Housing and Planning Bill

I am sorry; it may be a matter of when Report happens. The Minister should recognise that noble Lords all around the Chamber are floundering, because we do not know enough. We are not challenging the Minister’s good intent; I am sure that she is telling us everything she knows at the moment and that she does not wish to mislead the Committee, nor to pre-empt decisions that her department may go on to make. Some of us have been there and know the situation that she is in. However, the response to that should be to delay Report until we have those regulations, because otherwise most of this debate will continue on Report with questions such as, “What does this mean?” or “What does that mean?” and the Minister will say, “We have to await the regulations”. Then we will have an argument about whether those regulations will be affirmative or negative, and whether we can go back and amend legislation, given that we will then see the intent of the Government’s proposals, which the Minister was not able to share with us when we were discussing the Bill itself. She recognises this dilemma, as does the whole House—it is not unique to this Bill. Easter Recess is coming up. Either she must delay Report stage or she must get those regulations to us. For the sake of good scrutiny, we cannot afford to have the same sort of debate as we had on the previous day in Committee on Tuesday—and, so far, today.