My Lords, in view of the remarks of the noble Baroness, Lady Williams, I will be much briefer than I intended, so we might ramble around a little.
On Amendments 193 and 194 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, I absolutely understand his points and will await the Minister’s answer on the reasons for that omission from the Bill. I have to confess to the noble Lord to having made the assumption that they would be in the Bill. In fact, reading through this section, I thought “Why are people putting down these amendments? Aren’t they what people already do in a good local plan?”, so I am grateful for his attention to detail.
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I agree with the noble Lord’s portrayal of the plan as tending to be around sites and location. Unfortunately, this is largely driven by public opinion. On a local plan, most consultation is on the site-specific thing, yet answering the big question—where do we want our towns to be in five, 10 and 20 years’ time?—is surely the most exciting thing you can do with a community. I hope the Bill encourages us to do that. I genuinely do not know how any local authority could begin its plan without the starting point being its strategic priorities.
Likewise, on Amendment 199, on which my noble friend Lady Pinnock will speak, how can you consider land use if you do not know what your major infra-structure needs are—from big schemes such as railway
schemes down to walking routes and joining up cycle routes? It is really important. My one question to the Minister is: surely, without those key policies, a plan would not be found sound.
I turn to Amendment 193A. As ever, the case has been made by the noble Lord, Lord Best, so I will scrap my next bit and say that the evidence is huge. The real need is to deliver at volume and at speed. It is still a surprise to me that the only statutory provision for accommodation that a council has to make is for Gypsies and Travellers. I understand and recognise why there was a need to do that. Some authorities were just denying their obligation to this community and leaving it to others. Of course, we know that still happens, which is why I seek clarity from the Minister on how local need will be assessed in the future and how need will be defined in the plan. Will it simply be a number-of-units game or, being blunt, can we look at how we can avoid the attitude of “We don’t have that problem here, so we don’t need to provide”? The subtext is that they will go to the council next door. Noble Lords can fill in their own groups of residents who are often ignored, which sometimes includes social housing tenants.
I come to my most serious point. Given the scale of the housing problem, surely it is time for a Government to be bold enough to put social housing on a statutory footing and then conceive a plan to deliver at scale and pace.