My Lords, I have come to the conclusion that Clause 12 should be deleted from the Bill. I now see no grounds for it being continued with, because the evidence has not been satisfactorily produced. It comes down to this: developers want to build and sell houses, and residents want to enjoy living in them. Sometimes those two objectives are not compatible because builders can often not do what residents expected of them.
5 pm
Addressing Clause 12 from the perspective of adoption, how many times do we find that adoption of a new development takes several years? There are two causes of that: first, things that were supposed to happen are not done properly; secondly, what was supposed to happen was not properly agreed in the first place. In paragraph 26 of the report of the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee, the Government produced nine specific examples, to which I referred earlier. The Minister has added one which is not on that list—electric charging points for cars. I looked at this list again this afternoon, and then a second time. I cannot see anything in it that should not have been agreed before planning consent is given. I am puzzled why builders do not know what they are going to do. For example, number one is,
“full details of a play area”.
If a builder is going to sell the house, the details of a play area may be important to the purchaser. Is this a grass field?