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Housing and Regeneration Bill

I accept that entirely. They also enable people to shape their communities as they wish. The CLT that I mentioned wanted to ensure that local people could be housed locally. It was able to define tenants or buyers on the basis of their local roots, which I think makes a great deal of sense. As for the obstacle in that case, the members of the CLT spent a considerable amount of time approaching a large number of lending institutions. They were asked to explain exactly what a community land trust was. When they had explained, in plain English, they were asked ““Can you tell us where, in law, we can find out about this mechanism?”” As we all know, it is not defined anywhere in law, and as a result—and I am not making this up—the CLT was unable to obtain funding. I am pleased to hear that elsewhere in the country and in earlier times, perhaps under a slightly different guise—the hon. Lady mentioned co-operatives—others have been funded, but CLTs are very much at the beginning of their journey. We know that the Minister has arranged trials to establish how they could be made to work elsewhere. If the commitment is there and both sides of the House agree, it is reasonable to try to proceed slightly more quickly. If we can learn from practical experience of the problems experienced by those on the ground, there is every reason to include this provision in the Bill. I cannot think of any way in which it would damage the Government's other objectives.