Oral Question:

Mr. Nicholas Soames (Mid-Sussex) (Con): Will the Leader of the House-person- [ Laughter . ]-grant a debate in Government time to allow Ministers to ponder, during this Government-created debt bust and pause in house building, and to give further consideration to their frequent assertions that large housing developments will not take place unless there is a suitable social infrastructure in place to support them, quite outside the normal section 106 agreements? Will the Leader of the House ask her colleagues to look further at this because it results in necessary housing going ahead without the proper infrastructure to support it, to the great disadvantage of all our constituents?

Member Answering Question:The Rt Hon Harriet Harman QC MP, Leader of the House of Commons

Answer: There will be an opportunity for the hon. Gentleman to raise the issue in next Wednesday’s debate on local government finance. I am sure that he will be able to make further points there. We must make sure that wherever there are housing developments, there is suitable infrastructure-whether roads, schools or health services-and that the planning system takes that into account. We are very much in favour of more housing being built as there is a need in this country, but it must be accompanied by the proper infrastructure. We certainly want to support the construction industry by bringing forward capital projects. Quite the opposite effect would occur if, at a time when the housing market is struggling, public sector capital infrastructure projects were delayed, so we will attempt to bring those forward.

The hon. Gentleman referred to a “Government-created” recession. He will know that there is a slowing of growth in China. Was that caused by this Government? He knows that there is a recession in America, France, Germany, Canada and Spain. If he simply talks about a Government-created recession, he will reinforce in everyone’s mind one of two things: either that the Opposition do not really know what is going on, or that they do know what is going on, but are more determined to make party-political points rather than to contribute to working together to help the country through this very difficult time.