Lord Fuller (Con)

My Lords, as part of my research for this series of amendments, I looked at the New Towns Act and I note that it is 80 years since the Minister’s home town of Stevenage was seeded, so to speak; it is now time to bring things up to date. At that time, central government had the power and the finance to get these things off the ground, but things have moved on and we need some more creative thinking. There are wider sources of capital and finance in the world and more players want to participate. I do not accept that my amendment would arbitrarily constrain the development corporations in pursuance of financing their quite weighty objectives, many of which are enumerated in the next clause, Clause 95. It would not constrain them, but would give them a choice: an option—not a compulsion—to widen the pool of finance should they wish. The Minister in her winding suggested that powers exist to borrow from central government. She referred specifically to the Public Works Loan Board. Anybody who knows anything about the Public Works Loan Board knows that, as a result of some rather ill-advised advances, it is now capped. I believe the sum is at £90 million; I cannot remember exactly, but that does not matter. The fact is that it is thus far and no further. The Minister asserts that the Public Works Loan Board is always cheaper than others. We know that not to be the case. As the example of the Municipal Bonds Agency demonstrated, there was a well of capital for international markets willing to invest in local infrastructure projects at lower rates than the councils were able to borrow from the PWLB—had the headroom existed. So the premise not only that central government is the only route but that any other routes would be more expensive is demonstrably false. That is further the case if, as in the example I gave earlier, a landowner may wish to cede some of his land to the development corporations as part of the red line, in kind rather than in cash, it is possible that there would be no coupon to be paid at all. The interest—the return—would come long-term as the development proceeded. So I do not accept that this is a constraining amendment. I take from what the Minister said that is its highly likely that the consequence of not accepting this option is that, first of all, capital may be constrained, it is possible the development corporations may pay more, and the opportunity to assemble land in a creative manner may be taken away. Clearly, we are in Committee; perhaps we ought to engage on this between now and Report. I fear that the Minister’s brief is labouring under a false premise. I think we can say that this can be resolved, and should be if the promise of development corporations is to be fulfilled. I beg leave to withdraw.