Homes (Fitness for Human Habitation) Bill

Lord Tope Excerpts

2nd reading (Hansard): House of Lords
Friday 23rd November 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Tope (LD)]

My Lords, I join everyone in thanking the noble Lord, Lord Best, for introducing this Bill in this House. I join him and everyone else in the tributes paid to Karen Buck MP for her indefatigable work and for promoting this Bill in the other place.

I must declare some interests. First, I am one of the many vice-presidents of the Local Government Association. I am co-president of London Councils, the body that represents all 32 London boroughs and the City of London, and I am a patron of Electrical Safety First, a charity whose name is self-explanatory. All those bodies and I welcome this Bill, support it entirely and wish its speedy enactment in due course.

Let me start with electrical safety, which my noble friend Lady Grender has already trailed for me. I am going to ask the Minister when the Government intend to introduce the five-yearly mandatory electrical safety checks. After years of campaigning for this, they finally announced in July this year that they would do so. In his letter yesterday, the Minister used the time honoured phrase that they would do so, “when parliamentary time permits”. I have been here long enough to know that the Minister will say he is not responsible for the allocation of parliamentary time, so I will not ask him when parliamentary time will allow. May I ask him when his ministry hopes and expects that legislation to be introduced? Is it shortly? Is it in due course? Maybe it is as soon as possible. Can he give some indication that it really is a priority, at least in his department, if not yet, sadly, for his Government?

May I also ask the Minister to clarify, when this Bill is enacted, whether landlords will actually be prevented from renting a property where there are no records of electrical safety checks? As I understand it—and the Minister will know better than I do—it is the intention of the Welsh Government not to allow landlords who cannot prove evidence of an electrical safety check to be able to rent out a property. Is that also going to be the case in England?

On perhaps a more positive note, Electrical Safety First commissioned York University to undertake a research project on the state of electrical checks in the social rented sector. The research found that the social rented sector has a lower proportion of properties that require electrical repairs than any other housing tenures, and properties in the social rented sector are far more likely to have modern electrical safety devices present. This is the case especially with properties owned by housing associations, which have the highest proportion of homes built after 1990. The researchers found, too, that councils and housing associations are doing a much better job in maintaining fitness-for-human habitation standards in terms of electrical safety, probably due to the decent homes standard. They found that the majority of social housing providers voluntarily conduct checks at five-year intervals already and support mandatory checks. However, if the Government intend to legislate for electrical safety checks in the private rented sector, will the Minister confirm that it will also include the social rented sector?

I turn to London and London Councils, where I have some interest and responsibility. In London, the capital city, private renting is the fastest growing housing tenure. It is estimated that, by 2026, 1.4 million dwellings in the capital city will be private rented. That sector is dominated by small-scale landlords. Sadly, we all know that there are far too many documented concerns about poor management standards.

I listened with interest to the noble Lord, Lord Horam, who I think used to represent Orpington. He gave examples of some inner-city places, and I think Blackpool and other seaside resorts, all of which are sadly well known for such cases. I wanted to give an example that was given to me in my own borough, the London Borough of Sutton, by the chair of our housing, economy and business committee—I always have to think about that title. It is a borough where the council has had majority Liberal Democrat control for nearly 33 years, so I take no pride from giving this story. It is a property very close to where I live, but perhaps more relevant, it is less than half a mile from the green-belt border with Surrey—the leafy part of London, apparently. My former colleague said to me that she had come across a family of two adults and three children in a privately rented flat with two bedrooms and a reception room, in a 1960s-built, tall block of flats. From the outside, which I pass every day, it looks perfectly good and decent, but as well as being overcrowded, the state of disrepair in this place is, as my friend who has seen it described, appalling. Electrical fittings do not work and bespoke heating that has been set up as the underfloor heating is too expensive for the family to use. There are wires trailing everywhere. The oven supplied by the landlord works poorly; the smoke alarms do not work at all. There is mould and insect infestation. The family have lived there for 12 years and repeatedly asked for repairs. Although the landlord sends someone round to have a look, nothing happens.

This example, and sadly there are all too many, from the leafy part of outer London, is now drawn to the attention of the chair of the housing committee, and of course action is now being taken. But none of us looking at the outside would have been aware of that. It is not the image that is presented of much of outer London, and yet it exists—I am sad to say—nearly as much in outer London as it does perhaps in Blackpool or in Paddington.

London Councils says that it believes boroughs need to be empowered and given adequate resources to help improve protection of private tenants. It makes the point that London boroughs have suffered a 63% reduction in government funding between 2010 and 2020. It also says that councils should have local licensing powers and be allowed to recoup costs of enforcement against rogue landlords.

Finally, the penultimate paragraph of the Minister’s letter to us yesterday said that the short guidance document for tenants will be published as soon as the Bill has completed its passage, to explain their rights and how to represent themselves in court if necessary. I strongly welcome that. Part of the York University research I mentioned found that consumers are being left behind in their awareness simply of their rights and opportunities, never mind the difficulty they will always experience—and some particularly so—in exercising those rights, if necessary, through the courts. Will the Minister confirm that this guide will include specific reference to electrical safety? If it does not, he can rest assured that he will be hearing more about it from me, and I am sure from other noble Lords in this House. That said, I wish this Bill a swift passage through your Lordships’ House, and a rapid enactment as well.

Private Rented Housing: Electrical Safety Checks

Lord Tope Excerpts

Monday 26th February 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth]

My Lords, my noble friend will be aware that BEIS has issued a response to the appliance product recall, and has created the Office for Product Safety and Standards. More widely, in relation to this particular consultation, the review body has suggested doing this on a volunteers approach. Whether that is the appropriate procedure is something that will be tested in the consultation.

[Lord Tope (LD)]

My Lords, I declare my interest as a patron of Electrical Safety First. Is the Minister aware that Electrical Safety First and the Home Office have both produced data that show that white goods cause five fires every day in people’s homes? Many people in the private rented sector rely on white goods supplied by their landlord. Is it the intention that, if and when mandatory safety checks are introduced—and I share the frustration of the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, over the delay—they will cover white goods supplied by landlords?

[Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth]

My Lords, the noble Lord is probably aware that the consultation is on just that basis. The working party did not recommend mandatory checks but that this was best practice. That is one of the things that we are testing in this consultation, but it is certainly covered in the review.

Private Rented Sector: Electrical Safety Checks

Lord Tope Excerpts

Wednesday 6th December 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth]

My Lords, the noble Baroness is wrong on a couple of things. First, we are not waiting for the Grenfell review, which is a quite separate inquiry; we are waiting for the Hackitt review and are about to receive the interim report before Christmas. That is the first point to make. That does not stop progress being made, and we are looking at this in the department. I am sure that the noble Baroness and others agree that it would not be sensible to have immediate action on these recommendations without taking account of the important work being done by Dame Judith Hackitt, who is well qualified in this field, and seeing what her recommendations are.

[Lord Tope (LD)]

My Lords, to clarify, has the Minister just said that the Government are waiting for the interim report of the Hackitt review or the final conclusions? That would make a significant difference, I hope, to the Government’s decision. Given that there is further delay, for good or bad reasons, are they also considering introducing mandatory electrical safety checks in the social rented sector, especially given the sad events at Grenfell Tower?

[Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth]

My Lords, perhaps I may deal with the latter point first. The enabling legislation, the Housing and Planning Act, does not enable us to do anything in relation to the social rented sector—only the private rented sector. The noble Lord will be aware that we are coming up with a Green Paper on social rented sector housing shortly, and that will be the opportunity to look at that particular question. The action that we are proposing will await the final report of the Hackitt review, which is due in the spring. However, given that there is an interim report, work will be able to start on the basis of it. Indeed, we have been looking at and welcome the recommendations. It is not that we are doing nothing; it is just that it would be sensible, in the light of this important review, to wait to see what Hackitt recommends, rather than do this in a piecemeal way with one piece of legislation and then have to take further action three or four months later.

Neighbourhood Planning Bill

Lord Tope Excerpts

3rd reading (Hansard): House of Lords
Wednesday 15th March 2017 Lords Chamber

I bring this back before your Lordships, having been encouraged to believe that when my noble friend responds he might give me some hope, short of seeking to take a legislative route through your Lordships’ House today, that there may be some meaningful and positive response from the Government to help local authorities address this issue and for redress—sadly, the stable door has been open for a long time—to lift the fear that some small businesses still have of this threat coming their way. I beg to move.

[Lord Tope (LD)]

My Lords, I find myself once again in tandem with the noble Lord, Lord True. He said correctly that we have been pedalling together on this issue for, I think, about four years now—mostly against a very strong headwind, it has to be said, both under the coalition Government and the present Government. I join him in welcoming, shall we say, a slightly less strong wind, a gentler breeze, on this occasion.

I still have the view that the question of the conversion of offices to residential—which is in many cases entirely desirable, where there are redundant offices, and so on—should be a matter for the local planning authority to determine in the light of local circumstances and to get such planning benefit as may be appropriate and possible. I understand that the breeze is still too strong for us to go quite that far, but when the Minister replied to our debate on this on Report—indeed, we have debated it at every stage of this Bill—he made some sympathetic and encouraging noises to encourage us to withdraw our amendment, which we of course intended to do anyway.

I would like the Minister to clarify two particular points for me, both of which I mentioned on Report—I will not go over all the ground again. I made the point that Article 4 is usually cited as the answer to all questions on this matter, and I related the experience of my own borough. Incidentally, I should once again declare that I am a vice-president of the Local Government Association. The following is no longer a declarable interest, but I was for many years a town centre councillor, and indeed leader of the council, in a south London borough not too far from the borough of the noble Lord, Lord True, and I have seen the effect of this measure on the ground there. When my then authority applied to introduce Article 4, the Government of the day made it extremely clear that they would certainly not counsel an Article 4 direction for the entire borough. They said that to a number of other London boroughs, and no doubt other authorities too. Indeed, they would not even allow it to cover a wider area within the borough and insisted on it being very tightly drawn around the town centre. That provision has had inevitable effects since it came into operation in our town centre area. It has now spread to the district centres, where Article 4 does not apply, and where we have seen an alarming spread of offices being converted to residential use. These are not empty, redundant offices. The figures I have cited several times in this debate applied to our town centre. While we waited for Article 4 to take effect, 28% of the office space in the town centre was lost. That was not redundant space; two-thirds of the offices lost were in active use at the time and the businesses in them had to move.

I hope the Minister will tell us what the Government’s attitude now is towards local authorities that wish to introduce Article 4 over a wider area, or indeed over the whole local authority area, particularly where local authorities like mine have achieved, and indeed exceeded, the housing targets for many years. We are more than meeting government and London government requirements on housing targets. Will we now be allowed more leniency in the areas in which Article 4 may apply?

Secondly, as I have already mentioned, in the period we had to wait to implement Article 4, we lost 28% of the town centre office space. There was a reason for that. If Article 4 is introduced immediately, the local authority is liable to pay compensation, which could run to very considerable sums. Therefore my authority, and most, if not all, authorities, give 12 months’ notice of the intention to apply Article 4. It is inevitable that if you give 12 months’ notice of the intention to apply restrictions, landlords and developers with a mind to convert offices to residential use are bound to go ahead in the period before Article 4 takes effect, especially if that is as long as 12 months, as it has to be. I hope that when he replies the Minister will say something about this long period. If local authorities are still to be required to give 12 months’ notice, can he say anything about their liability for compensation to those who feel they may have a case for that compensation?

I conclude, as did the noble Lord—my noble friend—Lord True, by thanking the Minister in this place and the Minister in another place for taking a very much more sensible and realistic attitude to this issue and for listening to actual experience on the ground. I hope they will be willing to adopt measures to improve this situation. I thank the noble Lord, Lord True, for his very considerable persistence and perseverance on this issue throughout the previous four years.

[Lord Beecham]

My Lords, I support the amendment and I hope the Government will react sympathetically to the objectives that noble Lords outlined. We certainly are at one with them. I speak from my experience in Newcastle. It is important that the Government should see the logic of the case that is made in the amendment, and I hope they will treat it accordingly.

Short-Term Letting for Holiday Purposes

Lord Tope Excerpts

Thursday 2nd March 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth]

My Lords, I am aware that outside London there are undoubtedly many possibilities for the sort of let the noble Lord describes. He cited the Lake District, and there are other areas such as Bath, the Cotswolds, Oxford and Cambridge.

I am meeting Airbnb to discuss its response to the concerns expressed, which has been favourable. There are other providers as well, which I will be seeking to speak to. There are provisions in leases that can be enforced by landlords; where appropriate, there are provisions on statutory nuisance and private nuisance; and I come back to the point that within London, although not outside, the boroughs can act themselves.

[Lord Tope (LD)]

My Lords, I am pleased that the Minister is going to meet Airbnb, which is, I guess, the market leader. Is he aware that this is a significant problem in parts of central London? For instance, research by central London amenity societies shows that 20% of housing stock has been lost; indeed, in some blocks of flats the figure is as high as 80%. Is the answer a tough licensing regime which includes data-sharing, an opportunity to call out on problems and so on? Will he discuss all these issues when he meets Airbnb and report back to the House on the outcome?

[Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth]

My Lords, as I have indicated, within London, which the noble Lord cited, there are restrictions already, so I do not believe that this is distorting the market in the way he suggests because there is that 90-day limit. I will certainly be discussing these matters when I meet Airbnb, and in all fairness to it, it has responded to concerns and ensured that its listings make absolutely clear what the law is and that it is operating within it. I do not think we can ask for more than that.

Neighbourhood Planning Bill

Lord Tope Excerpts

Report: 2nd sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Tuesday 28th February 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Swinfen (Con)]

My Lords, I spoke briefly on this in Committee and I will not weary your Lordships by repeating what I said then. I shall say simply that I support the amendment, and if there is a Division I will vote in favour of it.

[Lord Tope (LD)]

My Lords, I declare my interest as a vice-president of the Local Government Association. I should perhaps also declare a non-interest: I have never been involved in any way in running a pub but am simply an occasional and perhaps too frequent consumer.

I do not think any of us here are suggesting that all pubs should be preserved in aspic regardless of circumstances. Of course pubs become unviable for all sorts of reasons, such as different social trends or changes in the local neighbourhood. There are all sorts of reasons why a pub genuinely becomes no longer viable. However, there is a big difference between “not viable” and “not as profitable as it could be”. In other words, a building can certainly be used more profitably as something other than a pub; the site on which a pub stands could certainly be developed more profitably than by being retained as a pub. That is the difference, but no one here is suggesting that pubs should be retained regardless of local circumstances.

The noble Lord, Lord Hodgson, referred several times to new, additional legislation. I suppose, since we are considering legislation, it is in a sense new legislation, but actually the effect of what is being proposed is simply that the consideration of any demolition or development of a public house should go through the normal planning process. I am not sure that strictly speaking that is what I would have understood by “new legislation”. What we are saying is that the local community should have its opportunity to give voice to its views on any proposed development of a public house in the normal way through the normal planning permission. The position at the moment is that through permitted development rights the owner or someone else has the right to demolish or develop the pub regardless of the local planning authority or the local community’s views. That is what is objectionable and it is one of the reasons, though not by any means the only one, why so many pubs are disappearing—because there are more profitable uses for the building and/or the site. That is what is causing so much concern.

The noble Lord, Lord Hodgson, is probably right that some local authorities have possibly used the device of assets for community value rather too liberally or generously. Maybe so, but there is a good reason why they are doing that: it is the only way that they can avoid the problems with the permitted development rights. I think “assets of community value” was an excellent measure, introduced as it was by the coalition Government through the Localism Act—“localism”, incidentally, is a word that we do not hear very much these days—but it was put in there for rather different purposes than a blanket position to refer to all pubs in a particular local authority area regardless of circumstances.

All that is really being suggested here is not strictly new legislation but rather that we revert to the situation that used to apply that, if you wish to make appropriate changes to a building—in this case a public house—whether by demolition or redevelopment of the site, you apply to the local planning authority. It goes through the normal planning process; the local community has its opportunity to make representations and the planning applicant has its opportunity to make representations and the elected planning authority makes the decision. That is what is being proposed here—not that all pubs should be preserved regardless of circumstances or, alternatively, that all pub site owners should have the right to develop regardless. I very much support the amendments and I hope that they will be put to the vote. I hope, of course, that that vote will be successful, and I hope then that the Government will consider very seriously what seems to be—we may be about to prove it—a majority view on all sides of this House, which is most certainly the majority view in most if not all communities.

[Lord Framlingham (Con)]

I spoke very briefly in Committee in support of this amendment, and I would like to do the same again now. I have no shares in pubs but, like many Members of your Lordships’ House, I have made a considerable investment in a number of pubs over the years and continue to do so.

I understand the points that the noble Lord, Lord Hodgson, makes in an accountancy sense and a clinical sense. Of course, they are true. He talked about people drinking at home, which people are doing more of, as we know—but this is not about people drinking at home; it is about people drinking with other people, in the community, and all that brings to the community. It is not just about drinking anymore. I think of my local pub, which has wi-fi and excellent food—not just fish and chips on Friday, although it does that very well. It has an art gallery behind it and all sorts of things, including pub quizzes, of course. It is a major hub in the community and would be hugely missed.

I am sure that in your Lordships’ House we all have memories of pubs and pubs we currently use. They are a uniquely British institution. We are losing them too fast anyway and surely we should do anything we can to hang on to those that we have. There are good reasons why we might have some difficulties in keeping them open, but they are a uniquely British institution and this amendment is a very sensible one. I hope that the Minister feels minded to accept it.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Tope]

My Lords, I have added my name to the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord True, and, once again, I find myself supporting him strongly on this issue. We went through the Housing and Planning Bill together, usually extremely late at night—I recall being worried about whether I would get away in time to catch my last train. It worried me at the time that Conservative Richmond and Liberal Democrat Sutton, which are almost neighbouring boroughs, were so much in agreement. Now, when I hear that tonight we might be keeping the noble Lord, Lord True, from his budget-making council meeting, I feel that I almost owe it to my Liberal Democrat colleagues in Richmond to speak for at least another three hours on this extremely important amendment. Maybe we will do that.

I strongly support the noble Lord, Lord True, on this issue. I was, for 13 years, leader of a council in an almost neighbouring south London borough—Sutton. As I have said many times in this Chamber, I was a town-centre councillor in that borough for 40 years. I should perhaps add that it is still Liberal Democrat run after more than 30 years, so we are clearly doing something right there. This is a serious issue. It has affected Sutton and many London boroughs, and no doubt other parts of the country but particularly London, where residential property values are much higher and property owners and developers can make much more money from residential development than from office development.

Like the noble Lord, Lord True, in spite of the temptation he offered me, I will not go through all that I have said in previous debates, both on the Housing and Planning Bill and in Committee on this Bill. This matter was discussed in Grand Committee. I know that the noble Lord, Lord True, was unable to be there but I raised the issue there as well. I repeat that, in the time it took us to get an Article 4 direction into the town centre in Sutton—in a little over a year, but I will come back to that in a minute—the town centre lost 28% of its office space in about 18 months. The noble Lord, Lord True, talked about the figures for Richmond. Similarly, the percentage of office space in Sutton that was occupied or partly occupied was 62%. So we are not talking about empty and redundant offices which are past their sell-by date or are in areas where they are no longer needed; we are talking about active employment zones where people have jobs or go to shop or eat in their lunch hours, and which are a very important part of the local community.

I mentioned the Article 4 direction, which eventually we got for the town-centre area. Initially, my council proposed to get an Article 4 direction for the borough as a whole. I see the noble Lord, Lord True, nodding in agreement. Perhaps that was also the case in Richmond—I know that it was in a number of other London boroughs. It was made very clear to us by the Government at the time that that was a non-starter—it would not happen. So in Sutton we attempted to get an Article 4 direction in rather more targeted areas. Again, it was made clear to us that that would not succeed, so we targeted solely the town-centre area, to which I have referred on a number of occasions.

If you introduce Article 4 immediately, you are liable for considerable compensation payments to potential owners. It is simply not a viable option, particularly in a valuable town-centre area, so it needs 12 months’ notice. That was probably a significant contributor to why we lost 28% of our office space in the notice period for the Article 4 direction. As I said in Grand Committee, since Article 4 has applied in the town centre, that process has slowed down considerably for a number of reasons, but what has happened now is that the same developments are happening in a number of the district centres, where Article 4 does not apply and where, frankly, to go through the lengthy and expensive process of introducing Article 4, even if it were likely to be successful, would be time-consuming, expensive and possibly not so effective.

Minister after Minister, including the noble Lord on the Front Bench today, has quoted Article 4 as the answer to this problem. Clearly, attitudes have changed, and perhaps the understanding of the problem is greater than it was. Are the Government any more minded now than they were 12 or 24 months ago to accept Article 4 directions for the whole of a local authority area, as distinct from a very targeted approach? If that were the case, it would be very useful to know that from the Minister and would at least be of some help—and a very refreshing and welcome change.

I share the view of the noble Lord, Lord True, that the proper answer to this issue is to allow local authorities to decide for themselves, knowing and recognising the local situations. Like the noble Lord, Lord True, and as I have said on other occasions, I have no problem with the issue in principle. I understand and entirely accept that in other parts of the country it has proved very successful. However, in our part of south London, and in other parts of London, exactly the opposite has been the effect; it has been disastrous.

I turn now to the reason for which this measure was introduced. The current Minister, Gavin Barwell, a former Croydon councillor—another south London councillor—has said that housing need and the need to meet the Government’s housing targets override any concerns about permitted development rights. As I said before, it is not just about housing numbers. It is about housing need and about actually getting the right sorts of homes—not necessarily houses—in the right places. It is about the homes that are needed in areas where there are jobs for people to work in and where they support the local economy and do not detract from it.

Above all, this should contribute towards affordable homes. I leave aside for the moment what is the definition of an “affordable home” in south London, but south London needs affordable homes, and this process is providing very few, if any, affordable homes at all. Indeed, London Councils gives some figures, stating that:

“Between May 2013 and April 2015 at least 16,000 new dwellings have avoided the full planning process through office-to-residential PDRs. Had these developments been required to seek full planning permission for their conversion, many of them could have been required to contribute to affordable housing provisions”,


and, indeed, to contribute in many other ways to the local infrastructure—all of which is avoided by permitted development rights. It is questionable to what extent these really contribute to housing need in parts of London, as distinct from housing numbers. We should remember that there is an important distinction there sometimes.

A final point, which I raised very late at night during the Housing and Planning Bill, is that I would understand this a bit better if it was felt that the councils concerned were failing to meet their housing targets. Almost a year ago, I quoted the figures from my own council, and no doubt the noble Lord, Lord True, could do the same for his council. For each of the previous 10 years, my council—of which I am no longer a member—has more than met its housing target. Taken over the 10 years as a whole, housing completions in our borough were 130% above target. What is the justification for imposing the permitted development rights when it means losing all other planning gain that comes from such developments and, most importantly, losing the opportunity to get more much-needed affordable housing?

For all those reasons, I am more than happy to support, once again, the amendments of the noble Lord, Lord True. Like him, I do not know whether they are precisely right or necessarily the right answer. For me, the right answer is to trust the local authorities to do what is best for their area. But if we still do not have a Government willing to do that—I accept that the coalition Government were no better; indeed, they were arguably worse—then at least let them allow some leeway in those areas where it is an extremely important and pressing issue. What is happening in London today will happen in other parts of the country very soon, if it has not happened already.

[Lord Porter of Spalding]

My Lords, I support the amendment and declare my interests in the register as chairman of the Local Government Association and leader of a small rural district council, which, thankfully, is not affected by this issue and I do not think will, at any point soon, be directly affected by this issue.

I apologise to the House because, having tabled a similar amendment for Grand Committee, I was unable to attend to move it because I had an important diary clash and was speaking elsewhere at a conference. I thank my noble friend Lady Cumberlege for moving the amendment, which by all accounts she did much more eloquently than I would have done, so noble Lords had the bonus of having a better speaker delivering it.

I will not say too much because I need my noble friend to get back to make sure his budget is safe. This is a problem in very few areas around the country. It would not take much to shift from the Government’s point to be able to meet at least some of the concerns that are being raised. I do not think that anybody has a problem where redundant office accommodation has been lost that then becomes a benefit and an asset to the community by being turned into residential. But when this policy is driving viable businesses out of their homes, it has probably gone a step too far. Having listened to the debate on the previous amendment, I wonder whether it would help the Minister if we started to refer to these offices as white-collar cathedrals.

Neighbourhood Planning Bill

Lord Tope Excerpts

Report: 1st sitting: House of Lords
Thursday 23rd February 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Beecham]

In that case, I will simply commend these amendments.

[Lord Tope]

My Lords, I, too, support the intention of the noble Baroness, Lady Gardner. She is right that probably all good planning authorities do this already and take it into account. Perhaps where it does not happen it is more by accident than by intent. One of the more serious points behind this is that we know that there is, sadly, a deep-rooted distrust of planning authorities. Whereas something may have happened by accident, the public are only too ready to believe that it is a conspiracy. This is a fairly simple measure. Amendment 9 certainly is. On Amendment 10, we may need to consider a little more what constitutes the holiday period. The intention of these amendments is very good and would perhaps go some small way to restore public trust in the planning process or at least to weaken the distrust in that process. So I hope the Government will take seriously these two amendments and look at how the intention can be met.

[Lord Swinfen (Con)]

My Lords, I, too, support these amendments. They appear to be drafted in favour of the person who has made the planning application, but let us not forget that council officers also need family holidays, and they may not be there to consider the application and to give it the proper consideration that it requires—or not all of them, or not the relevant individual. So this amendment, although simple, is very sensible.

Neighbourhood Planning Bill

Lord Tope Excerpts

Committee: 3rd sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Monday 6th February 2017 Grand Committee

[Lord Scriven (LD)]

My Lords, I wish to speak to Amendment 45, to which I have added my name. As it is the first time I have spoken, I would also like to draw the Committee’s attention to my details in the register, particularly as a member of Sheffield City Council.

I have seen the effect of not having adequately funded planning departments and development services. At the moment, most authorities have to subsidise up to 30% and in so doing—particularly in the light of the financial position that local authorities find themselves in—many planning departments are under great stress and many planning officers have far more cases in their case load, which can slow down the planning process and, at times, lead to not the best decisions. That is not because the officers are bad or not looking at detail, but because they are so widely spread that they do not have the time to deal with each particular planning application.

This is not just about local government holding out the begging bowl and asking for these fees. Even the builders and the developers are asking that such money as is suggested in these amendments is allowed to be charged by local authorities. The British Property Federation survey of October 2015 found that two-thirds of private sector respondents would be willing to pay an increased fee which would help keep an effective service. It is not just local authorities but builders and developers who have said that.

As has already been said by the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy of Southwark, in 2015-16, about £195 million has not been recuperated, which is a huge amount for local authorities and planning services. I hope therefore that the Minister will look at this. I think it will help, not just to speed up the planning service but to lead to better and more timely decisions.

[Lord Tope (LD)]

My Lords, I want to say a few words in support of Amendment 47 tabled in my name. Our debate is either a little too late or a little premature, because we have reason to believe that there is going to be something on this subject in the long-awaited and I believe now imminent White Paper. It may well be that before long we will know what it is, and we will probably then have a more useful debate on the Government’s intentions or, for that matter, their lack of intentions.

The points have been made and all these amendments seek the same thing by more or less similar means. The noble Lord, Lord True, put it very well when he said that there is no reason why local authorities at any time, least of all in the current straitened circumstances, should be subsidising the development industry in the way they do. None of these amendments suggests that local authorities should make a profit out of planning and development control. What one is aiming for, as far as possible over time, is a break-even position.

I discussed this with my local planning authority, of which I am no longer a member, and found that the planning officers are longing for the return of the planning delivery grant, which if I remember rightly lasted from 2007 to 2010. There was actually a lot to be said for it, because the funding it provided for local authorities was based on performance and incentives. What one should perhaps be looking for here is not simply a grant or funding for local authorities, but for a way that is tied to incentives. All of us want to see the housing target delivered, but we know that unless we do something quite serious to increase the resourcing of planning departments and to stem the flow of planning officers from the public to the private sector, where frankly they are a lot better rewarded, we are not going to deliver on the housing targets or, to go back to our earlier debate, on neighbourhood planning, particularly in urban areas, and I speak with knowledge of London.

Incidentally, I was not too surprised to learn that 20% of all planning applications are dealt with by London boroughs, all of which are severely overstretched because they are underfunded—budget restraints affect everybody—the cost of living is so much higher, and the opportunities for qualified planners are greater in the private sector than they are in the public sector. It is reaching crisis point, and if we are to solve the housing problem, this is part of what needs to be done. That is what all these amendments seek to achieve, and we look forward to hearing from the Minister a preview of what is to be in the long-awaited White Paper.

[Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth]

My Lords, I thank all noble Lords who have participated in the debate, and I appreciate the build-up of the White Paper by the noble Lord, Lord Tope. I will have to be careful about what I say because as he has observed very cogently, this is perhaps premature to the housing White Paper which is expected shortly.

[Lord Tope]

It is expected imminently, I believe.

[Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth]

Yes, it is imminent. Before I respond to the specific amendments in the group, I want first to echo what has been said. The Government recognise the impressive performance of local planning authorities up and down the country. We have certainly asked much of them in terms of getting Britain building, delivering new homes and providing the employment that will drive our economy forward. There is no doubt that we will want still more from local authorities, and that is why this issue is going to be addressed in the White Paper. I think we all agree that this is a matter of great importance and I am pleased that the White Paper will set out how it can best be addressed. I hope that noble Lords will participate in the discussion on it.

I thank the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, for his introduction, and my noble friend Lord True for talking about the current position, which I understand. Let me turn to my noble friend Lady Gardner’s amendment. As she indicated, it is perhaps slightly different from the other amendments in the group. It seeks to enable local authorities to charge fees that exceed cost recovery in respect of their planning functions. It is an interesting proposal but not one I can imagine would be immediately attractive to the applicant. We are certainly clear that the principles on handling public funds mean that when we set fees, such as those for planning applications, they should be set at cost recovery, and that is what we aim to do. Under the Local Government Act 2003, local authorities have the power to charge for discretionary services up to the level of cost recovery at present. I know many local authorities have chosen to use this power to charge, for example, for giving pre-application advice on planning applications. I think that that deals with those situations.

I turn now to the points raised by noble Lords who spoke to other amendments in the group. The points were essentially the same, but let me say something specific about the new burdens issue, which is slightly different and was picked up in Amendment 57 in the names of the noble Lords, Lord Kennedy of Southwark and Lord Beecham. It seeks a requirement to consult local planning authorities on the burdens imposed by new statutory duties before commencing those measures. This raises an important principle and one I am happy to acknowledge. I recognise it is a priority to ensure that planning departments have resources to provide the service that applicants and communities deserve. As noble Lords will probably be aware, we have a long-standing mechanism in place through the new burdens procedure, which has crossed successive Governments, to consider and make provision for funding to local authorities for any additional work arising from new statutory duties. The approach to new burdens provides that when the Government introduce new responsibilities and statutory duties on local authorities, these must be properly assessed and fully funded.

As a matter of routine we discuss new policies with the Local Government Association and value the insight that it brings to the table. All the measures in the Bill have been considered against this doctrine and we do not believe that the burdens in the Bill, if there are any, are expected to have a significant impact on local authority resources. We are committed to working with local authorities to find ways of securing the finance, people and skills they need to maintain strong planning departments. As I said, this has to be seen in the context of the imminent housing White Paper. I hope noble Lords will recognise that these amendments seek to place in the Bill powers and mechanisms that the Government already have and that these matters will, as I said, be reflected in the imminent housing White Paper. On that basis, I hope that the noble Lord will agree to withdraw the amendment.

Neighbourhood Planning Bill

Lord Tope Excerpts

Committee: 2nd sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Thursday 2nd February 2017 Grand Committee

[Baroness Cumberlege (Con)]

My Lords, I also declare an interest. I have interests listed in the register and I have a pending legal case concerning a planning application. I have taken advice from the Clerk of the Parliaments and have been told that the sub judice rule does not apply here. I support Amendment 14 and I have been asked by the noble Lord, Lord Porter, to introduce his Amendment 44.

On Amendment 14, I am not opposed to imaginative reuse of buildings: it is sometimes a very good way of preserving or conserving them. In my area a huge mental asylum has been turned into housing. It is of modest architectural merit but it provides homes for people, and those people, fortunately, do not know its distressing and disturbing past.

I can also think of redundant churches, some of real architectural distinction, that have been preserved by being transformed into homes. I am sure noble Lords know lots of other examples. However, I share the caution of the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, and other noble Lords, that changes of use should not be given without careful consideration of the consequences. There should be a requirement for a community impact assessment.

There are many short-term financial gains to be made by turning employment sites into housing, especially if it is, as the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, has said, large-scale development. That can, however, have a detrimental effect on a whole area, and very long-term implications. I think back to the multi-storey office blocks, built for another purpose: it is appropriate for them to be occupied by staff during the day, but they may not be suitable places in which to live.

We have learned from the mistakes of the past, such as the badly designed tower blocks with broken lifts—places of misery and centres of crime. Now they are loudly cheered as they are demolished and come tumbling down. They were recognised as unsuitable places to live in and proved not to be socially beneficial. New tower blocks, however, appear almost daily, crowding the skyline. Presumably, considering the stringency of building regulations, they are good places to live in.

I wonder, however, whether converting office tower blocks of concrete and glass is an appropriate thing to do. We are in the middle of a housing boom right now. Booms do not last for ever, which is why the rush for numbers may be expedient now but not necessarily a solution for future housing needs. We have to be very careful, therefore, to get the balance right between homes that are desperately needed now and the long-standing impact on a local area. I think of my own business. I certainly could not run it on the hoof: my staff and I need a base. We are technologically pretty able but we still need a base. So we must look at the employment opportunities in an area before giving them up.

I move on to Amendment 44. The noble Lord, Lord Porter, has asked me to speak to this amendment on his behalf because unfortunately he cannot be here today; he is speaking at the District Councils’ Network conference in Warwick. The noble Lord, Lord Porter, would have told the Committee that permitted development can be a useful way of speeding up building the homes, infrastructure and communities that are needed. Councils should, however, have powers to consider the impact that new developments are having across an area. Many areas, particularly in London and the south-east, are concerned about the rate at which office space is being converted to residential sites. This could have a very negative impact on local employment and economic growth. The British Council for Offices has estimated that between 3 million and 9 million square feet of office space were converted in England in one year. From April 2014 to September 2016, there were nearly 9,000 applications for prior approvals for office-to-residential permitted development; nearly 3,000 of those did not require prior approval and an additional 4,000 were granted.

The Local Government Association and local councils have expressed their concerns about this issue, so in an attempt to address the problem a number of councils have introduced Article 4 directions to remove the permitted development rights for office-to-residential conversions. However, there have been limitations to the scope of the Article 4 directions in places and they will in many cases be restricted to certain areas within the local authority boundary. There are 17 local authorities that have individual buildings, roads or zones within their local area that are exempt from the rights until May 2019, including the City of London and Manchester city centre.

I share the concern of my noble friend Lord Porter and the noble Lords, Lord Kennedy and Lord Tope, that local planning authorities and their communities should have a greater say on the cumulative impact of new development falling within existing permitted development rights that affects their local area. I am saying this rather than my noble friend Lord Porter, but local authorities should have the right to ask: “Is this desirable housing or are we providing the slums of the future, with all the social problems and attendant costs that poor-quality housing brings?”.

[Lord Tope (LD)]

My Lords, my name is to Amendment 44 and I would certainly have been happy to add it to Amendment 14 as well, which I support. I first declare my interest as yet another vice-president of the Local Government Association. An interest in many ways more relevant to this debate which I no longer have to declare is that until May 2014, I was for 40 years the local councillor for a town centre ward in a south-west London borough. We debated the effect of permitted development rights, particularly the conversion of offices to residential development, during the passage of the Housing and Planning Bill less than a year ago. In Committee and on Report, we had some spirited debates led by the even more spirited noble Lord, Lord True. I think that he was speaking more in his capacity as leader of Richmond Council, another south-west London borough. Sadly, both debates were very late at night and inevitably therefore curtailed.

I will not repeat all that I said a year ago but this issue has had, and continues to have, a devastating effect on the town centre ward that I used to represent. It has particularly affected the town centre. I cited nine months ago the figures I had had from my local authority, showing that in the 18 months between the coming into effect of the prior approval permissions and being able to obtain an Article 4 direction to cover that area, the town centre lost 28% of its office space. This was just in that 18-month period. Many people assumed that those were vacant offices but they were not. Sixty-two per cent of those offices were then currently occupied and the businesses occupying them were, politely or impolitely, asked to leave. Employment was directly lost from the town centre, with an inevitable effect on its economy—not just the work that goes on in the offices, but all the commerce that is brought by the people working in them. Some businesses were able to move elsewhere; others, sadly, have gone out of business, with a consequent loss of jobs.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Horam (Con)]

What the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, said strikes a chord with me. I always represented very urban areas in the House of Commons. I remember rather similar problems, particularly from my time as the Member for Orpington, which was in the middle of the borough of Bromley in south London, not too far from Sutton. The idea of neighbourhood planning is, frankly, a serious joke. It simply does not exist. In fact, it is worse than the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, described it. He said that there was a vacuum and that essentially only a very small number of people, largely in rural areas, had neighbourhood councils, and that is true.

Planning for a neighbourhood in an urban area such as Bromley simply does not exist. In fact, it is worse than that. Orpington was historically a district council and had all the appurtenances of a district council. Indeed, the late Lord Avebury, who was the MP for Orpington, was a district councillor when there was a district council for Orpington, and the council was used to making plans for Orpington. Under the Heath local government changes, it then became part of the London Borough of Bromley. When councillors for Orpington put forward schemes for Orpington high street or whatever for the benefit of the local residents, inevitably when they went to the planning council in Bromley they were promptly overruled by the councillors for Bickley or Chislehurst, who had no knowledge whatever of the Orpington situation. That was to the fury of people in Orpington, who thus became convinced that Bromley was fundamentally an anti-Orpington organisation, and the sooner they got rid of it the better. They went back to Kent, where they had some power as a district council, but they had no power inside the London Borough of Bromley. Their fury was evident to me on many occasions.

It will please the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, to know that when briefly it was under Liberal Democrat/Labour control during the early part of the noughties, as they are called, when the Liberal Democrats were more of a power in the land than they are today, it attempted to meet this problem by forming ward committees—putting wards together and having committees which would consider planning issues on a level more local than the council level. It was a sensible initiative. Sadly, it did not attract much support from the local population. They thought it was another piece of bureaucracy which did not work, cost money and so on. It fizzled out but it was a brave idea, which I supported at the time. It would have given large boroughs such as Bromley—the largest borough in London, with areas such as Biggin Hill on the one hand and Orpington on the other, each with distinct personalities—some kind of local say in a way which the amorphous Bromley council, as such, has difficulty in giving it.

There is a real problem here. When one thinks of neighbourhood councils, one attaches to them an almost merry England kind of picture of lovely little parishes such as Grimsargh in Lancashire. I take my title of Lord Horam, of Grimsargh, because that is where I was born. It has a beautiful set-up, with a parish council and local church, and it works wonderfully. However, such a set-up has no meaning whatever in most urban areas, and yet it is in urban areas that we need it. I now live in Fulham close to the old Imperial Gas site, an area of pollution with a great deal of bad land, gasometers, gas works and miscellaneous offices. It is now Imperial Wharf, with Berkeley-built homes sold mainly to foreigners for a lot of money. You walk down there and find that there is no one on the electoral register because they are all foreigners and that all the languages are not English. It is a great tragedy that it has happened in that way. Obviously I am pleased that it has ceased to be a polluted site and is no longer used for the supply of gas—that is delivered by other means—but the way in which it has been developed has been of no benefit to the people of London or the people of Fulham. There was a need to look at that development from the local area point of view as well that of the overall Fulham and Hammersmith Council.

There is a problem here which I do not know how to solve. It is certainly the case that neighbourhood planning is lacking in most of our major urban areas, and I do not know how to deal with that problem.

[Lord Tope]

My Lords, to follow the noble Lord, Lord Horam, I should perhaps start by reassuring him that the London Borough of Sutton is still under Liberal Democrat control after 32 years and still has six area committees—and area committees are not the same as neighbourhood forums, let alone parish councils.

[Lord Horam]

I was referring to Bromley, which has no Liberal Democrat presence at all.

[Lord Tope]

I know there is a temporary cessation, but give it another year or two.

I strongly support what my noble friends have said in proposing the amendment. However, there is a particular problem, as my noble friend Lord Greaves said, in all larger urban areas—and Greater London is the largest urban area of them all. The problem is exacerbated because until comparatively recently Greater London was not allowed by law to have any parish councils. Since that became permissible under law—I think a little less than 10 years ago; I cannot remember exactly—there has been only one parish council formed in the whole of Greater London and no others. I do not know how many neighbourhood forums there are in London, and I do not suppose the Minister has this information at his fingertips, but, if it is available, I would be interested to know how many neighbourhood plans have been formed, or are in the course of being formed, in Greater London. Perhaps that will serve to illustrate—or, praise be, to deny—the point that the noble Lord, Lord Horam, and I are making. It is a difficult problem, and while I agree with my noble friends that parishing and parish councils are particularly useful and beneficial to neighbourhood plans, if we are to wait for the whole of Greater London to be parished then neighbourhood plans will be a very long time coming. Clearly, that is not the answer. It is a problem in other places too, but particularly in London.

In London, neighbourhoods are often named after former villages. So we know what a neighbourhood is, but it is a heck of a sight more difficult to decide where the boundaries of those neighbourhoods are. They are most certainly not the ward boundaries, because the wards, particularly in London, are based on arithmetic and not on community at all. For administrative convenience, a neighbourhood forum is likely to adopt ward boundaries, at least in part, but they are not necessarily the historic neighbourhoods. That is a particular problem in London.

I have supported parishing and parish councils all my political life, but while it may be desirable, it will not happen quickly enough for the purposes that we are debating today. Therefore, I would be very interested if the Minister is able to say something about the particular issues and problems in London, to which the noble Lord, Lord Horam, and I have referred.

[Lord Shipley (LD)]

My Lords, I hope the Minister will understand that this is a very important issue. The reasons for that have been extremely well explained in the speeches that have been made so far. The noble Lord, Lord Horam, made an extremely helpful and important point, as did others, about the problems that exist. In a nutshell, those problems can be explained as follows. On the first day of Committee, my noble friend Lord Stunell pointed out that emerging neighbourhood plans are showing a greater appetite for more housing, precisely because they have more say in the way in which they build their community. In other words, it is in all our interests to promote neighbourhood planning. However, the second problem is that only around one fifth of the country is engaged in neighbourhood planning. As we know, in those places that do not have parish councils, it is a slower process. But as we also know, you do not have to have a parish council to undertake the neighbourhood planning process.

I hope the Minister will be willing to look at this issue between Committee and Report, because we will be coming back to this on Report. The Bill says that neighbourhood planning is important and must become more important. But as a consequence of that, local planning authorities must do more to promote neighbourhood planning. It is for them to decide whether that is through the creation of more parish councils under the review procedures that exist or through the other means that exist. This is a very important issue. It is not going to help the Bill if we simply end up with not many more people engaged with the process.

Renters’ Rights Bill [HL]

Lord Tope Excerpts

Committee: 1st sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Friday 18th November 2016 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Lord Tope]

2: Clause 3, page 2, line 1, leave out subsections (2) and (3) and insert—
“(2) In subsection (1), for “may by regulations impose duties on a private landlord of residential premises in England” substitute “must lay before each House of Parliament a draft of regulations which impose duties on a private landlord of residential premises in England or the landlord’s agent (or both)”.(3) In subsection (3), leave out “may” and insert “or the landlord’s agent (or both) in the draft regulations must”.”

[Lord Tope (LD)]

My Lords, I shall speak also to Amendment 3. In doing so, I declare my interest as a vice-president of the Local Government Association.

The Housing and Planning Act enables the making of regulations governing electrical safety checks, and Clause 3 of the Bill would make such checks mandatory. Amendments 2 and 3 seek to ensure that letting agents acting on behalf of landlords are compliant with regulations that are introduced. Where a letting agent was employed by a landlord to deal with the maintenance of a property, the amendments would ensure that the landlord could enlist the letting agent to ensure the upkeep of their responsibilities in relation to electrical safety checks. The amendments are intended to clarify and provide assurance to landlords and letting agencies regarding their responsibilities while seeking to ensure that electrical safety checks place no undue burdens on landlords and that they are kept in line with gas safety checks.

We have debated electrical safety checks many times in your Lordships’ House, most particularly during the passage of what is now the Housing and Planning Act and during the Second Reading of this Bill on 10 June this year. During that time we have all quoted many important figures demonstrating the priority that needs to be given to electrical safety checks. We all welcome and support the mandatory checks for gas safety, carbon monoxide and so on, but the reality is that more deaths in the home are caused by electrical fires than by gas. Therefore, it remains a mystery to us why electrical safety checks are still not mandatory. The Bill proposes that they should be.

At Second Reading on 10 June, some six months ago, the Minister, the noble Viscount, Lord Younger of Leckie, said:

“We plan to conclude further research as soon as possible”.—[Official Report, 10/6/16; col. 988.]

Given that six months have now elapsed, I hope that the Minister will be able to give us some information about the progress of that further research. I know, for instance, that a working group has been set up, that it has been meeting to look at this matter and that it is nearing the conclusion of its work. Therefore, I hope that the Minister will be able to say to us today that the Government intend to use the enabling provisions in the Housing and Planning Act and that they will produce draft regulations.

If the Minister is able to confirm that the Government will be producing draft regulations, I wonder whether he can give us any indication of when we might expect them. If I may say so, “shortly” would be very much more welcome than “in due course”. Over the years, some of us have learned to interpret what “in due course”, “shortly”, “in the fullness of time” and so on actually mean. So “shortly” would be very welcome but a precise indication would be even more so.

Also at Second Reading, my noble friend Lord Palmer of Childs Hill—we should perhaps make it clear that that is the Lord Palmer to whom we have been referring in this debate—spoke, among other things, about the frequency with which electrical safety checks should be carried out, suggesting every five years. In his reply, the Minister said:

“Maybe that should be four or three”.—[Official Report, 10/6/16; col. 989.]

An average tenancy in the private rented sector has now increased slightly and is four years. Electrical Safety First, which has given excellent safety briefings in support of this issue over the years and for this debate, and most of the industry and stakeholders believe that every five years strikes the right balance with regard to all the interests concerned and given the current turnover in the private rented sector.

Checks every five years in the private rented sector would align it with HMOs in England as well as with legislation being introduced in Wales and what is already in place in Scotland. It would therefore seem sensible for England to follow suit. Will the Minister therefore confirm that the Government now accept that the appropriate frequency for mandatory checks should be five years—more frequently when desired, but mandatory for five years? We have debated this subject many times, and I suspect that this will not be the last debate on the subject. I beg to move.

[Lord Kennedy of Southwark]

My Lords, I will be very brief, as I am conscious of the time. I fully endorse Amendments 2 and 3, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Tope. The noble Lord has a track record in campaigning for electrical safety in the private rented sector, and I pay tribute to him for that. As we have heard, the amendment seeks to ensure that letting agents acting on behalf of landlords can be enlisted to ensure that they meet their statutory responsibilities. As the noble Lord also reminded us, we have protections for gas and carbon monoxide poisoning through checks, and it is only right that we get electrical safety checks on the same statutory footing. I fully support both amendments.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth]

My Lords, I fully accept that. I think the noble Lord is in danger of appearing churlish on this. I have said that we regard it as a very important issue. However, it would be premature to act before the working party has brought forward its report, which it will shortly do. As soon as it does, the Government will look at it very seriously. I do not think that that is an unreasonable approach.

[Lord Tope]

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord for accepting my amendments. It does not come as too much of a surprise to me, but, in my 22 years in your Lordships’ House, it is a very rare pleasure for me to have an amendment supported so willingly and with so much pleasure.

I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, and his colleagues for their continuing support, and to the Minister for his reply. I believe that the working group to which he referred has its last meeting next Monday. I understand, therefore, why he feels it would be inappropriate to comment before it has even had its last meeting, let alone produced its report. If it produces that report by the end of the year, and I hope that it does, I hope that the Government will not take too much longer to measure it. Successive Governments have taken measured approaches to this for years—not months. Therefore, my reference to six months was perhaps a little optimistic.

The Minister has said, and I believe him, that the Government are taking this seriously and that they have a pragmatic approach. It is hard to see why, if that is so, they are not yet able to commit to at least making safety checks mandatory, even if they are not yet in a position to go into the technical detail necessary for the publication of the draft regulations.

As my noble friend Lady Grender said, I do not know how much further this particular Bill will go in its progress, but this issue and the issue raised in the previous debate will not go away. They will be pursued. We will continue to pursue them and I feel sure that the Labour Opposition will continue to pursue them. We hope that the Government will indeed take their pragmatic, not-too-long, measured view and bring forward draft regulations for debate within the foreseeable future, by which I mean the first part of next year.

Amendment 2 agreed.

Moved by

[Lord Tope]

3: Clause 3, page 2, line 4, at end insert—
“(5) In subsection (5), after “landlord” insert “or the landlord’s agent (or both)”.”