Deregulation Bill

Earl of Caithness Excerpts

Wednesday 11th February 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Stoneham of Droxford]

My Lords, I was not going to speak in this debate, because I think there is a need for us to move on, but in the light of a couple of speeches on this side of the House, the Minister needs to make it absolutely clear that there is no intention in these amendments to interfere with landlords’ rights in the situation of arrears. Most disrepair issues are sorted out between the tenant and the landlord, but where the relationship has broken down, and tenants need to get legal advice or local authority action, it is not surprising that some landlords may seek to regain possession.

There is an abuse of power here that we need to correct. These amendments are about getting that balance right. That is the purpose of the legislation and I give due credit to Sarah Teather and indeed the Department for Communities and Local Government, for actually allowing us to put these amendments through and for putting down an amendment that tries to make an acceptable reform in this area. The vast majority of landlords will not be affected by these amendments. They already ensure that they comply with the required health and safety standards and they will retain the freedom to issue Section 21 notices. However, the amendments will inhibit rogue landlords flouting their legal responsibilities. That is why this reform is needed.

[The Earl of Caithness (Con)]

My Lords, I declare my interests. I was an estate agent and am a consultant to an estate agency. I also piloted the 1988 Act through the House. The Act was introduced by my late noble friend Lord Ridley of Liddesdale when he was Nick Ridley and Secretary of State, and I am delighted that it has been so successful. It was controversial and was criticised quite heavily at the time, but it has achieved what it set out to do, which was to improve the private sector rented market and to give more people a choice of tenancies.

I have two concerns of principle with these amendments. One is the timing. This is Report stage, and this is a technical issue. I understand very well that the Liberal Party has put a great deal of emotion and faith into these amendments, and I do not blame them at all: technical points have been raised which need to be discussed. However, we can speak only once, and there is no way that this amendment is going to be discussed in any detail in another place. We are the only Chamber of Parliament that can actually get into this, but we are now limited to Report and Third Reading. The noble Lord, Lord Best, whose opinion we all respect, said that there could be some tweaks, but he did not tell us what the tweaks were. Those are the sorts of things that we ought to be looking at but which, under the procedure, we cannot. I mildly chastise my noble friends on the Liberal Benches for not introducing this in Committee. I understand why they did not: because there was a Private Member’s Bill in another place. But that did not stop them, and we could have had a much better discussion than we are having now. I would have hoped that my noble friend on the Front Bench might have taken this back into Committee, particularly for this purpose.