Clause 1
Sustainable Communities Bill
10:00 am
Phil Woolas (Minister of State (Local Government & Community Cohesion), Department for Communities and Local Government; Oldham East and Saddleworth, Labour)
I do not accept the logic of the argument that, because I have tabled an amendment to delete a subsection containing a title, I am therefore against the meaning of the title. However, logic apart, the hon. Gentleman has made an accusation, and it is incumbent on the Government to try to respond to it. In the development of housing—just as it was for the Macmillan Government in the 1950s and the new towns Acts that followed under Governments of both parties—Her Majesty’s loyal Opposition normally oppose housing growth. If one reads the Hansard on the housing Act from the 1950s, one will see the Labour Opposition at the time making the same accusation against the then Conservative Government.
The point of housing growth is to ensure that communities are sustainable, because housing growth represents changes in demography that have an impact across not just the region but the whole country. The test that the hon. Gentleman is laying down is fair. Is the growth in housing in new areas contributing towards the sustainability of those areas or not? That is why the question on infrastructure, which he has asked on many occasions and that he and I have debated before, is important and fair. It is one that any hon. Member would ask about his own constituency. I recognise that the planning gains supplement is subject to debate and to testing as well, but the measures that we have put in place, and are putting in place, on infrastructure and, importantly, on funding policies, funding formula and the funding mechanism, and the desirability to join up such policies, funding streams and formulas between Departments and agencies, are one of the biggest tests for public policy.
The idea of a local area agreement, with pooled funding across Government agencies, greater flexibility and a statutory duty on agencies to co-operate—things that are strongly supported by the cross-party Local Government Association and which are reflected in Government policies, including the Local Government and Public Involvement in Health Bill, which is being debated in Committee—is in part to meet the point that the hon. Gentleman and others have been consistently making over the past months. That is why the agreement is getting support, and there is a strong connection between the goals of this Bill and the Local Government and Public Involvement in Health Bill, and the policies that are already in place. That is why the hon. Gentleman’s second point is unfair
I said that I do not intend to wreck the Bill; I merely want a debate about it. The Committee has an opportunity to get the best out of the Bill and to seek to meld that with the Local Government and Public Involvement in Health Bill. I am more than willing to amend that Bill and to take the best out of the Committee’s deliberations.