[Mr Mark Francois: On housing numbers, there is no Reform MP present this afternoon, but Reform-led Rochford district council has just published its regulation 19 local plan. During the May elections, Reform made a great thing of defending the green belt, and in the intervening period its councillors intimated to lots of local campaign groups that, when the plan came out, they would be all right. Yet we now find that nearly every single one of those green-belt sites has been recommended for development. Does my hon. Friend agree that if they do not really mean to defend the green belt – clearly they do not – they should never have said that?

Gareth Bacon (Shadow Minister /Housing and Planning/): I share my right hon. Friend’s shock that no Reform MP is present in the Chamber. I am similarly totally taken aback that Reform would say one thing and do another. Of course, Reform councillors should not have said that if they did not mean it.]

Sir Julian Lewis: Unprecedented!

[Gareth Bacon: That is very well put by my right hon. Friend. …]