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Housing and Regeneration Bill

No, because of the shortage of time. I am opening up the debate about the relative places of renting and owner-occupation in our society. I would have thought that Labour Members would find that helpful; that was the reason for doing it. My hon. Friend the Member for St. Albans (Anne Main) correctly expressed her concern about the powers of the new agency and raised, as did my hon. Friend the Member for Basingstoke, the issue of infrastructure. We heard little from Labour Members about the need to get the infrastructure in place before the building occurs. Many of them complained about the numbers of houses not built, as do the Government, without thinking through why there is such resistance in some local communities to the housing numbers that are set. That is because communities do not feel that they have the resources to service the houses that they have been asked to take. The Government place no emphasis on dealing with that infrastructure problem or offering incentives; that is why the great monolith rolls on. Recent reports on how the Government have handled their policy all say the same thing: they are not doing very well. I could quote extensively from the two recent reports on pathfinders and the Thames Gateway, but to put it in a nutshell they are, as the Minister for Housing knows very well, highly critical—[Interruption.] Oh, all right, they are not highly critical. Let me kick off with the first conclusion of the Public Accounts Committee on the Thames Gateway:"““The Department's management of the programme has been weak, and has not demonstrably added value to the programme.””" The report on pathfinders said:"““there is no guarantee that intervening in the housing market in this way will address the causes rather than the symptoms of the problems experienced in these neighbourhoods””—" not much return on £2.2 billion in five years. With the best interpretation in the world, those reports are pretty critical. They point to the Government's approach, not necessarily their intention or desires. The hon. Member for Luton, South spoke of good intent, and she is right, but the delivery has not been as good as it should be. As the hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington said, that has been a disappointment and a let-down to all the people who thought that 10 years of a Labour Government might deliver a bit more than good intent.