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Housing and Regeneration Bill

I have a lot of sympathy with what the noble Baroness said. I believe that most councils treat this very seriously and are doing whatever they can whenever it happens. It would be a very callous council that did not. We have just heard about a lot of amendments about prioritisation. I have no doubt that in some cases that is excellent, but the problem seems to me to be about where all this affordable housing is to put all these priority people and all the rest. The answer is: it is not there. Last year, there were about 1.7 million applications for affordable housing. At Second Reading, I said that I thought that the figure would be nearer 2 million; I think that the National Housing Association about a week or two ago said that it would be somewhere over 2 million. What happens with prioritisation is a leapfrogging effect. Some people get housed because they tick the boxes; if you do not tick the boxes, you do not get housed; end of story. The problem is that we are just not building affordable housing. From those people who are told, ““You are not going to get housing for five or 10 years””, there is resentment. They are living in their communities and they find themselves needing a house but they find housing being given to other people coming into their communities while they are not being given a house. That is not being addressed at all. Okay, prioritisation maybe one thing, but a huge number of people want to stay in their communities but cannot.