Communities and Local Government/Environment, Food and Rural Affairs

Surely the problem with a five-year target is that five years is outside the normal lifespan of a Parliament—it is the absolute limit. Therefore if a Government face short-term pressure to deliver on a range of other policies by the next election, the long-term action that I am sure the hon. Gentleman wants could play second fiddle to other priorities. That is why it is important to have interim targets of less than five years, and that is why annual targets are a sensible objective, even if there are difficulties in adjusting for the state of the economy or the weather, or indeed for the sort of lumpy investments to which he rightly drew attention.