Member

I turn to other important changes made to the Bill in Committee. To support our grid connections queue reforms, we introduced a small set of amendments to ensure that the relevant clauses operate as intended and that they support us to move from a first come, first served to a first ready, first needed, first connected approach. To help address the lack of capacity and resources within statutory consultees, we have introduced a new sustainable funding model for the statutory consultee system. The new surcharge that will be able to be applied to planning application fees will be used to fund bodies, including statutory consultees, that provide advice and ancillary support that enable good decision making. Alongside the localisation of planning fees provided for by clause 47, the new surcharge will allow us to address capacity and resourcing issues and support a faster and better quality decision-making process.