Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Bill

Debate between Baroness Gardner of Parkes and Lord Jenkin of Roding

Wednesday 6th March 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Jenkin of Roding]

My Lords, I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours, will forgive me if I do not follow him in his very interesting description of what may happen in auctions, but I look forward to hearing the reply from my noble friend on the Front Bench.

Coming back to the amendment that was moved by the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter of Kentish Town, I will just raise one or two points. Members of my family have been both lessors and tenants in the present market and, apart from one case, have on the whole had good experiences. I was approached by the Association of Residential Letting Agents, ARLA, and have been quite impressed by what it has told me. Its primary function, as it puts it, is to professionalise the profession and to make sure that it has high standards and that those who enter the profession understand what the standards should be. It operates a voluntary scheme of registration and its anxiety is that a number of letting agents do not register for whatever reason, one of which may be that they do not want to comply with the standards.

Can my noble friend refer to one particular point when he replies? The noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, reminded us that, in opposition, my honourable friend Mark Prisk moved very similar amendments to legislation before the House produced by the then Government. In the debate in Grand Committee on 16 January—I apologise, again, that I was not able to be there—after referring to the speech that I have read from my noble friend Lord Deben, who gave the clear impression that he supported the amendment of the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, my noble friend Lord Younger said:

“I note and respect the intervention of my noble friend Lord Deben in this respect as well. I know that the Housing Minister is aware of these concerns but I will raise them with him for further consideration. It is clear from the speech from the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, that he—Mark Prisk, my honourable friend in another place—is aware of the issues that she has mentioned”.—[Official Report, 16/1/13; col. GC 250]

At this stage, all I need to ask is whether my noble friend Lord Younger approached Mark Prisk and what his response was. What was his reaction when reminded that he had in fact moved a very similar amendment himself when in opposition?

One is tempted to say, “Let us return this clause, with this amendment, to another place so that my honourable friend Mark Prisk may have an opportunity to say why he has changed his mind”. I am not sure that that would necessarily be the right thing to do but I will be impressed and influenced by the answer that my noble friend on the Front Bench gives me to this point. I find it difficult to accept that you can hold one very clear opinion in opposition and then find yourself responsible in the same field and hold a completely different one. It is often, as my noble friend Lord Deben said quite firmly in Committee, because it is a departmental attitude, which in this case may stem from the Treasury. As a former Treasury Minister, all I can say is that I understand that does in fact happen from time to time. However, whatever the reason, it does not seem to be a very satisfactory position and I look forward to hearing my noble friend on the Front Bench explain it.

[Baroness Gardner of Parkes]

I will start at the back and deal first with Amendment 82, in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours. You might think that auctions are bad here but you should see them in Australia. I bought my flat at auction out there and what they do is start the auction and when they reach a certain point they stop and say, “We’ll have a break”. In the break, they get hold of the vendor and say, “Why don’t you come down on your reserve?”, and get hold of the purchaser and say, “Why don’t you go up on what you are going to buy?”. They might do that two or three times within the auction. Fortunately I had someone helping me, who made clear to the auctioneer that if they went on and broke more than once, we were out. We got the property and I have had it a very long time.

There are good and bad things about auction. I accept the point the noble Lord made about deceiving people about how cheaply they are going to get something, but of course it is unpredictable and properties sometimes really do not sell, while in other cases they do. At least with an auction all the documentation about the property is provided in advance of the auction so people are not kept in the dark the way they are with lettings and by managers. People launch into a property they are going to rent, or buy leasehold, and they find that there are all sorts of hidden clauses that no one ever drew their attention to and that no real documentation is available. It is quite different; each system might have its faults but they are different faults and it is hard to know whether you will ever get them right.

However, I have a certain sympathy with the point the noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours, made. If you have gone a long way it is very difficult—you have gone to the trouble, you think the place is going to be within your range but it is not. It is really very hard to resolve that one. Do people wake up to the fact that it is just a selling technique, which happens all the time, or are people genuinely taken in by these deliberate ploys? It is complicated but he has got a very interesting point that requires further investigation.

I strongly support the amendment of the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter. Talking about letting agents, I was quite stunned to see on television people letting these sheds in some parts of London. They had no windows or anything in them; a family of 10 living there and sometimes no running water or electric light. It was just unbelievable. The people who were renting them produced leaflets from the agent who was offering them to let. When the BBC—I think it was the BBC although it could have been another broadcaster—went to say to these people, “How could you be letting this when it has no planning permission and does not conform with any health standards of any sort?”, the answer was, “Oh, no, we were never letting it”. Yet they had proof in front of them of the printed leaflet about it being available to let from that particular agent. That is the absolute bottom of the scale but between that and the really desirable letting agent, there are all sorts of gradients.

Localism Bill

Debate between Baroness Gardner of Parkes and Lord Jenkin of Roding

Monday 17th October 2011 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Gardner of Parkes]

I am very grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, for starting this debate. I will speak to Amendments 206, 224 and 227. Amendment 206 is the one about consultation. I have a somewhat sceptical view about consultation because when I was building my house, we consulted all the neighbours and they all objected just the same, so it is of limited value. However, Dr Thompson, who has done a lot of work and held public meetings on this issue, quoted me an example of someone who consulted their neighbours and agreed that they would have all the cars washed every day and would have everything swept and cleaned. Apparently the whole basement development went through without a hitch. That person has now moved into the basement and the people next door to her have started to do theirs. Apparently, it is absolutely chaotic and they have not consulted or agreed anything, so consultation might be of value but it is of limited value.

It is far more important to deal with the other items which I am covering in Amendment 224. One is the question of precedent. I should declare an interest in that, when I die, my children, in order to get the best value for my home, will definitely want to be able to say that they could have a basement under it, because in that part of London a hotel has just been built with six storeys underground. Other people are building to a lesser extent, but at least half the people in the streets adjoining my house in London have already either got permission or done their basements. Because you cannot go up, the only way you can continue to live in a place with an expanding family is to go down so there is a definite need and a case for basements. That is why I have included in subsection (1) of Amendment 224 the issue of precedents. If an area is already full of basements, why should you not have the same right?

More importantly, subsection (2) refers to a bond or security. When my husband was alive, he represented St John’s Wood as a councillor and I certainly know of a basement there that was under construction for three years. There was another one in Brompton Square. After three years, the people each went bankrupt and with that, the people in the houses on either side of them were faced with a terrible situation. They could do nothing: their houses could fall into the hole or fill with water, as the basement was filling with water. It is quite alarming. A bond or security could be an answer in this kind of situation. It should be easy to find cover as part of your buildings insurance. Subsection (3) refers to “a qualified structural engineer”. Some of the better London boroughs already impose such conditions. They apply them to any such planning consent and the work has to be both planned and supervised. The three subsections in Amendment 224 are important.

Even more important is Amendment 227, which relates to amendments to the Party Wall etc. Act. I am grateful to the noble Lord who gave me some marvellous papers from the RICS, on its practice standards for UK party wall legislation. They were very interesting. The noble Lord is an expert on the subject. If the party wall legislation were updated to cover these matters, there is already a great deal of provision for security in there, which would also cover the consultation issue. As far as I can see, basements are more or less a big city issue. I do not know whether it is a big issue in big cities outside London, but in London it has certainly become one. It is important that something should be done about it.

[Lord Jenkin of Roding]

My Lords, I support my noble friend’s amendment, which was moved by the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley.

I say at once that I was extremely grateful to my noble friend Lady Hanham for acceding to my request that I should take a deputation from two of the community bodies interested in this subject. We met my noble friend on 31 August. The community bodies included representatives of some of the householders who have been so appallingly affected by these basement developments—“subterranean developments”, they seem to be called. So impressed was my noble friend by what she heard and read that she instructed her officials—I hope I quote her correctly—“to find a solution”. The delegation therefore left in some considerable hope that something might be done to meet their concerns.

In passing, I asked them whether they had tried to raise this issue in the other place. Their answer was rather revealing: they had tried but they could not find any Member of another place who was prepared to take up the issue. There was no delegation to see a Minister in the other place. It has been left to this House to pursue the issue and to gain the assurance from my noble friend that her department should find a solution.

I have four amendments in this group. The first two were tabled for Committee and have been carried through to Report. One was intended to provide a code of practice and the other to provide some form of recompense for the massive disturbance that householders face. However, I have subsequently received a letter from my noble friend explaining that those amendments were not acceptable. In the letter of 9 August she said:

“With regard to your proposals relating to the Secretary of State issuing guidance, in the spirit of localism, I believe it is best to leave it to local authorities to issue guidance”.

Relying on that, I then tabled Amendment 230 to provide that the local authority shall issue guidance.

However, my noble friend also was not keen on the idea of compensation. She said she believed that,

“the introduction of such a provision would set an unwelcome precedent for this to be adopted more generally”.

I have therefore tabled a second amendment.