---

Housing and Regeneration Bill

I have a feeling that this is a debate that has raged many times in your Lordships’ House in many permutations in the context of local government finance. We have moved on from rates, we have had the poll tax and now we are in the council tax era, although we still have business rates. I am going to plead the fifth amendment on this one. I owe the noble Lord, Lord Brooke, an explanation on his earlier question; I think it was on design issues and planning. If he will let me, I will put the two points together in correspondence. If I recall—the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, was there, I think—we accepted an amendment to an earlier Planning Bill where we tried to incorporate design issues into planning issues. That may even have been prompted partly by the noble Baroness, which might in part answer the noble Lord’s earlier question.