Member

I too thank Ministers for seeing us about this amendment. I can understand a reluctance to be prescriptive at strategic planning level, but that puts a huge burden on the National Planning Policy Framework and reliance on it. I came to the conclusion that the Minister, who was an exemplary leader of her local authority, kicked her local planning authority around the block until it did deliver exceptionally well on many issues, but there are local authorities that do not do that. We have got to be clear that this is a moment in time when we are going to be building all these houses, creating all these new urban settlements, and we really have to grip the issue and have a statutory requirement in the Bill.