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Regeneration

My hon. Friend is absolutely right and completely gets it. The point is if this country is to thrive and survive it needs inward investment. It is a fantastic example of how a community can get together and work right the way across the local economy to bring in people from all different aspects—the local council, the county council, the MPs, the councillors, the business people, the academics—and actually grow an economy. I am only a third of the way through the list of different things that I wanted to highlight let alone the many pages that are highlighted in this toolkit. UK Regeneration is a private enterprise that is able to raise money from the private sector and then get involved in regeneration. It is raising £30 million from Barclays Capital to regenerate areas in Nottingham. I understand that some people find it difficult to appreciate that to invest privately can be good not just for private investment but for regeneration. It is absolutely working and it is happening on the ground and we have heard the scale of ambition from UK Regeneration. The Empty Homes Agency is working hard to fill empty homes. In the context of regeneration, I am surprised not to hear from Her Majesty's Opposition, or perhaps in the report, more of a welcome for the fact that 20,000 homes that were empty are now full. Since the election, the number of empty homes has fallen faster than at any time since 2004, because our regeneration policy, which says, ““Let's stop knocking down homes and instead fill the ones that are there,”” is starting to work. City deals—one has just been agreed in Liverpool, and more are coming along—are enormously important in delivering exactly the kind of localism that I know the Committee welcomes, because it has investigated how localism, which did not exist previously, could operate. When one adds up things such as local enterprise partnerships, enterprise zones and city deals, one starts to appreciate that it is a massive transfer of power. I know that it is difficult to lose the idea that everything must point to Whitehall and Westminster: ““When is the Minister going to come up with an enormous report to back all this up?”” Actually, transferring those powers to our great cities will enable a lot of regeneration to be done much nearer the ground.