Baroness Coffey (Con)

My Lords, I have a particular attachment to this amendment. I think it is fair to say that, when I went back into Defra, I was pretty surprised that we had not made any progress in getting Schedule 3 sorted. Yet again, it was the part for housing that had put a block on it, on the basis that apparently it was going to cost more money. But all that does, in a different way, is transfer the costs, both societal and financial, from a developer trying to put together a community to the billpayer, and those costs are potentially higher. I know that we managed to secure, and the Government have continued with it, over £96 billion from the water companies to address certain things to do with sewerage. This is one of those ridiculous situations where there is an obvious answer. As my noble friend Lady McIntosh has already mentioned, Sir Jon Cunliffe has said this should be done. Why has it not been done? Actually, not just the committee from the Commons but also the committee in this place were very supportive and delighted that, when I was in post briefly for that year, we were going to get things done. We did the review, managed to get DLUHC over the line, and then managed to put out confirmation of a policy we were going to do. We were going to do a consultation. That got going as well, and then the election happened. Do not get me wrong: I understand why this might not be a top priority for a Government coming in, despite this whole issue being one of their key campaigning messages in the 2024 election. Here is the solution, ready-made, that they could just do at the stroke of a pen. That is why it a concern that we are not at this point yet.