My Lords, this amendment covers the issues previously discussed under Amendment 108. It enables local authorities to recover up to the full costs and no more in determining planning applications. Noble Lords who were not persuaded by Amendment 108 could give this amendment some further consideration, as it proposes not to go beyond full cost recovery.
My amendment would allow a more realistic fee level to be recovered from large-scale developments and differentiates between that and someone who wants to build an extension to their home, for example. I grew up in Southwark and in the north of the borough we have seen a boom in large-scale developments in recent years. A more realistic fee level would have made no difference to those developments. I now live in Lewisham and, again, we are seeing a large number of residential developments in Lewisham, Deptford, Catford and elsewhere in the borough. Again, I do not believe that a more realistic fee level would have made any difference whatever to the viability of those developments.
In responding to this short debate, I ask the Minister to address the point made during the debate on Amendment 108. I know we will come to this issue when we discuss further amendments on Monday, but I am worried that we could get a two-tier system whereby other providers are able to provide planning advice. I do not want a private provider to be able to charge a much larger fee, and a local authority to be limited as to what it can charge to do the same work. That would be totally wrong, and it would be very helpful if the noble Baroness assured us that that is not the case. It would be a very unfair situation for local authorities and completely wrong. With that, I beg to move.