Housing and Regeneration Bill

I support Amendment No. 43, because the phrase, "““do anything it considers appropriate””," is far too sweeping. I suspect that if we leave the clause as it is, it will not do the HCA any favours. Part of the concern that people have expressed recently about eco-towns and a whole range of other things comes from a deep-seated anxiety that local views will be railroaded. I know from the work that has already been done in the HCA that that is not the body language or the posture that that organisation wants to strike. If we leave the clause as it is and allow the agency to say that it can do anything that it considers appropriate, we are sending out entirely the wrong message, and it would be no bad thing if a test of reasonableness and reasonable action were built into the Bill. I support the amendment for that reason.