Housing and Regeneration Bill

My Lords, my contribution is the last from the Back Benches tonight. Many of the things that I wanted to say have already been said, so I want to confine my comments to three brief points. A politician who achieved great distinction and fame once said to me, ““If you can't make the best speech in a debate, make the shortest””, and I think this one will qualify for that. I have eight minutes to beat, so noble Lords can watch the clock. I first want to thank the noble Baroness, Lady Andrews, for her staunch work on this Bill. She is the kind of campaigning Minister who I want to see leading this Bill from a political point of view. I wish her all the best in her endeavours, as other noble Lords have said. My first substantial point is about the political and economic situation, which is deeply serious. It has the capacity to completely blow off course our intentions in housing and almost everything we aim to do. The new builds in 2008 will probably be half the Government's target. Mortgages will continue to rise as bank rates fall. Repossessions are rising and will continue to rise rapidly. First-time buyers are completely out of the market with no sign of coming back in. This is a crisis: it is not a problem. With the greatest respect to the noble Lord, Lord Mawson, who seems to have engaged the wrath of two general secretaries of the Labour Party in the same 15 minutes tonight, I do not think that entrepreneurship is exactly what we are looking for. When he said that, I thought, ““Let me think; the most entrepreneurial bank that I remember in recent times was Northern Rock””. That is not quite what we are looking for. I would say to my friends in the banking industry that social responsibility is what we are looking for at present rather than entrepreneurship—a dialogue with the Government who have really serious problems with housing and who need the help of bankers and banks to solve the problem. As parliamentarians, in this period ahead we cannot simply focus on legislation. We must also fulfil our wider remit as representatives of the people to make sure that we engage in the wider argument about housing and the failure of our economic and social system to deliver housing. We must engage with those who are creating the crisis in the banking sector and others and, as parliamentarians from all parties, we must clearly be on the side of those people affected. That is my first point—a big and important one. My second point was made by the noble Baroness, Lady Dean. The new Homes and Community Agency must get the big things right. The potential for that organisation not to be right is fairly extensive. It will be a big and powerful organisation and its ability to keep a distance between itself, its customers and the stakeholders that it serves will be considerable. So it is very important that we get the culture of that organisation right from the very beginning and find a way for it to be open to people, accountable and interested in what people have to say and in how it engages with people and tenants. I was very impressed by the contribution of my noble friend Lord Filkin on the balance between the communities agency and the regulator and how those two organisations will interact to affect tenants’ circumstances. Tenant involvement has slipped back slightly in the housing world since my noble friend Lady Dean was the leader of the Housing Corporation and that needs to be rectified. Getting the big corporate governance issues around the new organisation right is very important. Thirdly and finally, design quality is a working-class issue. Those were almost the words of the noble Lord, Lord Patten, although he did not use quite the same formulation as someone from the Labour Benches. However, he came pretty close. It is true that this is not just about aesthetics. I am glad to hear more and more noble Lords express the view that design quality is not about aesthetics but rather about quality of life. That is particularly the case for people who are less able to afford to buy good design than those people who may have it provided by other means. Space standards have been identified in the debate as being very important. I have never met a rich man who lived in a studio flat. I do not know whether anybody else has. The well-off almost take it as a right that they will have the space that they require. They do not even think about it. It is the people on lower incomes who need somebody on their side to fight for this very important aspect of their lives. I saw a beautiful block of flats go up near to where I live. The block is about 12 storeys high, has steel and glass balconies and looks absolutely beautiful. However, as the flats began to fill, the balconies became full of bicycles, boxes, toys and other household goods. When I talked to the people who lived in the flats it became clear that the problem was there was not enough storage space. If that had been a posh high-rise development at the best end of the town, that would not have been the case. Therefore, we must be on the side of ordinary people in standing up for good design. Those are my three points. To parliamentarians I say that we need to be social reformers as well as legislators. Housing is an issue where we can do this effectively and cohesively from all sides and I hope that we will continue to do so.