Housing: Landlord and Tenant Legislation
Debate between Baroness Hanham and Baroness Deech
Baroness Hanham
My Lords, consolidation Acts take an enormous time to put together. As I have already said, landlord and tenant law covers several Acts. We appreciate that leasehold law in particular can be complex and that people find it difficult to understand. That is why the department provides guidance for leaseholders and free advice and information, which can be sought from the Leasehold Advisory Service. Consolidating legislation, while helpful, requires considerable Civil Service and parliamentary time, so there needs to be a very significant benefit from it.
Baroness Deech
Does the Minister agree that the way in which English or British law is presented on its original enactment, and even worse when it is amended, makes it very hard to understand and that we are not making best use of modern technology and computer-aided amendments in order that we and ordinary people can read the law as it is? Great efforts could be made in that direction, both in this House and outside, so that one does not have to rely on secondary sources in order to be able to understand primary legislation.
Baroness Hanham
My Lords, I am sure that everybody would say amen to that. Unfortunately, it is not quite within my brief to deal with how legislation is constructed. I guess that it probably has a history which goes back generations. That is not to say that it should not be modernised, but I think that it will be in somebody else’s hands rather than mine.
Anti-Semitism
Debate between Baroness Hanham and Baroness Deech
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Communities and Local Government (Baroness Hanham)
My Lords, the number of anti-Semitic incidents in the United Kingdom is a very depressing reminder that this unacceptable behaviour remains a cause of great concern. In December, the coalition Government published the three-year-on response to the All-Party Parliamentary Inquiry into Antisemitism, which highlighted the steps we have taken to tackle and reduce anti-Semitism. In addition, the cross-government working party to tackle anti-Semitism will be taking forward future work.
Baroness Deech
I thank the Minister for her constructive reply. Does she agree that this ancient hatred is most pernicious when it takes root in the minds of young people and that she should therefore urge vice-chancellors to take steps, as is their duty under the law, to stop incidents of hate speech on campus? Will she also tell us how she proposes to prevent race and religious hatred material imported from overseas being used in faith schools, including out-of-hours faith schools?
Baroness Hanham
My Lords, the last place that we want anti-Semitism to take a hold is in our schools or universities. We expect universities to have measures in place to ensure that their students are not subject to threatening or abusive behaviour, and those institutions have a strong legal framework to help them to deal effectively with this. With regard to people coming in from outside and talking on campuses, again, a range of guidance, providing a practical framework, is available to higher education institutions to help them to support tolerance. All these subjects remain part of the work being done by the working party to ensure that, if further guidance is needed, it is provided.