Greater London Authority Bill

A long, but entertaining speech, nevertheless. If it makes Conservative Members feel more comfortable, I shall move on from discussing Hammersmith council to the Peabody Trust. Peabody Trust is a significant social landlord—rather similar to Genesis—that operates a large number of social rented houses in my constituency. I was somewhat perturbed to find out a few months ago that it is in the process of selling a total of 1,100 good-quality, high-space, standard social rented homes in order to produce some form of income or capital to renew the rest of its stock. That has been done with the consent of the Housing Corporation. Given the lengths to which Labour councils, Labour councillors and the Government go to ensure the provision of more social rented units in London, it is a scandal that existing RSLs are selling good-quality homes on the open market. Those homes will never be replaced in that form.