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Regional Government (North-West)

8.14 pm

Mrs. Louise Ellman (Liverpool, Riverside): I wish to present a petition from the Necessary Group calling for elected regional government in the north-west. It is signed by 82 north-west celebrities from the worlds of football, film making, acting, business, academia, entertainment and music.

The petition states:

The Petitioners therefore request the House of Commons to urge the Deputy Prime Minister to hold a referendum and to ensure that such an elected regional government be brought forward immediately.


And the Petitioners remain, etc.

To lie upon the Table.

Local Pharmacies

Mr. Michael Weir (Angus): The fear in communities about the future of pharmacies is genuine in Scotland, too. The position is slightly different because health is a devolved matter, but competition policy is not.

I wish to present a petition signed by more than 200 residents of the small villages of Invergowrie, Longforgan and Kingoodie and the surrounding areas of eastern Perthshire, which are paradoxically in the Angus constituency that I am proud to represent.

The petition states:

To the House of Commons,


The Petition of the Constituents of the villages of Invergowrie, Longforgan, Kingoodie and surrounding areas of East Perthshire declares


That they oppose the recommendations made in the Office of Fair Trading report—the Control of Entry Regulations and Retail Pharmacy Services in the UK—to end pharmacy control of entry regulations and allow all supermarkets to open a pharmacy within their stores.


The Petitioners therefore request that the House of Commons encourage the Government to rethink the decision regarding the recommendations of the OFT report—the Control of Entry Regulations and Retail Pharmacy Services in the UK.


And the Petitioners remain etcetera.

To lie upon the Table.

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Green Belt (Hertfordshire)

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Heppell.]

8.16 pm

Mr. Mark Prisk (Hertford and Stortford): Thankfully, I do not have a petition to include in the debate.

The purpose of the debate is to highlight my constituents' anxieties about the growing threats to the green belt of east Hertfordshire. I also hope that the Minister will explain the way in which the Government's newly announced policy will work in practice. East Hertfordshire, of which my constituency represents the largest part, is the only rural district left in the county.

The metropolitan green belt straddles the southern third of the district and covers more than half the land area of my constituency. It surrounds Bishop's Stortford in the north-east, runs south to High Wych and Sawbridgeworth, west past Eastwick and Gilston, and envelopes the towns of Hertford and Ware. The three villages of Bayford, Brickendon and Little Berkhamsted lie in the green belt land, which affords a buffer from the urban sprawl of London.

Indeed, given the proximity of east Hertfordshire to London, the metropolitan green belt, more than anything else, has helped keep the character of the district and the distinctive identity of the communities.

Sadly, that attractive environment faces a series of threats. First, the Government have a range of proposals, including plans for up to three new runways at nearby Stansted airport. That would lead to up to 256 million new road and rail journeys through the area. It would mean having to house up to 83,000 more workers, with the attendant industrial and commercial development. It would also mean that noise pollution would severely affect four times the number of people who are currently affected. Such pollution would cover large tracts of the district.

The Government's housing targets pose the second threat to the green belt. Despite lacking many brownfield sites, east Hertfordshire is being encouraged—some would say "bullied"—into building thousands more houses when our current infrastructure can barely cope.

The third threat stems from the proposed M11 corridor study, which envisages an additional 200,000 houses over and above the already high figure in the regional planning guidance.

The combination of threats—the airport, the housing targets and the changes that the M11 study proposes—means that the pressure on the green belt of east Hertfordshire is now greater than ever. A classic symptom is the rising number of speculative developers who are already trying to exploit the difficulties. On a variety of sites in the green belt, some near Hertford, agricultural land is being bought up and sold on in small plots to gullible people. The prices reach £60,000 per acre. The only reason this scam is working is that enough people believe that the green belt will soon be up for grabs.

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That brings me to the statement made by the Deputy Prime Minister on 5 February entitled "Sustainable Communities", in which he made the following commitment on the green belt:

"Today, I give the House a guarantee to maintain or increase greenbelt land in every region in England."—[Official Report, 5 February 2003; Vol. 399, c. 275.]

That was not a guarantee to maintain existing greenbelt land. As a chartered surveyor who is reasonably familiar with planning, I thought that that was a strange choice of words. After he had completed his statement, I asked the Deputy Prime Minister whether he could confirm that it meant that the green belt in Hertfordshire was safe, and that no new houses would be built on it. He declined to say. Instead, he pointed out that the guarantee was for the regions, not for the counties.

I appreciate that the Deputy Prime Minister's words on this issue have caused problems before. Indeed, his glorious utterance that

"The green belt is a Labour achievement and we mean to build on it"

has amused many people. In east Hertfordshire, we are now wondering whether he really meant it. If the policy is indeed as he stated, it represents a radical change in Government policy that undermines the permanence of the green belt and poses a serious threat both to the environment of east Hertfordshire and to many other parts of the United Kingdom.

The reason I say that lies in the Government's own document, policy planning guidance 2—or PPG2, as it is known—which has set green belt policy year in, year out for Governments of all parties. The guidance states:

"The essential characteristic of Green Belts is their permanence. Their protection must be maintained as far as can be seen ahead."

In other words, defending the green belt means maintaining the land currently designated as such, in terms not of total acreage but of specific sites. This is about location, not land area, yet in the statement made by the Deputy Prime Minister, the Government's policy merely guarantees acreage, which seems to open the possibility of swapping one site for another within a region. Many of my constituents fear that, by allowing land elsewhere in East Anglia—perhaps around Peterborough or Luton—to be designated as green belt, the land currently protected would be released. Equally, this is the hope on which speculative developers are relying. And, given the quasi-legal nature of our planning system, there is a real danger that once precedence has been established, the whole policy of green belt will be undermined.

Given that, I would like to ask the Minister to clear up any confusion and to answer the following questions in his reply. Are the Government still committed to a policy of permanent green belt as set out in PPG2? Does the Minister recognise that swapping land fails to uphold the permanency test? And what does the new policy mean in the east of England region—as we have been called—when the metropolitan green belt can only ever apply to southern Hertfordshire and Essex? It can never be relevant to Norfolk or Suffolk.

There are five stated purposes of green belt policy, and it is clear to me that the land currently designated in my constituency admirably fulfils them. They are: to check the unrestricted sprawl of large urban areas; to prevent neighbouring towns from merging; to preserve

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the character of historic towns; to safeguard the countryside from encroachment; and to help urban regeneration by encouraging the recycling of derelict and other urban land. It is on these last two purposes—protection of the countryside from encroachment and helping urban renewal—that I would like briefly to focus.

The consistent control of the supply of land, notably through green belt policy, helps the market to reuse developed land and buildings. However, if the market perceives that Government policy means that green belt land might be de-designated and available for development, that will not only lead to unhealthy speculation, but undermine any hope of local urban renewal. That is especially relevant in the area around my constituency. If developers believe that land in east Hertfordshire that was formerly green belt may about to become available, that will undermine any hopes of redeveloping Harlow—a once-new town that is in urgent need of reinvestment. It will also remove any hope of regenerating the Lea valley, which is a key stated aim of the Government.

Put simply, why should developers go to the expense of assembling, and in some cases decontaminating, land in the Lea valley when, just a few miles north, there might be the possibility of virgin, former green belt land coming on to the market? That is the signal that Government policy is sending out.

The policy on green belts has served us well over the past 50 years, and the secret of its success is its permanence, which rules out speculation. The Government's latest policy announcement appears to undermine that permanence by implying that location is no longer material. In doing so, it sends out the worst possible signal to the market. Already, speculators are moving in and the danger is that, without clarification from the Government, not only will that activity spread across Hertfordshire into Essex and other areas, but potential investment in urban renewal will be held back.

I hope that the Minister provides a clear reply to the questions that I have posed and puts it on record that the metropolitan green belt land of east Hertfordshire is permanent and will not be swapped for land elsewhere. After all, we do not own the countryside. We are merely its stewards. If, after 50 successful years, this Government loosen the green belt, intentionally or otherwise, future generations will look back at this moment and remember who was responsible for the destruction of their environment.

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