Housing: Landlord and Tenant Legislation

Baroness Deech Excerpts

Monday 7th November 2011 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Hanham]

My Lords, consolidation Acts take an enormous time to put together. As I have already said, landlord and tenant law covers several Acts. We appreciate that leasehold law in particular can be complex and that people find it difficult to understand. That is why the department provides guidance for leaseholders and free advice and information, which can be sought from the Leasehold Advisory Service. Consolidating legislation, while helpful, requires considerable Civil Service and parliamentary time, so there needs to be a very significant benefit from it.

[Baroness Deech]

Does the Minister agree that the way in which English or British law is presented on its original enactment, and even worse when it is amended, makes it very hard to understand and that we are not making best use of modern technology and computer-aided amendments in order that we and ordinary people can read the law as it is? Great efforts could be made in that direction, both in this House and outside, so that one does not have to rely on secondary sources in order to be able to understand primary legislation.

[Baroness Hanham]

My Lords, I am sure that everybody would say amen to that. Unfortunately, it is not quite within my brief to deal with how legislation is constructed. I guess that it probably has a history which goes back generations. That is not to say that it should not be modernised, but I think that it will be in somebody else’s hands rather than mine.