Housing: Park Homes

Lord Best Excerpts

Tuesday 23rd October 2012 Grand Committee

[Lord Best]

My Lords, having given prior notice, I rise to make a brief intervention, and I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Scott, for initiating this short debate.

I have been honoured to accept the invitation from Peter Aldous MP to take the mobile homes Private Member’s Bill through your Lordships’ House when it finishes its passage through the other place. I was present at the Second Reading debate on the Bill in the other place last Friday and I was extremely impressed by the unanimity of approval for the Bill. As a Cross-Bencher, I was delighted to see that party politics played no part in that high-quality debate. Rogue site owners were named, powerful examples of malpractice were given, and the solutions contained in the Bill were commended from all sides.

I congratulate Peter Aldous MP on introducing the Bill and securing such strong support for it. Congratulations are indeed also due on the long-standing campaign for justice for park home residents by the noble Lord, Lord Graham of Edmonton, who has waited a long time for this Bill.

[Lord Graham of Edmonton]

Hear, hear!

[Lord Best]

Thanks go, too, to the right honourable Grant Shapps, who was the Housing Minister who got behind this legislation and gave it government backing. Tribute must also be paid to the wonderful campaigners in the other place led by Annette Brooke MP, with backing from Natascha Engel MP and others associated with the APPG on this theme, propelled by faithful campaigners outside of Parliament, for whom this has been a long journey. I know that Members in the other place were greatly helped by the new Consumer Focus report, Living the Dream?, and the excellent analysis from Consumer Focus Wales, Park Life: Residential Mobile Home Living in Wales, and it is clear that the report from the CLG Select Committee, to which reference has been made, undoubtedly helped to win approval for the inclusion of the clause introducing the back-stop of a fit-and-proper-person test.

I noted five issues in the debate, a number of which have been considered by the noble Baroness, Lady Scott, and the noble Lord, Lord Whitty. None of them is a deal breaker, but all are worth discussing in more depth. My anxiety is that some existing park home residents may feel let down if their current defective leases have to remain untouched and those long-suffering owners continue to face appalling treatment at the hands of site owners, but it may be possible to address that, and I am sure the Bill will be even better when it comes to us.

This is an incredibly important piece of legislation. It may affect only relatively few people scattered across the country, often in remote places, but it is going to make a vast difference to the quality of life of so many of them. I look forward very much to helping to steer it through its stages in this House, where I feel sure it will get tremendous support.