In 2016, Caerphilly County Borough Council scrapped its LDP after listening to the views of local people. I've not seen stronger views expressed on many other issues, as Mike Hedges alluded to. Part of the problem, the reason that the local development plan wasn't working, was because viability of land meant profitability for the big developers, and land that was not viable, not profitable, wasn't being taken up by developers. There were brownfield sites in Caerphilly's LDP going back to the Rhymney Valley District Council days, which had been in there but weren't developed because they weren't viable. The result of Caerphilly's problem has been speculative planning applications, many of which have been overturned—overturned decisions of the local authority—and, indeed, the Cabinet Secretary herself felt forced to overturn one decision last year, which did cause great problems in my community.

When appealing against rejected planning applications, developers have often used the local authority's lack of a five-year land supply as a justification for overturning the original decision of local residents, leading to that great anger. The importance of the provision of a five-year land supply comes from technical advice note 1, as Janet Finch-Saunders noted, set out by the Welsh Government. Therefore, I am delighted to hear that the Cabinet Secretary says she's going to disapply TAN 1, thereby reducing the pressure on local authorities and removing the ability of developers to use the lack of a five-year supply as grounds for overturning the decision of democratically elected local authorities. I note, when it comes to the provision of local development plans in the draft 'Planning Policy Wales', edition 10—and I've underlined the point on page 13—

'LDPs have to be in general conformity with the NDF and SDP and cannot be adopted unless they are.'

I think that the Caerphilly plan, had it been according to that 'Planning Policy Wales' document, would not have been in line with a national development framework and strategic development plan, had one been in place.

Since being elected, I've campaigned for local authorities in south-east Wales to have a strategic development plan, and the footprint that I'm arguing for is alongside the Cardiff capital region. In answer to Gareth Bennett's point, when has this strategic plan been introduced? Well, it was part of the Planning (Wales) Act 2015, which the Welsh Government introduced. The Welsh Government had taken proactive action, before we were elected to this Assembly in the fourth Assembly, to introduce strategic development planning, and now it's been reflected in the draft 'Planning Policy Wales' document, which is a good thing. It's received cross-party support, the strategic development plan from the Cardiff capital region, which is something that we should welcome. The disapplication of TAN 1 removes a further hurdle to local authorities being able to get together and work on a comprehensive strategic development plan. What they need now from the Welsh Government is the buy-in and support for the creation of an SDP, and more flexibility in terms of the requirement to produce LDPs. Due to several years of austerity, our local authorities are under increasing pressure in terms of finance and resources, and therefore their individual planning departments are stretched. I recognise point 4 of the motion, and I support it, but in putting our resources into planning policy, the best place to put it, I think—certainly in my area, south-east Wales—would be towards the development of a strategic development plan.

As a result, I'm calling on the Welsh Government to take a more sympathetic view of light-touch LDPs from local authorities, as councils pool their increasingly scarce resources to focus on the common endeavour of producing a strategic development plan. According to 'Planning Policy Wales', the draft edition, SDPs form a huge part of that planning jigsaw, as does the national development framework. The problem we currently have is that we are working from the bottom up, doing our LDPs first, then our SDPs, and then fitting in with the national development framework. The pyramid is upside down; I think we need to start from the other end. Individual local authorities are currently expected to produce their LDPs first, and only after that can they move on to their SDPs. I think that builds the jigsaw the wrong way. I think you need to start with your strategic development plan. I call on the Government to recognise that and not to not have LDPs, but to have those light-touch LDPs. I think we can get this right. As I say, I've been incredibly persistent on planning. I've been described by someone I won't name as a 'planning bore' and I know that the Chamber would not agree with that, I'm sure. [Interruption.] Thank you.

Our planning system can address these issues. I'm not going to give up. I'm going to keep on to this. I believe that it's now up to the Welsh Government, and the Welsh Government is taking significant steps, enabling our planning policy to improve.