Local Government and Public Involvement in Health Bill

Noble Lords have spoken with great experience and wisdom on this subject. I wish it were possible for me to give the noble Baroness anything other than the sort of response I gave her yesterday. It was yesterday, I think—it is hard to imagine what else we have done over the past week except this Bill. Noble Lords have spoken about the importance of social housing, the RSLs themselves and the other provision now coming in from the private sector. The problem is that we cannot deal with that so long as we are dealing with bodies that are not part of the public sector. The amendments would apply to RSLs the same powers that the overview and scrutiny committees have in respect of their public sector partner bodies. They would add them to the list of partners in all but name. However, RSLs are private, not-for-profit organisations and they use largely privately raised capital. They are regulated by the Housing Corporation but they are not part of the public sector. It is this legal problem which confounds us here and makes it difficult for us to treat them as if they were. However, I can give noble Lords some encouragement. It may be that we have another tool which can deal with some of the problems that have been raised. I refer to the independent Cave review of social housing regulation. Many of the points made by the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, about the small provider—for example; the difficulty of regulating standards and the issues of quality and choice—are important and the growth of the sector presents a challenge in this area. The Cave review of social housing regulation has made clear recommendations on the engagement of social landlords with local authorities on place-shaping and on the role of stakeholders in the regulatory system. The Government are now consulting on their response and propose to accept the recommendation and incorporate it in housing legislation at an early opportunity. We will take the recommendations of the Cave review and see how we can strengthen the regulatory system. It would be premature to agree these measures before the consultation has ended and in isolation from other aspects of the new regulation regime. But we are certainly not indifferent to the problems in the sector and to the sorts of problems that London Councils has raised in its support for this amendment. Unfortunately, the amendment is not the way to deal with the problem as there is the legal issue I have already described, but we have got a way forward into solving some of the problems.