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Mr. William Cash (Stone): Will the Minister give way?
Mr. Raynsford: I have already told the House that I must make progress, and I fear that the hon. Gentleman will take us into rather unproductive textual analyses of European matters. However, I give way to him.
Mr. Cash: On regional planning, there is an interaction between the Minister's Department and the Department of Trade and Industry, particularly with respect to assisted area status. In my constituency, there is the Grindley Lane investment area. The Government office for the west midlands, in partnership with the local authorities, to which the Minister has just referred, agreed that assisted area status should be granted to a range of villages in my constituency. That was a sweetener for the purposes of providing for the Grindley Lane investment area. Can the Minister explain why, when planning permission for that investment area was turned down, the assisted area status remained? There is now a black hole in a greenbelt area, with no justification whatever.
Mr. Raynsford: I say to the hon. Gentleman, who has only just joined the debate, that his question goes very wide of its subject, which is housing provision and the importance of balancing the need for housing with the need to protect the countryside. As the hon. Gentleman said, the DTI has a crucial role in respect of his question. He will be aware that I am a Minister at the Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions.
Mr. Peter Bradley: Will my right hon. Friend give way?
Mr. Raynsford: I give way for the last time.
Mr. Bradley: My right hon. Friend talks about the need to protect the countryside, and we all acknowledge that need. Will he take this opportunity, to draw a distinction between the party of government and the party of opposition? The latter has set its face against the development of affordable housing for rural communities--the kind of housing that they need if they are to sustain themselves for the next generation.
Mr. Raynsford: I assure my hon. Friend that I have already drawn a number of distinctions between the party of government and the party of opposition, and between the Opposition's mode when they were in government and their mode now that they are in opposition. I reiterate the fact that we are committed to meeting housing needs and to ensuring that people on modest incomes are not deprived of the prospect of a house by stupid policies that create house price inflation and prevent people on modest incomes from finding housing.
May I return to the subject of Serplan, which I was discussing before I was taken on a detour? We changed the procedure for developing regional planning guidance because we recognised that there was a case for more meaningful participation by Serplan and all the other regional interests. Indeed, unlike the procedure under the previous Government, whereby the Government produced draft planning guidance, Serplan produced a first draft of this guidance. The regional planning body will normally be expected to prepare the draft in consultation with other regional stakeholders, although in this case the timetable meant that Serplan could not involve other stakeholders to the extent that we would have liked.
The procedure also allows full public scrutiny of the draft at an examination in public; again, that is a new procedure to allow for more transparent decision making than applied when the Conservative party was in power. It allows the assumptions behind the draft to be tested and allows other points of view to be expressed.
In the case of the south-east, Serplan prepared the initial draft. It was then subjected to an examination in public chaired by Professor Crow. He then submitted his panel's report to the Government and, as everyone will know, the panel came to very different conclusions from those of Serplan.
Under the new procedures, the Government's role comes into play at this stage. We considered both the original Serplan draft and the panel's report, and we then issued for consultation revised regional planning guidance. Of course, many issues are covered in the process--it is not just about housing. However, as housing has been the main focus of controversy, I shall confine my remarks to this part of the process.
Our conclusion, on looking carefully at all the evidence, was that the panel had overestimated the requirements for new housing at approximately 1.1 million homes over the next 20 years. Equally, however, we were clear that the original Serplan draft had underestimated housing requirements--at around 700,000 homes over the 20-year period.
Therefore, our revised regional planning guidance made two important amendments. The first was to move away from the 20-year projections, which were an integral part of the old predict-and-provide approach that we have abandoned. Instead, we have proposed annual rates of house building, with reviews at least every five years. That allows a far more flexible response to changing demand and needs, in line with our plan, monitor and manage approach.
Our second proposal, on the basis of the evidence that we derived from current trends, from the Serplan draft and from the examination in public, was to suggest an annual build rate of 43,000 homes a year in the south-east, with a review at the end of a five-year period or earlier.
Mr. White: Is my right hon. Friend aware that when Serplan was drawing up its original plan, it had an independent analysis of the data, and that the panel came to a higher figure than Serplan originally put forward? The leader of my council has described the figure that Serplan is now quoting as totally irresponsible.
Mr. Raynsford: As my hon. Friend rightly notes, Serplan reached its figure for reasons best known to itself, and did not necessarily follow all the technical advice and
guidance that it received. Clearly, it is important to look at the full range of issues when we make proposals that are crucial to the interests of the region, and we shall do that.Our proposals, along with all our other suggested revisions to regional planning guidance, were published for consultation on 27 March, with a 12-week consultation period that ended yesterday. I am pleased to say that there has been an exceptionally heavy response to the consultation, with some 700 responses received by yesterday. We shall, of course, consider all the responses before we reach decisions. As is well known, Serplan failed on this occasion to reach a consensus about housing requirements. In the past, Serplan, like other bodies representing a range of different local authorities with differing political control, has sought to reach across the party political divide in the best interests of the region as a whole. Sadly, that did not happen on this occasion. We therefore have differing majority and minority views from Serplan. I accept Serplan's vote and we shall consider fully the proposals that come from the majority. However, we will also consider the views of the other authorities, which would normally have been involved fully in the process and been able to sign up to the conclusions. On this occasion, they have not been able to do that. We shall also consider the views of all the other interested parties, such as the regional development agencies, business and voluntary sector interests, environmental groups and those concerned with the full range of housing provision.
The suggestion put about by the Opposition that we will ignore Serplan--repeated in the wording of their motion--is entirely unfounded, as I made clear in the House last week. I am only sorry that the hon. Member for Tunbridge Wells continues to peddle this nonsense, and that he did not have the courtesy to withdraw false and unfounded allegations about my comments.
The hon. Gentleman's allegations are as unfounded as his claim that we intend to cover the countryside in housing. That is pretty rich, coming from a member of a party that was known throughout the 1980s and early 1990s as the greenfield and out-of-town developers' friend. Its record in government was deplorable. Fifty per cent. of all out-of-town development in the post-war period took place in just five years, between 1985 and 1990. The Conservative Government set no recycling target until 1995, and then it was a target of just 50 per cent. Our target is 60 per cent. Thousands of little greenfield boxes are spreading like a rash across the countryside, all at low housing densities and all dependent on the motor car. That was the Conservatives' legacy. We should not forget how much Lady Thatcher hated public transport and wanted to promote the great car economy.
As I have said, the Conservatives have a deplorable record. No one should attach any credibility to their current promises. By contrast, we have clear and credible policies to tackle constructively the real challenges posed by the respective claims of housing and the countryside. I can assure the House that, whatever housing figure we decide is appropriate--we have made no decisions as yet--we will require no more development of new greenfield sites than would have been envisaged under the original Serplan proposal. That is because we have put a clear emphasis on well-designed developments at higher densities, to ensure that we accommodate more people on any given amount of land.
That will not only reduce the profligate waste of greenfield land that is so characteristic of the executive-home developments so beloved by the last Government, but help to ensure the existence of better-designed environments providing for a wide range of needs, for single people as well as families and for those requiring rented accommodation as well as those requiring homes for sale. In that respect as in so many others, we are putting into effect recommendations in Lord Rogers's urban taskforce report. The Opposition may refer parrot-like to the Rogers report, but I suspect that they would not recognise, let alone approve of, any of my noble Friend's policy proposals even if he were to beat them over the head with a copy of his report.
Our approach is intensely practical. It was inspired by the vision of a better future for our cities and our countryside. Ours is an approach that does not neglect the interests of the poor and the disadvantaged. Ours is an approach that will leave Britain with a far better legacy than the one that we inherited from the last Government.
The Opposition's case is threadbare; their record is deplorable; and their motion should be dismissed with the contempt that it deserves.
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