It called the local council's decision to build 10,000 new houses on the green field site "justified."

The Minister for the Environment, Transport and the Regions, Nick Raynsford, declined to intervene to stop plans by the authority.

Nick Raynsford accused the Opposition of "hypocrisy"

And he accused local Conservative MPs, the Tory Deputy Leader, Peter Lilley, and the MP for Hertfordshire North East, Oliver Weald, of "hypocrisy" and "selective amnesia" over their pleas for the protection of countryside land.

Mr Raynsford said the Labour administration had increased protection of rural land from development.

Speaking in the House of Commons, Mr Lilley said the Herfordshire development represented the largest single "incursion into the green belt in living memory."

"National issue"

"But this isn't just a local issue, it is a national issue because planning proceeds by precedent," he said.

"The decision to allow building on this scale in this sort of location will be potent ammunition for those wishing to develop elsewhere in the countryside in green belt areas."

But Mr Raynsford retaliated with a defence of the government's record on green belt development.

He said it had moved on from the last government's commitment that 50% of new housing should be built on previously used land, or brown field sites, increasing that figure to 60%.

He told the House: "The important point is that land can be taken from the green belt only if opportunities for development within urban areas and beyond the green belt have been fully considered."