Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Bill

Baroness Gardner of Parkes Excerpts

Monday 22nd April 2013 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Gardner of Parkes]

My Lords, I congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter. This is a great personal success on her part. She has been persuasive. She has managed to encourage us all by winning that important amendment, and without that we would never have got to this point where people have really looked at things and decided that something can be done.

As the noble Baroness said, this is not something that we are going to let die, or lie, because there is still so much more to be done. Another hopeful thing has been the new Minister for Housing. With experience and work in the field as a surveyor, he knows what we are talking about, and this has made a big difference, particularly when we have had various round-table meetings. People have adopted the attitude that they want to look into things further. We have been given hopes that that they will look into everything much further later in the year, and I will be pressing that in my questions. As you know, I am particularly interested in reducing the percentage of people required to have commonhold instead of leasehold, because that would solve a lot of problems, but everyone agrees that 100% is an impossible requirement.

I pay tribute to the two Ministers. My noble friend Lord Younger has done a great deal, and it is marvellous that he has allowed housing to come into this, which was such a BIS affair. I cannot speak too highly of my noble friend Lady Hanham, who knows the housing issue so well. It is due to her persuasiveness that we have managed to get things to this point and have received notice today of these amendments. As has been said, perhaps they do not deal with everything, but they go a long way and are a huge first step. That is what we need, and again I am delighted to welcome these changes.

[Viscount Younger of Leckie]

My Lords, I am grateful for the contributions to this short debate. We have heard a small number of contributions today on the amendment on the letting and managing agents. As we know, this is a practical measure that can be taken forward rapidly to make a real difference to the experiences of landlords, tenants, freeholders and leaseholders.

In an attempt to answer my noble friend Lord Sharkey’s question, although the timetable is unclear at the moment I am not out of step to say that we fully expect orders to be brought forward by the end of the summer. It might be earlier.

In conclusion, I commend this Motion to the House.