Natural Environment and Rural Communities Bill

While the Minister is being passed a message on that, could he accept that part of the problem is that there are so many demands on the local authorities at present, when in the past this has not been considered a high priority? They have had other things to do. Another key thing is that there are often insufficient people filling those posts within the local authorities—particularly in the planning section, if that is where it is dealt with. There is also not enough money; it comes back to money. I do not know whether a message has been sent down that more money would be made available; that would certainly speed them on. The Minister did not reply to my question about how many claims were single or multiple, and how many were outstanding. He did not raise that, while I raised the fact that there were somewhere between 992 and 996; those were the government figures as at 17 January in response to a Written Question by my noble friend. Presumably some have come in since then. It is really quite a big problem, and the noble Viscount is right to raise it. Can the Minister come back on my question as well? That would be helpful to the Committee.