Has not the now overreaching transfer of housing from public to private sector landlords led to an explosion in rents, costing billions in increased housing benefit? Why should housing authorities be forced to pay for problems created by this strategy, when there is talk of losing a proportion of the capital receipts they desperately need to help fund housing for the homeless—a problem created by the Government? It seems to me that the only beneficiaries are to be private landlords and the Government’s PSBR, while the losers are the poorest in society.