Politicians find planning a tricky issue. In principle, they support development: in practice, they rarely resist the temptation to oppose projects unpopular with vociferous locals. Backbench opposition to the UK planning bill, which comes before the House of Commons on Wednesday, underlines this afresh. This is unfortunate as the bill is an example of the government pursuing a sensible long-term objective.

The current planning system is needlessly slow, complex and unpredictable. It took four years to get permission to build Heathrow Terminal 5. In 1997 the government commissioned a report on improving British productivity. Liberalising planning was a key proposal. Yet a decade on, no progress has been made.