Housing and Regeneration Bill

That is an interesting question. This issue will not be resolved today; we shall have to go away and think about it. I am glad that the noble Lord, Lord Brooke, has appeared, because yesterday he entertained us with stories of Alice in Wonderland and Lewis Carroll in relation to Otmoor. The more I think about it, the more I think that this is Alice in Wonderland territory. I had a vision of the Secretary of State as the Red Queen, but I thought that perhaps that was not fair and so would not pursue it. The Minister has just stated that this provision applies only to land owned by the Homes and Communities Agency. If the HCA wants to transfer land to a statutory undertaker, it can do so voluntarily, but if a compulsory purchase by the statutory undertaker can be done only if the HCA asks for it, then it is not required to be done in relation to its own land. However, unless I have totally misunderstood it, paragraph 18 gives powers to statutory undertakers to acquire land compulsorily. That seems extraordinary. I wonder whether this legislation is not rather old fashioned and outdated. Although Ministers keep telling us that it is based on the Leasehold Reform, Housing and Urban Development Act 1993, I suggest that the provisions in that Act have probably been rolled forward from earlier Acts and may go back as far as 1946.