I also support the amendment, although no one should panic—I might not vote in a Division, if it gets pushed, unless I am instructed to. But it just makes sense.
We know this will not fix the whole housing shortage, but it will be a useful tool to help that happen and we need to encourage councils to do this. While the control of these developments rests with the Secretary of State, it will be very difficult to persuade local councils and the communities that they represent that this is the right way to do it. By pushing power closer to the councils, and therefore to the people they represent, this amendment will make it more likely that more of these will come through. The noble Lord, Lord Best, tried to do this in a positive way, and the really positive point is that we can actually capture the value of the land. The land will give us the ability to make the communities truly sustainable: it will give us the money to make sure the roads, the water supply, the gas supply and the electricity supply are all right. In some areas, if probably not my own, the broadband might even be all right as well on the back of this.
I gave evidence to the Public Accounts Committee yesterday. One of the other witnesses was from Shelter, and he pointed out that one of the flaws in this argument is that we may need to revisit the compulsory purchase rules, because even when you compulsorily purchase land for a new town settlement, the land uplift still goes to the current landowner. If the Government are seriously interested in this, I would urge them to look also at reforming the compulsory purchase rules relating to new town settlements.