Housing and Regeneration Bill

I thank the noble Baroness. I am not suggesting that it should be a bar. It may look odd, but it gives clarity. With the appointments that we are going to have, that is important. On the amendment, in regard to the provision that the term not exceed five years, I should like the Minister to explain why. In most public bodies, the term is now three years. But, on looking at the Bill, the term could end up as 10 years. That is how it is packaged. If the term is to be only three years, one would not want the new body all to be appointed at the same time and, thus, finish at the same time. You will want them to finish in numbers and the five years may give that opportunity. It would be helpful for me to understand why the term is five years. It is the first time I have come up against that for some time. As regards the amendment to Clause 91(2), I understand the points made by the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee. But, with all due respect, when working in this kind of complicated area, sometimes committees need to be set up that are made up of people who are not members of the body, but which are chaired by a member of the body. Two such examples came to my mind as the noble Baroness was talking; for example, how the Housing Corporation developed its policy on rural housing. I chaired that group, and there was no other member of the Housing Corporation board on it. The recommendations from that group fed into the main board, just as did those from other committees of the group. My second, and perhaps lasting, example concerned tenants. There was no provision at that time for tenant involvement directly in the policy development of the Housing Corporation. We set up a body, which, again, I chaired. Those were two areas that I was particularly keen that we should do something about. Not one member of the board was on that body either. We felt that if we were going to consult with tenants, we wanted to listen to them, not to members of our board. We knew what they thought. We wanted to get the tenants in and to ask what they thought. Similarly, we did that on the rural areas policy. I hope that this provision stays. It will be very helpful, particularly if you have a small board. I cringed when I heard the figure of 15 members mentioned. That is a large number of members for any chairman to manage. I suggest that the most effective boards do not have that number of members. Whereas three members, with a maximum of the lower number of six, may not be quite right, I think that the higher number of 15 is probably too high. It would be very interesting to hear the Minister’s thinking and rationale for these points.