Speeches by Pennycook.

“That is a useful point that we should mention. The New Towns Taskforce has been asked to come up with a prospectus for how these things are taken forward. The finance is one part, but taking this back to design and quality, we want these new large-scale communities to be examples of exemplary development. Again, the ta…”

“That will be determined through conversations with the Treasury at the appropriate point when we have a defined list of sites we are looking at. I do not know if Jo wants to say more, but I am limited in what I can say on that at this point.”

“I do not expect the scenario that you are setting out to apply in many cases. I say that because the New Towns Taskforce has already gone out with a call for—expressions of interest might be too strong—a general sense from local authorities to provide evidence precisely as to whether there are sites in their areas that…”

“We will make a judgment when we see what sites they bring forward. Just to be very clear, we gave them 12 months to report back on the complete list of sites. We have said to them that if there are sites that they think meet the criteria and it is not in question whether they will be on the final list, then they can pu…”

“No, not necessarily.”

“The Government take steps to start to deliver and work up the detailed plans for the sites that will be chosen. Just to be very clear, what we wanted to do by setting up an independent taskforce was to draw on the wealth of expertise that is on it, under Sir Michael Lyons and Dame Kate Barker as chair and deputy chair,…”

“Generally, if you want protection from speculative development, get a local plan in place. Your local authority has given no evidence of progress towards a local plan. We need to see that in all parts of the country.”

“Openness is one of the general purposes of the green belt that the definition of grey belt will have to have regard to. In terms of NPPF responses in particular, I do not think so, off the top of my head.”

“We have not done that assessment centrally because the green-belt reviews that will need to take place will be done by local authorities. There are some local authorities out there that have already reviewed their green belt. They have a fair sense of what the lower-quality sites are within it and what might qualify as…”

“How are we going to enforce the golden rules? We proposed golden rules. We are looking carefully at whether those golden rules are right, in particular benchmark land value and whether that would operate in the way we want. We have been very clear that there are two routes to green-belt release that we could touch upon…”

“It is important to be very clear—and this is clear in the NPPF document—that land safeguarded for environmental reasons, such as national parks and habitat sites, will retain those protections under the proposal. We are not talking about interfering on those sites. When it comes to the green belt more generally, we hav…”

“Yes, “I can put the blame on the Planning Inspectorate for that decision. We refused it.” In some ways it is therefore not cost-free but there is an issue that we have to deal with. There are a range of interventions available to Ministers. I just mentioned that, in extremis, we can take the local plan off a local auth…”

“I hope I will be returning to your Committee at points in the future, and I will be more than happy to hear views from the Committee in particular about what NDMPs should comprise and how they should operate.”

“Yes, up-to-date local plans that are in place now will remain in place. We are not going to seek to use call-in powers to take those local plans off people. What we have been very clear about—I do not know if I am pre-empting a question—is that we want to see universal coverage of local plans. It is completely unaccept…”

“No, the local plan—let us break it down into what that means. Local plans will allocate a set number of sites for permission. That is the basis of decision making. We can talk about how the new revised standard method will work through.”

“Absolutely. Hopefully we can move on to the importance of local plans. They are the best means for local areas to shape development in their particular geography.”

“No. I think any Government would reasonably say, “We will keep the call-in criteria under review and we may look at them in future years,” but I have not personally had any discussions about specific changes to the call-in criteria. We have made it clear and I should be clear—and it is on record that the DPM is clear—t…”

“About specific changes to the criteria, no.”

“We have not announced any plans to amend the call-in criteria, if that is what you are—”

“We have not taken an in-principle decision to try to boost the number of call-ins. I do not know whether Jo wants to say more, but we will take them when they fit the appropriate criteria. Politics will not be a factor in that. There are very clear criteria for when applications can be called in.”