My Lords, I will speak just a few words on Amendment 98A. It is quite odd that in this debate no one has referred to the biggest driver of ugly housing and design in the United Kingdom. It is not bad architects, problems in planning law or disinterested local authorities but the price of land. In many areas that is what determines what houses look like and how they are placed on these sites. The noble Duke referred to mass-market box housing that is crammed in. That is what you get when you have high-priced land. All these debates that are taking place take me back to my amendment—it seems as if I moved it six months ago—on the price of land and the need to build on the green belt as the population expands.
In America. people can buy a house for a fraction of what they pay in the United Kingdom. The reason is very simple: land is cheaper. They do not need fancy architects or planners to tell them to do it. People want better-designed houses because they can afford them. The driver here is the price of land, which is driving millions of people out of the housing market. The best way to deal with this problem is to find a way of securing land at sensible prices, and these problems will evaporate.