Miatta Fahnbulleh

The hon. Lady makes an important point. It is a challenge, but our job is to work across Government and the different agencies, and with the water companies, to rise to the challenge. I gently point out that over the past decade and a half, the Conservative party could have introduced reforms to bring our water sector up to scratch and deliver what our communities need for the housing they also need. That was not done, so we are working on it at record speed. Our commitment is to work holistically across the piece to resolve the challenge, but we absolutely recognise that it is a challenge. Hon. Members have questioned the validity of our housing targets. It is absolutely right that the Government are taking bold action to overhaul the planning system and carry out the reforms necessary to deliver the homes and infrastructure that every single community needs. There is consensus across the House that the status quo in terms of housing development is not adequate for the needs in our communities, so we have to step up. We believe that our revised standard method strikes the right balance between meeting the scale of need across the country and focusing additional growth on the places facing the biggest affordability pressures. While those targets are ambitious, we have always been clear that they are necessary, given our inheritance. The key is to ensure we work consistently across the different parts of the system to deliver that objective and ambition.