Local Government and Public Involvement in Health Bill

I apologise to the House for not being present at the beginning of the debate. I had not intended to speak until I heard the intervention of the right hon. Member for Greenwich and Woolwich (Mr. Raynsford), because he raised an important issue. I declare an interest as I chair a company that does some advisory work in the building industry. I therefore know a little about the building industry, and I must disagree with the right hon. Gentleman— with whom I normally agree. The fact is that, last year, nearly half the houses built in Britain did not meet the building standards. We have a system that does not deliver even the pathetic standards that we currently have. The reason for that is that they are input, not output, standards. We must do something about that rapidly. It would be different if the Minister said to us ““Please do not do this. We really are going to raise standards. Rather than introducing prescriptive building regulations that will never work but will merely pile Ossa on Pelion and produce an impossible system, we will set output standards. That will mean that new houses must have a thermal efficiency of x, and we are determined that the standard will rise in five years’ time.”” If we knew that the Government would do that, we could take the action that the right hon. Gentleman suggests, but I do not believe that the Government will do it, so I want progressive local government to force it out of them. The comparator is the United States of America. My praise for the USA is not always unalloyed, but it has got one thing right: its states have been forcing the federal Government into a more sensible position on climate change by taking steps themselves. That contrasts with the autocratic, centralising Government that we have in Britain today. Here, every power is brought up to the centre, often not for the reasons given by the hon. Member for Luton, North (Kelvin Hopkins)—with whom, surprisingly, I often agree, so I hope he will not mind my saying that. I made the point about Newcastle because I believe that the business rate ought to return to local authorities, but let me remind the hon. Gentleman why the change took place. It was because of a mechanism that enabled local authorities to precept on the taxpayer. They did that in many areas, and as a result the people who paid the bills increasingly moved out of our great northern cities. It was the change that took place in the hon. Gentleman’s party—and I give all credit to his party—that provided an opportunity for the improved relationship between the centre and local authorities that exists today. In that sense we want to empower local authorities, and one way of empowering them is to make them proud of the standards that they set. The right hon. Member for Greenwich and Woolwich said that the construction industry could not manage that. The industry gives that same excuse in every circumstance: it is always, ““We cannot do this”” and ““We cannot do that””. I remind the right hon. Gentleman that in Kyoto the car manufacturing industry said that if we passed the protocol it would not be able to produce the vehicles that would fulfil its part of the bargain. Within six months, every car manufacturer in the United States had those vehicles on the market. I believe that the same is true of the construction industry. If it becomes clear that there is a movement throughout progressive local authorities, of all political parties, to raise the standards expected of buildings, the industry will say to the Government, ““Please do not leave this to the local authorities; you must set the standards.”” Then, at long last, we shall see proper pressure being exerted on Government.