Sustainable Communities Bill

I agree. It is a case of use it or lose it. It is no good if the parish or town council decides to put money into a service—they do have means—or talk to service providers about how to support businesses through genuine partnerships, if local people do not use the service. Baroness Corston has just moved into North Nibley in my constituency, although I am just about to lose her ward to another constituency—these things happen to us all—where the village has taken over the shop and post office. On the first day that she was in her new house, she received a share certificate and a request for her to buy her share in the village shop. It was explained to her that it was important that people in the community bought their share, because they kept the shop going. If they did not use the shop, it would close. It is that sort of community action that I hope the Bill will support. The issue is how we can make best use of community assets. We all have community assets in our different communities, but the challenge is maximising them. That is why I think that the Bill is a bottom-up Bill. The Government can have various ideas and initiatives, such as local area agreements, sustainable communities plans and local development frameworks, and they can encourage local strategic partnerships—all good initiatives—but communities need to do more. The Government can help, but the communities themselves must drive it forward. The Bill will force communities to face up to their responsibilities. The representatives of communities—not necessarily the elected representatives, but those who take it on themselves to save a particular community resource—are very important in that and they must work in partnership with democratically elected representatives. I hope that the Government have listened and do not see the Bill as a challenge to them. I hope that they realise that the Bill is genuinely non-party and community driven. I also hope that it will be improved in Committee. However, today is not about detailed consideration. I hope that the Bill will receive its Second Reading unanimously, because anyone who chooses to oppose it will have an interesting time of it from the various organisations who have written to us all about it. I leave it to other hon. Members to decide, because I would never try to lean on my colleagues in that way. I hope that the Bill receives a fair wind. I congratulate the hon. Member for Ruislip-Northwood, who chose his words carefully and maintained the consensus. It is difficult to resist the temptation to make party-political points, but I hope that the Bill receives support from both sides and from Front Benchers. I also hope that the Government will listen and learn, and understand that the Bill is not a challenge to their work—such as the Local Government and Public Involvement in Health Bill, which we will consider on Monday—but complementary to it.