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Housing and Regeneration Bill

My Lords, in accordance with the customs of the House, I remind noble Lords of the declarations of interest I made at Second Reading. There is not much to say to this group of amendments except a general comment. The noble Baroness is correct to say that the amendments are largely technical. They indicate an increasing tendency to manage by legislation, although I am not sure that this Government are the exclusive progenitor of the practice; we all build on what our predecessors have done. The management of public bodies is more detailed and prescribed, and of course anyone working for such a body can always say, ““Ah, but the law says this””. One of the side effects, of which this group is a classic example, is that the capacity for initiative is removed from people employed by something such as the Homes and Communities Agency. Increasingly, jobs in the local government sector are prescribed and defined in legislation. No doubt we have played a part in that, but it is a trend that we need to worry about. Jobs in the public service will become increasingly less worth doing and satisfying as the result of fewer opportunities for people to do things that really can help their communities because the law does not permit them and they dare not do anything without that permission.