My Lords, I speak very briefly in support of the spirit behind the amendment and what is sought to be achieved. I will not repeat the arguments that have already been made, but I will refer to the experience I had during the London Housing Commission, where I consulted extensively with developers across every type and scale. The consistent and unanimous view of all those developers was that they were willing to pay more to get a better service.
What they described to me was a service that was truly struggling to do the job, where major and important applications were held up through the absence of good-quality staff and where they often experienced dealing with temporary staff who were learning on the job and did not have the authority to make decisions. This is, in any description you care to think of, a false economy. The improvement by way of inflation will be helpful but it does not go to the heart of the core problem, which is that, in the situation of severe funding challenges in local government, authorities
are unable to resource, in the way that is required, the level of planning services that we need to deliver the increase in housing supply.
I am absolutely of the view that there should be a link to performance here, but I also believe very passionately that we should give local authorities the local initiative and flexibility to set their own fees. Over time the consequence of this will be that they will be able to plan for increased resources and, crucially, recruit new, skilled staff and rebuild a profession which, in the public sector, has been severely reduced in its capacity.