Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what steps his Department is taking to protect the highest quality agricultural land from development pressures.

This Government places great importance on the value of our agricultural land. The National Planning Policy Framework sets out how the best and most versatile agricultural land should be reflected in planning policies and decisions. The Framework is clear that where significant development of agricultural land is demonstrated to be necessary, areas of poorer quality land should be preferred to those of a higher quality. How this is applied is a matter for local planning authorities in the first instance, through their plans and decisions

England has limited land with growing demands being made of it – building 1.5 million homes, constructing energy infrastructure, growing food and protecting nature. The Government has published a 12-week consultation on land use. The consultation will inform the publication of a Land Use Framework, planned for later in the year.