Iain Wright (Parliamentary Under-Secretary, Department for Communities and Local Government; Hartlepool, Labour)

Alistair Burt (Shadow Minister, Communities and Local Government; North East Bedfordshire, Conservative)

I echo the welcome that the Minister gave you, Mr. Benton, and your colleagues and officials who will look after us in the next few weeks as we get to grips with the Bill following our evidence sessions. I also echo his welcome to all members of the Committee, which is pretty knowledgeable about the subjects that we shall discuss. We have those who have held significant ministerial positions on the subject and Back Benchers who know their way around it well, so the quality of debate and discussion should be high. I  hope that that will benefit those who observe the proceedings or who pick up on them in Hansard and various special journals.

I wish to indicate to the Minister our general approach to the clause following the debate on Second Reading. As he knows, we are not necessarily against the establishment of the HCA. The concerns that we mentioned on Second Reading, which will be echoed in Committee, were raised to query and scrutinise the plans and to ensure that the plans achieve the objectives that have been set out. We are not convinced that the background and the Government’s record are as rosy as the Minister has said.

My experience in this place is reasonably extensive, and when there is too much consensus on something there is a danger that the eye is taken off the ball. My life and career are scarred for ever by the experience of the Child Support Agency. As colleagues will know, the plans for it went through the House many years ago with great consensus and perhaps not enough scrutiny of what would actually happen. When the parcel was left in my lap—I hasten to add that it was not my idea—and I became the Minister with responsibility for setting up the CSA in 1992, the problems became obvious after a year or so and I began to wonder about the House’s scrutiny process.

It was interesting to listen to the remarks of my hon. Friend the Member for Arundel and South Downs (Nick Herbert), my Front-Bench colleague who speaks on home affairs, at the conclusion of yesterday’s debate on the Criminal Justice and Immigration Bill. He expressed concern that we are not spending enough time on really important issues. We are concerned to use a generally consensual attitude to scrutinise carefully what is being done.

I say that in relation to the establishment of the HCA, because I am not necessarily convinced that the spur for it comes from a great raft of success in the Government’s housing and regeneration policy. Yes, there are intentions, but we are not so sure about delivery. Accordingly, it is essential to ensure that the agency is designed to solve the problems that have occurred, rather than bringing together an already well functioning, well oiled unit that will continue to roll out and deliver on the Government’s objectives.

As the Minister knows, the Government’s house building record is not particularly good. An average of 173,000 units a year were built in the Thatcher and Major years, but the average has been 145,000 a year under the present Government. The agency is designed to clear out the glitches and make things happen, so we must ensure that the problems associated with the failure to deliver the required supply of housing are tackled. In creating the agency, we must give consideration to the way in which it will work, its objectives and the values that drive it, rather than just crossing our fingers and hoping that yet another reorganisation will do the job.

The Opposition do not query the Government’s good intentions on regeneration. As I expressed on Second Reading—I shall come back to this during the early part of our considerations of the Bill—city and urban  regeneration has received a tremendous boost in modern times. The work of Michael Heseltine and the city challenge initiative have been continued and developed by this Government. People outside this Committee want political parties to work together on this matter and to acknowledge good work.

It is not true that 1997 was year zero for everything, and it was certainly not year zero for urban regeneration. The Government have carried out some good work, but real holes, gaps and problems remain. There have been a plethora of initiatives on regeneration and a huge number of schemes, such as the neighbourhood management, neighbourhood renewal and neighbourhood support initiatives, the coalfield scheme, the community champions fund, the new deal for communities, the crime reduction initiative, the playing fields initiative and the community green spaces initiative—I could go on.

Some 10 years after the election of a Labour Government, however, and despite the collective impact of those initiatives on society, questions and concerns remain about social mobility and about whether the problems of deep deprivation in areas of extreme poverty have been turned round. We are not querying the good intentions, which we share—we would like credit for doing so—but we are not convinced that the approach has worked. Accordingly, to what extent will the HCA’s regeneration remit help us to meet the objectives behind those initiatives and the large amounts of money that have been spent in so many places? Current analyses of the money spent and results gained do not come down particularly strongly in the Government’s favour. We shall, therefore, query and test out precisely why the agency should deliver any better.

I do not want to dwell too long on clause 1. However, we will also test out the remit of the agency on related matters, such as disability, accessibility, sustainability, design quality and the powers of the agency, which are extensive. Also, will the Minister tell us what guidance will be produced on how the various powers and objectives will work, if that cannot be put in the legislation, in order to ensure that, right from the start, we do not gloss over anything and that we understand what it is about?

In conclusion, we will be as constructive as possible during the course of our consideration of the Bill, which is quite natural because we expect to inherit a lot of what is being discussed relatively soon, so we might as well make it good. However, as always, we have concerns: if this is a top-down solution to problems that would benefit more from a bottom-up analysis and delivery, we are not content to let it go. The Government are very strong on plans, 10-year programmes and initiatives, but not so good on delivery. If the HCA is just another attempt to snow over the problems by saying, “Don’t worry, everything will be all right. We have done this, but you will have to wait a few years for it to settle down before there is any delivery”, it will not be good enough.

That is our approach to clause 1, which provides for the establishment of the HCA. With the caveats that I have mentioned, we accept clause 1 and are ready to proceed from there.

Robert Syms (Poole, Conservative)

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship again, Mr. Benton. First, I apologise because I have a cough and a cold,  although I do not suppose that I am the only one. I want to take the opportunity provided by this clause stand part debate to declare an interest: I am a director of a family building and property company. There may be a perception of interest, because the Bill is wide-ranging, and I hope that hon. Members will bear that in mind. My interest should stand on the record of the Bill’s proceedings.

I welcome the Minister to his first major Bill, and my hon. Friend the Member for Welwyn Hatfield, who now speaks on housing for the Conservative party. I have always found that Committee proceedings involve a lot of work, but that one is put on top of one’s brief and taken into areas where one would not necessarily go, so it is a useful experience. I should like to welcome the Liberal Democrat spokesman, the hon. Member for Montgomeryshire (Lembit Öpik), and I shall—on another occasion. No doubt there are organisational problems, which will be ironed out in due course as part of the Liberal Democrats’ aspiration to double their representation in Parliament.