Housing and Regeneration Bill

moved Amendment No. 91: 91: Clause 81, page 38, line 20, after ““England,”” insert— ““( ) a community land trust (as defined in section 274),”” The noble Lord said: My Lords, noble Lords who were here at 10.10 pm on Monday will recall that this amendment was reached but, regrettably, I could not move it. If I had been called, my speech would have been curtailed; now I have the whole day. I do not intend to take the whole day, but I am grateful for this opportunity. I shall also speak to the related amendments in this group. I remind the Minister of what her colleague said when I moved a comparable amendment in Committee. I said at the end of my speech: "““I hope that the Minister will say something sympathetic. I hope that he will not ask me to wait for a better opportunity in another Bill. Time is pressing. This idea has been about for some time. People are making plans, possibly based upon the fact that this is a housing and regeneration Bill. They may be naïve in believing that this is the best vehicle to take this idea forward. It is the best idea, so I hope that the Minister can help. I beg to move””.—[Official Report, 11/6/08; col. GC 221.]" We are talking about community land trusts. At Second Reading, I said that it was an idea whose time had come. I do not intend to reiterate all the arguments, but I am sure that the House will be pleased to be reminded of the genesis of the amendment. The idea is that people living and working in a community—those who have its interests at heart—should be able to do something about the problem. I can do no better than to quote Amendment No. 150, which states: "““the primary purpose of the organisation is to hold land and other assets so as to promote the social, economic and environmental sustainability of a specified local geographic community through providing or facilitating the provision of affordable or other sub-market housing or other community-based facilities and services (or both) … it is an inclusive organisation, committed to enabling those who live or work (or both), or need to live or work (or both), in the community it is established to serve to benefit from the land or other assets it holds, without discrimination on grounds of race, religion, age, sex, disability, sexuality or any other matter that is not relevant to its work””." Yesterday afternoon, I had the pleasure of attending a meeting about ALMOs. The Minister, Caroline Flint, who was there, and I—and others—gloried in the fact that we now have a greater range of options than we did in the days when I was more directly active in housing. The Minister said that an earlier amendment had support across the whole House—that it was what the House wanted and enjoyed a high degree of consensus. I remind the Minister, without labouring the point too strongly, that those words could also apply to this amendment. All parties and the whole House, including the noble Lord, Lord Best, who I see is in his place, would like the Minister to do something. What would the amendments require? The Housing Corporation was given the task of inviting a working party, centred on the University of Salford, to examine the feasibility of the community land trust nexus. It said that that was first class, that it has merit and is viable and practical but that there is a difficulty; that is, that there is no definition of a community land trust. When you invite people—the House, the Government, the country—to invest money, time and land, they are entitled to know exactly what they are subscribing to. Friends tell me that there is life in a number of major towns and villages throughout the land and that they are able to go forward. I remember noble Lords opposite pointing out that they knew of individuals who were willing to donate land or negotiate the sale of land at below market value to establish a community land trust. There is no doubting the fact that the availability and cost of land is crippling. I hope that committees or groups in any community will see merit in this. The land will remain perpetually in the ownership of the trust; in other words, once houses have been built on it, it will not be possible to cede the land to someone else. That is the idea. I hope that the Minister will not tell us that the practical difficulties of even conceiving a definition is beyond the wit of those whom I call the clever people, the brainy and experienced people, in her department; they should be able to come up with a form of words—they may not be precisely the words that I would use—to enable us to go forward. We might have to wait 12 months or longer for another opportunity; the Bill gives us an opportunity. I remember that the noble Lord, Lord Dixon-Smith, when speaking to another amendment, said that a bird in the hand was worth two in the bush. The Minister has been very generous and fair with her time because she has agreed to take away more than one amendment and to come back, I hope, at Third Reading with an acceptable form of words. That is all I am asking her to do today: to take away my amendment, discuss it with her colleagues and those who work on the ground in this matter, and to come back. I am not wedded to the wording of the amendment. It was given to me by David Rodgers, the director of CDS Co-operative Housing Society Ltd, who is a friend of mine. He believes that this form of words is suitable, but that may not be the case. I am optimistic. I believe that this is a credit to the Government. It is not a partisan or party matter; in practical terms, it would add to the range of matters and opportunities currently before the Government and the Minister. I beg to move.