I thank noble Lords. It will be just a very brief intervention from me. I am very grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, for raising what is a very important issue, having been involved with two very long-term major projects in my role as council leader and having seen how difficult it is to tie in the provision of major infrastructure, which is generally done at the national level because that is the way that the operators and the regulators work, with what is going on at the local level.
At the heart of this is the need to create a very smooth path for the provision of infrastructure, so that, when there are interruptions to the process along the way, the system can cope. If we do not do that, we end up with disconnection between the development itself and the provision of infrastructure, with one holding the other up. In our case, in the east of England, as the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, said, water is an issue, so we have to think about that. One of our major developments related to a greenfield site that had not been developed—it still has not; we have been working for 27 years on that one. When we started, we would not have thought about solar or wind energy, but now we have to think about those things, so there must be flexibility—and of course we also have new forms of infrastructure coming in, such as broadband.
This is a key amendment that points us towards looking at how we deal with the infrastructure of developments as we go through the planning process, linking the bodies that work at national level, national infrastructure funding and so on with local development. How will that work and fit in with this system? We have talked a lot about how the various bits of the planning system fit together, and a probing amendment on this issue is extremely helpful; I am very grateful to the noble Lord for tabling it. If the Minister does not accept it today, I hope she will give it some thought as we go through the rest of the Bill.