My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend for that contribution. I am not sure that I can commit other departments and other parts of government to doing anything, but I am glad of his support for what we are trying to do here. It is important that we get this right. I have been asked for the evidence on which the change is based. Not only have concerns been expressed on the part of the development industry about delays experienced at validation stage and the costs involved but this has been a long standing issue and was a key theme in the Killian Pretty review, to which I am almost certain the noble Lord referred at Second Reading—somebody did anyway. That review, commissioned in 2008, was of the planning application process. Most recently, the department consulted on proposals to amend secondary legislation to streamline information requirements. It was clear from responses from the applicant community that they wanted us to go further and look at the primary legislative framework, which is what we have done.
The noble Lord, Lord Beecham, referred to the impact assessment. The savings predicted in the impact assessment are based on a reduction in costs generated by a shift in behaviour as a result of the clause and changes to secondary legislation. Both the clause itself and related changes to secondary legislation are necessary to introduce the ability for applicants to access the appeals system. If I am pressed—which I see the noble Lord is about to do—I will be happy to write to him on the detailed points made.
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I have dealt with reasonableness and the impact assessment. The noble Lord, Lord Cameron, asked me about guidance. We are considering further at the moment whether additional guidance is needed. The noble Lord has said that there is guidance, but as new legislation appears, it may be necessary to provide guidance for that. However, discussions about that are taking place.
The noble Viscount, Lord Hanworth, suggested that we were prejudiced against the planning process. That is not true. We are trying to ensure that the planning process is fair to both sides—to the developers and the planning authorities. The purpose of this clause is to ensure that applicants are not asked for information that is clearly unnecessary for their application. The noble Baroness, Lady Young, quite rightly said that there are requirements from statutory authorities, but those will either be relevant or not relevant. If they are asked for that information and are given it, it will come as part of these discussions.
We want applicants and local authorities to get together and we want them to discuss, as my noble friend Lord Deben said, a list. All local authorities have a list of information which they will require. The danger is that that list becomes an absolutely set piece, and that you have to tick every single thing on it irrespective of whether it is necessary. We would like to prevent that happening further. The NPPF has referred to it. We think that this clause will strengthen the NPPF and that it is relevant and necessary in terms of the planning process.