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Address in Reply to Her Majesty's Most Gracious Speech

My Lords, first, I welcome the emphasis of the noble Baroness, Lady Andrews, on the importance of sustainable communities in rural areas. I wish to raise one subject that I believe is a constraint on the achievement of sustainable communities, and that is the too strict application of green belt regulations. I speak as a resident of Hertfordshire and declare an interest as a landowner within the metropolitan green belt. The metropolitan green belt around London was established in 1955. Its main objective, as stated in planning policy guidance PPG2, is to prevent urban sprawl by keeping land permanently open. Subsidiary objectives, as stated in paragraph 1.5 of PPG2, include checking unrestricted urban sprawl, preventing neighbouring towns from merging into one another and preserving the setting and special character of historic towns. It is, indeed, hard to quarrel with any of those objectives. Over the years since 1955 they have been successfully achieved but not without some negative consequences. The most obvious of these is the shortage of housing supply that has been created and which has been a major contributory factor in the huge rise in house prices in recent years. The other major and related negative consequence has been the effect on villages and hamlets within the green belt which often have ceased to be sustainable communities. Their natural evolution over the centuries has been stopped in its tracks. In the absence of affordable housing, families who have lived in the area for generations can no longer live there and, as the noble Baroness, Lady Byford, noted, amenities are closed down. The village shop and post office disappear and the doctor's surgery moves away: the village becomes a commuter dormitory. The main defect in green belt policy is its blanket designation. Paragraph 1.7 of PPG states: "The quality of the landscape is not relevant to the inclusion of land within the green belt". That completely ignores the fact that landscapes and village settings vary enormously. In reality there are numerous areas within the green belt where, as the noble Baroness, Lady Scott, suggested, sympathetic and modest quality development, in character with its surroundings, would have no negative impact on the basic principles of green belt policy and could have the benefit of allowing the natural evolution of villages and hamlets to continue. The fact is that the visual quality of the landscape most definitely should be relevant to the inclusion of land within the green belt. I hope that the Government will rethink their intransigence on that point. To assist them in that task, I suggest one possible method of introducing a degree of flexibility. The concept of white land in PPG2 could be broadened and made practical use of. Paragraph 2.12 of PPG2 allows for what it calls "safeguarded land" or "white land". Local authorities are expected to identify land that, "may be required to meet longer-term development needs and should therefore be excluded from the green belt". It seems to me that the definition could easily be broadened to allow for the identification of specific sites within the green belt where modest and appropriate development that in no way affects the basic principles of the green belt could be permitted at the discretion of the local planning authority. It would be a local planning authority obligation to consider applications for white land status as part of the local development plan review process. It would be up to local landowners and parish councils to submit applications to the local planning authority for the re-designation of specific sites within the green belt as white land. If accepted in principle, such sites would be included in the local development plan, and subsequent planning applications affecting them would be considered on their merits. That would give local authorities the ability to provide affordable housing where necessary, and it would permit the continued natural evolution of sustainable rural communities. I strongly believe in the objectives of the green belt, but I also believe that their blanket application has been, and continues to be, too extreme. I do not think that the suggestions that I have made would in any way undermine the basic principles. I hope that the Government will give serious consideration to the issue. I put in a word for the much-maligned motorist. While I deplore, like everyone else, the number of fatalities on the road, the figure is low in the context of the massive volume of motor traffic. Driving in London, with the experience of fairground bumper cars, I am always amazed that there are not more accidents. The standard of driving in this country is on the whole very high. The same can no longer be said of the roads. Successive governments have focused on public transport, for example pouring millions in to the railways, to the extent that ticket prices have become prohibitively expensive. They have neglected expenditure on the roads, with the result that the major roads are clogged and traffic is driven to rat runs through country lanes. The time has come for some serious investment in the roads. Instead, it seems we are getting the Road Safety Bill, which will put more burdens on the motorist. In Hertfordshire, we have long been promised a widening of the A1 motorway, and there is a particular lack of a good east-west major highway. Perhaps creating an outer northern M25 would do the trick. The plea for better roads is not to denigrate the needs of public transport, although when I meet a huge bus in a country lane with one or two people on it I wonder why smaller buses cannot be used on such routes through the countryside. I recognise that the Government have a huge programme ahead and that it is impossible to please everyone. My pleas are that they give serious consideration to introducing a little flexibility into green belt policy in the long-term interests of sustainable rural communities and that, in their efforts to improve public transport, they do not forget the need for investment in the nation's roads.