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Housing Corporation (Delegation) etc. Bill

I should like to thank the Minister for providing the briefing to the spokesman who leads on Office of the Deputy Prime Minister matters for the Liberal Democrats. I also commend the Minister, as she appears to be following in the footsteps of Robert Dalgleish, a Liberal Member of Parliament for central Glasgow in the 19th century, whose great-granddaughter I met last week. I understand that he acquired a reputation for speaking in the House only when he had something to say. I commend the Minister for doing that, and I would commend that practice to other Members. She made a very brief contribution today, and I will do the same. We could have had much fun with this legislative lacuna. The Housing Corporation has undoubtedly made a number of decisions, including consenting to loans, whose validity is questionable. However, this matter is much too important to jest about, and I am sure that if I were to go down that road, the Speaker would pull me up. This could also have been an opportunity to talk about the funding available to the Housing Corporation, particularly the funding available in London and the south-east to provide affordable housing in boroughs such as mine, the London borough of Sutton, where there are about 4,000 households on the council waiting list for affordable housing, of which there is very little. My office has now made four attempts to arrange a meeting with the Minister about this, and I hope that our fifth attempt will be successful.