HC Deb 04 February 1997 vol 289 cc792-3
15. Sir Sydney Chapman

To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment if he will make a statement on his policy to protect the metropolitan green belt. [12515]

Mr. Robert B. Jones

I have consistently made clear my commitment to green belts, including the metropolitan green belt. The revised version of planning policy guidance note 2 on green belts, published in 1995, reaffirms the strict control over development in green belts and maintains the presumption against inappropriate development.

Sir Sydney Chapman

I thank my hon. Friend for that statement. Does he agree that the creation of green belts, especially the metropolitan green belts, has been one of the outstanding successes of our town and country planning system? Will he confirm that the pressure to develop in such places is at its greatest near the inner boundaries of the green belts and take this opportunity to iterate that none of the estimated 4.4 million more dwellings needed in the next 20 years are planned to be sited on green belt land?

Mr. Jones

I pay tribute to my hon. Friend, who, as a former president of the London Green Belt Council, provided able leadership for the movement to protect the green belt in the capital—as does the current president, my hon. Friend the Member for Uxbridge (Sir M. Shersby). He is right about the pressures on the green belt, which we will resist, but if he wants to know who is on the side of the green belt and who is not, he need only look across his county boundary into Hertfordshire, where the Conservatives proposed that no new housing should be built in the green belt, but were voted down by Labour and Liberal councillors who wanted housing concentrated there.

Mr. Hardy

I accept the Minister's reply to the hon. Member for Chipping Barnet (Sir S. Chapman), but will he make it clear that the Government will not be inclined to approve applications for opencast mining and mineral extraction in the green belt, especially where there is bitter opposition by local communities?

Mr. Jones

The hon. Gentleman knows that every application must be looked at on its merits, but—as I have just said—the strong presumption against inappropriate development in the green belt has led us to turn down many applications in the past.