Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Tristram Hunt and Mark Prisk

Monday 17th December 2012 Commons Chamber

[Tristram Hunt (Stoke-on-Trent Central) (Lab)]

15. What estimate he has made of the amount of open land required for house building in the next 20 years; and if he will make a statement.

[The Minister for Housing (Mr Mark Prisk)]

This Government do not set top-down Whitehall housing targets. It is for elected local councils to determine, through their local plans, where development should and should not go and how best to meet housing need,.

[Tristram Hunt]

The Labour party in government believed in effective levels of urban density and city centre development. Rather than abusing the National Trust and other big-society opponents of sprawl as Luddites, why do not Ministers end their assault on the English countryside, start working with developers to ensure that the 400,000 homes with planning permission are actually built, and end the homelessness crisis now?

[Mr Prisk]

I understand that the hon. Gentleman is a historian, and he should know from the previous Government’s record that at that time we saw the lowest rate of house building since the 1920s. It is important to get the affordable homes built, sometimes making sure that we use empty homes and sometimes that we build on brownfield—and yes, we will occasionally want to make sure that greenfield land is used where that is appropriate.