Local Authority Finances

Lord Bishop of St Albans Excerpts

Tuesday 6th February 2024 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[The Lord Bishop of St Albans]

To ask His Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the state of the finances of local authorities.

[The Lord Bishop of St Albans]

My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question standing in my name and declare my interest, as set out in the register, as a vice-president of the Local Government Association.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities (Baroness Penn) (Con)]

We have listened carefully to local authorities about the pressure that they are facing. That is why we have announced that the final local government finance settlement for 2024-25 will now make available £64.7 billion, an increase of 7.5% in cash terms on last year and above inflation. The department continually monitors the local government sector through data and direct engagement with individual councils. This includes considering the impact of inflation and wider economic circumstances.

[The Lord Bishop of St Albans]

My Lords, I congratulate the Government on that 7.5% increase for the local financial settlement for the coming year. However, council leaders also say that what makes planning very difficult is that they do not get much warning of these final settlements and increasingly spend more and more of their budgets on the statutory obligations. They are spending a much-reduced amount on the preventive measures, despite the evidence of the social and financial benefits of prevention. Can His Majesty’s Government commit to producing a medium-term financial strategy to help local authorities to plan the effectiveness and impact of their spending much more effectively?

[Baroness Penn (Con)]

My Lords, in recent years we have tried to give more clarity around elements of the settlement on a multi-year basis. We will continue to do this for the next spending review and beyond.

Levelling Up

Lord Bishop of St Albans Excerpts

Wednesday 22nd November 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Penn (Con)]

My noble friend makes an important point about learning as we go and understanding what is effective in delivering our mission to level up. We have put in place comprehensive plans and published how we will approach evaluating the success of some of these projects. Of course, as part of that we want to publicise those projects that have had the biggest impact so that not only do they get the recognition that they deserve but others can learn from them.

[The Lord Bishop of St Albans]

My Lords, I declare my interests as president of the Rural Coalition and a vice-president of the LGA. The 9.6 million people living in rural areas are glad that there is a mention of rural in the opening paragraph, but we cannot quite see how that rolls out. I wonder whether the Minister can help us a little. One of the crucial things about rural sustainability, improving levels of employment and offering healthcare in rural areas is digital connectivity, yet 17% of rural houses are not on superfast broadband, and nor are 30% of rural commercial premises. How does this relate to the need across the country to roll out a much higher level of rural connectivity? It has been done with a fantastic project in Cornwall and a lot was done in Shropshire at one stage, so it can be done. How do we get that sort of rural levelling up in digital connectivity?

[Baroness Penn (Con)]

The right reverend Prelate makes a really important point. I know that the Government have significant ambitions in rolling out access to superfast broadband and making sure we cover off the last mile, as it were, to the harder-to-reach places. I am not familiar with the detail of that programme as it lies in another department, but I will of course write to the right reverend Prelate about how we are doing on delivering that digital connectivity, in particular in rural areas.

Local Government Finance

Lord Bishop of St Albans Excerpts

Tuesday 21st November 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Penn (Con)]

As I said to the noble Lord, Lord Scriven, my department is working closely with the Home Office and local councils to ensure that the process for moving people on from hotel accommodation is as smooth as possible. As I also said, we recognise that the work that we are doing successfully to reduce the backlog in asylum claims puts pressure on other parts of the system, which is why we have increased resources there too.

[The Lord Bishop of St Albans]

Both the noble Lord, Lord Scriven, and the noble Baroness, Lady Lister, have raised the really troubling issue of asylum seekers leaving accommodation and being made homeless. In the Government’s strategy, Ending Rough Sleeping for Good, there was talk about having a transparent and joined-up system. What plans do His Majesty’s Government have to ensure that homelessness policy and asylum policy are working together so that we can minimise this dreadful problem?

[Baroness Penn (Con)]

My Lords, as I have said, my department is working closely with the Home Office and local authorities on this issue. Local authorities have already moved thousands of families out of bridging accommodation and into long-term accommodation. We are also providing £750 million to the local authority housing fund, which is being used to buy or create new housing stock to accommodate, for example, Ukrainian and Afghan refugees who have been offered refuge here and now need somewhere to move on to. But it will also help to improve temporary accommodation for families owed a homelessness duty. That is an example of some of the longer-term action that we are seeking to take to alleviate some of these pressures.

Building Safety (Leaseholder Protections) (England) (Amendment) Regulations 2023

Lord Bishop of St Albans Excerpts

Tuesday 21st March 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Pinnock (LD)]

My Lords, the regret Motion standing in my name is critical of the Government’s response to those leaseholders who have been adversely impacted by a government error, which the Building Safety (Leaseholder Protections) (England) (Amendment) Regulations 2023 have recognised. The regret Motion puts the spotlight once again on the plight of leaseholders. Since the awful Grenfell Tower tragedy nearly six years ago, leaseholders and tenants have been at the very heart of the policy response to the crisis in building safety that was so cruelly exposed that night.

The Grenfell Tower inquiry has meticulously gathered evidence of years of malpractice by developers and materials manufacturers. It is clear where responsibility lies for the very significant number of building safety defects. Those not responsible in any way are the innocent leaseholders, who have done everything right and nothing wrong. The Building Safety Act set out the ways for the building industry to rectify past building defects. Those related not just to the removal of dangerous flammable cladding but to the lack of fire breaks, for instance, that were required at the time of construction. The Act also established how the very large costs of remediation were to be funded. In the case of non-cladding defects, there was a cascade of responsible entities. At the bottom of the cascade were leaseholders, who may be required to pay a capped contribution, which was limited to £10,000 outside London and £15,000 in London. These alone are significant sums—for first-time buyers, for instance.

There are still questions to be asked about whether the Government’s attempt to ensure that cladding is fully removed and safety defects are put right is effective in practice. However, the focus of the regret Motion is an error that inadvertently crept into the regulations, which determined how much developers would be required to pay, if at all. It was the intention that a family of associated companies of the developer would be included in the assessment of the value of the companies and, therefore, the ability of the developer to fund the remediation works. The regulations, unfortunately, excluded what have been described as parent and sister companies. This led to one very large developer being able to demonstrate that the special purpose vehicle that had been set up for the development did not of itself have the funds to pay for the remediation of safety defects. If the family of associated companies had been included with that special purpose vehicle, as was the intention of the regulations and of the Act, the developer would have been funding the costs of remediation. As a result of the error, this company was able to avoid paying for the defects and, via the cascade system, was able to pass on part of the costs to the leaseholders.

This is grossly unfair to the leaseholder, and a major company, which had already bypassed building regulations unlawfully in constructing the property, was now avoiding the responsibility of paying for this dangerous and deliberate practice that put profit first and people’s lives in jeopardy. The Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities was made aware—and only made aware—when a leaseholder contacted the department to query why they had been asked to pay remediation costs when they knew that the developer in question was a very large one and likely to be within the limits to be able to pay. I am pleased that the department quickly remedied the error, passed these amended regulations and brought them into force the following day, just to make sure that no other developer tried to bypass paying for remediation because of the error. However, there is currently no remedy for those leaseholders who have unwittingly paid towards remediation costs when they should not have done.

The Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee asked the department to quantify the numbers of leaseholders who have been forced to pay when they should not have been. Unfortunately, the department was unable to provide a figure and does not seem to have made any attempt to do so.

There is a route for any leaseholder caught out by the Government’s error, and that is to appeal to the First-tier Tribunal—but who knows about that? Leaseholders have been trapped all through this saga by the unscrupulous, immoral and unlawful behaviour of developers and others. The very least the Government can do is to seek out those leaseholders, provide them with the necessary information about how they can recover their costs and support them in doing so. The Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee asked whether protection for affected leaseholders could be introduced retrospectively, via primary legislation if necessary, and I too ask that question of the Minister.

This is injustice heaped on injustice. It was a government error, and the Government should do all in their considerable power to put it right. I will listen carefully to the response from the Minister. I hope she will be able to provide all the information that I and the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee are asking for, including the ways in which leaseholders can find retribution. Meanwhile, I beg to move.

[The Lord Bishop of St Albans]

My Lords, I shall add a few words of support for the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock. I stand with a weary sense of déjà vu, looking around at a number of people with whom I have sat as we have worked through building safety and fire safety measures.

What is interesting is that the Government fundamentally tried to grasp this problem. I pay tribute to the right honourable Michael Gove, who has been quite exceptional in taking hold of it and trying to solve it. I say well done to the Government for shifting the main problem in this very troubling area.

Like many noble Lords, I am still finding that people contact me because they are in a dreadful situation. Some of them are going bankrupt because they are simply unable to pay for the remediation work on their properties. This does not just affect big tower blocks; it happens to quite modest blocks of flats in places like St Albans, Stevenage and Bedford, in my diocese.

On the particular problem that the noble Baroness has mentioned, it is extraordinary, when the Government have already committed themselves to doing so many things on this—not least reforming the leaseholder system, which we will watch with great interest—and troubling that this unintentional problem, which is having a devastating effect on some people, is seemingly not being addressed. It would be a huge help if we could simply get the figures published to find out how many people are being affected by what seems to be an error and then try to help those people to find a remedy.

This is a terrible scar on the whole industry. We need to find ways to work with those who have unintentionally found themselves caught up in this and are quite desperate. That is supported by, as the noble Baroness has mentioned, the point made by the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee that we need that data. I add my weight to the points that the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, has made today, and I hope we will see some movement.

[Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)]

My Lords, clearly what we are talking about today is building safety and the importance of leaseholder protections. That is at the core of everything.

We have discussed, on a number of occasions now, the terrible events that happened at Grenfell Tower along with similar incidents that brought to light the significant issues surrounding building safety and the appalling impact that it can have on the lives of those who have lived, and continue to live, in affected properties. The safety of the homes that we live in has to be of the utmost importance to all of us, and it is the responsibility of the Government to ensure that buildings are safe and secure for those who live in them. So the Government’s Building Safety Act, as the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of St Albans said, is an important step towards improving building safety and ensuring that incidents such as Grenfell cannot happen again. However, we still need to ensure that leaseholders who have been bearing the brunt of the cost of remediation works are properly protected and can continue to make their homes safe.

Windrush: 75th Anniversary

Lord Bishop of St Albans Excerpts

Thursday 19th January 2023 Lords Chamber

[The Lord Bishop of St Albans]

My Lords, I too thank the noble Baroness, Lady Benjamin, for this important and timely debate. I thank other Members who have spoken so eloquently about the contribution of Caribbean people to this country.

In 1948, we invited Caribbean people to come to this country to help rebuild after the terrible devastation of the war. Some were welcomed; indeed, I have an auntie and uncle who, for 40 years, offered accommodation to people coming from the Caribbean. They did it joyfully and gladly and introduced them, wherever possible, into their Methodist church. However, at the same time there were many instances where they were not welcomed and, sadly, not even welcomed into some of our churches. They experienced appalling racism, which was simply shameful.

We in the Church of England have expressed our regret and shame at the treatment of many people of that Windrush generation. Three years ago, we voted unanimously in our General Synod to apologise for any racism and to give joyful thanks for the wider contribution of the Windrush generation and their descendants to British life and culture. Last week, my most reverend friend the Archbishop of Canterbury announced that the Church Commissioners are setting aside £100 million over the coming years to work with those communities adversely impacted by historic slavery—which, of course, goes way back beyond the specific point on the Windrush generation but is nevertheless part of the same phenomenon.

It is important that we, both as a Church and as a nation, continue to put right the wrongs of history. Perhaps the simplest and most effective way we can do that now is to celebrate the contribution of Caribbean people to Britain. Indeed, a large part of that contribution is seen in the many Caribbean Christian communities we have here in the UK. They have made a unique contribution to the Christian culture of our country, providing pastoral care for a little over half a million British-Caribbean people. They have championed numerous social causes, including the fight against racial injustice and knife crime. With almost three-quarters of under-25s killed in London last year coming from the Afro-Caribbean community, it is important that Caribbean churches continue their important work. We need to challenge our history of racism and celebrate the Windrush generation and Caribbean people in Britain. That is an important first step.

Warm Hubs

Lord Bishop of St Albans Excerpts

Thursday 20th October 2022 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[The Lord Bishop of St Albans]

To ask His Majesty’s Government what steps they will take to support the establishment and maintenance of warm hubs in England.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities (Baroness Scott of Bybrook) (Con)]

Warm hubs, as with Covid support, are a fantastic example of the way in which faith and community groups can work together with local authorities to provide support and help for their communities. The Government strongly support these initiatives, but local government, which knows the needs of its communities, is best able to give support. We have made an increase of £3.7 billion to local government this financial year. We have also made available £1.4 billion through the household support fund.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Lord Bishop of St Albans]

I thank the Minister for her reply. Warmwelcome.uk is a coalition of many Christian charities that so far have signed up more than 1,600 halls, organisations and buildings to act as warm hubs providing lunches after school, homework clubs and so on. What consideration has been given to using these places of meeting to communicate and help people understand whether they can access other benefits, health advice, local charities and other support that is available during these very troubling times?

[Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)]

The right reverend Prelate is absolutely right. Warm hubs are there to do one specific thing, but we have the opportunity to make them not just warm, welcoming places to go but places where people who might be lonely will not be as lonely, with ongoing support for loneliness, which we know is a cause of mental health issues. He is right that hubs are an opportunity to ensure that local people get the support and knowledge they need and are entitled to, including information on such things as flu and Covid vaccines. We should be using them, and to that end I will talk—and have already talked—to the Local Government Association about best practice to move this forward.

Private Rented Sector

Lord Bishop of St Albans Excerpts

Monday 20th June 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Greenhalgh (Con)]

I am not aware that we have undertaken a specific study on the impact of Airbnb on the private rented sector. However, we have a clear mission within the levelling-up White Paper to reduce the number of non-decent homes by 50% and therefore see equality of supply. We are looking at whether there is an erosion in the private rented sector through the annual English Housing Survey, which gives some indication of whether there is a need to dig deeper. So far, all indications are that the sector is robust; 4.4 million households are renting privately and it seems to work well. However, we are keeping that matter under review.

[The Lord Bishop of St Albans]

My Lords, I welcome many of the reforms. However, have Her Majesty’s Government made any sort of formal economic assessment as to whether these protections will do anything to address the higher costs of private rented accommodation, which can so often drive people to social housing? If not, can they assure this House that there will be sufficient affordable social accommodation for those who really need it?

[Lord Greenhalgh (Con)]

There are two parts to how the right reverend Prelate has put the question. The first is that we need to make sure that there is enough supply of social housing, otherwise people who should be in social housing rather than in private housing lose out. There is a real commitment in the affordable homes programme to deliver far more social rented homes: 32,000, which is double the amount of social rented homes in this period than in the previous one. On the cost of living, the best thing is to take action now, and there have been quite a few measures. Some are universal but some are aimed at pensioners; there is a separate one-off payment of £300 to 8 million pensioner households, and obviously there are the measures around people who require support around the costs of essentials. The Government have stepped in where there need to be specific measures, as well as universal measures around fuel bills. Equally, however, the right reverend Prelate is right that we need to ensure that we continue to build more homes and especially ensure that there are more social homes.

Building Safety Bill

Lord Bishop of St Albans Excerpts

3rd reading
Monday 4th April 2022 Lords Chamber

[The Lord Bishop of St Albans]

My Lords, I do not want to delay the House for too long, but I also add my word of thanks to the Minister. I share the concerns of other noble Lords: I hope that this is going to be given enough time for proper scrutiny and debate in the other place and that the really key amendments will not be overturned.

Many positive changes have been made, particularly reducing the cost for non-cladding remedial work to zero and the extension of this support to all buildings, not just those over 11 metres. But I remain concerned by the definition of a qualifying lease and its failure to protect those receiving a state pension who rely on rental income from a lease to sustain themselves. I am not entirely certain how these pensioners who do not qualify will pay for non-cladding remedial costs, but that is a hurdle that the Government may face in the near future.

Furthermore, I continue to think that the Government have taken a rather London-centric view when defining a qualifying lease. I personally find it odd that someone with three leases worth, say, a total of £2.7 million, or £900,000 per dwelling, would qualify to pay nothing as per the latest amendments, but an individual with, say, five leases totalling £500,000, or £100,000 per lease, would be liable for the entirety of their non-cladding remedial costs on four of those leases. Again, I can only speculate as to how this might play out once the Bill passes.

I hope that the Minister shares these concerns and might perhaps look at a fairer way to define qualifying leases in respect of buy-to-let landlords, but I do not want this sticking point to hold up what has been a very positive debate around this Bill. I reiterate my thanks to the Minister for his co-operation and willingness to listen to and work with us.

Building Safety Bill

Lord Bishop of St Albans Excerpts

Lords Hansard - Part 2 & Report stage
Tuesday 29th March 2022 Lords Chamber

[The Lord Bishop of St Albans]

My Lords, I will speak to Amendments 260 and 126. I apologise for not being here this morning. I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, for speaking to our amendments.

Amendment 260 enfranchises leaseholders and brings them closer to the decision-making processes of their building. It ensures that residents of the building are made aware, within the earliest reasonable timeframe, by the responsible person, when they are served any notice given by the fire and rescue service. It also ensures that, when in complying with the notice the responsible person passes costs on to residents, the residents will have 21 days after being informed to appeal this notice to the court.

The essence of this amendment touches upon the freeholder’s incentives, as there is no incentive for the freeholder to challenge a notice from the fire service requiring remedial work, since ultimately it is the tenants or the leaseholders who will shoulder these costs. The reality is that freeholders often do not have skin in the game and are more than happy to comply with a served notice, with the full knowledge that they will not be the ones incurring costs for complying with the notice. This amendment is not handing leaseholders the power to indefinitely hold up works necessary for the safety of the building. It is simply providing them, as the ones with real skin in the game, with the right of appeal.

I recognise that allowing any individual tenant the right of appeal is messy and may lead to a flurry of unnecessary appeals, which in turn could create unnecessary work when it is least needed. Nevertheless, in principle, leaseholders deserve enfranchisement and mechanisms to challenge decisions that are simply imposed on them. Appeals being done through a representative body—a recognised tenants association, for example—would represent a more sensible position, as that would prevent rogue leaseholders going against the majority to appeal decisions, while at the same time allowing appeals to occur through a body that is both representative and accountable to the leaseholder, and which retains regular communication with the responsible person.

I now turn to Amendment 124, in my name and that of the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra. The definition of a qualifying lease and its implications are concerning, as the noble Lord, Lord Young, has pointed out. I am pleased that the Government have extended this definition to three dwellings in total, but it is still problematic. The protections under the waterfall system in Schedule 9 are only available for qualifying leases. Technically, an individual who owns three flats valued at £900,000 per dwelling would meet the cap of £15,000 for remedial costs, whereas an individual with five investment properties in the north of England valued at £200,000 per dwelling would be offered no protection and be liable for the entire remedial costs for each dwelling.

Is this not the sort of regionalism that the Government want to avoid in their levelling-up policy? Under the Government’s scheme, the individual, up in the north, for example, whose total property holdings are valued at £1 million, is required to pay for all their remedial costs, whereas their equivalent in London, with total property holdings of £2.7 million, would have their costs capped at £15,000. This example is to make the point that simplistically saying a number, whether it be one, two, four, whatever, for the number of leases allowed under the definition of a qualifying lease, says very little about the value of those apartments. It is evidently unfair that an individual with a much lower portfolio in value might incur much higher costs.

I accept the reality that, under any scheme, there will be winners and losers. However, I wonder whether the Government need to go back to the drawing board on how they determine whether a private landlord qualifies under the definition of a qualifying lease, as it is almost entirely void of context. It would be much wiser to determine the definition of a qualifying lease for private landlords based on the value of their entire property portfolio, rather than simply on the number of leases that they own.

This point about context brings us to the crux of what Amendment 124 would do, which is to provide some level of security to those receiving a state pension. Young landlords who may fail to qualify under the definition at least have the ability and the time to incorporate this setback into their retirement plans. It does not make it any less painful, but it would at least be a more manageable state of affairs for which they might be able to plan accordingly over many years if they have that time ahead in which to work. Furthermore, it would be assumed that many private landlords would be in receipt of an active income, probably a reasonable income, if they were able to afford multiple leases and not be classed as a qualifying lease. Regardless of whether this means that their exclusion is fair, at the very minimum they have the possibility of greater future earnings. The hope is that those individuals may at least be able to weather these costs in the long run and secure for themselves the financial future they want in retirement.

However, pensioners do not have this luxury. Beyond their state and work pensions, savings and any income they get from renting out properties or other dividends, there is almost a negligible prospect of them finding additional ways to raise money. The whole point of planning for your pension is the knowledge that whatever you have in your possession at the point of retirement is what you will be required to live on for the rest of your life. What concerns me is the notion that, as a result of this definition of a qualifying lease, some pensioners who have worked their entire lives and saved and invested diligently so they can enjoy their retirement without financial worry will be suddenly forced to raise enormous amounts of capital to fund remedial works. How does one expect a pensioner to raise such funds? I hope that my concerns are not well founded, but I fear that unless the definition of a qualifying lease makes reference to those on pensions, retirees may find their entire financial life’s work in tatters.

I am not a fan of the simplistic way in which the Government are deciding which private landlords do or do not qualify under the definition. However, if I am forced to work within this framework, I think that the provisions contained within Amendment 124, in ensuring that pensioners who own up to six leases in total also fall under the definition of a qualifying lease, are fair ones that protect those who will find it exceedingly difficult to adjust financially to the bills that may come their way.

In this vein, I also support the provisions contained in Amendment 123, extending that number of leases up to five. However, I believe even this is a sticking plaster, for the reasons that I have just outlined, as it says nothing about the value of an individual’s property portfolio.

I really hope that the Government will be able to do something more on this and, at a minimum, offer some assurances to those pensioners affected that they will not see their life’s financial planning reduced to ruin. More comprehensively, I hope that between now and Third Reading the Government will look at this definition of a qualifying lease for private landlords and how in reality it is to the benefit of private landlords with a few but highly expensive leasehold properties.

I am pleased to see Amendments 165 and 165A and their attempt to address the question of how a flat will be valued under the definition of a qualifying lease. However, I express a degree of concern about Amendment 165, as there are leaseholders I have met, not necessarily very wealthy, who purchased a leasehold flat for marginally over £1 million in London only to find that, as a result of requirements to undertake remedial works, the value has dramatically dropped and is now far less than the purchase price. Valuing their flats at the purchase price would likely mean that many leasehold flats which have lost significant value were brought into a cap which no longer reflected their current value. For this reason, I welcome Amendment 165A, as it would force the Government to consider issues surrounding negative equity when drawing up their mechanism to value these leases. I know that the Minister gave some reassuring comments during a meeting we had and hope that he might expand on them today so that leaseholders can be reassured that their leases will be fairly valued.

Finally, I support all those amendments in this group seeking to reduce the costs that can be passed on to leaseholders, along with Amendment 115, which would extend the cost protection to leaseholders in buildings of all heights. Taken together, these amendments could provide a package of measures that would deliver justice to those unfairly caught up in this scandal.

Building and Fire Safety: Leaseholders

Lord Bishop of St Albans Excerpts

Monday 14th March 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Greenhalgh (Con)]

I thank my noble friend for stepping in helpfully. Of course, as we approach Report, the Government will bring forward further amendments that will do more to protect leaseholders but will also ensure that the polluters must pay—my noble friend and I share that principle.

[The Lord Bishop of St Albans]

I join other noble Lords in thanking the Minister for the considerable progress he has made and his very collaborative approach as we work through the Building Safety Bill. He will be aware that the definition of a qualifying lease in the Bill is set to exclude many small private landlords. We are not talking about the big commercial set-ups but people who have one, two or possibly three flats which they bought simply to provide themselves with a pension. Do Her Majesty’s Government intend to look at that definition of a qualifying lease again? Many of those people are deeply worried at the moment.

[Lord Greenhalgh (Con)]

I thank the right reverend Prelate, who has also been a consistent campaigner. As a Government we are very much aware of the impact this has on, say, pensioners, where property is their primary pension asset and the annuity from those properties effectively pays for their pensions. As I say, I ask the right reverend Prelate please to wait until we bring forward further amendments on Report, but we are very alive to this issue.