My Lords, first, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Shipley, for mentioning me. There was a little competition going on here as to who was going to get in next, and because he put my name in the frame, my noble friends have given way to me—so thank you.
I respectfully ask the noble Lord, Lord Kerslake, to withdraw his amendment. He knows that I refused to work on it with him yesterday because I believe that the Minister has already given us the assurance that noble Lords such as the noble Lord, Lord Shipley, require: that we will be able to replace those council homes sold. In fact, the Prime Minister was very specific: he expects us to do that if that is what we need in our areas.
Given that this is the first time that I have spoken at this stage, I should probably refer again to my entry in the register of interests, one of them being chairman of the Local Government Association, although I am sure that a few Members on the Benches opposite will smile, because it looks as though I will not be saying that too many times in future—it looks like that is passing; happy days.
From a council perspective, the danger of the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Kerslake, is that it will damage councils’ ability to replace their housing stock. At the moment, with the manifesto commitment, the Secretary of State will be compelled to allow us to do something; under the amendment, he will be invited to allow us to do something. Straightaway, that will weaken our position. I have complete and utter respect for the current Secretary of State, but who knows what a future Secretary of State may do? Even worse from a council perspective, when the Secretary of State works out what type of units will be replaced and who will be landlord, one factor will be value for money. We all know that when a council builds a house, it can do it for less real money than an RSL, but we also know that when the Treasury does its thing with smoke and mirrors around the public sector borrowing requirement, all of a sudden the council house becomes more expensive. If the amendment were to get through, one—unintended, I hope—consequence would be to allow a future Secretary of State to take resource from a local council and give it to an RSL. I vehemently hope that every elected Member opposite will resist the amendment.