My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Foster, has referred to the many attempts over the years to introduce a right-to-buy policy, which eventually came to pass. It is one thing to have a right-to-buy policy when you are building a lot of houses anyway; it is quite another when you are falling far short of demand and of meeting need for new houses. That has been a chronic situation for the past few years, and it has not materially improved. That is the context in which the issues have to be considered.
Having said that, I agree with the noble Lord that the wording of Amendment 57 may not be perfect; it is a question of replacing like for like, not just one for one. Unfortunately, the way in which much new housing has taken shape over the last few years means that we are looking at very small units. I keep saying this, but it is a fact—housing units built in this country are smaller than in any other major country in Europe. We are looking at, frankly, expensive housing offering little in the way of space in the market generally and, equally, in the event of a replacement scheme. I rather regret that my noble friend and I did not include like for like in the amendment. We may have to revert to that, because it would not do much good to replace a two-bedroom or three-bedroom house with a one-bedroom house or something equally small. The temptation to do that, I suspect, given the high land prices in London, would be very great.
It will be interesting to see whether the Minister agrees that we have to look at what we are replacing, rather than purely the numbers.
9.15 pm