Housing and Regeneration Bill

I was going to invite the noble Lord to withdraw the amendment. I shall make my response very short. I understand what the noble Lord is trying to ascertain. By clarifying the language and introducing qualifications, he may be trying to invite the HCA to be more modest in what it can achieve and to make it clearer to everyone how the HCA will work. I should make four main points—I will not labour them, but they apply to the consequential amendments on regeneration and sustainability. The first argument is that in relation to each of the elements of its work, the HCA should have no fewer powers. That would be damaged by the amendment because English Partnerships’s regeneration powers are extremely important. It is important that the HCA can put land packages together, and so forth. Secondly, it is self-evident that the HCA will not build homes or regenerate communities directly, but it cannot be confined to assisting others. We must give the HCA the necessary competence to deliver its objects. That is crucial, and the language is perfectly appropriate and right for that. As soon as we begin to insert exclusions, exceptions or qualifications, we diminish the agency and dilute its powers. It is not that we are expecting the agency to do everything itself—far from it—but it must be able to do some things itself. It must be able to take the initiative. For example, it must be able to act alone to fund a road to unlock a site that might otherwise not be used for housing; to bring together land ownership in one place; to fund the Decent Homes programme; and to fund housing associations. None of that will be possible if the noble Lord were to press his amendment. I know that sustainability is very close to the noble Lord’s heart. We have now placed sustainability at the heart of the objects, following a long debate in the other place. It was always there, but we have made it explicit. The HCA must be able to reflect the central importance of our domestic buildings to carbon generation and to take steps. That requires a direct power. While the language of the Bill does not mean that it will do everything itself, and I do not think anyone would realistically interpret it as such, to qualify it would be to hobble and inhibit it, which would be dangerous. I agree that of course the HCA should be, and is, primarily an enabler or facilitator, and it is a provider of resources as a broker rather than as a direct provider. That means that it will work in partnership, and that is the crucial nature of the relationship. There will be occasions when the HCA has a role in direct provision, and the Bill must allow for that. It needs to be able to retain the option to provide housing directly in the rare instances where there is a need to protect public investment in a project. For example, we would want the agency to step into a development if a developer went bust, rather than losing either investment or benefits. That is an important power, although I am not saying that it would be used very often. Those are the arguments for keeping the language in the Bill, to indicate the scope of the powers, but also to make sure that, while it will work in partnership, there will be opportunities and the necessity to act alone on occasion.