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Housing and Regeneration Bill

The noble Baroness said the key words. While it is clearly useful to have tenant ballots if only tenants are involved, the noble Lord, Lord Mawson, had a point when he said that if a council has made this matter an electoral issue and the election has been clear, open and everyone understands what is going on, that is a fair process. We do not have to worry about that. The noble Lord, Lord Whitty, is discussing different circumstances in which, if there is a somewhat unscrupulous council—which is not unknown—it is possible to have a one-sided election. The difficulty is how we establish a system that provides the flexibility that the noble Lord, Lord Mawson, rightly asked for and the security that the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, rightly asked for. At the moment, the noble Baroness, Lady Andrews has the job and the responsibility. All I would say to the noble Lord, Lord Mawson, is that he needs to remember that when the country votes in a general election, it gets the result it gets and has to live with it. You cannot complain if you have a ballot purely on a housing issue and you do not get the result you want. You have to live with it, because that is democracy, I am afraid. It may be tough, but democracy needs to be a tough and harsh discipline. It is good that it works.