My Lords, we had a very good and thorough discussion on the recovery of full-cost fees on a previous amendment. I want to draw attention to a few statistics to reinforce the case that my noble friend made and to point out that the flaw in the present system is that you cannot get speedy, authoritative and consistent decision-making at local planning level if the expert workforce is being run down and starved of resources. I have just a few statistics that pick that up.
The audit committee reported in 2014 that planning departments were taking the brunt of funding cuts—a reduction, in real terms, of 46% across the planning and development budget between 2010 and 2014. These are horrendous figures in the context of cuts of 37% in local authorities as a whole. How much deeper have these cuts been since 2014? In expert areas such as archaeology and conservation officers, there has been a drop of a third in local authority staff. In Lancashire the entire archaeological team has disappeared. How the Government expect local authorities to deliver a speedy, efficient and good planning service with this level of cuts is absolutely beyond me. Therefore, the only answer to building the capacity of local authorities to do what the Government so desperately want them to do, and to deliver a speedier, more efficient planning system, is to build the capacity of local authorities themselves, because development control is the
fundamental business of planning authorities. There is an urgent need to reinvest in local authority planning services. Full-cost fee recovery can contribute to that.
I have one question for the Minister. In the previous exchange, I was not quite sure whether she believed the figure published by the Local Government Association—that there is a shortfall of £450 million to local authorities because of the difference between the cost they have to pay and the fees they receive. She talked at great length about the vitality needed to enable local authorities to do their job, but she did not address the question of the reality of what is happening on the ground. There is an absolute, logical and fair case for recovering full-cost fees, and I hope she will respond positively to it.