Housing and Regeneration Bill

moved Amendment No. 44: 44: Clause 33, page 15, line 12, leave out from beginning to end of line 25 and insert ““facilitate activities and the provision of services which it considers appropriate for the creation, regeneration or development of communities or their continued wellbeing.”” The noble Baroness said: My Lords, this amendment is to Clause 33, ““Community services””, which caused more intrigue the more we discussed it in Grand Committee. The Government’s two amendments in this group are confined to anti-social behaviour, fear of anti-social behaviour and crime. My amendment is considerably wider because it seeks to approach the matter in a different way. The Minister’s letter to Peers invited us to make suggestions for alternatives. Having been very critical of this clause in Grand Committee, I thought that it would be churlish not to have a go. In Grand Committee, the Minister said that, "““the list is both flexible enough to allow for the sort of innovation and social enterprise that the HCA would be very good at encouraging … and broad enough to be able to do the sorts of things that I suggested in terms of the environment, such as … design””.—[Official Report, 10/6/08; col. GC 159.]" It is not just a peculiar list. In particular, the direct provisions, such as employment and health services, of the HCA are not what I envisaged it would provide or would be within its immediate remit. These days, one would not expect local authorities, which I think are the comparator here, to provide these, although they may be expected to facilitate. My amendment possibly does not adequately deal with the technical provision on cremation or burial services generally, but otherwise it would cover the situation and would, "““facilitate activities and the provision of services which it considers appropriate for the creation, regeneration or development of communities or their continued wellbeing””." Those last words are not original. The Minister will recognise them from elsewhere in the Bill. I beg to move.