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Housing and Regeneration Bill

I shall perhaps surprise the hon. Member for Welwyn Hatfield (Grant Shapps) by saying that I agree with him in one important aspect. He referred to the surprising number of amendments to which we have been exposed since the Bill began its parliamentary passage some eight months ago, and I am afraid that this is one illustration of a theme that I have spoken about in other contexts—the increasing tendency for legislation to be produced in too much of a hurry and without sufficient preparation, so that it requires a great deal of amendment during its parliamentary passage. That is not a helpful trend, and I hope that in the years to come we will move away from that practice. I thought it slightly odd, however, that the hon. Gentleman complained about that and then welcomed the fact that a number of changes were being made to the Bill. He cannot have it both ways. We are making a lot of changes to the Bill, and I believe that they have generally made a considerable improvement and are therefore welcome. As he will remember, many of them were introduced on Report in this House, before the Bill went to the Lords, so this is not simply a case of our receiving amendments at this late stage. To return to first principles, I strongly welcome this part of the Bill and the establishment of the Homes and Communities Agency. At a time when there is widespread recognition of the importance of more effective action to achieve sustainable development and mixed developments involving the public, private and voluntary sectors—and of the need to ensure that we meet the very considerable housing needs that remain unmet, to which the Opposition have frequently referred—obviously we should welcome the creation of an agency with significant powers to help to deliver the homes that are needed. It was notable that the interventions from the Liberal Democrats were all about preventing development. That was a telling indication that their instinct is leading them not to meet housing needs but to prevent housing and development that would meet those needs.