Housing and Regeneration Bill

My Lords, my name is down to support these amendments. I am sorry that the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, is not able to be with us this evening. I understand that he is not well and I hope that he is soon recovered. It always seems amazing to me—but I have been very fortunate with my life—that on almost a day-to-day basis throughout the country children at the age of 16 or 17 are literally dumped on the street. I find it appalling that adults can do that, whether they are official carers, irresponsible parents or whatever. The fact is that it happens. For the individual concerned, that is a total tragedy. I know through work that my wife has done that some have been picked up and literally put together, arriving on somebody's door at 6 pm or 8 pm and saying, ““Can you help, please?””. It is not easy or straightforward. I know of one YMCA that runs a very successful daytime/evening operation, but it has a single-storey accommodation. There was eventually a proposal that it should try to redevelop and, if it could get enough commercial flats for sale into its site, possibly get a few units of accommodation. As the financial equation got worse and worse, the amount of residential accommodation that it had to sell became a greater proportion of the totality. In the end, it was undertaking a commercial housing development rather than the social development that it wished. I state that simply to illustrate how difficult these problems are for people who will help. This is of course outside the direct purview of local authorities. What is worse, because of the way in which the general housing market has gone, I suspect that such developments will now have come to a complete stop. If these kids can be picked up and rescued—I say rescued but I mean given stability and the opportunity to start doing something worth while—it is remarkable how rapidly they will improve. As the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, said, this is a wonderful way of preventing young people falling into crime or prostitution. That is why I support these amendments. This is a very small but very significant sector; it is so small that it is not easy to keep an eye on, but we need to remember it. Anything that the Minister can do to help in this field will be very welcome.