Housing: Letting Agents

Debate between Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth and Lord Maginnis of Drumglass

Tuesday 31st October 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth]

I am grateful to the noble Lord, whom I know has done a lot of work on client money protection. I reiterate that the consultation will be forthcoming this week, along with the draft Bill on letting agents. The noble Baroness, Lady Grender, who is not in her place at present, has worked hard on that. We are concentrating resources on tackling bad landlords and are doing what we can to improve the market, which is important to us all.

[Lord Maginnis of Drumglass (Ind UU)]

My Lords, the concentration on bad landlords seems to be a precursor to a judgment of all landlords. How will the Minister ensure that good landlords, who serve a vital role in our society, are not so labelled?

[Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth]

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord for that question, as it gives me the opportunity to say that most landlords are good landlords. I do not agree with the hypothesis that, by bringing in legislation to deal with poor landlords, we are saying that all of them are poor, any more than the Theft Act means that everybody is a criminal.