Written Parliamentary Questions
The hon. Lady has got off very lightly, since it seems that nobody wishes to ask her a question on that.
Showing every spoken contribution, including 5,578 under 12 words. Hide short remarks
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International Climate Finance
We come to the second Select Committee statement, on behalf of the International Development Committee. Sarah Champion will speak for up to 10 minutes, during which there will be no interventions. At the conclusion of her statement, Members may ask questions on the subject of the statement.
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International Climate Finance
I thank both Select Committee Chairs for their statements.
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Baby Loss Awareness Week
Order. Members will know that there is protected time, so we have until 11.02 pm, but it would be helpful if they could keep their remarks to seven or eight minutes.
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Topical Questions
My constituents are facing extremely large delays in getting a response from the DWP. One of my constituents has now been waiting for two months for a response with regard to his <span id="21" class="column-number" data-column-number="21"></span>dispute with the Child Maintenance Service, despite receiving a final letter before action. Another constituent has been waiting for four months for a response to his PIP review claim. Why are we seeing such long delays, what is the Minister doing to resolve them, and why have my constituents not had a response in months?
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International Update
On 28 September, Javier Milei initiated annex VII arbitration proceedings against the United Kingdom in relation to halting activities at the Sea Lion oilfield. That deadline expired yesterday, and I assume that we have not complied. The Government have already said that they would robustly defend the Falkland Islands against this, which is great. Javier Milei will now initiate proceedings under the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea. I agree that we should push back against this. However, last May, the former Defence Secretary, the right hon. Member for Rawmarsh and Conisbrough (John Healey), said from the Dispatch Box that the “most proximate, and the most potentially serious” legal challenge facing us about the Chagos islands was “the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea.”<span id="vol767_col1291" class="cross-reference" data-house-id="1" data-column-number="1291" data-volume-number="767" data-external-id="494BFE3F-79EA-4601-A50A-1C97D80628A1">—[<em>Official Report</em>, 22 May 2025; Vol. 767, c. 1291.]</span> Why are we prepared to defend the Falkland Islands against ITLOS, but not the Chagos islands?
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National Security
RAF Molesworth is in my constituency, and the break-in last week has caused concern locally, it being next to a very small village. People are rightly concerned that the base is vulnerable, whether this was criminal activity or a foreign actor intervening. We have three bases in my constituency, two for US visiting forces, and one UK base. Two of them are among the most strategically sensitive sites in western Europe, and we have a small and quite underfunded police force. I appreciate that the situation is complicated, because it mixes Cambridgeshire constabulary, Ministry of Defence police, Counter Terrorism Policing and US visiting forces. I went out with Ministry of Defence police the other day on Project Servator, which acts as a deterrent locally, but it was not something that I had heard of, and it certainly is not something that local people are aware of. There is a real opportunity for briefings or encouragement in areas like mine, to make people more vigilant about this type of activity and the vulnerability of those military bases.
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Topical Questions
<Question HRSContentId="{7AF706FD-B4B0-4B97-9F38-2A30E71AE1F1}">T6. <QuestionText HRSContentId="{4DAB8FC1-4678-48DD-B4D3-042155DDBBAB}"></QuestionText>I recently met Lesley and her adult daughter Alice, who has profound disabilities and requires two carers around the clock. Lesley loves caring for her daughter, but she is finding it increasingly difficult to recruit skilled carers, leaving her filling exhausting gaps and unable to earn a living. What is the Minister doing to ensure that families like Lesley’s receive the support that they desperately need?</Question>
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International Update
In recent weeks, we have seen once again that Iran poses a grave threat to the British people and our allies. Our intelligence relationships are our first line of defence, and Israel is among our most valuable partners in countering that threat. Given the fallout from his decision to sanction Israeli settlements and the deteriorating relationship that has followed, will the Prime Minister give the House a clear assurance today that intelligence co-operation with Israel is continuing in full—or is he putting at risk the safety and security of the British people?
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International Update
The so-called energy ceasefire is a farce. All but one of Ukraine’s oil refineries has already been destroyed. It is about protecting Russia’s oil refineries while Russia bombs Ukraine’s power grid into obliteration and it results in a health disaster. Will the Prime Minister commit to sending large-scale generators to Ukraine now, and will he stand by our Saudi allies at the UN Security Council and under chapter VII designate the Houthis as a terrorist organisation—yes or no?
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Baby Loss Awareness Week
We hear quite often when women have high-risk pregnancies, “Don’t worry, contingency care is there.” I had placenta accreta last year, which is one of the few pregnancy conditions that still kill women in birth. I remember turning up for scans, having been told there was an 11% chance that I might die on the day I gave birth, and the high-risk team saying, “So it’s just a normal pregnancy, right? Everything’s going really great. We will get this done really quickly, find out how things are.” That is the lack of care taken with women who are carrying everything that matters at that time. Many people say, “Don’t worry, high-risk is fine. It is dealt with really well; it is only standard pregnancies” but I want to stress the point that there is still a comprehensive issue.
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Baby Loss Awareness Week
I want to unite those points by drawing again on personal experience. My son reacted badly to being induced, and his heart rate stopped. We were rushed to the emergency room: “We have to get him out! We have to get him out!” Just before they cut, somebody screamed, “Stop! His heart rate has gone back to normal. He’s fine. You don’t need a C-section.” Stood at the end of the bed were an obstetrician and a midwife, and the midwife said, “Great, you don’t need a C-section any more.” The surgeon said, “Yes, she does. She needs to have it now. She needs to have it.” They said to me, “You need to decide.” They refused to come to an agreement about what was safer for my baby, and they said that I had to make that decision. That is exactly the problem, and my right hon. Friend is so brave to make the point, because he will come under criticism for saying that there is such a thing as an obsession with natural birth. A safe birth is the best birth, and I am thankful to him for his bravery in making that point tonight.
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Baby Loss Awareness Week
I thank the hon. Members who secured this debate, and all the families who have, in their darkest moments, raised their voices so that we can support them and, it is to be hoped, prevent future tragedies. I welcome the Health Secretary’s promise to publish a national action plan, and I want to focus on a few issues that I hope will be reflected in it. The first follows on from the comments of my right hon. Friend the Member for Godalming and Ash (Sir Jeremy Hunt). We must stop pushing women towards a normal birth. When my friends tell me that they are pregnant, I say to them, “You need to have the confidence to challenge the NHS.” We are taught to say, “Thank you; of course, whatever you say.” This is the one time in life when we should say, “Why? Stop. What are the other options? I want a different opinion. I need some time.” We must teach women to listen to their body, and to trust what it says.<span id="116" class="column-number" data-column-number="116"></span> We cannot say there is no obsession with normal births. When I was pregnant with my second, the hospital forced me to go on a one-hour online course, to convince me to have a vaginal birth, though I had an emergency C-section previously. At the end of the course, the hospital asked all of us on it, “Which of you are now ready to accept that you should go for vaginal birth?”. All the women said that they were, apart from me. The hospital said, “Why won’t you say yes?”. I said, “Well, on slide 20-something, you said that it was x% safer for me and my baby to have a second C-section, so that’s what I want.” They said, “It does say that, but let’s go for a natural birth. You can do it!” This is an obsession, and we have to challenge it.
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Baby Loss Awareness Week
I am afraid that I will be drawing on a lot of personal experiences, but I scrapped at least nine further examples. I absolutely agree with the hon. Gentleman. The next thing I want to impress on the Health Secretary is that it should be mandatary to teach cardiopulmonary resuscitation, or CPR, for babies before they are discharged, particularly if they have been in a neonatal intensive care unit. During most pregnancies, we study what to do if our baby needs CPR, but we all know, even if we have had a baby before, the difference between the pregnancy course and how things are once we have held that baby in our arms. It is so different. I praise Addenbrooke’s hospital, because it forced my husband to do a CPR course before I was discharged, as my daughter had to go into NICU for a brief period. When we came home, only about two weeks after she had been born, and when she finally reached her due date, she suddenly stopped breathing. It happened out of nowhere. We were sitting in bed. I remember screaming for my husband, and I think of the poor person on the phone when we dialled 999. I am normally quite good in an emergency, but not then. I lost the plot. I was screaming down the phone, “My baby’s dying! My baby’s dying! You have to save her.” Because my husband had done that CPR course, he was able to save this tiny baby’s life; it took them too long to get an ambulance to us. Her temperature had fallen below 34°C by the time the ambulance arrived. He saved her life at a time when I could not. I was not in a place where I could save my baby. Yet we let people go home from hospital without being retaught CPR, once they know what it is to hold a baby. I genuinely believe that it would save so many lives if we did what Addenbrooke’s did and forced people to spend 20 minutes doing a CPR course before they went home. The next issue I will touch on is maternal death, because as my right hon. Friend the Member for Godalming and Ash said, the numbers are rising. The leading direct <span id="117" class="column-number" data-column-number="117"></span>cause of maternal death in this country is blood clots, but no friend who is pregnant or has gone through a pregnancy will say that that is the No. 1 cause. Instead, they will talk about diabetes, bleeding out during birth and all sorts of other things. I have gone back and looked through all three of my NHS trust books—I kept mine, although people are not meant to keep them after birth, because the NHS does not like them having all that evidence that they could use if there were ever an issue—and there is nothing about blood clots. NHS staff do not provide education about blood clots to women when they are pregnant, yet they are the No. 1 cause of maternal death. The Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists is responsible for guidance, which is meant to be republished every few years, on how to prevent, diagnose and treat blood clots, but it has not updated that guidance since 2015. That means midwives and obstetricians have had no updated guidelines on how to handle the most common cause of death in women in pregnancy and after birth. Reviews were missed in 2018, 2021 and 2024. I have started to fight with the college to get it to do something about this, but even now, it says that it will not get updated guidance out until at least 2027. How many more women will die before then? I have met representatives from Thrombosis UK, and there would be no negative outcome from giving all women anticoagulants throughout their pregnancy; it poses no risk to them. Unfortunately, last year, I was one of the people affected by this. I have had a real few years of it. I went to the doctor and said, “There is something wrong me with me. My only symptom is a slight catch in my chest.” I was not grabbing my chest and screaming, like everyone else does. I was dismissed, sent home, and told that there was nothing wrong with me. A lady wrote to me and said that she went to the doctor three times, worried about blood clots. She knew there was something not right in her leg, but each time, she was told she just needed to do some yoga and get moving. On the fourth time, the blood clots were finally diagnosed. In my case, I went back to the doctor and said, “There is something really wrong.” Luckily, the doctor did a D-dimer test, and then rang me to say that I needed to go to Addenbrooke’s immediately. The doctors found five clots that had passed through my heart and into my lungs. I was lucky to be alive. Addenbrooke’s said that I clearly had an exceptional doctor. I am so grateful to Dr Laura Stephens for saving my life. The average woman has no idea that blood clots are the No. 1 maternal killer. Some 25% of those deaths happen in the first 12 weeks of pregnancy, during which women probably do not go to the doctor, because they have done a pregnancy test and know that they are pregnant. The Department of Health and Social Care needs to do a mass awareness campaign. GPs need to be aware of the risks, and obstetricians and midwives need to be taught about not just “normal” birth, but all births. Tomorrow is World Thrombosis Day. I am calling for maternal blood clot prevention to be a priority in the new national strategy, because we can prevent them; almost all deaths of women from blood clots could have been prevented. It may seem odd, but I briefly want to talk about a real cruelty that has been inflicted on mothers. The former Prime Minister apologised for the horrendous <span id="118" class="column-number" data-column-number="118"></span>forced adoption scandal that took place in this country, but some babies never left those mother-and-baby homes. ITV found that 200 infants from eight homes were buried in mass plots in 10 cemeteries across the UK. As part of this work, will the Health Secretary ensure that the Government force local authorities, churches and charities to open up their records? The mums who were forced into those cruel mother-and-baby centres, and then lost their baby or had a stillbirth, do not know to this day where their baby is buried, and the graves are unmarked.
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Baby Loss Awareness Week
I thank the hon. Gentleman. Our little ones must be very close in age; I hope that his is doing very well. The Prime Minister said, “We are sorry,” but opening up the records would show that we meant it. It would release those mothers from the shame that was forced on them, and allow them to finally find their baby, name them, and lay them to rest. Often in this place, we talk about what should be done, or what we could do, so I will end very briefly on a positive note. We cannot undo a family’s heartache, or the loss that they will carry for all their lives, but what drives most of us to come here is a determination to stop the same thing happening to someone else. I made that promise to my best friend in 2022, when she lost her baby Siena at nine months. I took my promise and secured £1.8 million in funding from the then Conservative Health Secretary to roll out a new technology designed to reduce stillbirths and premature births. The Tommy’s app—or Siena app—is a clinical decision support tool that accurately assesses women’s chance of having a premature birth, or developing complications with the placenta that can lead to stillbirth, and it is proven that it is saving lives. The trial began in 2024 and is running in 26 NHS maternity units, involving 39,000 women a year. My request to the Health Secretary is to roll out the app across every single hospital. We have proven that it works. It essentially gives midwives an artificial intelligence equivalent. It gives them all the information that they may not know or understand about someone because they come from a different heritage, have a different background or have a complicated medical history. This tool can save lives, and can save more families from the heartache that too many suffer. We must do better. We are failing women on too many accounts. Almost all of us in this room can probably share a trauma, or a time when something went wrong in the NHS because we were not listened to, and we <span id="119" class="column-number" data-column-number="119"></span>must do more. I thank everyone for their frankness, and for sharing their stories this evening, and I thank the Health Secretary for agreeing to meet me in a few days; I am really grateful.
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Baby Loss Awareness Week
When the Secretary of State meets her officials and has this discussion, I urge her to cite what happened during the pandemic. Despite the fact that it was medically illogical, what did middle managers do in NHS hospitals? They said that women who were coming to give birth or to miscarry had to do so without their partners. People told me, “This is a nonsense, Alicia. Stop saying that women are being treated badly by the NHS. Women have given birth for thousands of years.” Women were mistreated during the pandemic and we were shown the maternity sidecar, exactly as the Secretary of State said. I say to anyone who stands in her way on this issue that she is absolutely right. We have the evidence of the last few years, and I urge her to use it.
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Drumcree
I thank the Secretary of State for advance sight of his statement and for his call over the weekend. I do not envy him the position in which he has been placed in these past few weeks. The scenes that we have witnessed on the streets of Drumcree are all too reminiscent of previous times—times that we had all hoped were past, and times that we must still hope are past. The willingness of communities nearly 30 years ago to submit to independent adjudication processes was one of the pillars of the peace. It is consequently at best irresponsible and at worst dangerous for people to ignore those processes when they do not go their way. Further, it is inexcusable for anyone, but particularly politicians, to decide that they will only obey the law when it suits them. That is the road to a very dark place. As the Secretary of State has set out, the planned march was legal, subject to the detailed restrictions placed upon it by the Parades Commission. It follows that under section 14 of the Public Processions (Northern Ireland) Act 1998, those who prevented this lawful march would seem to have broken the law. The stand-off that they caused ultimately led to Chief Constable Boutcher asking the Secretary of State to review the Parades Commission’s determination and stop the march.<span id="82" class="column-number" data-column-number="82"></span> The Chief Constable said that facilitating it would have “required a substantial public order intervention that was not assessed to be proportionate, and which would have carried an unacceptable risk of serious injury, disorder and a wider contagion effect across Northern Ireland.” I hope that the Secretary of State can be clear with the House about what is behind this statement and what the nature of that risk was. Was the Secretary of State at any stage made aware of a possibility of terrorism? Was he at any stage made aware that firearms or explosives were likely to be deployed? I very much hope he was not, but the House should know. I know that the Secretary of State was placed in a desperately invidious position, but the consequence of the march not going ahead is that those who have broken the law have won. The consequence is that those who threaten the “serious injury, disorder and wider contagion”, of which the Chief Constable warned, have won. Unless remedy is made, the message being sent to Northern Ireland is that people can pick and choose which laws they obey, and that those who threaten violence and disorder will get their way. I know that that is not what the Secretary of State wants, but he needs to tell the House what he intends to do to prevent that terrible message being the legacy of these past few weeks. I know that it is not for him to determine how the police exercise their duties following this incident, but I hope he can tell the House how the Government now intend to prevent the law from being openly flouted again and again and again.
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Onley Park Estate: Water Main
<Question HRSContentId="{463B0240-DCB0-4EC4-B5CE-0E80C3C7E03D}">3. <QuestionText HRSContentId="{FDB653A3-08BB-4254-AB32-085309CC1AE7}">What progress his Department has made on replacing the water main serving the Onley Park estate.</QuestionText> </Question>
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Onley Park Estate: Water Main
The Minister will know that Onley Park is still owned by the Ministry of Justice. Although I welcome the funding, these residents have been waiting years, and frankly they are really worried—we have still not got a start date or clarity around backdated bills, and the situation is affecting house sales now. Will the Minister meet me and representatives of the parish council, so that we can provide some clarity and a resolution for the residents of Onley Park?
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Civil Service Pension Scheme
I will share with the House one particular case that is representative of many. My constituent, Mrs Gillian Pothecary, lost her husband almost a year ago. She wrote to me in July about her valiant but so far unavailing quest to obtain a civil service widow’s pension. She wrote: “Throughout this process, I have been given differing information about the status of my claim…More recently, I was told that I was at the top of the list for assessment, only to then be informed that some of my paperwork had become out of date and needed to be resubmitted, causing further delay.” I was very impressed to get a reply, when I forwarded this on, from someone holding the exalted position of deputy director of civil service and Royal Mail pensions in the Cabinet Office. She said: “Mrs Pothecary’s…case falls under the commitment to be fully resolved by early September at the absolute latest. Capita has assured me that her case is on their escalation log and has been flagged for priority handling.” I rang up Gill just before coming into this debate and—you’ve guessed it, Dame Siobhain—she has not yet received her pension. She is now dipping into her savings and working longer hours at the supermarket.
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Tourism: Overnight Visitor Levy
If the New Forest and the Waterside were forced into a unitary authority dominated by Southampton and Eastleigh, <span id="1591" class="column-number" data-column-number="1591"></span>what chance would there be of local authorities looking after the interests of rural areas?
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Saudi East-West Oil Pipeline
As the Minister seems to have run out of supportive Back Benchers, I shall endeavour to ask him a helpful and easy question. Accepting that it will be some years, to put it mildly, before we can eliminate our dependency on oil and gas, does he accept in principle that we are more secure if we exploit our own domestic oil and gas resources, rather than relying on imports from the middle east, which can so easily be blocked?
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Grey Belt Land: Definition and Application
I beg to move, That this House has considered the definition and application of grey belt land. It is a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Dame Siobhain, and to have the opportunity to introduce this debate on the definition of grey-belt land. Shortly after their election, the Government introduced a new concept to planning and development: grey-belt land. This would be a subset of land currently designated as green belt that the Government considered less worthy of protection than the rest of the green belt, on which they wanted to make development easier. I asked for this debate because it is important that we understand the significance of this new concept. Specifically—I know the Minister will do his best to help with all these items—I am interested in understanding, first, how different grey-belt designation seems from what the Government originally said it would be; secondly, its likely impact on our countryside; and thirdly, how it combines with other changes the Government are making to the balance of development in rural and urban areas. Let us start with the difference between what the Government originally suggested grey belt would be and their definition published in the “National Planning Policy Framework” document. In July 2024, the right hon. Member for Ashton-under-Lyne (Angela Rayner), in her first incarnation as Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, told the House that the Government’s intention was to “release lower-quality grey-belt sites, disused car parks and garages, and ugly wasteland”.<span id="vol752_col315" class="cross-reference" data-house-id="1" data-column-number="315" data-volume-number="752" data-external-id="27562FA7-9489-47F8-9145-B5118E54C98A">—[<em>Official Report</em>, 19 July 2024; Vol. 752, c. 315.]</span> She also said: “The land we are talking about—grey belt, which we define in the NPPF consultation—is not agricultural land; it is disused garages and things of that nature”.<span id="vol752_col1196" class="cross-reference" data-house-id="1" data-column-number="1196" data-volume-number="752" data-external-id="B97FEBA7-93BE-4133-8CAD-259B6405C128">—[<em>Official Report</em>, 30 July 2024; Vol. 752, c. 1196.]</span> However, when the actual definition of grey-belt land appeared in the NPPF of December 2024, the concept was considerably wider. Grey belt is now defined as land in the green belt that does not strongly contribute to three of the five purposes of the green belt that were included in the previous definition of green-belt land. Those three purposes are to check the unrestricted sprawl of large built-up are, to prevent neighbouring towns merging into one another, and to preserve the setting and special character of historic towns. In other words, to remain as green belt and not be reclassified as grey belt, land must need protecting in order to prevent urban sprawl or to stop urban areas merging, or be near enough to a historic town to affect its setting or character. Even a moderate contribution to those objectives will not be enough; to save the land from grey-belt status, it must contribute “strongly”. The remaining two purposes of green-belt designation are no longer considered important enough to preserve green belt from becoming grey belt. Namely, they are assisting in safeguarding the countryside from <span id="539WH" class="column-number" data-column-number="539WH"></span>encroachment, or assisting urban regeneration, by encouraging the recycling of derelict and other urban land. We can draw two conclusions from all this about what is actually green belt and what is grey belt. First, quite a lot of what is now green belt will probably end up redesignated as grey belt, because the Government have set the bar quite high to retain green-belt status. Only a strong contribution to the three remaining effective green belt purposes will do. I am not the only one who thinks that much of the green belt could end up as grey belt. Recent analysis from “Channel 4 News” suggested that 96% of the green belt around Guildford could be grey belt, along with 92% of the green belt around Stoke-on-Trent and 80% of the green belt around Solihull. My second conclusion is that land that continues to qualify as green belt as opposed to grey belt will largely be on the edge of urban settlements. That is because the grey belt is, in effect, all green-belt land that does not strongly contribute to the three green belt purposes that only apply very near to urban settlements. It follows that land in open countryside currently in the green belt will be less able to meet one of those three purposes, and is therefore more likely to be redesignated as grey-belt land. Much of that is agricultural land, which the Secretary of State said the green belt would not be. The Secretary of State also told the House in a written statement on 30 July 2024 that much of the green belt is: “better described as ‘grey belt’: land on the edge of existing settlements or roads, and with little aesthetic or environmental value.” Given the actual definition of grey belt that the Government have decided on, the opposite is surely true. By their definition, the land on the edge of existing settlements or roads is in fact more likely to be green belt, and land further from existing settlements is more likely to be grey belt. Why does any of this matter? It matters because grey-belt designation is intended to facilitate more development—that is the point. The Government are trying to release more land that is currently called green belt for housing and other things, so it matters what land the Government are actually making it easier to develop with grey-belt designation. The reality is that the land that the Government are making it easier to develop is not disused car parks and garages or ugly wasteland; it is agricultural land and open countryside. We can see an indication of that in the decisions of planning inspectors in cases where developers have argued for grey-belt status. The Campaign to Protect Rural England has examined cases in the year following the first definition of grey-belt land in the NPPF of December 2024. In that period, planning inspectors approved 13 developments of 10 or more houses on green-belt land, which they believed should be reclassified as grey belt in accordance with the Government’s definition. Of the 1,250 homes those schemes deliver, nearly 90% are in previously undeveloped countryside, not on wasteland or former car parks. I appreciate that the Minister may say that grey-belt designation is not enough on its own to allow development; other criteria must also be met. That is so, but it is <span id="540WH" class="column-number" data-column-number="540WH"></span>worth examining those other criteria. First, development on green-belt land must also meet an unmet need, but with many councils unable to demonstrate a five-year land supply—often, it has to be said, due to recent increases in Government housing targets, to which I may return—I suspect that, routinely, that unmet need will be easy to demonstrate. Secondly, the development must be in a sustainable location, but sustainability is an elusive concept. If I am right that most grey-belt land will be in countryside away from urban settlements, then transport infrastructure, health and education provision and even mains gas and sewerage may well be less plentiful. Therefore, we have to ask if many of the grey-belt locations will really be sustainable. Presumably, the Government must believe so, or grey-belt designation is not going to move the needle on housing provision. Perhaps the Minister expects to see considerable infrastructure upgrades to rural grey-belt locations, but that will be expensive and will affect the viability and deliverability of the housing developments that the Government may be relying on. Then housing developments in grey-belt locations must provide more social housing than elsewhere—perhaps 50% of the total. Whatever the merits or viability of that, social houses will have the same impact on the openness of the green belt and our countryside as any other kind. Finally, the Minister may remind us that, according to the NPPF, a development on grey-belt land may only take place if it “would not fundamentally undermine the purposes (taken together) of the remaining Green Belt across the area of the plan”. I accept that, theoretically at least. That brings back into consideration both the encroachment of the countryside and urban regeneration. Again, it is worth exploring how valuable and usable that safeguard is likely to be, and it seems it will be challenging to argue. The plan area for most of my constituency is south Warwickshire. It would be difficult to claim that building on a single grey-belt site would fundamentally undermine the green belt in half the county, unless the cumulative effect of many grey-belt developments could be considered in measuring the fundamental undermining of the green belt. Would the Minister clarify whether the cumulative impact of other sites, in conjunction with the sites subject to individual consideration, will be relevant in that exercise? If not, why not? I turn to the broader impact of the grey belt on the countryside. As I said earlier, it appears to me that grey-belt land as the Government have defined it will increasingly be agricultural land and other land in the countryside, which will be easier as a result to turn into housing estates, warehouses or solar farms, for example. The protection for our countryside that green-belt status has thus far offered will be substantially eroded, and for constituencies with large amounts of green belt, that could be very significant. My constituency is roughly 30% green belt, and others are substantially more. The residual green belt will be areas on the fringes of towns and cities but, to be clear, not around our villages, which are specifically excluded from the definition of an urban area in the NPPF. That might seem uncontroversial—logical even—but it has a practical effect in the context of the debate. That is because the difference between small towns and large <span id="541WH" class="column-number" data-column-number="541WH"></span>villages is becoming increasingly academic. In my constituency, for example, the town of Southam had a population in 2024 of around 9,200, and the village of Wellesbourne had a population of around 7,600. Under the Government’s definition, small towns in the green belt can defend themselves from grey-belt designation, but large villages in the green belt cannot. Grey-belt designation means more pressure from development on villages and rural areas, more pressure on rural roads and schools, and more of our countryside lost to bricks and concrete on top of the huge housing developments already in and around villages in constituencies like mine. It is hard to believe that that impact is accidental, because it has to be seen in the context of other changes the Government have made. Making it easier to build houses in the countryside goes hand in hand with revised housing targets from the Government that are higher in rural areas and lower in urban areas. My constituency, again, is a good example. Most of it falls within Warwick district and Stratford district, and just across the border is the city of Coventry. The Government have reduced Coventry’s housing target by 50%. The target for Warwick district, which is mostly green belt, has gone up by 65%. Stratford district’s new target is 99% higher. That is not accidental; it is a deliberate plan to transfer housing pressure from urban to rural areas. It is no surprise, then, that the Government do not want the green-belt purposes of safeguarding the countryside from encroachment and assisting urban regeneration to stand in the way of grey-belt designation and easier development. However, my constituents and those of other Members present have seen considerable housing development around them already, and now they face even more, while predominantly Labour councils, it has to be said, in urban areas are not asked to find housing land within their own borders—land that would largely be brownfield sites. That is not just bad news for our countryside; it is bad news for our cities, too, as they will not get the new housing, particularly for first-time buyers and young families, that would help to revitalise the economy of places like Coventry. It seems to me that the Government have described the green belt as one thing and then defined it as something else. It seems to me that there will be much more grey belt and much less green belt as the Government ask local authorities to review their green belt and as they or the Planning Inspectorate accede to developers’ arguments that the green belt they want to build on is actually grey. All of that will have a significant and irreversible impact on our green-belt countryside. The Minister is of course entitled to disagree with my analysis or to tell me that I do not need to worry, but I would like him to address in particular the following points. First, does he accept that grey belt is likely predominantly to be open countryside and greenfield sites, contrary to what the Government originally suggested? If so, does he accept that the impact on our countryside in green-belt areas will be significant and destructive? Finally, is that likely impact deliberate or accidental? If accidental, will he look again at what grey-belt designation will likely deliver in practice? Will he be prepared to continue the conversation that I hope we will have this afternoon and seek to minimise the impact of this change on our rural communities, about which many of us are extremely concerned?<span id="542WH" class="column-number" data-column-number="542WH"></span>
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Grey Belt Land: Definition and Application
I know that the Minister recognises the point that the hon. Member for Taunton and Wellington (Gideon Amos) was making to him is that, although we all want this to be a plan-led process, the NPPF still allows for grey belt designation to be achieved through an individual application, and that is what the Conservatives are also concerned about. I wanted to test him on this <span id="553WH" class="column-number" data-column-number="553WH"></span>question of cumulative impact. He may come on to this later, in which case I apologise, but I put to him in my speech that if we look at an individual application or site, it may be difficult to make a credible argument that building there would undermine the purposes of the green belt across the plan area. On the other hand, if we look at a series of grey belt applications and their cumulative impact on the green belt across the plan area, it might be easier to demonstrate. Can he clarify which of the two the Government believe it should be?
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Grey Belt Land: Definition and Application
Before the Minister does that, I understand his point earlier about guidance, and I am certainly not asking him to comment on an individual application, but the purpose of the point that I made to him earlier was to suggest that the reality of grey-belt <span id="555WH" class="column-number" data-column-number="555WH"></span>designation is that grey-belt sites are likely to be further away from urban settlements rather than closer to them, because those closer are more likely to remain as green belt. As the Minister says, there are three purposes—A, B and D—that would enable a site to remain as green belt rather than be designated grey belt. Can he see circumstances in which a field in my constituency that is not on the outskirts of an urban settlement could possibly satisfy the test of those three requirements and remain as green belt rather than be redesignated as grey belt?
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Grey Belt Land: Definition and Application
Will the Minister give way?
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Grey Belt Land: Definition and Application
That may be very helpful, and I am genuinely grateful to the Minister, because I know he is doing his best to provide clarity. I know he would <span id="556WH" class="column-number" data-column-number="556WH"></span>accept that the starting point for all these decisions will be the NPPF definition. I accept his point about guidance and the other qualifying criteria; we have spoken a little about the limitations that there might be on those qualifying criteria. The substantial point remains, does it not, that the definition in the NPPF of grey-belt land overwhelmingly—perhaps not in every instance, but overwhelmingly—will be met by fields, farms and greenfield sites that are not near to urban settlements. A, B and D in the list clearly each relate to the fringes of urban settlements, and the Minister knows that the green belt encompasses more than just such sites. It is inevitable, is it not, that the starting point will be that grey-belt land will be those sites that are not on the fringes of urban settlements, which is of course the direct antithesis of how the Government originally described the concept.
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Grey Belt Land: Definition and Application
Will the Minister give way again on that specific point?
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Grey Belt Land: Definition and Application
I am sure the Chair will remind the Minister that we have plenty of time left in this debate. On the specifics of the local plan, the Minister is right, of course, to point me to the specific statistics in relation to my local plan area. But he will recognise that, as was said earlier, there is a difference between decisions that a local authority makes about what to seek to extract from the green belt, and subsequent decisions about whether part of the green belt is in fact grey belt. The Minister has referred me to statistics relating to the former, not the latter.
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Grey Belt Land: Definition and Application
I thank everyone who participated in the debate, from the Back Benches and the Front Benches. I particularly thank the Minister, who—there will be general agreement on this—is an excellent Minister. He tried to engage properly with the issues in the debate and to give us the clarity that we asked for. He is a perceptive man, and he is right when he says that he has not quite persuaded all of us of everything, but I am grateful to him for what he said last, which is that he will reflect on what has been said here and consider whether further clarity needs to be provided. Ultimately, the evidence as to which of us is right about what the grey belt turns out to be will become apparent over the years during which the policy is used. If I can ask the Minister to reflect on one other thing, it would be that the Government keep under review—as I am sure they will—what the impact of the policy change ends up being. If we see a great deal of new development in open countryside within green-belt areas, rather than in the type of land that he and his Secretary of State have previously described as wanting the grey belt to be, I hope the Government will reconsider the policy and look again at whether it is doing the damage to the countryside that many of us fear it will. <em>Question put and agreed to.</em> <em>Resolved,</em> That this House has considered the definition and application of grey belt land.
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Saudi East-West Oil Pipeline
The hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale (Tim Farron) is a lovely man, but I just cannot follow his logic. He says that the solution is to pursue green energy, which is fair enough in the long term, and in the same breath—in the very next sentence—he asks what oil reserves we have. Surely it is not a zero sum game. It will be decades before we rely entirely on green energy. I am not asking the Minister to comment on Jackdaw and Rosebank <span id="1601" class="column-number" data-column-number="1601"></span>and all that, but does he accept that we must pursue oil drilling in the North sea to become self-reliant, and to get ourselves out of this crisis?
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Tourism: Overnight Visitor Levy
If the hoteliers of Bournemouth are gagging to pay this tax, I can assure the Minister that those in hospitality in the New Forest are not. The Minister said that everybody will be a winner, but how can he possibly know when he cannot tell us how much the tax will be or where it will be levied?
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Probation Service: Recruitment and Retention
Thank you, Mr Speaker. The Minister knows that there has been a decrease in probation officers in the past year, yet at the same time the Government have released thousands of dangerous criminals on to our streets. The Government’s answer is electronic tagging, but the National Audit Office has highlighted problems. First, staff have to review tag alerts. Only 10% to 50% of alerts result in breach notifications, and where outcomes are even recorded, nearly half result in no further action. Can she guarantee that in the next year, every tagging breach will come with consequences?
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Rapid Deployment Cells Programme
Rapid deployment cells are one option, but the question remains of why the Government are not making use of fully certified cells. HMP Millsike has an operational capacity of up to 1,500, but it has only 1,100 prisoners, due to staffing issues. Can the Minister guarantee that she will replace the 1,600 prison officers lost under Labour by next year?
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Tourism: Overnight Visitor Levy
<em>(Urgent Question):</em> To ask the Minister for Housing, Communities and Local Government if he will make a statement on the impact of the Government’s proposed overnight visitor levy on the tourism and hospitality sectors in England.
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Tourism: Overnight Visitor Levy
Let us call this what it is—Labour’s holiday tax. Although we knew it was coming, we never expected it to be uncapped. This Government have already hammered hospitality with higher employment costs and business rates. Almost 89,000 hospitality jobs have gone, and now what is Labour’s answer? Hit them again. If we tax something, we get less of it, so if we tax tourism, we will get less tourism—it is not complicated. Fewer tourists mean fewer jobs. UKHospitality estimates that up to 33,000 jobs will go, along with over £2 billion wiped from the economy. These job losses will hit young people hardest, when they are already struggling to secure those all-important first roles.<span id="1582" class="column-number" data-column-number="1582"></span> We should not make the mistake of thinking that this is just a tax on foreign visitors. Tax Policy Associates estimates that trips by British tourists will generate 63% of the revenue from this levy. This is a tax on hard-working British families. A weekend away, a family holiday or a few nights by the seaside will all cost more. Every pound taken in this tax is a pound that families do not spend in the local pub, restaurant, café, shop or attraction. It is not just Brits on a staycation who will be impacted—it will be anyone staying overnight for any reason, such as visiting a sick relative, going away on business or travelling for medical treatment. Why on earth should those people be taxed simply for going about their daily lives? It is not fair. The Prime Minister has repeatedly promised to give breathing space to households struggling with the cost of living, yet this tax does the exact opposite. British hospitality does not need another tax. Hard-working families do not need another tax. Young people looking for work do not need another tax. The Government must scrap the holiday tax.
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Imprisonment for Public Protection Sentences
Earlier this month, John Dunne was convicted of trying to meet a 14-year-old boy at a train station in Suffolk. He received a two-year sentence, reduced from three after a guilty plea. This still seems lenient, considering that Mr Dunne has already served a life sentence for rape and murder. Our community and country will never be safe when we release people who are clearly not functioning in society. I have written to the Attorney General about this sentence, but if the Government are considering changes to IPP, what is their plan for keeping children safe in situations like this?
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Trial by Jury
Upon taking office, the Prime Minister promised to “find ways of not reducing access to jury trial.” He said that jury trials are a “linchpin of a fair society.” Now that we know the Courts and Tribunals Bill will return to the House on 13 October, immediately after the recess, can the Justice Secretary guarantee that the Bill will not reduce access to jury trials at all?
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Trial by Jury
I asked the Justice Secretary to rule out reducing access to jury trials, and the House will have noticed that he did not do that. We are not talking about something insignificant; we are talking about an ancient English right dating back to Magna Carta. As with Labour’s early release disaster, the new Prime Minister told everybody he did not like it and would not do it, but he never got round to working out what to do instead. Once again, the Justice Secretary has made much of his desire to work together constructively—although I have not seen much of it in our correspondence—so will he publish the full details of the new plan now, or does he still not know what it is?
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Trial by Jury
You’ve ignored letters all summer!