HC Deb 04 June 1998 vol 313 cc596-608

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

9.36 pm
Mr. Peter Lilley (Hitchin and Harpenden)

I am grateful for the opportunity to debate proposals to alter Hertfordshire's structure plan so that it is possible to build 10,000 houses in the green belt in my constituency.

Throughout my parliamentary career, I have been a passionate defender of the green belt. I raised the issue in my maiden speech. I have always believed that it is essential to defend the sanctity of the green belt to maintain the environment and character of my constituency. At public inquiries, I have opposed plans to build on green belt land in my constituency.

I am pleased to say that in the past 15 years in which I have had the privilege to represent a Hertfordshire seat, there has been no significant incursion into the green belt in the area that I represent. Several proposals to do so have been successfully seen off, but not one acre has been lost.

I have invariably had cross-party support in standing up for the green belt, and I have usually had the local authorities on my side, so I am appalled that Hertfordshire county council, through its structure plan, proposes to build 10,000 houses in the green belt on nearly 2,000 acres in my constituency. I was horrified when that plan was endorsed by the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions.

I make it absolutely clear to the House that I am not talking simply about building on a green-field site. The plan involves building within the green belt itself; in short, on land that is most safeguarded against such developments. As far as I can discover, the proposal would be the largest incursion into the green belt in living memory, so it is not only a local, but a national, issue.

Locally, the opposition to the plan is overwhelming, as my hon. Friend the Member for North-East Hertfordshire (Mr. Heald) has said. In a single morning, 3,500 people signed the petition in the marketplace in Hitchin in my constituency. Many thousands more have done so since. The sheer volume of papers containing the names of people who have signed the petition is apparent to the House.

The site involved is especially beautiful. Few people live in it. It is a purely rural area, but it is much cherished by people in the rest of the constituency. How deeply it is cherished was brought home to me by an especially poignant ceremony, in which I participated, on the borders of the area concerned. I was invited to unveil a new footpath map in the village of St. Ippollitts. The map, which is especially beautiful, illustrates the terrain, the flora and fauna of the area, as well as showing the footpaths covering the area between St. Ippollitts and Langley. Each footpath is maintained and cared for by a team of volunteers.

Tragically, only two months after the map was unveiled, a large part of the area that it shows is to be bulldozed and covered with concrete. One of the most beautiful stretches of countryside will become a high-profile housing estate, and all the care and devotion that people have put into maintaining that area of countryside in its natural beauty are to be laid to waste.

This is a national, as well as a local, issue. Planning proceeds by precedent, so the decision to allow building on that scale in such a location will be potent ammunition for those wishing to develop in green belt areas elsewhere in the countryside. Green belt status will have been devalued by that dangerous decision and the appalling precedent that it sets.

The legal basis for the green belt is spelt out clearly in planning policy guidance note 2, issued in 1995. It spells out five purposes for the green belt. The first is to check unrestricted sprawl of large built up areas". The green belt round Stevenage has achieved precisely that, by ensuring that Stevenage had a clear-cut western boundary along the motorway, to the west of which was green belt land; but with this precedent to overrule that green belt protection, how can urban sprawl be contained elsewhere in the country around towns with even less defensible boundaries?

The second purpose of green belts laid down in PPG2 is to prevent neighbouring towns merging into one another. In this case, the green belt has, above all, prevented Stevenage merging into Hitchin. In practice, the new settlement, although said to be west of Stevenage, is divided from Stevenage by a motorway, an industrial zone and a railway, so the inhabitants will naturally gravitate to Hitchin, and the tendency will be for that settlement to expand toward Hitchin and undermine the thin stretch of remaining green belt between itself and Hitchin. In any case, the precedent has been created that green belts elsewhere in the country cannot be relied on to separate two closely adjoining towns.

The third purpose of green belts laid down in PPG2 is to assist in safeguarding the countryside from encroachment". That the green belt has done, for the best part of 50 years in this part of the country, but now a couple of thousand beautiful acres are being abandoned. With that precedent, why should any countryside elsewhere be sacrosanct as a result of green belt protection?

The fourth purpose of green belts laid down in PPG2 is to preserve the setting and special character of historic towns. Hitchin is an historic market town—a beautiful one. It has retained its character and setting precisely because the green belt has restricted its size and kept Stevenage at bay. But with this precedent, how can any historic town be kept safe by relying on the green belt?

The fifth and final purpose laid down for green belts in PPG2 is to assist in urban regeneration by encouraging the recycling of derelict and other urban land. It is always easier, and often cheaper, to build on green-field sites than to recycle urban land. While the green belt protected the countryside, planners and developers had to focus on previously built-up land, and that often meant finding many small sites, and it meant that planners had to agree to changes, for example, from employment use to building use. Why should they bother, once this precedent has established, since the easy and profitable solution of building on green-belt land is available if one pushes hard enough? In short, this decision offends every single purpose for which green-belt status was established.

I welcome the presence in the Chamber tonight, not only of my hon. Friends, but of the hon. Members for St. Albans (Mr. Pollard) and for Hemel Hempstead (Mr. McWalter), both of whom I had the privilege of defeating in previous elections. I am sure that they will reflect the concerns of their constituents about the damage that has been done to the sanctity of the green belt that has protected the character of their constituencies as faithfully as it protects the new boundaries of my constituency.

Hon. Members can imagine my delight when, after building was proposed in the area, I persuaded my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition to launch the Conservative countryside campaign on that very site west of Stevenage in my constituency on 2 February this year. I was even more pleased when it seemed that that campaign had persuaded the Government to do a U-turn on the issue of developing in the countryside and on green-belt sites. The Deputy Prime Minister signalled his intention to restore the 60 per cent. target for building in built-up areas upon which we had consulted and which we had included in our manifesto. He declared his determination to protect the countryside.

I welcomed the Deputy Prime Minister's apparent change of heart, as did my hon. Friends. Unfortunately, it soon became clear that, although the rhetoric had changed, the substance of policy had not. West of Stevenage was the litmus test and, on that test, the Government resolutely refused to turn blue. The Deputy Prime Minister reaffirmed his consent for the biggest incursion into the green belt since the new towns were established.

Several reasons have been given for sticking to that decision despite the Government's alleged change of policy. When I asked the Deputy Prime Minister how he could claim that the Government's policy had changed if he was not prepared to alter his position on that key decision regarding the biggest and worst incursion into the green belt since the war, he replied that it was a question of local democracy. He claimed that all the local authorities were in favour of the decision. That is simply incorrect. The decision affects land in North Hertfordshire district council area and, although the council is Labour controlled, it resolutely opposes the decision.

It is true that Hertfordshire county council has led the proposal for building on the site, but I believe that that decision is a travesty of local democracy rather than a reflection of it. The county council is controlled by a Labour-Liberal Democrat coalition. It has formed a joint party called the administration group, which has a majority of just one over the Conservatives. The group knew that it could not get a decision this unpopular through the full council without risking its defeat by one of its members siding with the Conservative opposition. So it took the decision in a planning committee which was packed with trustees, tightly whipped.

The decision was taken by just 14 council members out of 77, and only 14 county councillors supported the final plan. When the Conservative opposition put down a motion in full council that the issue should be considered by the full council before it went ahead, the ruling Labour-Liberal Democrat coalition changed the standing orders so that it could throw out the motion, even though a majority of county councillors voted in favour of that decision being taken by the full council. It is a travesty of democracy and it is appalling that the Deputy Prime Minister should have cited local democracy as a reason to allow the green belt to be built on.

It is sad that no Liberal Democrat Members are present. They have claimed often enough to be supporters of the environment and to be a green party. Taking them at their word, I wrote to the Leader of the Liberal party asking him to urge his supporters on Hertfordshire county council to abandon their anti-democratic and anti-environmental support of the plan to build on the green belt. He has never replied. I have subsequently spoken to him and he said that he had no intention of replying and that it was beneath his dignity to involve himself in this, the most important decision affecting the future of the green belt and the whole country since the war. Far from being a matter for local democracy, it has been an abuse of local democracy by those running Hertfordshire county council.

The Government's second line of defence was to argue that, although a couple of thousand acres of green belt land have been lost in the front line, they have designated an even larger area of countryside as green belt in the rear. That is fatuous. There is no defence at all if the green belt is mobile. It is meant to be rigid. It is effective only if it is rigid. If it simply moves back like a piece of elastic every time there is pressure on it, it is of no use in preventing the encroachment of urban areas on the countryside.

The third justification is that the west of Stevenage development would be particularly sustainable in transport terms because it is near a railway and an existing town. On that basis, any town with a railway is not safe from expansion into the surrounding green belt. In any case, virtually every town in the west of Hertfordshire has good railways and very few people are far from those railway centres. In my constituency, it is possible to be a maximum of only six miles distant from a railway station.

The fourth justification is that no alternative locations are available on which to build. The inquiry considered a few alternative large sites and it rather strangely turned down proposals for building a similar development on a non-green belt site elsewhere in the county. However, it gave no consideration at all to building on the largest area of recyclable land, the former Hatfield airfield which has recently been closed following the move of British Aerospace to the north.

It is in any case nonsense to suppose that it is essential to find large sites in order to meet the target for building new homes in the county. The target for the 20-year period between 1991 and 2011 is set at 65,000 houses. Already, some six or seven years into the period, 44,000 houses have been built or allocated planning permission. Almost all of that has been achieved by finding many small sites, by urban regeneration and by a limited amount of peripheral development. A further 21,000 houses are required over the remaining period, which is almost twice as long as the part that has elapsed.

The structure plan states: There is a fair prospect of meeting the whole of that extra requirement in the same manner as for the first 44,000 houses, by urban regeneration and limited peripheral development. It continues: However, against the possibility of this not proving practicable, strategic provision is made on a contingency basis for up to 6,000 dwellings to be located on Green Field sites … of which 5,000 are at Stevenage (with a prospect of 5,000 more after 2011). On the council's own admission, the incursion into the green belt may not be necessary to meet the council's targets. It would be extraordinary if that beautiful stretch of countryside were sacrificed—which would create a damaging precedent for the country as a whole—and it all turned out to have been unnecessary.

The final blow to the insistence of the Government and the county council that it was all necessary to meet the targets was dealt this week by Serplan itself. On 3 June, it issued a press release giving revised forecasts for the period between 1991 and 2016, stating: The figures are less than the Government's household projections for the same period. That is because national research now shows that 40 to 50 per cent. of the projected extra single person households may not form without some sort of subsidy. The evidence suggests that even if the Government commits extra resources to giving people a home, 20 to 25 per cent. fewer single person households will form than previously projected. The whole basis of the original targets is now undermined by the planning body that does the forecasting on which the Government have relied.

Earlier this year, I—along with many of my hon. Friends who represent Hertfordshire—went to see the Minister for the Regions, Regeneration and Planning. We were grateful to him for allowing us time to express our concerns, and our passionate opposition to what is proposed for the area west of Stevenage. He said that the Government had genuinely changed their policy—that they now wanted more development outside the south-east and less within it. He said that they were moving from "predict and provide" to a more flexible system, and that they would be reviewing previous predictions. All that was music to our ears; yet the Minister still insisted that the decision should not be revised or reconsidered in the light of the policy changes that he proposed.

If the Government are raising the national average target for the amount of building on recycled land from 50 to 60 per cent., that must mean scaling down plans to build on green-field sites. If the Government are to reduce the amount of building on green-field sites, where will the reductions be made? Why are the Government not beginning by axing plans to build on the green belt—particularly this most offensive and largest plan? If they are genuinely keen for less building to take place on green-field sites and more on recycled land, where will the reduction take place, and why will it not be made in the area to which I refer?

I have a further question. If more powers are being devolved to the regions and to Serplan, which now says that the requirement for houses in the south-east is less than the Government predicted, why are the regions not being given authority—indeed, encouraged—to reflect that decentralised planning decision in the way that the new planning structures were said to allow? If the Government are serious about their proposals to shift more housing development out of the south-east and up to the north, and to less populous parts of the country, why is that not yet being reflected in decisions such as that involving Hertfordshire county council? Above all, how can the Government say that the policy has changed if they will not alter the single most offensive planning decision that they have allowed: the decision to build 10,000 houses on green-belt land in my constituency?

If the Government are prepared to reverse that decision, they will gain the respect and sympathy of people not just in Hertfordshire, but throughout the country who are concerned at the damage that this decision will do to the sanctity of the green belt. If the Government are not, their credit will be zero among all those who care for the environment and believe that it can be satisfactorily maintained only if we uphold the sanctity of the green belt.

9.59 pm
Mr. Oliver Heald (North-East Hertfordshire)

rose—

Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Michael Lord)

Order. Does the hon. Gentleman have permission of the right hon. Member for Hitchin and Harpenden (Mr. Lilley) to speak in the debate?

Mr. Heald

I certainly do.

Mr. Deputy Speaker

And that of the Minister?

Mr. Heald

I have not mentioned it to the Minister. I certainly mentioned it to my right hon. Friend the Member for Hitchin and Harpenden (Mr. Lilley) as that bit of extra time was available this evening.

At a rally some six weeks ago, the hon. Member for Hemel Hempstead (Mr. McWalter) and I stood shoulder to shoulder on this issue, in support of the points that my right hon. Friend the Member for Hitchin and Harpenden has made. My right hon. Friend has been fighting tigerishly to defend—[Interruption.] Tigerishly is the right word. He is fighting fiercely to protect—

It being Ten o'clock, the motion for the Adjournment of the House lapsed, without Question put.

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

Mr. Heald

My right hon. Friend has been fighting fiercely to protect our part of Hertfordshire. The hon. Member for Hemel Hempstead knows the area well, too. He was a North Hertfordshire district councillor in Letchworth. He knows how important it is to Letchworth that it has the agricultural belt around it and the green belt beside it. He knows, as I and my right hon. Friend do, that it is important in Hertfordshire that the green belt should not be a flexible thing that can be tossed aside and an area where developments can occur in huge numbers.

There is no doubt about the demand. People could build as many houses as they liked in Hertfordshire and they would sell them. Buyers would pour over the borders from Bedfordshire, Essex and come up from London because Hertfordshire is a wonderful place in which to live, but, in doing so, they would destroy its character. That is why this proposal has been strongly opposed not just in Hitchin and Harpenden—although, my goodness, it has been opposed there—but in Letchworth, where people care about the environment, and in other places in my constituency.

The county has a lot of green belt. It has protected itself through the green belt; I see Labour Members nodding. Not just I and the hon. Member for Hemel Hempstead, but the leader of North Hertfordshire district council, a Labour member, as my right hon. Friend mentioned, and the chairman of the council have said that this will not do.

I bitterly regret the fact that the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions was not prepared to budge. He let down not just Conservative supporters of the green belt, but everyone in that part of Hertfordshire: Labour, Liberal and all those individual people—

The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions (Mr. Nick Raynsford)

Nonsense.

Mr. Heald

The Minister says, "Nonsense," and I noticed that he was laughing earlier. People in north Hertfordshire are not laughing. They think that this is an absolute disgrace and a decision which he should reverse. If he and Secretary of State mean what they say, they must act, not just give us words. It is time that this decision was reversed. The Minister should get on his feet and actually do something for the environment, rather than just talk, talk, talk, which is what Labour does.

10.2 pm

The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions (Mr. Nick Raynsford)

I am grateful to have the opportunity to respond on this subject, as it enables me to outline the Government's policy as it relates to the new Hertfordshire structure plan and to remind the right hon. Member for Hitchin and Harpenden (Mr. Lilley)—and the hon. Member for North-East Hertfordshire (Mr. Heald), who did not have the courtesy to inform me that he intended to speak—of the record of the previous Government, whom they supported. Their remarks indicate an astonishing degree of selective amnesia about the performance of that Government on decisions on the green belt. I shall be pleased to remind them about the Conservative Government's record.

I shall start by outlining the procedures; it is right that the House should be aware of them. Structure plans were introduced by the Town and Country Planning Act 1968 and carried forward into section 32 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990, which requires county councils to prepare structure plans for their areas. Planning policy guidance for structure plans is set in PPG 12, entitled "Development Plans and Regional Planning Guidance", which was published in 1992. It requires structure plans to set out broad proposals for housing, employment, transportation and other strategic matters and their distribution between districts.

Structure plans do not identify specific sites—that is the preserve of local plans—but they can identify strategic allocations for major development. When applied to housing, a strategic allocation is generally taken as being 1,000 or more dwellings.

Structure plans must have regard to regional planning guidance, which is non-statutory advice published by the Secretary of State—in consultation with standing conferences formed by local authorities—to guide the regional distribution of development and housing. It is not part of the role of RPGs to specify the location of new development. Later in my speech, I shall deal with our proposed changes to the system for preparing regional planning guidance. Hertfordshire is guided by regional planning guidance for the south-east, which is in RPG 9.

Structure plans are prepared and owned by county councils. The Secretary of State has a reserve power, under section 35(2) of the 1990 Act, to direct modifications to a structure plan. He exercises that power, very sparingly, to ensure that plans do not depart from national or regional planning guidance without very strong justification. For structure plans, the power has been used only six times since 1993—to direct the modification of plans for Suffolk, Surrey, Berkshire, Kent, Bedfordshire and West Sussex. All except the last of those were made by the previous Administration, and the last four arose from the failure of the councils to propose adequate housing provision.

As hon. Members will know, my right hon. Friend the Deputy Prime Minister recently announced our new approach to planning for housing, "Planning for the Communities of the Future". I am well aware that several hon. Members are concerned about how Hertfordshire's plan squares with that and with policy for the green belt and reuse of brown-field sites. I know that hon. Members are concerned about protecting the green belt and the countryside; the Government are also concerned about it. We remain fully committed to their protection.

Protection of the countryside has always been a planning priority. Green belt policy is guided by planning policy guidance note 2, "Green Belts", which was published in 1994. The PPG note makes it quite clear that—as has always been the case—green belt boundaries can be changed by the development plan only if "exceptional circumstances" exist.

In recent years, both the current Government and the previous Administration have had to allow releases of green belt land for development. There is nothing new about that process. My hon. Friend the Minister for the Regions, Regeneration and Planning recently met the right hon. Member for Hitchin and Harpenden and other hon. Members, told them that the previous Administration had allowed releases of green belt land for housing and said that we would provide some examples.

The right hon. Member for Hitchin and Harpenden will undoubtedly be interested in those examples. They are as follows: 46 hectares in Birmingham, 158 hectares in Broxbourne, 137 hectares in Dartford and 260 hectares in Solihull. In case Conservative Members think that that is only some dim and distant recollection, I should remind them that, in the final year of the previous Conservatives Administration, they released, on appeal, 500 hectares of green belt land for development. In one of the three sites affected, they acted directly against the recommendation of the inspector, who recommended refusal.

The suggestion made by the right hon. Member for Hitchin and Harpenden and other Conservative Members that the previous Government's record on the green belt was somehow magnificent and that the current Government are acting improperly is erroneous. It is an extraordinary statement of hypocrisy on the right hon. Gentleman's part.

Mr. Lilley

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for pointing out those decisions. He should therefore be able to confirm that the Government's single decision in Hertfordshire will have a greater effect than the effect of all those decisions he has listed put together.

Mr. Raynsford

The right hon. Gentleman has again missed the point. The fact is that—in that one case, in the last year of the previous Government—500 hectares were affected. He will also have heard me mention 260 hectares in Solihull, 137 hectares in Dartford and 158 hectares in Broxbourne. Perhaps he cannot do his mathematics. Perhaps that is why has recently been transferred from his previous shadow job to his current one.

Mr. Kerry Pollard (St. Albans)

I am not sure that the House is aware that Broxbourne is in Hertfordshire. The previous Administration gave away a great swathe of green belt in that decision, but the Conservatives are now claiming to be the great friends of the green belt. That is hypocrisy.

Mr. Raynsford

I agree with my hon. Friend.

The important point is that land can be taken from the green belt only if opportunities for development in urban areas and beyond the green belt have been fully considered. Only if insufficient land is available from those sources can green belt alterations be countenanced.

Mr. Heald

The Minister will know that the site that we are talking about is 2,000 acres. I do not know how many acres he thinks there are to the hectare, but on the mathematics that I employ my right hon. Friend's figure is right. The Minister is talking about tiny amounts in comparison with the huge scheme in Hertfordshire. How many acres does the Minister say there are to the hectare?

Mr. Raynsford

The site that the hon. Gentleman is referring to is 800 hectares. That is smaller than the combined sites that I have described. If the hon. Gentleman wants, I can list other sites released by the previous Government on appeal. Let us consider some, because perhaps he would benefit from hearing them. In June 1994, 24 hectares were released for a corporate headquarters and residential accommodation in St. Helens. In March 1993, 167 hectares were released for a business park in Ashton-under-Lyne. In the same month, 30 hectares were released for industrial development in Cheadle. The recommendation of the inspector, who was trying to safeguard the green belt, was overruled. In May 1993, 56 hectares were released for a business park in Dartford.

The right hon. Member for Hitchin and Harpenden is showing the House why he was transferred from being shadow Chancellor, because he cannot add up. If he adds up the developments that I have mentioned, he will realise that they amount to substantially more green belt than the site that he is talking about. I shall spare him the embarrassment of listing the many other examples of green belt sites that were released for development by the previous Government. The right hon. Gentleman and his hon. Friends clearly do not wish to be reminded of those uncomfortable facts.

"Planning for the Communities of the Future" highlights the need to develop sustainable communities. Green belts may divert development into open countryside beyond them—land that may be of high environmental value. Development in such areas can promote unsustainable transport demands. In exceptional circumstances, releasing some green belt for development can enable more sustainable solutions to be realised, provided—I emphasise this point again—all the options have been fully considered.

The reuse of previously developed land is another important issue. The previous Administration's target, set out in the 1996 Green Paper "Household Growth: Where Shall We Live?" was that by 2005, half of all new housing should be built on re-used sites. "Planning for the Communities of the Future" increases that target to 60 per cent. over the next 10 years. We expect regional planning guidance to set targets to achieve that. We have commissioned the Local Government Association and English Partnerships to set up a database of previously developed land. That will help councils and developers to identify land available for reuse and target it for redevelopment. The process carried out in Hertfordshire is similar to our approach and shows that it will work.

"Planning for the Communities of the Future" also sets out our approach to planning for the housing provision implied by the 1992-based population projections up to 2016 and for future projections. We are determined to get away from predict and provide and give local councils and communities more ownership of the figures and the proposals to meet them. We have set out a new system for defining housing provision through revised arrangements for the preparation of regional planning guidance.

In future, regional planning conferences will work with the Government offices for the regions, business, other regional stakeholders and the new regional development agencies to produce draft regional guidance, including proposals for future housing provision. That will be tested at a public examination and subject to environmental appraisal. Targets will be included to measure the success of the strategy and to trigger subsequent formal review of the guidance. That new approach will be used in preparation of a revision of RPG9, to be published in draft later this year, which will roll housing figures forward to 2016.

In answer to the specific question asked by the right hon. Member for Hitchin and Harpenden, there will be an opportunity for a further appraisal of Hertfordshire household requirements in the context of the revised RPG9. That will be subject to the procedure I have described but based on forthcoming household projection figures. It is wrong at this stage to pre-empt that. He should not draw any conclusions from the Serplan figures, which were generalised for the south-east and, of course, have not had the benefit of any testing by an examination in public.

In the meantime, it is important that there should be an orderly transition from the old arrangements to the new ones, so development plans in preparation must have regard to existing regional planning guidance. I remind the right hon. Member for Hitchin and Harpenden that existing regional planning guidance in respect of Hertfordshire—RPG9—was produced by the Government he supported.

The right hon. Member for Hitchin and Harpenden is well aware of the lengthy process by which the Hertfordshire structure plan was prepared. If other hon. Members want details of it, we can supply them. The essence of the matter is that Hertfordshire county council initially sought to provide all new housing allocations on previously developed land. That was shown to be too ambitious and unachievable—not least because the area does not contain many of the older industrial sites that are common in some parts of the country, which are the most obvious sites for such development. The county came very reluctantly to the conclusion that green-field releases were unavoidable. Hence, it proposed major development west of the A1M near Stevenage, and a smaller, but still significant, proposal at Hemel Hempstead. That was thoroughly tested at an examination in public before an independent panel, which endorsed the strategy.

Early this year, it fell to my right hon. Friend the Deputy Prime Minister to consider whether he should direct any modifications to the plan. He concluded that he should not, because up-to-date information showed that the proportion of new housing on previously used land would be close to our new target of 60 per cent., that development west of the AIM near Stevenage and development near Hemel Hempstead offered the most sustainable solution, and that the use of green belt land had therefore been justified.

The council subsequently asked my right hon. Friend to consider reducing the county's RPG9 dwelling total by an unspecified amount. The Deputy Prime Minister replied on 23 April, indicating that there is nothing in "Planning for the Communities of the Future" to justify changing the county's housing figure, for reasons that I have explained. Copies of the council's letter and my right hon. Friend's reply are available. The plan was therefore adopted by Hertfordshire county council on 30 April. Not too much significance should be attached to the description of the process that the right hon. Member for Hitchin and Harpenden gave. It is part of the standard procedure of delegation in county councils. Decisions on such matters are taken by their planning committees and delegated as a matter of course. That is what happened in Hertfordshire.

The Hertfordshire structure plan was very thoroughly—one could say painfully—prepared and tested. The county council came only reluctantly to the view that development to the west of the A1M near Stevenage and at Hemel Hempstead was necessary. The council afforded extensive opportunities for the public to object to the plan and sought energetically and innovatively to, comply with regional planning guidance, green belt policy and sustainable development principles.

I should emphasise three final points. First, the council considered that the creation of a sustainable community west of the A1M near Stevenage justified taking land from the green belt, and, on balance, we agreed. Secondly, Hertfordshire is set to meet our requirement for development on previously used land. The latest information shows that the proportion could reach 68 per cent. Thirdly, development in the county must be guided by the extant regional planning guidance. That is why my right hon. Friend declined to vary Hertfordshire's housing figure.

I should stress that Hertfordshire also has proposals to increase the total area of green belt in the county by an amount substantially larger than the area that it proposes to take for development. The key purpose behind it all is to enhance the principles of sustainability by ensuring that development occurs where it is nearest to transport links and employment opportunities, thus reducing the need for travel and for people to depend on a motor car. That will reduce all the problems associated with indiscriminate development in rural areas that would have been the inevitable consequence if it had not been decided to focus on a specific area where sustainable development was achievable.

Mr. Heald

Does the Minister not appreciate that in the northern part of Hertfordshire, the countryside is protected in two ways? Part of it is protected as prime agricultural land and the other part is protected because it is green belt. It is the easiest thing in the world to say, "We'll have a bit of flexibility here and take a bit of land out of the green belt and allow development on it, but then we'll add a bit more agricultural land to the green belt." One could go on like that for ever and a day, but the fact is that we would end up with more concrete and more houses. The people of north Hertfordshire do not want that.

Mr. Raynsford

The hon. Gentleman seems to ignore the fact that the area of green belt in the county has substantially increased and will increase further.

Mr. Heald

What use is that?

Mr. Raynsford

Therefore his logic is entirely wrong.

Mr. Heald

What about the countryside?

Mr. Raynsford

The hon. Gentleman has also ignored the way in which the county council has approached the issue, considering thoughtfully and carefully all the issues of sustainability—a concept with which he clearly has difficulty.

Mr. Pollard

Is the Minister aware that in the south-west quadrant of Hertfordshire—the area that I represent—we have more or less wall-to-wall housing and are allowing development on hospital sites? Should not other parts of Hertfordshire—the areas that we are talking about tonight—bear their fair share of the increased demand for housing?

Mr. Heald

We do not want to end up like you.

Mr. Raynsford

My hon. Friend made a perfectly valid remark and that reply from the hon. Member for North-East Hertfordshire (Mr. Heald) shows an insensitivity for the concerns of people who live in the same county as him of which he should be heartily ashamed.

Mr. Heald

What the hon. Member for St. Albans (Mr. Pollard) said is true. Some areas in the south-west of the county are very built up. We all appreciate that—but it does not mean that the answer is to make the north of the county so built up that it becomes just the same. That was my point; surely the Minister understands it.

Mr. Raynsford

I am afraid that the hon. Gentleman is once again missing the point about sustainability—and he is showing a disregard for the interests of people in areas that have been subject to intensive development who want some safeguarding of green land, parks and open spaces in their areas to ensure that they, too, have access to the countryside.

Concern for the countryside is not the unique privilege of one section of the community. It is shared widely by all sections of our community, by people who live in towns as well as people who live in the country. It is the Government's commitment to ensure that we have a policy that pursues the interests of the countryside and protects the countryside and green land for people in all areas, not just those who live in the country.

I reaffirm to the House that the Government remain firmly committed to the protection of the countryside and of green belts. We are the first Government ever to consider land use and transport planning together and to take an integrated approach to sustainable development.

We have said before and will say again that the creation of sustainable communities may, in exceptional circumstances, justify taking land from the green belt. We considered that that was the case with the present proposals for development west of Stevenage and Hemel Hempstead. It is our belief that, in those circumstances, and in view of the proposals to extend the green belt elsewhere by 4,600 hectares, it was not appropriate for my right hon. Friend to intervene in the adoption of the Hertfordshire structure plan.

Question put and agreed to.

Adjourned accordingly at twenty-three minutes past Ten o'clock.