Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:

To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what recent discussions he has had with developers to encourage building on brownfield sites.

This government has made its support for the re-use of brownfield sites abundantly clear. Our National Planning Policy Framework, re-issued February 2019, expects local authorities to give substantial weight to the re-use of suitable brownfield land. To assist redevelopment the government offers loans for site preparation and infrastructure, and tax relief for land remediation; and we introduced Permission in Principle to speed housing-led development on sites included in the registers of brownfield land which every local authority in England now produces. Published information suggests that that across England there are over 28,000 hectares of brownfield land suitable for housing. Green Belt land is only released for development in exceptional circumstances, and once all other options have been exhausted

While the Secretary of State has not held recent discussions with developers about specific policies related to brownfield land, we are continuing to emphasise the priority we attach to using brownfield sites.