Housing and Regeneration Bill

I was not going to speak on this amendment, but I should like to add one point to those made by my noble friend. I am provoked by the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, who made some valuable points about how important it is for issues of design to be understood and acted on at a local level, which is where the real decisions are often made. I should declare an interest as a member of Pendle Borough Council, which is a housing authority, a planning authority and all the rest of it. I should also apologise for not taking part at Second Reading. The fact that I could not do so is linked to the fact that I am still a member of Pendle Borough Council. I was otherwise occupied electioneering at the time and managed to scrape back where all my colleagues were falling around me. Such is life and such is politics. The last time I remember a head of steam building up in the House of Lords on design issues was when we were discussing the Planning and Compulsory Purchase Bill in 2004. Exactly the same sort of head of steam built up, the same arguments were put forward, and the legislation was amended as a result. I very much hope that the same thing will happen and that the Government will negotiate a sensible form of wording to reflect the clearly widespread view that design should be incorporated in the Bill, as happened in that previous legislation. As a member of a local planning committee—at the other end of the system completely—it has been extremely valuable that local authorities and local planning committees can now consider design overtly as part of the decision-making process. Applications can be changed and can be rejected on grounds of design. Following the changes to that 2004 legislation, and the way in which it was fed through planning policy statements and so on, it is now an important part of the planning process. Some planning officers still say, ““Well, I am sorry, I have not done any qualifications in design and I cannot give any advice to the committee””, and some councillors say, ““Well, we have no qualifications, but we are going to do what we think is right””. That is what democracy is about, although it is not always easy to defend on appeal. The fact that it is now built into the system at the local level that the noble Lord was talking about is important and valuable, as it is, in a different way, in the area of social housing, regeneration and so on that the HCA is going to be involved in. It is not a panacea because what gets built and how it gets built is inevitably a matter of negotiation and compromise and it is always a question of balancing ideals against practicalities, particularly those of cost. We cannot click our fingers and get brilliant design everywhere, even if we could all agree what brilliant design is, which does not necessarily happen. Nevertheless, putting it there and putting it in the equation, the negotiations and the compromises is important and I wish this amendment well.