Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:

To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what recent assessment he has made of the adequacy of levels of staffing in local authority planning departments.

The Government recognises that having well-resourced and skilled planning departments is essential for the delivery of our ambitious housing programme, which is why we increased planning application fees by 20 per cent in January 2018. We are working with the Local Government Association and the Royal Town Planning Institute to assess the resourcing and skills needs in council planning departments.