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Housing and Regeneration Bill

I have just explained the initiatives that we are putting in place. We cannot implement or change something as complex as the housing revenue account subsidy system without undertaking a review and thinking through the consequences. If the hon. Gentleman seriously believes in ill thought through, knee-jerk legislation, I will leave him to it. There is a serious point about the principles of financing council housing. How is it locally accountable? How do we take into account the redistribution element? How do we ensure a direct correlation between rents paid and services provided? Given the complexities of the system and the redistributive element, we need to address those questions. That is precisely what the housing revenue account review, introduced by my right hon. Friend the Member for Pontefract and Castleford, addressed.