§ The Minister of State, Office of the Deputy Prime Minister (Lord Rooker)My right honourable friend the Minister for Housing and Planning has made the following Written Ministerial Statement.
On 29 March this year I announced the release of new statistics on the change in the amount of green belt in England between 1997 and 2003. This showed an increase of around 25,000 hectares in the amount of green belt identified in adopted local and unitary development plans.
It was subsequently pointed out to me that the published figures contained errors, notably a significant transcription error affecting Bolsover's figure for 2003 and minor errors for three other authorities. Correcting for these errors meant that the correct figure for the increase in green belt in England between 1997 and 2003 should have been around 19,000 hectares and not the 25,000 figure published in March.
I apologised to the House for these errors during the town planning debate on 26 May and said that I had publicised the 19,000 hectares figure in my reply on 10 May to a Parliamentary Question from the honourable Member for Lewes (Norman Baker).
However, I assured the House during the town planning debate that further work was being carried out on checking the figures to ensure that they are robust. This involved an independent internal audit of how the statistics were compiled and confirmation by local authorities that the change recorded for their areas was correct.
I am pleased to tell the House that the internal audit did not find any further errors and that only minor revisions have been made as a consequence of consulting with local authorities. The statistical release with the corrected figures has been reissued today and copies are available in the Libraries of both Houses. The reissued statistics confirm the earlier estimate of a net increase of around 19,000 hectares in the extent of green belt in England between 1997 and 2003.
I apologise to the House for the errors in the first place and for the length of time it has taken to reissue the correct statistics.