Oral Answers to Questions

Elizabeth Truss Excerpts

Monday 31st October 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Pickles]

I welcome the hon. Lady to her new position. I hope all her questions are as feisty as that one.

The Labour party simply has to stop clinging to the comfort blanket of the idea that it somehow left a golden economic legacy. It did not. It is impossible for Labour to defend local government and at the same time say that all it would do is put up sheds for Spudulike and Carphone Warehouse. Local authorities are responsible, and they will use the new initiative to work together and bring about growth, unlike the regional development agencies, which by and large were not a good thing.

[Elizabeth Truss (South West Norfolk) (Con)]

7. What recent assessment he has made of the level of protection afforded to high-value agricultural land in his proposed planning reforms.

[The Minister of State, Department for Communities and Local Government (Greg Clark)]

The draft national planning policy framework contains strong protections to safeguard high-value agricultural land and recognises the importance of food production. We are now carefully considering the responses to the consultation.

[Elizabeth Truss]

Food and farming are vital to tourism and exports in Norfolk, and its produce is very high quality, as the Secretary of State found out when he visited the Norfolk food festival in Parliament earlier this month. Does the Minister agree that the planning framework should take into account the long-term value of agriculture, as once farmland is lost it is very hard to get back?

[Greg Clark]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right—and when I was talking to the Secretary of State earlier, he extolled the virtues of the pies available at the Norfolk food festival. We must take into account the long-term value of food security as well as the short and medium-term economic benefits of food production.