I want to speak briefly about Lords amendment 97. The issue of planning has been at the forefront of the minds of people in my constituency. I have often said in the past that my constituents felt that planning was something that happened to them rather than something in which they could become involved. I therefore welcome the move towards neighbourhood plans.
Much of this has come about because we have had masses of development on old brownfield sites. That is, of course, a good use of such sites, but we now face the prospect of having to build 70,000 homes over the next
14 years, as that is the target that the city council has set itself. There is a great deal of concern in the constituency that we are going to have to release green-belt land to match that demand.
This has galvanised a lot of local action, and I pay tribute to those involved in the Aireborough neighbourhood development forum and in the Rawdon and Horsforth parish councils who are now working hard to develop local neighbourhood plans. However, their experience in the past has been that the city council can turn down an application on very good grounds, only for it to go to an inspector who will turn it around. Those people want to feel that they have all the necessary support and tools at their disposal to defend their neighbourhood plans. They feel that this is far too often a one-way process.
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I understand what the Minister has said about this, and I am grateful to him for the time he has taken to speak to me personally, as well as to other colleagues, about this. I welcome the fact that he is sympathetic to the idea that those groups should have a right to appeal, and I hope that he will work with all of us to see what can be done to give them the confidence that they want. Those parish councillors should be allowed to defend the neighbourhood plans that they have drawn up. Many of them are volunteers, and they have spent a considerable amount of time developing first-rate plans. They want to have confidence that the system will support what they have drawn up rather than working against them. I hope that the Minister will look into that. I hope that he will also ensure that emerging neighbourhood plans will have equal weight with those that have already been adopted.