Given the lateness of the hour, even though we have a number of amendments in this group, I will speak only to amendments 7 and 8, and to confirm our support for a few others. Amendment 7 would allow the full recovery of costs by local authorities for assisting with the development of a neighbourhood plan. We know that planning departments are massively under-resourced and that they are hugely important in getting the housing that we so desperately need built. I wholeheartedly agree with the Minister that if we want to build the housing we need, we must make sure that planning departments are adequately resourced. I therefore hope he will bring forward something beyond simply allowing local authorities to charge higher fees to resource planning departments properly.
Amendment 8 requires the Secretary of State to prioritise deprived communities when making available financial assistance to support the development of neighbourhood plans. Again, we discussed this in Committee, and if we are really serious about ensuring that all communities across the country are able to produce neighbourhood plans, deprived communities need to be supported in that endeavour and funded properly to produce such a plan. I wish also to put on the record the fact that we support amendments 24, 25
and 29 and new clauses 7 and 1, the latter having been tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Hyndburn (Graham Jones).