Localism Bill

That is an effect of localism. That is why national standards, particularly in areas such as social care, access to pre-school education, and education in general, are so important for everyone in our society. People should be cautious of what they wish for from the Bill. The Secretary of State, introducing the Bill in a particularly inept and rather unsensible speech, went on to describe how Islington was not going to develop a nuclear bomb. That got a good laugh, I am sure, but it was a particularly silly thing to say. His Government are cutting £300 million from Islington's budget over the next four years. We are one of the poorest boroughs in London and we come in the top eight poorest communities in the whole country, with high levels of homelessness, high levels of dependency and relatively high levels of unemployment. A newly elected Labour local authority has taken over from the Liberal Democrats, who spent most of their time in control of Islington council on a fire sale of valuable local authority properties. So they have form in how they behave towards local government and local authorities. My main concern in respect of the Bill and in general is about housing. The legislation enacted at the time of the first world war, and the Public Health and National Health Service Acts of the post-war Labour Government have done more than anything else in this country to eliminate bad housing and homelessness. The Bill destroys that thread of public provision of good quality housing at an economic and affordable rent. Instead, it requires local authorities to force people into unregulated, expensive, badly managed, badly maintained housing provided by private sector landlords.