My Lords, I will withdraw the amendment. Indeed, I said before that I would. Do I withdraw the line of argument? I shall think about it between now and Report.
6.15 pm
I am very grateful for the courteous response given as ever by my noble friend but the problem is that public authorities do not do that. In the example that I gave—Network Rail—the planning application granted in 2011 has not moved. It is moving now, to be fair—if you rush off and ring up, it says, “Yes, we’re getting on with it”, because it has been chivvied a bit. But it is not good enough.
It was a good, classic reply. I am very grateful to the officials from the department and for the opportunity to meet them on other things, thanks to my noble friend on the Front Bench. They are outstanding. Of course, it is a good answer to say they could not allow a local authority to come in and say, “Let’s develop that emergency hospital or Ministry of Defence airbase”. We would not do that. It is a reductio ad absurdum that simply does not work when we are dealing with the business of trying to get houses built by lazy public authorities. Why should they not be challenged? I repeat that point.
It is a pity. I suspect that it is above my noble friend’s pay grade that there is embedded somewhere in the system—a bit like the French at Verdun—the statement, “They shall not pass”; we will not let local authorities have a role. We would rather let public land fester than let local authorities do something about it. It is not good enough. We all know that that is what people think. We are lectured day by day. We collectively and in local government have to provide more housing. We accept the lectures; we accept the beating; we do not do enough. We should do more.
I cannot accept all of this, and I beg my noble friends on the Front Bench to think about a little more grit in the machine. We will have to compile these registers so why cannot we actually do something with them? I do not know how it will happen, or whether it will happen. Please, one day, I beg that it should happen. There will be a song of relief from not only local authorities but local communities across the country. They walk past this unused land every day and say, “Why?”. I say, “Why not?”.