The hon. Gentleman will know my responses to those questions, because he asked them during an Adjournment debate not long ago. He will also know that the question of the land allocated for housing in his constituency is still open to consultation—and that in the regional planning guidance just published by the Government, the annual housing figures for Essex as a whole during the first five years of the relevant period are lower than they were in the 1994 regional planning guidance. Furthermore, he will know that the previous Government directed three councils in Essex to increase their housing numbers, and imposed 20-year figures through their regional planning guidance procedure. Ours, by contrast, is a bottom-up process, involving redistribution of housing on a regional basis.

The people of Chelmsford will know that the Tories' policy on these matters is in complete disarray. On the one hand—as we saw today, when they launched their bus—they propose a Nimbys' charter, giving every local authority the right to veto and to renege on its housing responsibility. On the other hand, the hon. Member for Tunbridge Wells (Mr. Norman) told Show House magazine only a few months ago: We all live in the real world. I've been involved in development myself and I recognise that unfortunately it is inevitable we will lose some countryside…We're not in any sense anti-housebuilding, we're the friend of housebuilders".