Lord Best (CB)

I am very grateful to noble Lords for their support. The noble Lord, Lord Lansley, is as experienced as anybody in this field and my noble friend Lord Mawson brings community-based experience as well. They are heavyweights in support of my amendments, and I am most grateful for that. I am also grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Shipley, for not only supporting the amendment on mayoral development corporations but for his amendment on the optimum use of land. I am also grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Jamieson, who rightly pointed to the role that councils must play within a development corporation set up by a mayoralty or a strategic authority of any kind. Local authorities must continue to play their part within that. He asked some important questions which I am not sure we have had very full answers to from the Minister. He basically said that central government has the power to support local initiatives and local development corporations and has strategic funds available to those mayoralties that could be used to promote new development corporations. My problem is that in a lot of cases, this will not be a priority. It will be something put to one side. Some incentive is needed to unlock that opportunity for the mayors and the strategic bodies, something that enables priority to be given to this way of producing homes that will end our dependence on that oligopoly of volume housebuilders and bring in a new way of doing things. I am grateful to all noble Lords who have supported these two amendments, and we live to fight another day. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.