Thank you, Sir Gary. It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship. I am grateful to all colleagues for attending today, and I thank and congratulate the hon. Member for Coventry North West (Taiwo Owatemi) on securing this debate. In this my first debate as housing and planning Minister, it is good to get into the important issues that hon. Members have raised. I am sure that they will be brought back regularly throughout my time in post.
A significant number of different issues, both specific and broad, has been raised about the green belt. I will try to answer and address as many of them as I can in the time available. There are two things that mean that I will be unable to answer some questions or to directly address some specific points. First, as hon. Members are aware, due to the quasi-judicial nature of the planning system I am unable to comment on large aspects of individual local plans and specific planning applications, given that they could be called in and dealt with at ministerial level. I apologise to hon. Members for being unable to do so, but I hope they will understand the rationale behind it. Secondly, as a number of hon. Members have indicated, there is a set of questions that are open at this time, and that is because we have a new Government—a new Administration, Prime Minister and Secretary of State. We hope and aim to close and clarify many of those questions as soon as possible, but I hope hon. Members will understand that I am not able to do so in this debate.
With those points in mind, and before turning to the individual comments of hon. Members, I will restate the Government’s clear position that the green belt is a hugely important part of our planning system. For many decades, this much loved and historical feature has protected our landscape. The national planning policy framework makes clear that the green belt has a specific purpose, that it should be released only in exceptional circumstances, as has been clear for a number of years, and that, where possible, local authorities should take into account other ways in which development can take place before looking at green belt, including a requirement to consider brownfield development.