Debate on the Address

My Lords, the language on these occasions is often the same and our task is to examine whether the Government’s actions fulfil the promise of the language used, words such as accountability, engagement, trust, renewal, regeneration and, of course, community—which covers a lot, including care for our fellow citizens, including those who have recently come to our country and who contribute so much. The jargon can slip easily off the tongue. The legislation sometimes comes rapidly out of Whitehall, and I do not want to suggest that legislation cures all, as the Government often seem to think, although it may cure some. Let us not confuse legislative action with progress. The subjects we are covering today do not divide neatly and if I do not cover them all, which is impossible in the time, that does not mean that I think that matters of sustainability, climate change and so on are not matters for CLG; of course they are. Indeed, the impact of buildings—my noble friend Lord Teverson referred to this—transport and other infrastructure related to housing development comes at different levels and may be good or bad. I want first to say something about what is not in the gracious Speech in the constitutional area: accountability and engagement. What are we to expect about regional assemblies? This is not to reopen the debate about regions and subregions—although I do not think it will go away—nor to set regionalism against localism, as the noble Lord, Lord Taylor of Holbeach, suggested. We are told that regional assemblies are to go. There may be little mourning for them, but they do include large numbers of elected councillors. What is to replace them? What will the function and role of the replacement be? We will need some mechanism to scrutinise the regional development agencies, and not just because the RDA Act says so. We have, again, Ministers for the regions and there will be arrangements in the Commons—we believe there will probably be a Select Committee. Is this House to have any role other than our normal one of Questions and debates? Do the Government recognise that having put in place a particular constitutional settlement in one region—London—there is the possibility of considerable confusion about who is holding who to account. I can well see that a Select Committee could scrutinise the activities of the Government Office for London, but I can also see the scope for confusion if it extends to the mayor. Constitutional questions are also relevant in the context of planning reforms. By the time we see the Planning Reform Bill, I hope we will be clear about the process of developing the national policy statements on which the planned reforms will depend. What scrutiny will there be? How can those who are interested contribute? What notice will be taken of them? There are issues of consultation, democracy and accountability. I assume that the Bill will reflect the White Paper, but I understand that there have been about 32,000 responses to it, so the Bill may be rather different. We wait to see the Government’s analysis. The Statement made when the planning White Paper was published mentioned that: "““Some interest groups promote a false choice between speed and public engagement””.—[Official Report, Commons, 21/5/07; col. 980.]" I do not think that is a false choice, or at least not as I understood what was meant. Interest groups, very often comprising of volunteers, need time and space to express their views. That will be relevant to the statements; it will be relevant to the work of the independent planning commission. It is terribly difficult—no doubt other noble Lords have this experience as well—to engage people until there is a real planning application with its location known. That is when people begin to understand what is proposed. Conversely, there is a false choice between quantity and quality of housing. I very much welcomed what the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, said about that. There are 1.6 million families on council waiting lists; repossessions are rising uncomfortably fast; housing—a home, a basic need and a right—is becoming out of reach. That means misery now and misery to come. We will soon see how well the Housing and Regeneration Bill addresses those issues. I very much welcome the greater number of noble Lords who have taken part in housing debates recently. It is clearly a matter that noble Lords take extremely seriously. The much wider range of debate is in great contrast to the position a few years ago. Yesterday, I was told of a woman who, having the wealth to do so, bought a couple of big plots of land, developed them and sold the housing using a scheme that enabled her to sell them at cost and for the increase in value to be shared with the owners and for them to be retained as available as low-priced housing. I applaud that. I hope that more public bodies, using a form of community land trust, can do the same. We need imagination in this area at all sorts of levels. I will put in one plea for a very small thing. That is promotion and assistance from government in establishing small housing associations for groups of friends who, as they become older, would like to live together and give one another mutual support. The noble Baroness is nodding. We perhaps need less imagination on the part of those who provide so-called equity release schemes but really diddle—is that the word? It is worse than that—older people who are desperate to fund the needs of old age. Time does not permit me to ask the questions that I would like to ask about the supplementary business rate, but I hope the Government will recognise that if they trusted local authorities, they might be able to get on with what the business rate could enable them to undertake. We will judge the Government's programme by measures such as trust, engagement, community, democracy and, of course, by its effectiveness. That measure is the quality of life.