George Young (North West Hampshire, Conservative)

The clause gives the HCA powers to manage and repair housing. I shall return to the point that we discussed briefly in an earlier debate, as we are about to confer those powers on the HCA. I must tell the Minister that if the HCA is going to be not only the provider of resources to housing associations but a potential competitor with them for such development, it will change the whole relationship between the HCA and the housing association movement.

In response to the earlier debate, the Minister said—I hope that I am quoting him correctly—that it would not be a prime objective of the HCA to provide housing. I am not sure whether it should be any objective—prime, secondary or at all. Then, under pressure, he described a scenario in which the HCA might have to intervene, but I was not wholly convinced, and it does not deal with the powers in clause 8. Is it really true that the HCA will manage and repair housing when we have the most well-developed and efficient housing association movement of probably any country in the world?

Clause 35 specifically relates to the HCA acquiring, constructing and converting buildings into such accommodation. The Minister needs to make it clear exactly what the role of the HCA is. Will it be in the business of developing, constructing, managing and repairing, or are those powers only to be used as a last-ditch emergency when all else has failed? If he does see the HCA as a developer, provider and landlord, that gives a totally different complexion to the whole debate about the role of the HCA.

I hope that in replying to clause 8 stand part, the Minister can go a little further than just say that it is not a prime objective of the HCA to provide housing, and make it absolutely clear that the local housing associations will do that, apart from in some exceptional circumstances which he is about to describe.

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

I think I am getting older and my knees are not what they were. In order to catch your eye quickly, Mr. Gale, I may need to have a knee replacement operation soon. However, I shall do my  best to be quick. [ Interruption . ] I was going to say that perhaps the HCA could provide that.

Let me try to reassure the right hon. Gentleman and clarify what the agency will actually do in respect of housing and regeneration. I expect that it will do several things. It will help local authorities to develop expertise, so that they have the concentration of skills that will allow them to step up to the plate to ensure that they can deliver what is necessary. It will be in a position to lever in private sector finance and to take a strategic view of how and on which sites national needs will be best met. It will acquire land and remediate it to the point at which it becomes viable for a developer to take on further development of it. It will be able to determine what needs to be done on the ground to encourage private sector investment, and to facilitate the appropriate action for providing infrastructure.

However, where the circumstances demand, the agency will be able to take a direct role if it so wishes. Forgive me for using the same language, Mr. Gale—I know that this might not reassure the right hon. Gentleman—but the main thing will be to work in conjunction with local authorities, housing associations and others to bring forward the objects of the agency, rather than to do the work directly itself. However, the option is there should it so wish.

I do not think that I have convinced the right hon. Gentleman, but, to move on to a wider point, clause 8 is about how the HCA can work with land, including buildings. The clause also gives the agency power to reclaim land, which is something that English Partnerships has actively undertaken with a great deal of success. Due to the range of activities that the agency can undertake in respect of land, housing, plant and machinery—for example, acquiring, improving, managing or disposing—it will be able to adopt an innovative approach to delivery.

Those powers will give the agency the best incentive to make the best use of the assets that it acquires, and there is a range of models to help it do that. In order for the agency to fulfil its objects of improving housing stock and regenerating or renewing areas in England, it will need all of those powers.

George Young (North West Hampshire, Conservative)

Mr. Gale, we may have an opportunity on clause 35 to go into this matter in more detail, but I have to say that I do not think that such activities should be an option for the HCA. There might be work that it has to do if there is simply no other agency, but we will need to return later in the Bill to its role. I hope that between now and then the Minister will be able to go back to base and see whether he can go a little further than he has been able to go today towards reassuring the Committee and me about the role of the HCA.