Lord Rooker
Main Page: Lord Rooker (Labour - Life peer)Consumer Rights Bill
Lord Rooker Excerpts
Baroness Neville-Rolfe
I thank the noble Lord for his intervention and I will come to that point.
Perhaps I may pick up on the point about health and safety, which I know is another concern that I share with the noble Lord. There will be a guide for tenants to help them understand how to identify health and safety hazards in the home and what to do if the landlord does not take action to make the necessary repairs. Furthermore, our How to Rent guide, which was published in June, makes it clear to tenants that if a property is in an unsafe condition and the landlord will not repair it, they should contact their local authority, which can make the landlord deal with serious health and safety hazards.
We agree with the need to tackle the problem of retaliatory eviction, but we do not think that this amendment will add anything further to the guidance that is already available and which we have committed to. I am aware that some are concerned that the Tenancies (Reform) Bill is unnecessary as existing consumer law already provides protections. I have listened to the comments of my noble friend Lord Cathcart and his description of good practice, but the Government are clear that legislation is necessary: hence our support, in principle, for tackling this problem through the Tenancies (Reform) Bill. The noble Lord, Lord Harris, asked why we could not simply write this into the Consumer Rights Bill before us today. I have explained our attitude to the Private Member’s Bill. There are certain aspects of it that need to be debated and we are not happy simply to write it into the legislation as it is. We would like to see it debated in Parliament and we will obviously give it our support.
In the circumstances, I ask the noble Baroness to withdraw her amendment, and I look forward to her party’s support for the Tenancies (Reform) Bill.
Lord Rooker
The Minister has been very positive about the Private Member’s Bill and therefore it should be quite easy for her to give a commitment to the House that in any wash-up prior to the general election, the Government will move to salvage the good parts of that Bill if they are at risk of not getting through.