Local Democracy, Economic Development and Construction Bill [Lords]

That would probably add to the incentive. I have enormous admiration for the hon. Member for Luton, North (Kelvin Hopkins), but we need to think hard about the consequences of what he has suggested. If an authority was told by the Government, rightly or wrongly, through their regional planning policy, that it needed to build a certain number of houses in its area and if the neighbouring authority needed to build another number of houses in its area, it would be wrong for the first authority to be able to say, "Well, we'll build that number of houses, but not in our area. We'll build them in someone else's." Wherever the borders ought to lie, such matters should be decided quite separately. As will become obvious to you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, a recent example of the problem is that the local authorities in Luton and South Bedfordshire decided to try to meet their housing targets by making an area in the neighbouring district of North Hertfordshire one of their preferred locations for house building. The area that Luton and South Bedfordshire have chosen was not included in the original Milton Keynes and south midlands spatial strategy, so no one in North Herts was consulted while the strategy was going through. The area in question was not even one of Luton and South Bedfordshire's preferred options when they were considering how to meet that broad strategy, once it had been decided. It was only when it suddenly dawned on local councillors in Luton and South Bedfordshire that there would be some opposition—there is always some opposition—to building where they had originally thought it would be sensible and right to build and that they could avoid that opposition, in electoral terms, by transferring their ambitions to a neighbouring area that they went ahead with the proposal. Luton and South Bedfordshire have selected the area of Lilley Bottom, as it is known, near the eponymous village of Lilley in my constituency. Not many hon. Members have villages in their constituencies that are named after them, still less parts of their anatomies, or after which they are named, but there we are. The area is a particularly beautiful part of my constituency and probably one of the most attractive valleys in the constituency, which makes it even more abhorrent to those who live there that it has been seized upon in this way. The area provides a vital resource, at least to the inhabitants of Luton, South, who have a beautiful area of countryside on their boundaries, which they greatly want and, by and large, want to keep. Should the plan go ahead, there would be a double loss, for the inhabitants of both North Herts and Luton. It is not only that area that is affected, however. There is another area where a neighbouring local authority is planning to build, in St. Albans, in the southern part of my constituency, although that plan has recently been stopped. My point is that although the problem may not be common throughout the country, if we do not stop it, we will open the floodgates. There will not be a council in the country with housing pressures in its area that will not think, "How much more preferable to seek planning permission in another area." I do not know whether there is even any limit on councils choosing areas in entirely different parts of the country. Could the inhabitants of Kent seek to meet their housing targets by building in Northumbria? As the law is currently phrased, I think they could. That is an absurdity. We should take the opportunity provided by this Bill to close that loophole and ensure that local authorities try to meet their targets in their areas and for their constituents, to whom they are responsible.