Housing and Regeneration Bill

I support what the noble Lord, Lord Best, said and the thrust of what the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, said. I shall not speak at length. It is an unusual and impressive situation that we have support from bodies like the Local Government Association and the National Federation of ALMOs, which would be captured by this self-volunteering, all-encompassing regulatory proposal, but also the Chartered Institute of Housing and TPAS. I pay tribute to the way in which they have worked together and put forward a progressive and mature case for change. I will not repeat the arguments on why domain-wide regulation is in the interest of tenants. The Committee knows that, not least the requirement to have a set of performance data. I still struggle to understand why we are making such heavy weather of this. My good and noble friend Lady Andrews has tried to cheer me up in her kind way by saying that she has a little Bill coming along soon which will put it all right. I hear that. But the Government have known what CABE was going to recommend before it was published. They have known for well over a year that CABE was going to recommend this. Therefore, officials have had plenty of time to do the necessary policy work. I recognise that part of the anxiety was at a time when the Government rightly were seeking to deregulate local government through one door and that they did not want to re-regulate it through another. No doubt there were some good battles between officials within the department. But the LGA has cracked that problem for the department. Therefore, that is no reason for not moving forward with this. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Best, that in a situation where the House itself may be suggesting—or even going bolder and promoting—a powerful set of powers, the Minister need have no fear that the scrutiny process of this place will fall foul of that. I cannot speak for the whole House, but I would nevertheless want to see a different set of situations addressed in amendments. We have waited 30 years for an improved regulatory system for social housing. It is common sense to all of us that it should be domain-wide. It is not sensible to start a bus with one of its wheels missing. I urge the Government, even at this late date, to encourage their officials to get this together so that by Third Reading we can have the Bill which all of us believe is right and necessary. I do not wish to be rude and make comments about future promissory notes from the Government, who I support and love. But Members of the Committee know what I mean: no Government or Minister can at this stage guarantee that a Bill will come forward. What goes into the last Queen’s Speech of a Parliament is very different from what went into the first one. The Minister is not able to deliver on her promise that this will happen within two years. We should therefore put it into the Bill now.