My Lords, I do not wish to drag this out any longer, but I feel the need to support this amendment given that I am the chairman of the Local Government Association and local government nationally is subsidising the planning system by about £150 million a year. As the noble Lord, Lord True, said, to make money on planning is probably a step too far, but we should certainly be in a position where councils are able to fully recover costs. I know that the previous coalition Government gave the first decent increase in planning fees for a long time, but that was a fair while ago, so it is about time someone looked at the way that we are dealing with planning permissions. I add my support to the previous two speakers to ask the Minister to make sure that when she is speaking to her colleagues this is something that is looked at.
It works in the industry’s interest to have well-resourced planning departments. It enables us to do planning permissions in a stronger, quicker way so that the industry benefits. I do not think anybody would suggest that we should make money on this, but we should certainly be able to fully recover the costs.