Housing and Planning Bill

Debate between Lord Kennedy of Southwark and Lord McKenzie of Luton

Tuesday 1st March 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Kennedy of Southwark]

That would be very helpful. In this short debate we have highlighted a few issues with this section of the Bill so can I suggest that it might be welcome if a few noble Lords got together with the Minister to discuss some of them? There are issues which are not clear and could cause problems. The last thing we want is to get something on the statute book that causes everybody confusion.

[Lord McKenzie of Luton]

I have one further question. If the rent condition is initially not met but then there is a payment which starts the process again, where does that leave the warning notices that have been issued? Will they remain in place for a possible second bout of the application of these provisions?

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Kennedy of Southwark]

I am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Grender, for proposing that this whole part should be abandoned. I support that suggestion. I will not go through the points I made in the previous debate, but I may have a few points when the Minister responds. The removal of the oversight of the courts, as referred to by the noble Baroness, is of particular concern, and the provision that the third warning notice should be fixed in a “conspicuous” place is very weak and offers very little protection to the vulnerable tenant. The Government have not made the case for these clauses, or that these changes are needed or necessary. The Government need to think again over the procedure and the risks involved, as other noble Lords said in the debate.

[Lord McKenzie of Luton]

My Lords, I agree with those who say that these provisions should be recast. I want to pick up on the third warning needing to be,

“given by fixing it to some conspicuous part of the premises to which the tenancy relates”.

Conspicuous to whom? Is it the tenant, the whole world, the community that passes by the front door? It seems to me that giving notice to somebody by nailing something to their front door is almost medieval. You can imagine that somebody will put the notice up, the mobile phone will come out and a photograph will be taken but half an hour later it could be ripped off and be nowhere in view—certainly nowhere in view of the tenant. It seems an incredibly archaic approach. I think the whole thing should be recast but that particular provision jars immensely.

Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974 (General Duties of Self-Employed Persons) (Prescribed Undertakings) Regulations 2015

Debate between Lord Kennedy of Southwark and Lord McKenzie of Luton

Wednesday 22nd July 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Kennedy of Southwark (Lab)]

My Lords, I agree entirely with the comments of my noble friend Baroness Donaghy. She is absolutely right to raise her concerns. I also want to raise the question of the agriculture industry. I know that this industry is prescribed; it is the most dangerous industry working today. There is a shocking level of drownings, electrocutions and other fatalities in this industry. It has a really appalling record. I hope the noble Baroness can comment on that today because it really is an industry in which a lot of individuals work and in which some very serious injuries take place. Frankly, the regulations at present are not good enough or strong enough, and need strengthening in that industry.

[Lord McKenzie of Luton (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Altmann, for introducing these regulations. I welcome her to what I understand to be her first foray into the health and safety debate. The Minister will doubtless be aware of the extensive legislative consideration given to this matter in what was then the Deregulation Bill—now the Act—which culminated in the provision now enabling these regulations.

As we heard, these changes to the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974 have their origin in the report of Professor Löfstedt entitled Reclaiming Health and Safety for All, in which he recommended that those self-employed people whose activities posed no potential risk of harm to others should be exempt from the general duties under that Act. This recommendation was made, notwithstanding that it was generally acknowledged, included by the professor himself, that these duties did not overly burden the self-employed, and that any requirements in these circumstances would be minimal in time, cost and enforcement effort by the HSE and local authorities. Their main duty was to carry out an assessment of the risks to themselves and others that are relevant to their work. There was no necessity to record the findings. The impact assessment that accompanies the regulations estimates that those within the provisions would have spent on average just 15 minutes a year on this endeavour. Paragraph 58 of the impact assessment further states:

“One current requirement that the self-employed might not comply with if they became exempt is carrying out a risk assessment considering risk to themselves. However, in order to know whether they qualify for the exemption, they would still need to assess whether their work poses risk to others, and it is likely that any risks to themselves would arise from the same factors”.

So there is no particular practical easement from that perspective.