Housing and Regeneration Bill

The noble Lord has ruined my joke. On the amendment proposed by the noble Lord, Lord Dixon-Smith, I have an enormous amount of sympathy with the sentiment that he expressed. He said that he was trying to send a psychological message, which is absolutely right. I like that for two reasons: first, it is eminently faithful to not only the thought that went into the creation of the new agency but the extensive round of consultation that took place in the summer of 2007, when exactly that kind of stall was set out by the team that I led and we tried to describe how the new organisation would operate. The words here are exactly the words that we used at that time. Secondly, I rather like it because I think it will be greatly welcomed by the board and the staff of the Homes and Communities Agency. To a man and woman they would agree that that would be the way, ideally, they would want to operate with partners and local authorities. So, for those reasons, I rather like the noble Lord’s choice of words. The noble Lord, Lord Greaves, made some interesting points about the nature of the planning powers of the new organisation. English Partnerships had old planning powers that were residual to the New Towns Act and at any time over the past 10 years we could have chosen to use those powers in new town jurisdictions to override the local planning authority. That was not desirable philosophically, and politically we were always encouraged by successive Secretaries of State not to even contemplate it. In Milton Keynes we agreed with the local authority that it was important to use local authority planning powers rather than rely on the old English Partnerships powers under Section 7(1). All of the work that took place in Milton Keynes in that period happened through the normal Town and Country Planning Acts. In contrast, I tried on a number of occasions to move along developments in Basildon, another former new town, and the local authority there, for a variety of reasons, was not sympathetic to what English Partnerships was proposing or trying to do. Theoretically, we could have used our own planning powers on those sites, but the board never dreamed of doing so. We were certainly heavily discouraged by different Secretaries of State from going down that route. In fact, occasionally people were frustrated and thought that we might get on if we did use these powers, but there was never any encouragement, explicit or implicit, to do that. I cannot imagine many, if any, circumstances in which the new agency would dictate terms to local authorities. That would be contrary to the spirit of how the agency is being set up. I know he is here at present but I shall spare the blushes of the designate chief executive, Sir Bob Kerslake. I cannot think of any circumstances in which Bob would create a culture where there was anything other than a proper and genuine partnership with local authorities. The only concern that I have about the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Dixon-Smith, is that in singling out local government we do not pay much attention to the fact that the Homes and Communities Agency, particularly where sub-regional infrastructure crosses the boundaries of one or more local authorities, will work absolutely in line with the decisions of the regional spatial and economic strategies. So, in that regard, it also has to pay close attention to the regional bodies as well as individual local authorities as it goes about its business. It is a small quibble, but I very much support the spirit of what the noble Lord is seeking to do and I have a great deal of sympathy with the amendment. I shall leave it to my noble friend the Minister and others to comment more fully on the planning, but I would say, genuinely and sincerely, that that was never the intention of the way in which the plans for the agency were laid.