Berkshire Structure Plan

HL Deb 23 March 1988 vol 495 cc260-84

8.12 p.m.

Lord Stoddart of Swindon rose to ask Her Majesty's Government what weight they will give to the views of Berkshire residents and their elected representatives when making their decision on the revised Berkshire structure plan.

The noble Lord said: My Lords, in asking this Question this evening I have to tell the House that I have been a resident of Berkshire for most of my life. Certainly I have resided in the county for most of the last 50 years and have in one way or another participated in the public life of the county. Therefore I have not only been concerned about developments in the past but I am concerned, as are many thousands of other people, about the developments in the future. I am glad to have the opportunity to raise this question of the decision of the Secretary of State to modify Berkshire's structure plan. It is a privilege to be able to raise it in your Lordships' House. I am very pleased that other noble Lords have decided to take part in the debate tonight and I am grateful for their interest.

My Question asks Her Majesty's Government what weight they will give to the views of Berkshire residents and their elected representatives when coming to a final decision on the structure plan. Naturally, I shall look forward to a helpful and encouraging reply from the noble Lord, Lord Hesketh, when he replies to this debate later on. The House is renowned for its interest in matters of planning and the environment and I shall be most interested to hear the views and comments of other noble Lords.

As most noble Lords will know, the matter was raised in another place on 11th February and was ably debated by Mr. John Redwood, the Member of Parliament for Wokingham, who initiated the debate on the Adjournment and by other Berkshire Members of Parliament. The debate tonight will, I hope, serve to support and reinforce the case made by Mr. Redwood and his colleagues against the proposed revisions to Berkshire's structure plan. I also hope that our debate will give encouragement to those residents' groups—of which there are many—which have been in the forefront of the battle to save Berkshire from the ravages of over-development as well as to the county council and their "Battle for Berkshire" campaign. Only this morning the Berkshire joint groups launched their campaign in Westminster itself. The joint group consists of the Berkshire Association of Local Councils, the CPRE, the Wokingham, Newbury and Bracknell district councils and 35 other groups. That is a very significant number which shows the strength of feeling in the county against the Secretary of State's decision to add to the development proposed by the county council. A petition will be presented to the Secretary of State next week.

It will be clear from what I have already said that there is no party political axe to grind in this matter. Almost uniquely, not only are the political parties united against the modifications proposed by the Secretary of State but also the electors are at one with their elected representatives. That does not always happen, as I certainly know. Furthermore, people living in town and countryside alike feel threatened by the proposals.

Before I refer to the detailed modifications to the structure plan proposed by the Secretary of State, I must make it clear that the Berkshire County Council, in preparing its structure plan, recognised the need to continue development in the county. Consequently, it made provision for 36,500 new houses to be built between 1984 and 1996. It took account of inward migration and also of internally generated housing demand. I believe that the Secretary of State has taken insufficient account of the extent to which the Berkshire County Council has itself made adequate provision. In practice, the county's policy implied a reduction in the rate of building from 5,000 houses per year at present to 1,600 houses per year between 1991 and 1996.

The proposals of the Secretary of State to increase the rate of house building to 3,000 a year during the period 1991 to 1996 will undoubtedly have a serious effect on the environment in sensitive areas of the county and the ability of the county council and other bodies to provide the additional services implicit in the increased population. It has to be said that some people believe that the county council has been too generous in its provision for housing and employment. However, most people accept that the county council's proposals represented the uppermost limit of whatever further development should be permitted in Berkshire up to 1996.

Having adopted such a responsible and constructive approach to preparing the structure plan, Berkshire County Council is entitled to feel aggrieved that the Secretary of State, completely disregarding his own dictum that local people are the best people to make decisions about their own area, decided to accept the view of the panel. After all that panel had much less experience than the county council and has no responsibility for dealing with the consequences of its recommendations. The additional 7,000 houses on large sites which the panel and the Secretary of State wish to impose on Berkshire will create serious infrastructure and environmental problems for a county which is already beset with seemingly insoluble problems in relation to traffic and the provision of adequate services of all kinds for a growing population. Indeed, the CPRE in a most excellent critique of the panel's report describes it as thoroughly flawed. The CPRE also says that it is appalled by the quality of the report, which it says is ill-argued and gives no weight to views other than those in the building industry.

Those are strong words but they are backed up by detailed and thorough examination of the panel's proposals in the CPRE's own submission against those proposals. In my view the Secretary of State should give great weight to the CPRE's submissions, which deal not only with the local problem in Berkshire but also with the strategic implications involved.

I now come to the specific proposals. I can only comment briefly in the limited time available. I wish to refer to the 2,750 houses in the Wokingham district which are proposed for that district south of the M.4 motorway. This is probably the most damaging of all the proposals. It is a breach of a policy that the limit of southward expansion from Reading was the M.4 and that Reading would not progress southwards across the M.4.

Once that policy is breached, in my view the floodgates of development will be opened. There will be nothing to stop Reading, Wokingham and Bracknell from merging into one huge conurbation. Indeed, there is nothing to stop the southward development towards the north Hampshire border. That must be a serious consideration which the Secretary of State should take into account. Already in Lower Earley where 5,000 of 6,250 houses have been completed—and there are some more in the pipeline—enormous traffic problems have been caused by this development. The infrastructure simply cannot cope with the additional traffic and the additional population. The services are creaking under the weight of the pressure put upon them.

In the morning peak Reading, as I know very well, is just one huge traffic jam. All the motorway junctions are seized up. Every road into the town is seized up. Sometimes it takes 50 minutes to travel a mile. I just wish that the Secretary of State would get in a helicopter one morning and have a look below him over Reading. He would see the impossibility of imposing additional development over and above what Berkshire County Council has proposed.

What is more, Reading has to deal with these problems and the people of Reading have to suffer them. The council in Reading would like to be able to deal with some of the problems when the A.33 relief road is completed. But if that road is to take the additional traffic from the development south of the M.4 the council will not be able to introduce the traffic management schemes which would relieve the heavily congested area of south Reading.

I turn now to north Bracknell. The panel rightly drew attention to the charm and character of the area where it proposes that a further 2,500 houses should be built over and above those already provided for by the county council in its structure plan. The panel recognises that if the new development merged with existing settlements much of the charm and character would be lost. But the panel gives no assurances that its proposals will not result in a loss of what is at present a charming rural part of Berkshire.

The loss of such a pleasant archetypal part of rural England would be an act of vandalism for which the Secretary of State, if he agrees to it, will not easily be forgiven. There is probably a further implication regarding this particular proposal to which the panel gave no attention at all. That concerns the northern circuit of the distributor road which is yet to be completed. Pressure will certainly grow for further development north of the new section of the distributor road when it is completed and the panel's proposals may very well make it impossible to resist that pressure.

There is one further point to be made about Bracknell, which is that there is an image perpetuated that it has a reasonable road system and can accommodate additional traffic. That is basically a false image because routes to the east to Ascot and beyond and to the north to Holyport, Maidenhead and Windsor are already heavily congested. Indeed, they are approaching saturation point and are dangerous. Clearly further development to the extent proposed can only exacerbate an already chaotic situation in the area.

Then there are the proposals for Newbury and Thatcham. I know that area reasonably well because I twice fought the parliamentary seat of Newbury, though not successfully. Once again, there is pressure on already overstretched services and an inadequate road system. There is the danger of Thatcham and Newbury merging, whereas I remember Thatcham as a nice little village. Again, the proposals to add another 950 houses in this area will cause severe difficulties not only roadwise but in many other respects too. I hope that other noble Lords will talk about Newbury in particular.

It is clear that the modifications of the Secretary of State will impose substantial infrastructure costs on the county council. Services are already at full stretch and need additional resources. In particular, the main trunk roads in Berkshire, the M.4 and the M.3, are completely saturated and the rate of traffic accidents is increasing in the county whereas in the rest of the country it is decreasing.

The financial implications for the county council are extremely serious, especially in the present financial climate and restrictions on council spending. Where, we may ask in Berkshire, will the money come from? The county council, rightly in my view, provided in its draft replacement structure plan a specific policy to ensure that the development industry accepted its fair share of the infrastructure requirements generated by major development.

The aim of that policy was to protect existing residents and businesses from the serious ill-effects of development running even further ahead of infrastructure provision. The Secretary of State proposes to remove this policy from the structure plan. One is really bound to ask where the money for the additional infrastructure costs is to come from. Perhaps we could be told whether there will be additional government grants. I doubt that. However, I shall listen to the Minister with great interest.

Perhaps we could also be told what is intended as regards the provision of new trunk roads to relieve the overloaded M.3 and M.4. The county council certainly cannot provide the money needed from its own resources. Although it may appear that the county council is a rich county council because it has a high rateable value, because it is in the South and because of the nature of the county the expenses are also high. The county council needs assistance in exactly the same way as anybody else.

Finally, I wish to say a few brief words about the broader aspects of this matter. I understand the difficulties of the Secretary of State and recognise that in matters of planning he has to have an overview of the whole national interest. No doubt it was that overview which prompted Mr. Heseltine in 1980 to force upon central Berkshire an additional 8,000 houses which became known as Heseltown. Mr. Heseltine has now had a welcome conversion. He sees things differently from the Back-Benches and has realised the error of his former ways. He is now joining the host of opinion calling for a limit on development in the South-East. In his typically forthright way Mr. Heseltine has told Mr. Ridley to, stop tearing the South-East apart". I think that that is unfair to Mr. Ridley who is my old constituency neighbour.

I hope that his slight disagreement with his right honourable friend will not distract him from making a good and sensible decision in favour of Berkshire. To concede Berkshire's case against the structure plan modifications would be in line with government policy—a policy to redevelop and invigorate inner cities and attract new industries to the region. That is where unemployment is highest and where people have not had a fair share of the country's wealth over a long period of time.

We need to halt the drift of population in other regions to the South-East and hopefully reverse it. That will not be achieved so long as the Government give in to pressure for further expansion and further building in the South-East, particularly in areas like Berkshire which have long since reached saturation point. I hope that the Secretary of State will take particular note of what Mr. Redwood said in his Adjournment debate in another place on 11th February. His arguments were not only utterly apposite but also completely irresistible, given the declared policies of the Government.

In conclusion, I hope that the Secretary of State will look long and hard at the revised proposals. They will do considerable damage. On this occasion let him listen to the advice of Berkshire, which says loudly and clearly: "So far and no further".

8.32 p.m.

Lord Norrie

My Lords, I rise to register my total disapproval of the modifications proposed for inclusion in the revised Berkshire structure plan. How can it be that the people of Berkshire, with their elected Members of Parliament and elected local authorities of parish, district and county, all recommend one course of action and yet the examining panel appointed by the Secretary of State recommends another?

I have lived in Berkshire for over 30 years. I have watched its rapid overdevelopment. It is bulging at the seams and will soon become little more than a suburb crammed with all that is bad and unsympathetic in modern planning. What was once a green and pleasant shire has become a battleground on which the sleek and the avaricious squabble like vultures tearing at a corpse.

Berkshire's problems started with the coming of the M.4 in 1971. Motorways have opened up the countryside. As new roads improved communication and transport, industry soon began to look hungrily at inexpensive greenfield sites in the Home Counties. Willing and co-operative local authorities waited to welcome developers and to make things easy for them. Planning problems were carefully discussed.

The new industries brought prosperity and wealth to towns along the motorways. The motorways were a new experience for the planners. The embarrassing problems of sprawl and expert soft-soaping by the developers were uncharted territories to the vulnerable politicians and planning staffs at Reading's Shire Hall.

Reading continues to grow at an alarming rate. While growth is restricted by the Oxfordshire county border to the north and by the North Wessex Downs to the west, to the east expansion is approaching the towns of Wokingham and Bracknell. To the south there has at last occurred the great leap for which the developers have been waiting. The modification of the new structure plan by the Secretary of State accepts proposals for a new settlement of 2,750 houses south of the M.4, probably at Grazeley. That has been mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Stoddart. In their application, the developers claimed that the new town would be self-contained. However, even the Government's examining panel admitted that that was not true and that Grazeley would be an extension of Reading. They said that it was "a radical step" and then went on to recommend it. The Secretary of State naturally concurred.

The Government's green light to development south of the motorway is significant. It means that the M.4, previously defined as a natural barrier to the growth of Reading in the south, would be breached. In other words, the motorway would go through Reading and not round it.

Large tracts of countryside would become vulnerable to development overnight. In view of their pious sentiments about protecting the countryside beyond the green belt, it is astonishing that the Government are happy to inflict such damage to a once beautiful landscape. By their willingness to allow almost unfettered development in the area, they have abandoned any pretence of caring for the countryside and have demonstrated a disregard for public opinion which clearly favours a restricted policy in central Berkshire. A peaceful demonstration outside your Lordships' House last week by the Northern Parishes Action Group, who represent 7,000 Berkshire residents, was followed by the villagers of Warfield proving by their road block that the road network in the villages north of Bracknell was unsuited to take on the extra traffic predicted. The "Battle for Berkshire" campaign launched today will trigger further howls of protest at the proposals.

In its submission to the Secretary of State prior to the publication of the new structure plan, the county council called for a slowing down in the development of the past few years. It argued simply that the people of Berkshire had had enough and felt that the time had come to strengthen the physical and social facilities in the county and to improve the road network, the health services and the services provided by the local authorities. We already boast the largest housing estate in Europe at Lower Earley in Reading. From 1976 to 1986, Berkshire's percentage increase in dwelling stock was a close second in the league to its sister county of Buckinghamshire, which includes Milton Keynes. Yet, according to the current South-East regional policy, Berkshire is in a restraint area. It may be that the noble Lord, Lord Sandford, will confirm that.

As the noble Lord, Lord Stoddart, has said, between 1984 and 1996 the council strategy allows for a total of 36,500 houses. It calls for no more large greenfield settlements, for a halt to the runaway growth of towns like Wokingham and Bracknell and for boundaries to be created to restrict their growth. It asks the Secretary of State to protect the county against urban sprawl by continuing to respect the M.4 as a natural barrier to the growth of Reading and it asks him to confirm the Government's commitment to the conservation of the character of rural areas.

The Secretary of State's response has been to ignore virtually everything for which the county council asked. He has called for an increase of 20 per cent. in the housing allocation which will inflate the total burden by 7,000 to 43,500. Bracknell, already bursting, has been presented with an extra 2,500, making a total of 4,000 to be crammed in north of the town and against the fringe of the green belt. The Secretary of State has not included in his land calculations any small sites which have or will have planning consent. That is a point on which the noble Lord, Lord Orr-Ewing, will comment.

Let us travel westward to Newbury, which sits beneath the crossroads of the M.4 and the A.35. It is the link between the French coast, Southampton, Portsmouth and the industrial Midlands. The highway infrastructure is already in a state of collapse. The notorious Robin Hood roundabout, which joins six busy roads including the A.34 and the A.4, brings traffic to a standstill not only at rush hour but often on Thursdays and Saturdays —our market days. On top of that, Newbury has been allocated 950 more houses, which will put at grave risk the preservation of the green break between Newbury and Thatcham, about which the Newbury District Council feels so strongly—and rightly so.

Developers, with their professional, full-time planning lawyers, have been able to exert tremendous pressure on small communities such as Newbury. An example is a superstore in Pinchington Lane. The application to build the huge retail store to the south-east of the town centre came with the attractive inducement of £1 million of infrastructure to be paid for by the developers. The problem for the Newbury District Council was whether the money would still be forthcoming if it refused and its decision was overturned on appeal. My Lords, what do you think?

Newbury is now in such a mess that it is probably beyond saving. The town must be bypassed to stop the appalling traffic problems caused by allowing a small market town to grow too fast. Because nothing was done about it until too late, work will not start until the 1990s when all the inquiries and appeals have been heard.

Our late Poet Laureate, Sir John Betjeman, once wrote in a moment of despair: Come, friendly bombs, and fall on Slough It isn't fit for humans now There isn't grass to graze a cow". What was written of Slough 40 years ago could now be said of Reading, Bracknell, Wokingham, Newbury and Thatcham.

For some of our communities in Berkshire it is not too late. But let it not be said in 40 years' time that we missed a rare and valuable opportunity to save our Royal county.

8.41 p.m.

The Earl of Shannon

My Lords, we must be most grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Stoddart, for raising in your Lordships' House this evening the matter of the M.4 ribbon development scheme which is sponsored and encouraged by the Department of the Environment. About the only difference between that and the highly despised and discredited schemes of the early 1930s is that this is more in-depth. That just means a wider ribbon.

At this point I must declare my interest. I live in Berkshire, although I must admit I am not a resident of anything like the antiquity or the eminence of the two previous speakers. I speak from knowledge of what is going on on the ground. I do not speak on the basis of pontificating from Marsham Street supported by a whole lot of pseudo-scientific twaddle in the form of a numbers game, regional strategic guidance, structure plans and everything else designed to baffle everyone with science and which succeeds only in bamboozling the department itself and its own Ministers.

Planning implies some form of forethought. How wrong this has been shown to be in this case. Say what they may now, the proof of the pudding being in the eating, the authorities have got it tragically wrong. If you do not believe me, please go and see for yourselves. Is this really a case of "Don't do as Nanny does but you must do as Nanny says"? We are all exhorted to prepare environmental impact assessments. Did they prepare one for the existing overdevelopment of Berkshire and many of the other southern counties? I think not. Or if they did, the authorities have only to go and see for themselves exactly what a mess they made of their assessment. Not only have they got it disastrously wrong in the past, the department is now trying to make confusion worse confounded with its proposals.

I appreciate that the pressure is on. There appears to be some archaic scheme of quota by geographical county. In Berkshire large areas are unavailable, being either green belt or of great natural beauty. So the whole quota has to be satisfied by a narrow area in between. On the one hand I understand that the Secretary of State appreciates that Berkshire is no longer to be regarded as a major growth area although this does not mean a climate of general restraint in the area. What a classic example of muddled thinking when you appreciate one thing and then propose almost exactly the opposite!

The already overloaded area is not to be considered as immune from the possibility of development and a higher rate of house-building is required to meet the needs of the indigenous population". What utter balderdash! The indigenous population was quite happy as it was. The extra housing is to meet the needs of the extra population that it is desired to force into the area.

Of course if we have a Government which to a man—or a woman—fall flat on their face and worship anyone who suggests building a factory in the area and assures them of all the planning permission they want, plus housing for all the attendant high tech electronic yuppies that this will entail, what can you expect?

Then we have the nonsense of the positioning of one of the major developments. Most of the factories and office developments are north of Exit 11 on the M.4. But the present proposals are for housing development ribboned along the A.33, just south of that exit. It already takes some three-quarters of an hour at most times of the day to cross over or to enter the motorway at that point. Now it is proposed to plant a major development right on top of it.

The Government are rightly concerned about the economic situation and unemployment. But, please, let us not recreate the undesirable results of the last Industrial Revolution. Berkshire does not have a serious unemployment problem. Everyone who wants to work can. There is already enough industry for the economic viability of the area. What about directing that industrial development into areas which badly need it instead of pandering to those industrialists who want to follow like sheep into this area?

Secondly, pressure comes from the developers. Do not underestimate the power of good hard cash on departments and Ministers. Get-Rich-Quick Developments Limited—or plc—has already made a killing out of this area. It has the funds to appeal, resubmit and reappeal until by sheer attrition it gets its way for another killing. Many such companies, in order to hide the unacceptable face of their activities, attach the word "Homes" to the name of their company in an effort to improve their image. I view any company called this, that or the other Homes Limited with the greatest suspicion.

Lord Graham of Edmonton

That is ideal.

The Earl of Shannon

Thirdly, pressure comes from greedy farmers who after nearly half a century of feather-bedding are most dismayed to find that their particular gravy train has finally hit the buffers. No doubt, under a new policy of set-aside for their land from producing grain, beef, butter and milk mountains and lakes, they are clamouring to reap the most profitable crop of all from their land, namely houses. They do not want to be left out of the killing either.

I disagree totally with Berkshire County Council in that it wants to tone down the future excessive development. I think that it should stop totally for a period. As we have heard, the infrastructure clearly cannot cope with what is there already. And it is not very clever to pile more in while making weak comments about trying to close the gap.

For the past year hardly a road near my home in south Berkshire has been without single-line traffic and traffic lights every few miles while the poor utilities have been hastily and busily digging up the road to repair their services damaged by the incessant pounding of excessive traffic and the extra demands made upon them. My own previously quiet little country lane is now a rat run for traffic desperately trying to find a way round the worst jams, resulting in no less than five burst water mains in under a mile last year.

In conclusion, one can only say to the Secretary of State that, first, he should give planning permission for factories and the attendant houses where it is needed and not where it is not required. Secondly, it is supreme arrogance, based on ignorance, to end the power of local authorities to refuse planning permission on highway grounds. The noble Lord, Lord Stoddart, is far too kind to the Secretary of State. Give him a helicopter? No! I say let us dump the Secretary of State in a regular one-hour traffic jam around Exit 11 to convince him of the error of his ways. That should get through to him if nothing else does.

Thirdly, he should allow the local authorities time to upgrade the infrastructure to cope with their existing difficulties and not permit any subjective inquiries related to appeals which are merely a front to allow the Secretary of State to approve developments which he has decided to allow anyway. Fourthly, there should be no further development of agricultural land.

If I appear to have been unduly hard on the Secretary of State, I hope that he will forgive me. I appreciate his difficulties. We have all seen what happens to Ministers who do not do what they are told. They receive a short sharp sack from No. 10. I suppose that he will want to keep his job, so I expect that he will just go on doing as he is told, regardless.

8.51 p.m.

Lord Graham of Edmonton

My Lords, I have thoroughly enjoyed the past 40 minutes, and not least the contribution of the noble Earl, Lord Shannon. Like all noble Lords, I am grateful for the opportunity given to us by the noble Lord, Lord Stoddart, to discuss this matter. We are grateful for his initiative, which we have all exploited this evening. The vigorous manner in which he has put forward a case on behalf of the people among whom he has lived and worked for all his adult life is also much appreciated. We are deeply grateful for the care that he has taken in raising this Question this evening. To some extent we all have a vested interest in matters of this kind. There is indeed no better or more proper interest than that of representing the people of the community in which one lives and works.

I have thoroughly enjoyed listening to the speeches that have already been made, and I know that after I have sat down the views of the noble Lord. Lord Sandford, will broaden the issue and certainly be of interest to the House. Certainly I anticipate what the noble Lord, Lord Orr-Ewing, with his primarily residential or community knowledge, will be able to tell the House.

I support the general premise and thesis of the debate; namely, that the advice taken by the Minister—and I do not reproach him with any malicious or malevolent intent—will visit upon one part of our country conditions which are not only unacceptable but also based upon a wrong premise. As a Londoner (I was born in Newcastle upon Tyne but have lived in London for the past 35 years) I must declare an interest in that I have represented the people living in a part of London. Moreover, I am president of the Association of London Authorities. I have my own experience and view of London and the South-East.

I should like to put forward an idea of political alliances. I think that there is a great opportunity for alliances between Berkshire and Brixton, Ascot and Hammersmith, Bracknell and Bermondsey, Newbury and New Ham, Wokingham and Waltham Forest and certainly Harwell, Haringey and Hackney. Certainly there may be cause to keep politics out of the issue, but I am certain that the people who live in the areas I have just mentioned will want not only to say to the Minister that he should not take such a decision but also that if the Government are concerned about housing more people they should consider places other than Berkshire which would benefit from their support. I plead with as much conviction and passion as I can that there are places in London to be considered.

I travel to work in Westminster every day from Edmonton. I pass through Tottenham, Finsbury Park, a little part of Clapton, Hackney, Islington and Camden. I am reminded by the environment and the communities there of the bleakness of life and the deprivation that exists in the places covered by my short journey. We talk in terms of wanting to make life better for people, and I am sure there is nothing other than that same desire on the part of the Secretary of State, but I believe that there is in this case a mismatch. He has resources to put at the disposal of the people of this country, and in my view he is using them in the wrong way.

Noble Lords will know that many major housing problems need to be tackled. The Minister has decided to deal with the problem of a potential shortage of housing and a desire to encourage people to move to other areas. When one compares London with other parts of the South-East, the conditions to which I have listened with great respect and which I completely accept mirror life in that part of the country—namely, Berkshire—bear no comparison with the conditions in which the people whom I seek to represent are living.

No one has mentioned the number of homeless families in Berkshire. I am sure that there are some homeless families, but the problem is nothing like the same size as it is in London. Berkshire has nothing like the problems which land on the desks of the Islingtons, the Camdens, the Brixtons and the other local authorities in London.

There are more than 30,000 homeless families and more than 20,000 homeless people in bed and breakfast accommodation in London. Even in Enfield, which is one of the leafier and perhaps more wealthy boroughs of London and in which I live, tonight there are registered as homeless 300 families who are in bed and breakfast accommodation. Living conditions in an area like Berkshire may be difficult but we should be concerned about people who are living in unsafe, unclean, unhealthy and too small accommodation. We are looking at the question of the number of people who may be waiting to go into Berkshire and find accommodation in a lovely part of the country. I know some parts of it, even if not as well as others.

There are so many people on housing waiting lists throughout the country. There are half a million people on waiting lists in London. I ask the Government: where are your priorities? I say to Members on the other side of the House that they can do a great service tonight not only for the cause of Berkshire but for the people of inner London. Noble Lords opposite must recognise what the Minister needs to be told. They have more political clout than we have or than I have. The Minister is of a political colour and persuasion that ensure he will listen to Members opposite, if he listens to anybody at all.

I believe that there is a great opportunity here. I can envisage what will happen if this plan gets off the ground. We are not speaking of building new houses or repairing old ones; we are talking in terms of the increasing value of houses.

One of the obscenities that Members of this House ought to consider is the quite outrageous way in which house prices have risen. This House should contemplate the type of people who will benefit from those increases—the term "Yuppies" has been used—who can look forward to living and working in a lovely part of the country like Berkshire. I am as concerned as the next man that people should live well. I stand by the principle that everyone in this country is entitled to live in satisfactory accommodation at a price that he or she can afford. So I part company with the Minister on grounds different from those put forward by other noble Lords who have spoken this evening. I believe that there are people who need his support and that of his Government far more than others to whom he gives support in other ways.

I look at the resources that will be deployed. The noble Earl, Lord Shannon, quite fairly indicated to us that there are people with money, power and resources who will push on in order to get what they consider to be their rightful reward; namely, more and more profit. So fewer and fewer people will become richer and richer. I cannot help but blanch at the penalty which the same Minister and his Government have laid upon government in London.

The amount of housing investment programme allocations which London has been denied over the past few years is £1,000 million. The amount of rate support grant that London has been denied is over £2,000 million. There is ample use for the national resources that the Minister is entitled to say he has to redistribute. However, as demonstrated in the Budget last week, the Minister is part of a government which have a wrong concept of what is needed in order to relieve the social and environmental problems of the people in this country.

I look forward very much to hearing what hope the Minister has to offer me, and others such as the noble Lord, Lord Stoddart, who are affronted at the cavalier treatment of the views of local people and their representatives. It is not just the councillors who represent the people. We all represent people, and those views are being ignored. I hope that the Minister will still have time to reflect that the councillors in Berkshire know best fo the people in Berkshire, as do the Members of Parliament who represent them. I have read the debate in another place. Those Members know better than the Minister. There is a great opportunity for the people of Berkshire and in such places as those that I seek to represent to say to the Minister, "By all means build more houses. By all means encourage more work to be created, but consider those who are in desperate circumstances." I believe that we can do well not only for the people in Berkshire but for the people of Brixton and Bermondsey also.

9.3 p.m.

Lord Orr-Ewing

My Lords, I also owe a debt of gratitude to the noble Lord, Lord Stoddart, for raising this matter. It is a matter of considerable urgency. I wish in my speech to concentrate on the Newbury-Thatcham area. I have not lived there as long as my noble friend Lord Norrie who has lived there for 30 years. I have lived in the area for three years. I bought his house so I have an affiliation of interest.

I see all around me a reflection of the popularity of this area, not just because there is wonderful country to the south, but because there are cherished areas to the north of outstanding natural beauty. Those are being preserved. Therefore the development is being crowded into rather small areas and they are now becoming increasingly overloaded.

It is also attractive not only for the beauty, but for the communications. It has fast communications via the M.4 and the A.4 to the east of London, and to the west to Bristol and South Wales. The area is also on the crossroads that run northwards through Oxford up to the West Midlands and southwards down to Southampton. It is therefore a natural place for many people who wish to site their factories, warehouses and resultant houses in that area.

All this is recognised by the Berkshire County Council, which acknowledges the demand for houses. However, it strongly recommends that the number of houses is reined back while the infrastructure is given time and money to catch up. It is no good building even more houses, unmatched by the public provision of schools, hospitals, shops, and above all, roads. In fixing the target of the number of houses, the Minister seems anxious to abolish the difference between large and small housing sites. I think that this is a mistake. He does not seem to have taken into account the very large number of small housing sites that have been utilised in recent years.

Certainly in believing that the county can absorb many more houses, he has not reckoned with the considerable number—1,300 new houses—that have been put on small sites and villages. They are not taken into account. He is now trying to superimpose, as my noble friend Lord Stoddart said, 950 extra new houses on top of the 8,650 recommended by the local authorities and by the county council. Does he realise that these small sites are 20 to 33 per cent. of the total? One cannot disregard them; they are extremely important.

In Berkshire as a whole the small sites—these 1,300 extra which are not taken into account in the Minister's calculations—provide 4,000 extra people. Four thousand extra people are an extra strain on the infrastructure, and nowhere more so than on the roads. Recent surveys on road traffic make all the previous estimates nonsense. People have to allow two and a half cars for each house now being built. When one adds to that the increasing number of industrial sites and industrial warehouses with the ever larger number of lorries which are daily coming out of these sites, then the strain on our roads is very considerable. I should like to mention what others have said. One has only to try to get into Newbury, and to cross the Robin Hood roundabout. One is jammed for two miles back in every direction in order to get into Newbury. It is a lovely old county town. It needs to be preserved. But at the present rate the approved by-pass to Newbury to the west will not be completed until at the earliest 1996 even if it is begun straightaway; and the money has not yet been forthcoming. I shall speak on this later.

Does the Secretary of State acknowledge that virtually all those in touch with the problems—the parish councils, the district councils, the Berkshire County Council—are pleading with him, as are the Members of Parliament, and as are Members of your Lordships' House? I cannot say that Members of this House are elected; but members of the councils and Members of Parliament are. They are close to the problem and they get the message loud and clear.

I hope that the Minister will reconsider the question and will allow the infrastructure time to catch up. Up until now we have been prevented from investing in infrastructure through lack of capital assets. The money comes from four sources. It is worth just mentioning these. Most of these sources are under some kind of government approval or control. It is therefore up to the Minister to make sure that these are not held back any longer. The county council can borrow on the market but only with the approval of the Minister of State. This is a little old-fashioned now. This is because of a public sector borrowing requirement. But that is a negative attitude. We have just had it in the Budget. It is no longer a burden. If people want to borrow, why not let them? Let them get on with the infrastructure. That, incidentally, provides about £18 million a year towards the cost of capital construction.

Secondly, the council can use money from the capital assets which they are selling off, but even that is controlled by the Minister. He has to give his approval. That also runs at the rate of £18 million a year. One has to recognise that as this property is sold off, it produces a diminishing amount until the year 2001, which is the timescale that we are considering. That, incidentally, also provides about £18 million a year.

The third source is the transport supplement. One would think that with all the transport problems in that area it might be a considerable sum, but it is a measly little sum of £2.7 million a year. One has to remember that at the moment Reading is absorbing a tremendous amount of money with all its by-passes, and understandably so. What is left over for Newbury and other places is minimal.

Lastly, there is the developers' contribution. I, like my noble friend Lord Shannon, am a little suspicious of these developers' contributions: "If I am allowed to build 1,000 houses, then I will spend £1 million on roads to get to and from those houses". That does not seem the right way to make a plan.

I suggest to the Minister that he considers all these problems to see where he or his honourable friends in the Ministry of Transport might be a little more lenient and forthcoming to help us with the roads. We have all read these figures and they have been bandied about during the debate, but I make the point that they are not cast in tablets of stone. They are flexible.

I remind my noble friends, after the debate we have had on the health service, that the forecast cost of the health service was £70 million in 1945. It was said that that figure would fall steadily because the nation would get so much healthier that there would be no need for any hospitals to go to. I mention that forecast only because it shows how enormously wrong they were. So the forecasts about development, housing and our roads are all wrong. I am glad to quote the Secretary of State because this gives him a way out: I strongly emphasise that these figures should be regarded as neither prescriptive nor inflexible and that they remain to be tested and revised in the process of Structure Plan reviews and in the light of circumstances which obtain at that time". I ask the Secretary of State to think again, find a compromise—taking into account the small sites, allowing of course for some housing development—closer to the figures put forward by parish, district, county council, Members of Parliament and also Members in this House. In the meantime I ask him to do everything possible to accelerate the provision of infrastructure, be more generous with grants, and allow the county council to spend the money which they have, but which is controlled at present by the Government.

9.11 p.m.

Lord Sandford

My Lords, I cannot help being struck by the impressive way in which the lively campaign initiated by the Royal County of Berkshire has developed over the last month. On 11th February, as the noble Lord, Lord Stoddart, said, there was an Adjournment Debate in another place with three Tory Members of Parliament taking part. Now we have another debate here well furnished by residents from Berkshire, but also by no fewer than three Labour Front Bench spokesmen, albeit spokesmen who disappear to the other Benches to speak. I shall be interested to hear what the noble Lord, Lord McIntosh, will say—

Lord Stoddart of Swindon

My Lords, it is two Front Bench spokesmen. I ceased to be a Front Bench spokesman a fortnight ago when I resigned my duties.

Lord Sandford

My Lords, I apologise for not keeping myself up to date with the movements in the party opposite.

My interest in these matters is not as a Front Bench spokesman or as a Berkshire resident, but as the chairman of the South East Regional Planning Conference, which the noble Earl, Lord Shannon, dislikes so much, which deals with regional strategy and regional guidance which he also dislikes. Nonetheless, the Home Counties and the London boroughs have for some 20 or 30 years found it convenient to concert their affairs in a number of fields—not least in strategic planning. Some five or six years ago they elected me as their chairman. I can therefore hardly forbear to take part in a debate such as this. I shall probably end by sharing a number of the sentiments which have already been expressed by noble Lords. But I first proceed in almost the opposite direction because I start by welcoming the adherence of the Secretary of State to the regional guidance. I welcome what he has done in the modifications he has proposed for Berkshire and in following so closely the advice of the panel which examined the replacement structure plan in public. By way of correction, perhaps I should say that whereas several noble Lords on both sides of the House have sought to criticise the Secretary of State for what he is imposing on Berkshire, the situation is rather the other way round: the regional strategy was devised by the Home Counties themselves three years ago in 1985. When they had agreed it—this included Berkshire—it was submitted to the Secretary of State for his endorsement. After minor alterations, he was glad to do so and sent the endorsement to me as chairman of Serplan in the form of "regional guidance". That guidance covers all the implications of the regional strategy. The regional strategy is acceptance of the role of the South East (the Home Counties and the London boroughs) as the main economic base for the entire kingdom. It is the place where the economy is booming; the greater part of the economic prosperity of the country starts here. There is acceptance of that.

It is acceptance of a policy that rigorously conserves the countryside—notably, the metropolitan green belt and the areas of outstanding natural beauty, of which there are several in the region. And thirdly, the strategy also seeks to do what several noble Lords have suggested: to divert economic growth into other areas that could very well do with more of it. Those three strands of policy all have their implications. The one about which I wish to speak is the most significant among the Secretary of State's proposals; that is, housing.

The strategy agreed among all 12 Home Counties includes the provision of a total regional figure for housing divided up into allocations county by county. A report was compiled in July 1987 indicating the progress that was being made in meeting these agreed county allocations. In six counties, Buckinghamshire, East Sussex, Essex, Hertfordshire, Oxfordshire and West Sussex, the five-year provision in 1991–96 was between 60 and 70 per cent. of the 10 year guidance figures. Hampshire was slightly above half the guidance. Bedfordshire had well exceeded it. In Kent the proposals would provide 80 per cent. of the guidance figures in the first five years. In only three counties are the five-year proposals below half the 10 years' guidance figures. One is the Isle of Wight, which is at 47 per cent.; another Surrey at 43 per cent.; and Berkshire, at 31 per cent., easily the furthest behind of all the 12 Home Counties in providing the housing that it had undertaken to provide.

Lord Orr-Ewing

My Lords, this is where there seems to be a difference of opinion. Can my noble friend quote to which years that applies? My figures show that, apart from Buckingham with the Milton Keynes development, Berkshire is the second biggest growth over the past 10 years. That is why it needs to catch up with its infrastructure. Can my noble friend try to correlate the differences of opinion?

Lord Sandford

My Lords, of course. I was coming to that.

I wish to do it by quoting from the document to which Berkshire has contributed. I refer to a paragraph drafted by Berkshire explaining the figure that I have given. In Berkshire, although structure plan proposals were already in the pipeline when the regional guidance was issued, the implications of the guidance were known and considered at the time of examination in public in July 1986. It is the county council's view (expressed in July 1978) that the gap between the housing provision in the replacement structure plan 1991–96 and the guidance figures will be less significant than initially thought because a substantial part of that gap is likely to be covered by development of unspecified sites coming forward in line with policy but not included in the structure plan figures. If that is what the county council thought as recently as last July 1987, I cannot for the life of me see what all the fuss is about. The Secretary of State has merely included in the modification the requirement to meet the figures the county says it is going to meet in any case.

Coming to the point raised by my noble friend Lord Orr-Ewing, the position is that in the strategy originated by the Home Counties, including Berkshire, and endorsed by the Secretary of State, the county council has been set an annual rate of building of 2,500 a year throughout the whole decade from 1991 to 2001. It proposed 1600 a year for the first five years of this decade and the Secretary of State is proposing to modify that to 3,000 a year. That is what the argument is all about and a balance has to be struck somewhere.

It is certainly true that there is a measure of sympathy among all the other Home Counties and generally with Berkshire because of the very rapid growth that has occurred there over the past 20 years. However, the Secretary of State is not asking for anything like the rate of house building that has applied; heretofore it has been 4,900 a year and he is now asking for 3,000. In the paragraph I have just read it says that something like that can be expected to come forward anyway. The sympathy is there, but I do not believe it is unlimited, and I do not see why it should be because the other 12 Home Counties are grappling with similar problems and, as that report indicated, are doing rather better.

It would be a mistake to throttle right back the chance of growth that there is over much of London and the Home Counties. A balance has to be struck. I entirely agree with the noble Lord, Lord Stoddart—and this is expressed in the regional strategy—that part of the objective of the strategy is to secure and promote this growth in those parts of this region which at present lack it. The noble Lord, Lord Graham, mentioned Newham. There is also Barking and Dagenham; Greenwich and Lewisham and all the way down the Thames estuary, downstream of the Docklands. Those areas could all benefit from this economic growth. We have done a study in Serplan to see what the potential is there and what more needs to be done to release it. If Berkshire wants some of this growth off their backs then the best thing it can do is to support further efforts to get more growth in the Thames Estuary.

Of course, another objective is to have economic growth in other regions of the United Kingdom. But however strenuously that is done, it is impossible so far as one can see to choke off all further growth in the Home Counties. My view is that Berkshire is only being asked to shoulder its fair share.

9.23 p.m.

Lord McIntosh of Haringey

My Lords, I yield to all noble Lords who have spoken in this most interesting debate, for which we are grateful to my noble friend Lord Stoddart, in detailed knowledge of the transport, housing and other conditions in the Royal County of Berkshire. Even my noble friend Lord Graham seems to have acquired a litany of Berkshire placenames as part of his preparation for this evening's debate, although his litany of London placenames is slightly less accurate than one would wish.

We find ourselves with very conflicting views from people who, on the face of it, ought to be saying the same thing. I find that puzzling and I want to explore that a little before drawing some wider conclusions from it. The Berkshire County Council, and we are told all the district councils and parish councils—and we know from the debate in another place the MPs representing the area—all feel that the Secretary of State has gone too far in his modifications to the Berkshire Structure Plan.

I shall not in any way attempt to repeat the arguments which have been put forward about congestion or the beauty of the countryside; but it seems to me that a very cogent point has been made by Berkshire County Council which has not in any way been answered by the Secretary of State or indeed, if I may say so, by the noble Lord, Lord Sandford, in his capacity as the chairman of Serplan. The point is that the infrastructure of the county of Berkshire is inadequate to sustain the sort of growth in house building which the Secretary of State now wishes to see.

It is not just a question of how long it takes to provide that infrastructure. I take it that we are not just talking about road development but also about the provision of schools, health services, all the social services and the provision of public transport as well as provision for the private car. It is not just a question of the time it takes but of the money that is made available to the local authorities, both county council and district council, to make that provision. As far as we can understand the position, the grant-related expenditure assessments have not and, indeed, by their nature, could not take account of the planned growth in house building and the planned growth in population. Therefore, there is bound to be—unless there is specific financial provision made for the county of Berkshire—a grave imbalance between the infrastructure and the population to take it up.

This must also be true of the rate demands—or perhaps, in the future, the community charge demands—on the people of Berkshire. They will have to make that provision and to pay for it before anyone else is around to help them do so. I should be interested to learn what proposals the Government have—not just for Berkshire but for anywhere else where this sort of development is proposed—to relieve the burden which may be temporary but which could be extremely severe on the population of the area.

We have the views of the Secretary of State which in some respects seem to pay lip service to the views of local people as well as to the views of Serplan, but which do not seem to come to the same conclusions. The Secretary of State speaks about planning area No. 8. I find that an extremely offensive way of referring to what is, in fact, a large part of central Berkshire. Planning area No. 8 is no longer to be regarded as a major growth area, but at the same time the Secretary of State envisages that the area must catch up on the physical and social facilities which are necessary for the population—and that, I understand, is what the county council is saying—and that any development there must grow at a pace which has sensible regard to environmental and infrastructure considerations.

So far, so good. We seem to be in agreement, in objective, between the Secretary of State and the structure plan. But, no, the Secretary of State then goes on to say that he does not propose a climate of general restraint. How that can be reconciled with growth at a pace which has "sensible regard to environmental and infrastructure considerations" I simply do not know. The two seem to be in total conflict. Unless there is a adequate provision made for the infrastructure, both in terms of the space and facilities required and in terms of the capital and authorisation for local authority expenditure required, then we have what seems to be an irreconcilable conflict between what the Secretary of State appears to want and what he is in fact allowing in his modifications to the structure plan.

I do not go along entirely with other noble Lords in their fears about the planning procedure. The noble Earl, Lord Shannon, said that planning implies forethought, and that indeed must be correct. The noble Lord, Lord Orr-Ewing, cast some doubt on the validity of forecasts in the planning area by analogy with the health service. The two are not so far apart. Robert Graves said in Non Coqunt Astra: Come, live in now, and occupy it well; Prediction's no alternative to forethought. However, he was only partly right. Forethought requires a sensible evaluation of the facts available to us and the opportunities open to us. If we do not turn those into thoughtful forecasts, if I may put it that way, we are not doing our job properly and we ought not to be making generalised judgments about the future structure of our country.

I do not wish to say anything more about the detail of the position in Berkshire. Other noble Lords have said it far more eloquently than I ever could. However, I wish to say something about the national implications of the conflict that we have had expressed tonight. My noble friend Lord Graham has made it very clear that there are opportunities in London. The noble Lord, Lord Sandford, made the same point. There are opportunities for development for the deprived areas of this country, whether they be those in inner London, the inner cities or the other deprived areas of the Midlands and the North.

The trend of thinking in government is again somewhat contradictory. They appear to think and to claim that vast resources are going into the inner cities. I should like to believe that that is so. I believe the intention behind that wish is generous and it is in the right direction. It cannot be held sincerely at the same time as a view that there should be—again to quote the Secretary of State—no climate of general restraint in other areas of the country. The two do not go together.

If we seriously mean that not simply money but decent employment and decent housing are to go into the inner cities of our country and that these advantages are to go to the Midlands and the North, which are areas where levels of unemployment are much higher and the physical standards of the environment are much worse in many cases, it is not enough simply to put money into those areas even if the Government were doing enough in that direction. The policy must be carried along together with a general climate of restraint in other areas. I do not see how anyone can talk their way around that problem. It is not enough to make indicative plans about the development of the South-East. There must be actual priority, a combination of stick and carrot, in order to achieve the objectives that we all want for the regeneration of our inner cities and of the more deprived areas of the country.

We have a curious alliance. We have the highly Conservative county of Berkshire. All of its MPs and district councils are Conservative. They are putting forward a view which supports indicative and positive planning. At the same time I hope and believe we have a Labour Party really wanting to do more for the inner cities, the Midlands and the North. As my noble friend Lord Graham said, this alliance is the right and correct alliance. It is the alliance of interest on both sides that ought to lead the Government to the conclusion that the Berkshire structure plan should not be modified.

9.33 p.m.

Lord Hesketh

My Lords, we have had a most interesting and in some ways a riveting debate. At the start I should like to make two short comments. In some areas we have covered a rather broader area than the Question on the Order Paper. We have also touched upon some important aspects of philosophy in a way which suggests that we may have another and longer debate in the future in your Lordships' House.

The noble Lord, Lord Stoddart, and other noble Lords who have an interest in preserving the character and environment and indeed the heritage of Berkshire have ably and courteously set out their concern for the future of the county. They are anxious about the quality of life and about the maintenance of essential services which they see threatened if development in the county, in particular house building, is not reduced sharply. The focus for that concern is the modifications which the Secretary of State has proposed to make to Berkshire County Council's draft replacement structure plan, and the feeling among many people in the county that the Secretary of State has disregarded their views.

The Question raised tonight is about how far the Government take account of local opinion in the matters, and I shall turn to that presently. I must explain that I am limited in the response I can make to specific points raised in this debate about the proposed modifications. The period in which objections or representations can be made to the Secretary of State runs to the end of this month. It will be necessary to consider together all objections and representations received before any decisions are reached. To comment now on points, without considering all the representations put to the Secretary of State, could prejudice his position. A number of points have been raised, in particular by the noble Lord, Lord Norrie, the noble Earl, Lord Shannon, and the noble Lord, Lord Orr-Ewing and Lord McIntosh of Haringey, about the need to reduce house building, about damage to the countryside, about the pressures on infrastructure and services and about the problems for local authorities which are faced with further substantial growth. I have noted all these points.

Reference has also been made to extra land for housing which has come forward since Berkshire County Council started to prepare its replacement plan in 1984, as was pointed out by my noble friend Lord Orr-Ewing. That is information about which, I do not doubt, the county council will be writing to the Secretary of State in detail when it makes its comments on the proposed modifications. It is a point which I can assure your Lordships the Secretary of State will consider very carefully. However, for the reasons I have already given, the House will understand that I cannot take the matter further in this debate. I want, however, to give an undertaking on behalf of the Secretary of State that all the views that have been expressed in this debate have been noted, and in so far as they relate to the proposed modifications they will be taken into account.

Turning to the theme of the Unstarred Question about the weight given to the views of local people in deciding structure plan proposals, I must explain something of the various processes of consultation to which structure plan proposals are subject, first, in their formulation by the county council and then after the proposals are submitted to the Secretary of State. When Berkshire County Council decided to replace its existing three structure plans with a single up-to-date plan, it was under a statutory obligation to carry out a detailed public consultation into its proposals. The Secretary of State had to be satisfied that the county council had properly met its obligation or he could have sent the plan back to it to undertake further consultation. Next, when the county council submitted its draft replacement plan to the Secretary of State, a period of six weeks was given for objections and representations to be made to the Secretary of State. This is also a statutory requirement, as is the requirement to allow a six-week period for public response to the Secretary of State's proposed modifications to the plan. As I have said, we are still in that second six-week period.

The important point to which I wish to draw your Lordships' attention is that public consultation and participation in the structure plan process is built into the statutes, is well established in practice and is effective in shaping policy, even though I know the noble Earl, Lord Shannon, disagreed strongly on this point. In fact, we know that Berkshire County Council revised its draft replacement plan twice as a direct result of public reaction to its proposals. It will be seen therefore that the whole structure plan process is geared to allowing opportunity for views to be expressed and properly considered in the decision process. The net effect of all this is that the process tends to be a very long one, but the Government take the view that public participation is an essential element of the process, and although the Government's proposals for changes to the development plan system would streamline the process they would retain full public involvement.

Coming back to the Berkshire proposals, all the objections and representations made to the Secretary of State about Berkshire County Council's submitted replacement plan were fully and carefully considered and in addition an examination in public was arranged to obtain further information about particular issues. The advantage of an examination in public is that it is not confined to experts arguing technical points against each other. The examination is conducted as an informal but thorough debate, and as well as county and district councils and developers a number of bodies representing groups of local residents were also invited and participated fully in the discussions before the panel. In addition, three honourable friends from another place addressed the panel.

One of the main issues discussed at the examination in public was about housing provision. This was debated for six out of the 11½ days on which the examination took place. The views of local residents were very clearly expressed in those discussions, and now, I need hardly say, the public consultation on the Secretary of State's proposed modifications is providing further evidence of public opinion in Berkshire on this subject.

I can assure the House that the Government are fully aware that many people in Berkshire are deeply concerned about the amount of development that has taken place in the county. Over the past few years there has been substantial correspondence with the department about those matters. There have been questions and debates in another place as well as deputations to several Ministers in addition to the specific representations made in the submitted replacement structure plan and the proposed modifications.

I am not sure if the Question of the noble Lord, Lord Stoddart, assumes that the views of Berkshire's residents and their elected representatives are unanimously in support of the county council's proposals and against the Secretary of State's proposals. The fact is that other views have been expressed as they were this evening by the noble Lord, Lord Stoddart. Some within the county would welcome additional development to meet particular local needs.

The house-building industry has argued very cogently for a much greater increase in the level of housing provision in the plan than the Secretary of State has actually proposed. In general it would like to continue at past average rates of building which, if he had agreed, would have required the Secretary of State to propose an increase of over 22,000 houses. The Secretary of State has not done that but the house-builders and others who sought more development had important points to make and those had to be given due consideration.

There seems in much that has been said both in this debate and in the reaction which the Government have received following publication of the Secretary of State's proposed modifications an assumption that because a substantial number of local people do not want something —in this case more housing development—that view should take precedence. The weight attached to any argument is dependent on the cogency rather than the frequency of the argument.

There are those who say the Secretary of State has not taken adequate account either of the impact of the additional housing on the environment of the county or of the problems which it is said will result in terms of increases in traffic and demands on essential services. What this boils down to is a genuine difference of view about the need for, and the likely consequences of, more development. The Secretary of State, before proposing his modifications, had to consider all the arguments and exercise his judgment. But the Secretary of State was not left entirely on his own to ponder those difficult problems.

I have already mentioned the examination in public. The report of the panel that held the examination very clearly identifies the conflicting arguments put to it about development in Berkshire. Indeed, the report contains a summary of all the discussions, and the Government reject any suggestion that the panel did not take full acount of the evidence put to it. Members of the panel not only had the benefit of reading all the evidence and hearing the arguments at first hand; they also toured the county extensively and tested for themselves the evidence about traffic and environmental impact. In other words, they did get out of their helicopter.

The fact of the matter is that they agreed with the county council that the rate of house building should be reduced. To the extent that the Secretary of State accepted that view, he has clearly given more weight to the arguments for a reduction in the rate of house building than to the arguments advanced for maintaining previous levels of development.

The issue now, in essence, is whether the decrease in the rate of house building implied in the proposed modifications is appropriate. I will not repeat here the arguments which led to the panel's recommendations. Those are set out in the report. However, in accepting those recommendations the Secretary of State, in his proposed modifications, is giving effect to the regional strategic guidance which he published in June 1986 in a letter to the noble Lord, Lord Sandford, in his position as chairman of the London and South-East Regional Planning Conference. Government policy no longer encourages major growth in Berkshire and, indeed, under the proposed modifications the rate of house building in the county should come down by 2,000 dwellings a year from past levels. This is a significant change in Berkshire from the position which resulted from past decisions taken by a right honourable friend in another place, who appears retrospectively to be resconsidering his policies—as the noble Lord, Lord Stoddart, brought to our attention. I hope he will approve of those changes, which reflect the Government's understanding of the problems of continuing high rates of growth in the county.

Concern has also been expressed about the effect of development allowed as a result of planning appeals. This represents a very small proportion of the housing development in Berkshire, and the Government have given an assurance that all such development will not be additional to whatever figures are set for the housing provision in the replacement structure plan.

I also want to give the House an assurance that the Government remain committed to preserving the green belt and areas of outstanding natural beauty, which between them account for almost 60 per cent of the total land area of Berkshire, as the noble Earl, Lord Shannon, pointed out. The Secretary of State has not sought to remove any of the county council's policies for the protection of the environment. Landscape and amenity considerations will continue to be an important factor in determining planning applications.

The Government's policies and expenditure programmes are already designed to promote development on urban and derelict land and their success is supported by the fact that nearly half of the land required for house building is now coming from sites in urban areas. But we must recognise that development pressures follow from economic and social demands which cannot simply be willed away. Much of the demand comes from people and businesses already in the areas concerned, and the problem remains that the potential for development in the inner cities, which the noble Lords, Lord Stoddart, Lord Graham and Lord McIntosh brought to your Lordships' attention, and through the use of urban land and the re-use of derelict land, will not meet all of the future housing and other development needs arising from the existing populations of counties in the South-East.

This is not a problem we can run away from. While we are pursuing policies to encourage growth elsewhere and to minimise the need for development which affects the countryside, sensible ways have to be found of accommodating the growth which is going to occur in the South-East. This is a matter on which the department is currently receiving much advice in the context of the replacement structure plan for Berkshire, and all the views expressed about the proposed modifications will, I can absolutely assure your Lordships, be taken fully into account.

What I cannot say now, and no Minister could say in advance of considering all the representations made, is that more weight will be given to one point of view than another. All the points made will be considered carefully and the decision will be taken after weighing all the facts and arguments and exercising judgment on them.

House adjourned at fourteen minutes before ten o'clock.