Tenant Fees Bill

Debate between Lord Shipley and Lord Haskel

Monday 5th November 2018 Grand Committee

[Lord Shipley]

My Lords, this grouping is extremely important. The intentions behind my Amendment 9 and the amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, are broadly similar. The Bill says, in the subsection that I seek to delete:

“It is the duty of the lead enforcement authority to issue guidance to enforcement authorities about the exercise of their functions under this Act”.


This is not sufficient. The problem is that if we have only guidance, the likely result will be that too many people will decide not to implement it. In Amendment 9, I seek to change “guidance” to,

“guidance, in the form of regulations made by statutory instrument”.

Proposed new subsection (2C) makes clear that there should be:

“A statutory instrument containing regulations under this section … subject to annulment in pursuance of a resolution of either House of Parliament”.


In other words, it gives power to Parliament to ensure that the regulations are strong enough. The noble Lord, Lord Deben, said a while ago that there are people who do not obey the law. He is right, but I would add that there are even more people who do not obey guidance. In this situation, we need to stiffen up our legislation. I fear that, if we end up passing the Bill, the Act will be difficult to implement because too many people will decide that this is enforced only by guidance that is not strong enough. I am very keen to hear from the Minister what the problem is in converting what is currently proposed guidance into formal regulation giving Parliament the power to agree, or not, with what is proposed. I look forward to hearing the Minister’s response to that question, which to me is very important. I beg to move.

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord Haskel) (Lab)]

If Amendment 9 is agreed, I cannot call Amendment 10 because of pre-emption.