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Housing and Regeneration Bill

I am certainly not going to defend the housing record of Birmingham city council, which is very unsatisfactory in many respects. However, my hon. Friend is wrong to suggest that the cost of bringing extra private money into the decent homes and stock improvement programmes is greater than the cost of providing public money. On the contrary, £35 billion has been raised for housing investment because housing associations are able to borrow from the private sector to supplement the public funds that are available to them. That is extra investment that has improved many homes that would not otherwise have been improved. Also, contrary to the view that is often expressed, tenants' interests have been protected. The idea that housing associations are unaccountable and irresponsible landlords is very different from my experience. I have worked with a range of housing providers, including small and large housing associations, and most of them achieve high standards and aim to be truly responsive to the needs of their tenants and the communities they work with. I strongly advocate an approach that recognises the merits of a mixed economy with a range of providers, and a programme that allows the continued attraction of private investment to supplement public funds, so that we get a larger programme and more work done than would otherwise be achieved. That must be applied more widely. There has been a dramatic change in new private house building development: unlike 10 years ago, house builders are now prepared to accept that new developments should be mixed developments with an element of social and affordable housing alongside market housing. That was not the case in the past. How often in the past did we hear private developers saying, ““We simply want our own exclusive estates, with no social tenants””? That pernicious and wrong approach has largely been countered by the policies pursued by the current Government, and I hope that they will be maintained. The thinking in the Green Paper published in the summer, which is implicit in the policies advocated in the Bill, is encouraging mixed developments in which, side by side, there will be housing for sale, housing for rent and low-cost and intermediate options, and in which there will also be a commitment to raising energy efficiency standards and to doing so in new ways. If we pursue that, and we also accept the need to bring in an element of private finance, there will be an expanded programme, which is what we all want. I hope that my hon. Friend the Minister will reject the blandishments of those who advocate new clauses 1 and 8, and that he will continue on the course the Government have pursued, which is the right one in the long term for this country.