---

Housing and Regeneration Bill

moved Amendment No. 104BB: 104BB: Clause 99, page 43, line 20, at end insert— ““( ) undertake research in relation to levels of income and the affordability of housing;”” The noble Baroness said: The amendment would add something to Clause 99, dealing with information, advice and so on. I am aware that we have spent quite a lot of time already this afternoon on important matters, but I do not want to suggest that this is unimportant. I will be happy to be told at the end of what need not be a very long exchange that the research in my amendment is covered by the clause and, more importantly, although we do not have the regulator in place, that the Government have in mind that the regulator should pay serious attention to this. The amendment is about research on levels of income and the affordability of housing. We talk about affordable housing in a rather glib way, without stopping to work out what is affordable. That will vary across the country, as will rents. Doing the arithmetic and bringing the income and outgoings together into the same calculation is not what we are necessarily addressing in this sort of legislation, which is all about words. The Greater London Authority, from which I stood down six weeks ago, has done quite a bit of work on a living wage in London and has taken account of housing costs. A living wage in London, GLA economics says, is a good deal more than the minimum wage. I want to approach this from the people end as well as the bricks-and-mortar end. Unless attention is paid to what is affordable in reality, with an estimate of the needs of those who are not adequately served by the market—more than an assessment; some detailed, tough work on what is actually affordable—the final words in a Bill that is 222 pages long and growing will not deliver for a lot of the people who we want to see the Bill deliver for. I beg to move.