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Housing and Regeneration Bill

I am happy fully to support new clause 1, given the hon. Gentleman's clarification. I pay tribute to his colourful and witty tour de force. I hope that there is not a causal link between the fact that his picture was on the literature in favour of the ballot and the fact that he subsequently lost the ballot. I am sure that that is not the case. Over the years, the hon. Gentleman has made a big contribution to housing policy, and not just on his blog. Equality, fairness and transparency are important and, on the face of it, new clause 1 is about giving all the information pertinent to a ballot to all the people involved, including the tenants whose lives will be affected by any decision. I do not think that anyone in the House would necessarily disagree with that, and the Minister will find it difficult to support the arguments made by the right hon. Member for Greenwich and Woolwich. My hon. Friend the Member for Poole spoke eloquently about the issue raised by new clause 8, as he did in Committee. He spoke from a local constituency viewpoint, and said that 20 per cent. of tenants in Poole unitary authority had to subsidise housing elsewhere, irrespective of demography, their relative poverty and so on. He made a well-balanced speech, as he did not make a knee-jerk attack on the housing revenue account subsidy system. Instead, he said that the general principle should be that national taxation should fund housing, and not the transfer of funds across the country without anyone apparently knowing on what basis the decision is made. In that case, a decision was made by many people. Having said that, the Opposition are not disposed to support new clause 8, which deals with a separate issue from new clause 1.