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AMENDMENT OF THE LAW

It might, but I was not trying to go into detail. I just wanted to make the point—[Interruption.] I am not going to answer that. The point that I was trying to raise for discussion was the need for local government to have a variety of buoyant sources of income, and I shall leave it at that. If the hon. Gentleman catches your eye, Mr. Deputy Speaker, he can make his own speech on that issue, or any others that he wants to raise. I want to move on to the subject of housing investment. It is clear that the amount available for new social housing is inadequate, as are the sources of income for investment in it. I have made the point before—and hope to go on making it for as long as I am a Member—that the sort of investment funds held for people such as me by our trade union, insurance company or pension provider do not go into social housing, for homes for people whether or not they can work. Until we have an investment regime and a housing system that gets a good chunk of money from people’s savings—if I may put it like that—we shall have to rely far too much on the taxpayer and on Government decisions. I should like changes in the tax rules, alongside possible changes in forms of housing tenure, so that it would be normal for a trade union to report in its annual accounts that, for example, 20 per cent. of its members’ funds were invested in housing—not necessarily housing for union members. Unions could receive rental income from such homes, and that should be a decent class of investment. The same could apply to insurance companies and pension funds, and, for that matter, to private individuals. I do not see why one should not get the same welcome and proper advantages from providing homes for people who need them, or from maintaining the standard of one’s own home in the last 20 or 30 years of life without the complication of equity release, as one does from investing in venture capital or small private businesses. I am not against equity release or private equity; all I am saying is that we should try to find a public purpose for some of the investment funds we hope to accumulate, rather than just chasing up the value of shares on the stock market. Occasionally, we should consider the contribution that we in this place can make to reducing the burden on the public purse. I do not want my speech to be inordinately lengthy so I shall finish on this point. We have had some debates on House of Lords reform. I declare a sort of interest: I live with someone who is a member of the other place—but the remarks that I am about to make are not personal, either about her or about me. We ought to ring-fence the budgets for Parliament. Any changes in the cost of the House of Lords should be offset by reductions in the cost of the House of Commons. For example, if we are going to have a number of people who get fuller remuneration or allowances in the House of Lords, either the rate of pay or the allowances for Members of the House of Commons should be reduced, or the numbers here should be reduced. The first bid that I have put in is that over the next 10 to 15 years, we ought to aim to cut the number of Members of this House from about 650 to about 450.