I beg to move, to leave out from "That" to the end of the Question, and to add instead thereof, this House declines to give a Second Reading to a Bill which fails to tackle the crisis of homelessness in Scotland or to provide for resources to improve Scotland's housing stock, threatens to increase rents and reduce the security of tenants, further undermines the ability of elected local councils to provide for the housing needs of their people, and proposes to extend the power of central Government through an unaccountable quango. For the past hour, the Secretary of State has looked distinctly uncomfortable. He started predictably with a flourish of triumph and a mass of rather misleading statistics. However, when he finished declaiming and started to deal with the argument and tried to explain the contents of the Bill, the triumphant flourish fell away, leaving a discordant and defensive collection of false notes. I do not think that he carried the House; even his hon. Friends looked distinctly uncomfortable.

This is a complex, lengthy and, I concede, important Bill. I agree with the Secretary of State that it has considerable potential. The House must weigh up that potential and decide whether it is potential for good or for bad. Having read the Bill and spent time examining the detailed results that would flow from it, I am convinced that it is confused in thought and that it will damage the interests of many groups of tenants in both the private and the public sectors. Much of it is irrevelant and the principle is badly flawed.

Directly or indirectly, the Bill will affect about half the households of Scotland — the households that rent in one way or another. Therefore, it deserves special attention. Consideration and consultation are important not just to the Bill but to the parliamentary process. We are entitled to protest about the way in which the Government have handled this matter. The "Scottish Homes" document was hurried from the press to give some sort of substance to a threadbare and flagging electoral campaign. It was followed by a white paper last November and a plethora of consultative documents which were needed because "Scottish Homes" was no more than a political broadside and because the White Paper posed more questions than it answered. Indeed, the fact that it had given rise to much dismay and anxiety was reflected clearly in the Scottish Special Housing Association tenants' campaign, which many of my hon. Friends supported.

Against that background, the timetable should be the subject of severe criticism. We have fundamental discussion documents, raising questions that strike at the very heart of the Bill. The Government asked for comments on those documents by 31 December—in one case by 14 January — yet the Bill on which the consultation is centred was only published on 3 December and this debate is taking place before the end of the consultation period on some of the documents. That is not a proper way to proceed. It is insulting to public opinion, which should be heard and which should be effective; indeed, it was effective to some extent during the SSHA and wider public sector tenants' campaigns.

My hon. Friend the Member for Hamilton (Mr. Robertson) rightly drew attention to just one of the many important and completely unfinished matters on the Government's agenda when he referred to the possible abolition of the cost floor in the sale of council houses. We do not know what is happening, although the Secretary of State said that we would know soon enough. As matters stand, in some areas of Scotland, the whole operation of renting is being placed in limbo. The Secretary of State gave us some rather halting hints that he would not go for complete abolition of the cost floor rule, and that he is still considering partial abolition. That is not encouraging.

If the present rule about recovery of outstanding debt is abolished, local authorities will be encouraged not to build, so that they do not have the problem of allocation, or at best to avoid allocation to people with long public sector tenancies because the corresponding large discounts would mean that remaining tenants in the area would have to bear a considerable burden as a result. That is just one example of the way in which the whole matter has been botched and mishandled. At the beginning of a new Parliament there was no need for such haste, with the resulting turmoil and dismay. The brutal fact is that the whole consultation programme has been a sham. The Government have gone through the motions, but the proper procedures have been observed in form only. That reflects no credit on the Minister or the Department.

With regard to the substance of the Bill, I have some sympathy with what the Secretary of State has said. I do not essentially object to the concept of a unified housing agency. Indeed, I go further than that. I believe that there is a positive case for putting the Housing Corporation on a distinct and defined Scottish basis. I have talked with those who now operate the Housing Corporation in Scotland, who find themselves operating as a somewhat uncomfortable addendum to a United Kingdom board. I accept that there is a case for doing something about that, and I do not deny that the present arrangements are clumsy and to some extent unsatisfactory.

I would understand it if Scottish Homes were to be a ginger group — a combination of the SSHA and the Housing Corporation's housing responsibilities, organised and operating as a parallel in housing to the Scottish Development Agency. There might be some discussion about emphasis, but I would understand the case.

The Scottish Development Agency works in parallel with other agencies and does not try to take them over. When it goes into an area such as GEAR—the Glasgow eastern area renewal project — it seeks to work in tandem with the district council, the regional council and other elected bodies.

The Secretary of State may regret some of the rhetoric, but the White Paper, "Scottish Homes" and many other consultation documents have given the overwhelming impression that Scottish Homes is not a parallel to the SDA, but an attempt to write a script that is unwelcome in Scotland, whereby Scottish Homes will seek to encroach on and take over the proper preserve of democratically elected government. It cannot be a great advance for democracy—or for accountability, to use a term more favoured by the Secretary of State — to put such a sweeping range of essential housing powers in the hands of a board consisting of nine appointees. I accept that appointees need not always be creatures of the Secretary of State, but that danger exists and it is a retrograde step to move, as is undoubtedly threatened in the longer-term objectives of Scottish Homes, from democratic control to rule by quango.

I shall not labour the point, but there has been much press speculation about the appointment of a chairperson. That is a matter of key importance. I hope that it will not be seen as a matter of patronage but that there will be a search for the right person based on qualification and merit. It would be the worst of starts and entirely unacceptable if the chairmanship of this very important body were seen merely as a consolation prize for someone who had given loyal service to the Conservative party in this place or in some other way. I am sure that the Secretary of State gets my message.