Sustainable Communities Bill

My hon. Friend may well be right and I am sure that his point is worth considering. One of my concerns about the Bill is that it implies that there is a policy vacuum on supporting sustainable communities. Yet the need for sustainable communities was one of the main reasons for the Government’s creating the Department for Communities and Local Government. The idea of sustainable communities was fundamental to that. The Department was created to work towards more economic exclusiveness in communities, and to encourage social mobility and many other things. That is important. We should not forget that the Government recently produced a White Paper entitled ““Strong and prosperous communities””, which is a groundbreaking document. It sets out clear principles and suggests some strong policies, which would realise some of the laudable aims in the Bill. The measure should be read in conjunction with the White Paper, in which the principle of empowering communities is central. The need to take young people’s views seriously has been mentioned. It is an important principle. Before becoming a Member of Parliament, I worked for the youth service and part of my responsibility in Wales was to draw up a programme with the National Assembly for Wales so that local government and the newly created Welsh Assembly could take the views of young people into account. When young people come forward to express their views, they have plenty to express. They might not relate easily to traditional politicians and traditional political parties, but they have plenty of opinions on the matters that concern them and their communities. It is important that all Bills place greater emphasis on the need to consult young people. There is not much emphasis on that in the measure that we are considering. It is important not only because young people have strong and well-thought-out views but because they are sometimes unfairly criticised for being responsible for antisocial behaviour, which is often cited as leading to difficulties in our inner cities and towns.