---

Housing and Regeneration Bill

My Lords, I shall be extremely brief. I had the pleasure and privilege of going to the conference arranged by the Association of British Insurers. I am not sure whether either of the Ministers present were there on that occasion, but the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, was sitting immediately in front of me, for which I gave him extremely good marks and with whom I exchanged an occasional word. Anyone who was there would have been aware of the nature of the unhappiness, not with God or the flooding arrangements, but with the degree of human suffering that occurs as a consequence of flooding. I simply say to the government Front Bench that, were there not to be a sympathetic response to the amendment moved by my noble friend Lord Cathcart, a lot of people at that conference would wonder whether the Government were as serious as they suggested.