Housing and Planning Bill

Lord Foster of Bath Excerpts

Wednesday 20th April 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Foster of Bath (LD)]

My Lords, I, too, am pleased to see the noble Baroness, Lady Hanham, in her place. I have fond memories of working with her in DCLG. Although my name is on Amendment 100, in the light of recent developments I rise to support the amendment in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, and my noble friend Lord Palmer. I particularly wanted to speak to congratulate both of them on the sterling work they have done in this area and to thank the members of the ministerial team for being willing to listen to the arguments that have been put.

I previously made the case for why mandatory client money protection is needed, and all those who have spoken have done that very eloquently. We are now aware that the Minister has received letters from a large number of industry bodies and letting agencies asking for mandatory CMP. It is worth reflecting that some of those supporting documents make the case even more powerfully, with one letting agency saying that all it is asking for is provisions similar to those that already apply to estate agents, another pointing out that tenants and landlords can get a false sense of security because it is widely assumed that such protection already exists across the industry by default and yet another using the phrase:

“The sector is crying out for proper regulation”.

It is worth reflecting that in another place the Minister, Brandon Lewis, rejected calls for mandatory CMP, saying that it,

“would be a step too far and would overburden a market that is perfectly capable of self-regulation”.—[Official Report, Commons, Housing and Planning Bill Committee, 10/12/2015; col. 719.]

In Committee in your Lordships’ House, the Minister, the noble Viscount, Lord Younger, clearly had not been given a new script because he said exactly the same words. However, now that the industry has said with one voice that it wants mandatory CMP and does not think the costs would be too high, I hope that when she responds the Minister will have been given a new script.

[Lord Beecham]

I join this parliamentary lovefest briefly to join others in congratulating the Minister on accepting the amendments and to pay tribute to my noble friend Lady Hayter; I do not think a doughtier champion of consumer rights could be found anywhere. This is a very satisfactory conclusion and it enables us to get on to slightly more contentious matters a little further down the Marshalled List.