My Lords, there have been many tremendous debates in your Lordships’ Chamber, and this has certainly been one of them. I am very grateful to everyone who spoke in support of the amendments that I and other noble Lords tabled. I am also grateful for the personal comments that noble Lords have made, and I will pass those straight on to the TCPA, which actually did the work behind the scenes on this entire campaign.
I was thinking of how to sum this up without going through everything. If the Government will forgive me, in today’s debate were the makings of a very decent levelling up Bill. If we could bring these things together, it would have ambition and vision, as the noble Lord, Lord Stevens, and others, talked about. It would also be strategic and systemic; the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, made a point about the environmental and energy issues being deeply integrated with health and well-being. We need to see some systemic change if we are to make the differences that we are talking about. There are also practical things that can be done here—people have talked about levers and specifics. They are also guided by experience. I was very heartened to hear very experienced Members from different backgrounds, including noble Lords who understand these issues because they meet them in their professional lives. So, such a Bill would have a lot of important ingredients and a broadly shared vision.
I was struck by another thing, which planners will be pleased about. Planning is often seen as a negative, but all noble Lords described it as something that could enable the creation of the flourishing individuals, society and communities that we all want.
I will not take up any more time, except to respond to the noble Earl’s response. At Second Reading of the Healthy Homes Bill, I got a very similar response from the noble Baroness, Lady Bloomfield. My response was that:
“I was not necessarily surprised and therefore not necessarily disappointed”.—[Official Report, 15/7/22; col. 1706.]
I am not surprised, but I would like to think that there is some route for discussion. The big difference here is between guidance and what is required. In my comments, I have been trying to hammer in that we need to build houses that are fit for purpose. We also need to return to the health and well-being issues raised by the noble Lord, Lord Young of Cookham, and by me. I would be very happy to meet the Government if it were useful to discuss these things further. Maybe there is
some useful discussion to be had around the NPPF. I am not sure whether there will be but, if not, I expect us to debate this again in this Chamber sometime after the Coronation—I am not quite sure when. I suspect that we may also be debating health and well-being.
I finish by returning to the noble Lord, Lord Young, who was kindly encouraging me to negotiate. I will look to him for advice on how best to do that, but I cannot resist replying to his very first comment, which noble Lords may remember—two hours and 17 minutes ago or whenever it was—that, as “Young and Crisp”, we sound like a supermarket selling lettuces. It reminded me of another Member—the noble Earl, Lord Sandwich—making a similar comment a few years ago. In a debate on Africa, he said something similar about sandwiches and crisps. I can only say that I am extremely fortunate in my business partners.
On that note, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.