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Housing and Regeneration Bill

Enormous amounts of money have been spent. I do not wish to make a judgment on Birmingham—that is up to Birmingham Members—but we are spending millions to give away billions in public assets such as land, housing and public property. It is a one-sided argument, which is why we tabled the new clause. We want to try to produce a fairer balance for tenants, whom the Minister wants to empower. However, tenants for and against have to be empowered. At least the Minister is listening, and I hope he has heard what has been said about the unfairness of the procedures and tries to rectify the situation. New clause 8 deals with the financial situation of councils, which is crucial if we are to keep council housing in the state sector. That is my preference. There are still 2.8 million council houses in the UK, and I want the Bill to do more for the people who live in them. They are the neglected majority in social housing, and we need to do more for them. We considered reform of the housing revenue account, but the Secretary of State is holding a review of that account, which will report next year. We decided not to tackle the issue in that fashion, and not to question the subsidy transfers, from which some people gain and most lose. Chesterfield has been vociferous in telling us how much it loses. I will not go into the issues of historic debt or right-to-buy sales, the proceeds of which have not been put back into local housing, as all those are for the housing revenue account review. However, there is a major problem that the Bill must deal with—the inadequate funding of council maintenance, management and major reviews over a long period. That is on top of big extractions from the housing revenue account. Over the years, some £13 billion has been taken from that account by daylight robbery. The Government are still taking £1.6 billion out of housing revenue accounts, and they are still taking £0.5 billion from right-to-buy sales. Inevitably, that produces a rankling sense of injustice.