged a Liberal Democrat councillor in his own area on the issue when he tried to say that they wanted fewer houses. I said to him, "If you promise in your surgeries to tell every young couple who comes to you for a house that they cannot have one because you, the Liberal Democrat councillor, have stopped the building of houses, I will think about your proposal." Of course, he said, "Oh, no, I won't do that." What he meant was that he blamed the Government either way. That is Liberal policy, and we know that that is what it will be.

Of course I shall go on helping the policies to improve the use of empty homes, create more opportunities for conversion and ensure that people use their homes more effectively to let and the like. When he reads the document, the hon. Member for Newbury will find that most of those things are there covered.

Mr. David Howell (Guildford): My right hon. Friend's proposal for a fresh debate is extremely welcome, although he will not get much help from the Labour party. Does he accept that there is widespread concern about the household projections and the way in which they are formulated, and that there is even more concern about the huge figures for housing plans that are proposed in various shire county structures, including Surrey?

Does he accept that such figures seem to assume and accommodate certain social trends, which we, as responsible Members of Parliament, may not wish to accommodate, and may want to alter in future? They seem to assume and accommodate large migration, particularly to the south and the south-east, of the kind that may not be in the interest of the north, the south or the nation.

Will my right hon. Friend consider that again before he is quite so definite about having to accept down to the last 100,000, or whatever, those enormous household projections? Will he very much endorse what he hinted at earlier--that, where planning authorities have brown land and want to build on it, they will be given powers to do so, so that the momentum of developers to go straight on to agricultural land is checked?

Mr. Gummer: My right hon. Friend and I have a similar attitude to the family and the concerns that he has raised. He will find in the document a very clear statement that, if we find such figures intolerable, we will have to look again at the way in which life style is operated and whether we are prepared to accept such an environmental result. That is a real issue. The problems are very clear.

Of course, the figures may be wrong, since, as I have said, we have always been wrong in recent years--but always due to underestimating. That is the problem. As a responsible Minister, I have to look at the sort of numbers that will be demanded. Even if we were able to change the mores of society, so that there were fewer divorces and so that divorced people married again, the numbers of homes that would be needed would still have a significant impact on the country. We will need to discuss the issues and decide whether the figures should be left exactly as

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they are; or whether, as I fear, they will be greater, or, as my hon. Friend and I hope, less. I hope that encouraging local authorities to use their planning powers will be one of the consensus views that will come from the document before us.

Mr. Andrew F. Bennett (Denton and Reddish): I welcome the Secretary of State's commitment to a debate. One of the keys to the number of houses we will need to build in the future is how well we look after the existing housing stock. Is he satisfied that the Government are spending sufficient money modernising the existing stock? The Secretary of State hinted that he wants new building of high-rise flats and deck-access flats. If so, is he satisfied that local authorities and housing associations have sufficient resources to spend on the communal areas of existing flats to ensure that we do not lose them from the stock and therefore need more new dwellings built?

Mr. Gummer: I hope that the hon. Gentleman does not think that I am advocating the building of high-rise and deck-access flats. I mentioned mixed development and modern--and older--approaches to the subject, rather than the mistakes that we have made since the war. It is much better to have greater density than large areas of unused land. The density in many of our cities is measured not by the real density but by the fact that large areas of former factories and the like are not occupied. We must take seriously the change that has taken place and the need to reinforce our city centres.

I am happy to agree with the hon. Gentleman that we need to improve our housing stock. Most improvement in housing stock is done by the private sector--by people in their own homes--and the Government's successful economic policy is most likely to aid that improvement. Large-scale voluntary transfers will ensure that much of the older housing owned by local authorities is improved by releasing the money that is tied up in them. If certain local authorities, especially Labour authorities, had not held rents down or been unable to keep them up, we would have had very better quality. I hope that the hon. Gentleman will encourage people to take account of the benefits of large-scale voluntary transfers.

Dame Elaine Kellett-Bowman (Lancaster): Does my right hon. Friend accept that 50 per cent. in the inner cities is not enough, and that the figure should be nearer 70 per cent. to save our rural areas? Does he also accept that we should not join villages into mini-conurbations, as Lancashire county council seems determined to do to Garstang and Catterall?

Mr. Gummer: I understand my hon. Friend's cogent views. I also represent a rural constituency, so I understand the issues. I remind her that there are many ways to increase the number of people who can be accommodated in towns and cities without resorting to high-rise flats. For example, terraced houses with gardens can provide just as sensible an answer in terms of space as many of the high rises we have had in the past, as the Hulme redevelopment has shown. The answer is better, but sensible, housing for our urban areas.

Mrs. Anne Campbell (Cambridge): Will the Secretary of State clarify his current policy on small amounts of infilling in urban areas? Will he explain why his

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Department has recently written to Cambridge city council objecting to some aspects of its local plan, especially those that refer to small inbuilt developments, not on parks or playing fields, but on the sort of brown-field sites mentioned in the report today?

Mr. Gummer: I am sure that the hon. Lady would not expect me to go with her on a trip around Cambridge today, although I know the city well. The city council has a bad record for planning, and the city has been damaged by the refusal of the council to adopt a sensible transport policy. That is the city council that gave away green bicycles, found they were stolen and wondered why. That is the city council with some of the worst car-parking arrangements in the United Kingdom. Some of the car parks are looked after so badly that they have a smell that can be recognised down the street. So I would not be surprised if it got wrong the issue raised by the hon. Lady as well.

Mr. Geoffrey Clifton-Brown (Cirencester and Tewkesbury): Does my right hon. Friend agree that we would not need such a large number of houses if all the voids were utilised? Will he therefore carefully consider the nine out of 10 worst local authorities, which happen to be Labour, and ensure that they use their housing stock efficiently?

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