Property Guardians

Lord Lea of Crondall Excerpts

Tuesday 26th March 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth]

I thank the noble Baroness for introducing this issue. How right she was to raise it in the way she did in October. I am grateful to her for that and our subsequent meetings. She is right about that problem, to which the noble Baroness, Lady Grender, also referred. There is a question about who polices local authorities and the other public authorities in this area. We will want to look at that too, as the noble Baroness said. No doubt the noble Lord, Lord Best, will want to comment on it as well.

[Lord Lea of Crondall (Lab)]

My Lords, would the Minister care to add to his shopping list the lack of recognition of residents’ associations in this context? At present, there is no way in which the law can be invoked to ensure that residents’ associations are party to these discussions.

[Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth]

The noble Lord raises a somewhat different but important point. I quite agree. If I may, I will drop him a line on what we are doing in that general area, copy in noble Lords and place a copy in the Library. There are certainly concerns there, which I have shared on previous occasions with my noble friend Lady Gardner of Parkes.