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Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Michael J. Martin): Order. The hon. Gentleman is making an intervention, not a speech.
Mr. White: I do not know the particulars of the hon. Gentleman's constituency, and I would not dream of commenting on it. However, a blanket decision to build no housing or to build everywhere is the wrong approach.
Before I entered the House, I was chair of the Local Government Association planning committee, and before that, the planning committee of the Association of District Councils. I had to discuss with Conservative Ministers planning guidance notes on behalf of local government. The concerns that have been expressed this morning were not the concerns that we heard from Ministers at that time.
In Castlethorpe, a village in my constituency, the building of an extra dozen houses kept open the local school, pub and shop because there was sufficient economic activity in the village for those facilities to keep going. If you are saying that there should have been no development in that village--
Mr. Deputy Speaker:
Order. The Chair does not say anything in these debates.
Mr. White:
My apologies, Mr. Deputy Speaker. If the Opposition are saying that there should be no
Mr. Gale:
What we are saying is that the Government seek to foist 250,000 new homes on Kent, without taking into account the fact that the people living in those homes will require water, sewerage, education and so on. When will the Government join up and bring together the Department for Education and Employment, the Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions and other relevant Departments to make provision before the proposals are put through Parliament?
Mr. White:
If the hon. Gentleman is saying that there should be proper planning provision for water, schools and infrastructure, I entirely agree. However, if he is saying that the Serplan figures as presented were not a political fix by the Tory-run county councils in the south-east of England going against their officers' advice and coming to a political conclusion before presenting that report to Government, he is not living in the real world. That is exactly what happened under Serplan. It was a political fix and an attempt by Tory councils in the south-east of England to embarrass the Government. Professor Crow did a good job in exposing the fact that Serplan deliberately distorted the figures in an attempt to provoke an argument with the Government.
Mr. Hoyle:
Does my hon. Friend agree that before any planning application and during the discussions, one of the bodies consulted is the water authority, which is asked whether it can provide enough water and deal with the sewage for any proposed development? That is the way in which the planning system was set up by the previous Government. If the Opposition now want the water companies to be taken back into public hands, I support that, but the companies' rules clearly state that they must be notified of planning applications.
Mr. White:
My hon. Friend makes an important point, contrasting the policies of the previous Conservative Government with the present knee-jerk reaction of the Conservatives in opposition.
In my city there are 750 families in temporary accommodation. Opposition Members say that we should not be dealing with that problem, but they are wrong. In respect of Milton Keynes--I am not speaking of the south-east generally--Professor Crow's report is balanced and offers sensible suggestions regarding the way forward for the Milton Keynes-Bedford triangle.
One of the Opposition's arguments is that the green belt is sacrosanct and should not change. I remind hon. Gentlemen that it was a Labour Government who created the green belt in 1947, opposed by some of the predecessors of the current Opposition. If hon. Gentlemen think that everything in the green belt is a green field, they obviously do not know what the green belt looks like in some areas. If swapping parts of the green belt is beneficial for the local community, and if the local community wants to do so, as has been done--to be fair to the previous Government, they allowed that in certain circumstances--that is a reasonable position.
The fact that there will be more green belt as a result of the changes in Stevenage is a positive development. I would argue that the green belt ought to be extended. There is no green belt round my city, but the concept of linear parks has been devised, which did more than a green belt would have done. The debate must be conducted on a more rational basis. Economic issues should be at the heart of the debate and should be taken more seriously than has been the case hitherto.
The Opposition imply that the Government have already reached a decision on the Crow report. All that has happened is that Tory counties dominating Serplan have put forward proposals, an inspector has sat in public, heard evidence and made a recommendation to the Government, to which they have yet to respond. It is hardly a case of the Government telling councils what to do. The Opposition suggest that the Government will accept every dot and comma in the report, but I should be surprised if they did.
Mr. Peter Lilley (Hitchin and Harpenden):
I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Hertsmere (Mr. Clappison) on initiating the debate. For the sake of brevity, may I say that I entirely endorse his analysis of the Crow report.
We debated the issue yesterday, and we return to it today. I hope that that sends a clear message to the Government that we will not let the matter drop. I make no apology for returning to it yet again, as it is supremely important to my constituency since the unprecedented approval by the Government for the building of 10,000 houses in the green belt west of Stevenage in my constituency.
That decision will be devastating locally for the environment, and for transport, the resources and facilities of our area, but it is not just an issue of local importance. It affects not just Hitchin or Hertfordshire. It affects the entire country, wherever there is greenbelt land. Planning proceeds by precedent. If the decision is allowed to go ahead, it will be cited as a precedent elsewhere.
Throughout my 16 years in Parliament, there has been pressure on the green belt in the area that I represent. I have appeared at public inquiries whenever proposals have come forward, and we have seen every one off. Not a single acre has been lost to house building from greenbelt land in my area. However, this decision creates the biggest-ever precedent of which I am aware for building in the green belt. By approving it, the Deputy Prime Minister has driven a coach and horses--perhaps I should say two Jags and all their horsepower--through the sanctity of the green belt. Unless his decision is reversed or restricted, it will be quoted in every constituency where there is greenbelt land.
I want to warn hon. Members that those pressures will be accentuated because of the Crow report. The Government must reject it, for the reasons given by my hon. Friend the Member for Hertsmere.
Mr. White:
Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Lilley:
I will give way to the soon-to-depart Member for Milton Keynes, North-East (Mr. White). His speech will not go down well with people in his area.
Mr. White:
If my getting here was unlikely, my return will disappoint the right hon. Gentleman even more. He said that the Government have already made a decision on the report and then he asked them to reject it. When did the Government agree the Crow report?
Mr. Lilley:
I was referring to the Government's approval of a planning decision for 10,000 houses on greenbelt land in my constituency.
The Government should reject the Crow report. It is strange that they refused to do so yesterday, and we shall see whether they refuse to do so today. The report is contrary to their policy of rejecting the predict- and-provide approach. It is strange that they do not reject it, because it conflicts with Lord Rogers's urban task force, which the Government set up, and with the will of the vast majority of people.
When I first took the Deputy Prime Minister to task for approving the decision to build up to 10,000 houses in my constituency, he justified his approval by alleging that there was local democratic support. That was nonsense. It had been steamrollered through the county council by the Lib-Lab coalition, which had an overall majority of one. The council knew that it could not count on that majority because some of its members, rightly, were prepared to rebel on the issue. The standing orders were changed and the matter was put through a sub-committee where there was a majority. The council undemocratically refused to let the matter come before the full council. That decision was steamrollered through with the approval of only 14 out of 72 members on the council in Hertfordshire. It was never democratic.
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