Housing and Regeneration Bill

It gives me great pleasure to be associated with the amendment of my noble friend Lord Graham, and I do not intend to repeat his eloquent case for local communities having some say and control over how land in their area is utilised. I hope that the Minister will recognise that it is in tune with the Government’s current agenda of empowering local communities. It will do what we were talking about earlier: it will ensure—as my noble friend said, in perpetuity—that we have mixed communities and that our local housing stock does not become skewed in some way by market pressures. This is one of a range of future measures that local communities could have, and it should be seen in that light. As my noble friend has said, these amendments appear here for a particular reason: the absence of a legal definition currently hampers the development of these activities. In this respect, this is a modest amendment. It does not propose to extend community land trusts, ask for extra funding or state that they are in any way superior to other forms of provision. It simply enables them to operate as a partner with other housing sectors. I, too, am slightly concerned that the Minister will say nice words about this and then add that this is not the appropriate place. In Inside Housing a few weeks ago, the Minister Iain Wright said that he was sympathetic and would do more work on this but did not feel that the Bill was the right place. Doing more work on this is not in contradiction to putting a modest definition in the Bill. Some of the Government’s aspirations for consulting on how this can be used more widely are fine. Let us have that consultation. But, in the mean time, let us include that definition and work on it. It may be that the Government can come up with a better form of wording, but I do not see why we cannot have the definition and the consultation at the same time. The two issues are not in contradiction. This is a small and modest enabling clause. Let us have a wider debate further down the line. In the mean time, I hope that the Minister will feel able to agree to this amendment.