Housing and Regeneration Bill

My Lords, any new readers would be quite baffled. I must thank the noble Baroness for responding to my noble friends Lord Greaves and Lady Miller of Chilthorne Domer, who also raised points that are covered in this group of amendments. Before I ask questions on the amendments, I should like to make a general point, which I will not make again despite the considerable number of government amendments still to come. These are technical amendments. Some of them respond to what happened at the previous stage, but most are tabled in order to get the Bill right. The Bill spent a lot of time in the Commons and we spent nine days on it in Committee. We are now at the penultimate stage. I should like to make absolutely clear that I cast no blame at the door of the noble Baroness, but this possibly consolidates what I have noticed over the years; namely, that in June and July, the Government do not have the resources to deal with this sort of thing in the way that they should. There has always seemed to be a shortage of parliamentary counsel, which, no doubt, has been felt at earlier stages. It is a bit of a poor show that we get all this at this stage. I have said it now, got it off my chest and I will not say it again—well, not today. Amendment No. 69 refers to regional development agencies. The Minister has given us one example of how the provision could be used. I suspect that that example is why we have the amendment, but it is much wider than the example and I would be grateful if she could tell the House whether the Government have anything else in mind that would require an amendment of this sort. Amendment No. 79 refers to planning. As the noble Baroness said, we were concerned about that at the previous stage. I do not oppose this amendment because, although I very much oppose the Government’s planning proposals, which we will come to in the next group, we do not seek to get rid of them entirely. When I saw Amendment No. 82 I wrote, ““Please translate””, which the Minister has done. I am also grateful to have had sight of the Minister’s speaking notes on these amendments, which have made life a great deal easier. Finally, Amendment No. 89, which would apply to Clause 69, states: "““The Secretary of State may by order make further provision in respect of a function … (which may, in particular, include provision for the function to cease to be exercisable)””." I would be much happier if the amended clause simply stated that the Secretary of State could order a function to cease to be exercisable. That is what the Minister’s note, which was circulated to noble Lords last week, said. However, the amendment is wider and it is not clear whether the further provision referred to is yet another provision, whether it is covered by Clause 69(1), or whether something more is in mind. That is one example of a generality followed by a particularity, and it is the particularity that concerns the Government, but it is cast in a much wider context. Last week, the noble Baroness described me as cynical—inevitably, cynics like me will wonder about the wider intention.