HL Deb 05 March 1992 vol 536 cc1042-53

7.10 p.m.

The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Social Security (Lord Henley)

My Lords, I beg to move that the House do now resolve itself into Committee on this Bill.

Moved, That the House do now resolve itself into Committee.—(Lord Henley.)

On Question, Motion agreed to.

House in Committee accordingly.

[The DEPUTY CHAIRMAN OF COMMITTEES (Lord Skelmersdale) in the Chair.]

Clause 1 [Payment out of benefit of sums in respect of mortgage interest etc.]:

Baroness Hollis of Heigham moved Amendment No. 1: Page 2, line 6, leave out ("shall") and insert ("may").

The noble Baroness said: Approximately 310,000 families—these are 1990 statistics and we believe that the figures are now probably higher—receive income support assistance for their mortgage. Of that number 40,000 receive only half for the first 16 weeks and around 270,000 the full amount. As we understand it, around 12,000 families are on direct payment as a result of negotiation.

The Council of Mortgage Lenders alleges that up to half those families receiving income support for mortgages are not passing the money over. We do not know whether that is true. We have no information to support it. Can the Minister say how many of the 310,000 families are in arrears and what percentage of the total arrears experienced by the Council of Mortgage Lenders is represented by families on income support?

If the amendment is not accepted, the Bill will mean that everyone, whether or not in arrears, whether or not they have always paid on time, and despite their best wishes, will have their income support top sliced to be paid directly to mortgage lenders. We believe that that has some undesirable consequences. First, not all borrowers from building societies or banks wish the lenders to know that they are in receipt of income support. Unfortunately, occasionally, income support carries a certain stigma and often leads to a hardening of attitudes on the part of the lenders and building societies. There is also evidence to suggest that it produces a speedier path to repossession.

Secondly, if there is to be direct deduction, it depends on the competence and speed of the benefits agency as to whether it pays income support on time. That is a point to which I shall return. It gives us little cause for confidence in the benefit agency's behaviour. Further, it cannot be reasonable directly to deduct the income support element for mortgage payments when there is no history of arrears. After all, it was the Prime Minister in a previous incarnation who said that he believed that it was important to retain the skills of money management within families on income support and that they should be determining the spending patterns of their budgets.

In other words, we are seeing a Bill introduced not so much to help borrowers but to help the Council of Mortgage Lenders. It is not a Bill to help those who are in debt on income support, but to help the cash flow of the building societies which would otherwise amalgamate rather more speedily than they would wish. The amendment would remove the mandatory element and provide for top slicing by negotiation. That is a much more healthy and satisfactory way to proceed. I beg to move.

Earl Russell

I support the amendment in somewhat of an exploratory spirit until I hear the reply of my noble kinsman. I should like to hear the Government's justification for the use of compulsion. It may be that it is part of an agreement reached with the lenders, which may be regarded as binding. If so, the Committee is entitled to ask exactly what agreement and for what specific reason it is thought essential that compulsion should be used. We will need an answer to be able to weigh up the matter.

The two key points upon which the amendment is based were made by the noble Baroness, Lady Hollis. The point about a person not wishing the lender to know of his financial position may be of considerable importance. At Second Reading I drew to the attention of my noble kinsman a case reported by a citizens advice bureau in Wales where the lender discovered that the borrower was on income support and immediately began proceedings for repossession. That is not precisely the effect at which we are aiming.

When considering social security, one often tends to think of the point of view as seen from London or indeed from any other big town. But a fair amount of England and an even greater amount of Scotland and Wales is still made up of small towns. In a small town it may be undesirable to have one's neighbours and the people with whom one does business knowing the precise details of one's financial support. It may give rise to conversation which can cause embarrassment. Therefore, if possible, it is worth taking this matter seriously.

As regards late payment by the Department of Social Security, we will be able to pursue that point more fully in the debate on Amendment No. 3. I shall therefore merely note that it is there and not pursue it.

The problem is that some people do not want the lenders to know that they are in receipt of income support. I admit that there is a difficulty about how we can invoke the Department of Social Security into making direct payment when the lenders do not know that such payments are needed. I would like to think that it is possible to reach a resolution of the problem. I must admit that I have not immediately come up with one. I understand however that a verification survey conducted by the Department of Social Security is investigating the extent of the problem of non-payment of income support to the lender. I should like to know whether it is possible to defer the final decision on compulsion until more of the evidence is to hand.

Lord Henley

I understand the points made by the noble Baroness, Lady Hollis. I understand what she meant in repeating the point made by my right honourable friend the Prime Minister; that it is important for people to retain their money skills. However, I hope to demonstrate that it is a question of balance and that it is necessary for that reason to go down the path of compulsion.

It is important to see the new scheme in context. As my noble kinsman said, it is part of a package of measures which have been agreed with the lenders with the object of preventing people losing their homes. That is what the Bill is all about; it is part of a package. For its part the Council of Mortgage Lenders has given an assurance that the lenders will not seek repossession when interest payments are covered by direct payments of income support. As part of that, they will certainly not repossess if they discover that the borrower is on income support. That would negate the whole point of the exercise. Further measures have been agreed, including various rescue schemes which have been announced, which will help those not on income support. The amendment could put that entire package of measures at risk.

I understand the point, made by the noble Baroness and repeated by my noble kinsman, that there are many people on income support receiving help for their mortgage payments who keep up with those payments to the lender. I understand the fears they have about not wishing that fact to be known. My noble kinsman specifically gave the example of people in small towns who prefer that those matters do not become the subject of gossip, and I understand that they feel that they should not be covered by the new direct payment arrangements.

However, as my noble kinsman accepted, there is no guarantee that any other arrangements could satisfactorily identify those at risk of repossession and for whom direct payment would be the only way of helping them to keep their homes. By definition, a voluntary scheme cannot ensure that all those for whom the arrangements are made will benefit from the payment scheme. The mere making of the scheme voluntary would allow anyone, by definition, to exclude themselves from the scheme. As regards the particular case mentioned by my noble kinsman as having occurred in Cardiff, I shall, if he will give me details of it, look into it.

I return to some of the other points made by the noble Baroness. She asked whether the Government knew how many people were not handing over the money. We do not have figures here. Obviously, there is a major problem and that is why the Council of Mortgage Lenders has agreed the package with us. I hope that, because of the fact that we have reached an agreement with the Council of Mortgage Lenders and because making the scheme voluntary will put the package at risk, the noble Baroness will be persuaded that her amendment would not be a wise course to pursue. To some extent it would drive a coach and horses through the whole Bill. The noble Baroness appears to nod at that. I believe that she said at Second Reading that her party did support the general principles of the Bill.

I hope that my explanation of this being part of the package and a necessary balance, and accepting that some claimants might prefer not to have the details revealed, and it not being possible to manage the matter in any other way, will mean that the noble Baroness will be sufficiently satisfied to withdraw her amendment.

Baroness Hollis of Heigham

I thank the Minister for his reply. Perhaps I may make a correction. It was not that I supported the Bill at Second Reading, but that I supported the principle that people who received an allocation in their income support for mortgage payments should pay it towards their mortgages. I do not believe that there was any dispute between us, but I do not think that this is the right way to go. I was somewhat worried by the Minister's reply. It seems to be the price which the Government are willing to pay to the Council of Mortgage Lenders in order to get its support for other parts of the rescue package—for example, buying up repossessed properties and leasing them to housing associations and the like.

So far as I can see, the Minister has not a single piece of information to justify the provision. That suggests that he is fingering the income support recipients in order to improve the cash flow of the building societies so as to help other families which are not necessarily on income support perhaps to enjoy the advantage of leasehold. I am not challenging other parts of the package. I have never before come across a government measure in local government or anywhere else in which we are going to change the rules for social security and go for direct deduction. There may be a problem. We do not know the size, the number, how long, how much or how many people the problem will affect. I have to say that in 25 years of public life I have never seen social policy being made in such total ignorance of whether there is a problem or not. The fact that the Council of Mortgage Lenders believes that there is leads to the comment: it would say that, wouldn't it?

Lord Henley

If the noble Baroness cares to check her facts, although I am open to be corrected on the matter, the noble Baroness' own party has always supported direct payments in the past and opposed this Government in making voluntary payments by individuals to the lenders.

Baroness Hollis of Heigham

I confess that I do not know whether that is the case or not, but I shall certainly check it. Nonetheless, I take the point which the Prime Minister made earlier that one wants to give as much flexibility as possible to families to manage and juggle their finances. Nonetheless, I would have thought that the Minister would have wanted more information on which to base this measure. As far as we can tell we are talking about 310,000 families. It may be that 5,000, 7,000 or 8,000 out of 310,000 or 340.000 people are failing to pay over the money. Can the Minister give us any indication of the number? Is he talking about 5 per cent., 50 per cent. or 85 per cent? Are we really putting such a law through Parliament, with all the administrative problems and workload for the benefit agencies that will be incurred? Possibly there will be a loss of privacy for the borrowers —namely, the people on mortgage support. Are we really undertaking this measure without knowing whether we are talking about 5,000 or 150,000 people? I invite the noble Lord to give us some indication of the kind of numbers we are talking about.

Lord Henley

Various figures have been bandied about by others. All I can say is that from the department's own point of view we cannot give any figures. It is clear that certain sums are not getting through. That is why we have brought in this measure and why we have reached a deal with the Council of Mortgage Lenders. I can go no further than that.

Baroness Hollis of Heigham

Clearly, we can go no further. In that case, perhaps the noble Lord will accept the logic of the second amendment, which I shall move in a moment. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Baroness Hollis of Heigham moved Amendment No. 2: Page 2, line 6, after ("shall") insert ("where arrears of a home loan exceed two months").

The noble Baroness said: Given everything that the Minister has said, and with the support of the noble Earl, Lord Russell, I hope that the Minister can now support the second amendment, which is not so strong in its implications. This amendment says that, where there is a clear problem of financial competence or the money has not been paid over, then there should be a direct deduction from benefit and direct payment to the Council of Mortgage Lenders.

That would be triggered where, for example, a family was two months or more in arrears with its payments. It is two months because I understand that benefit is normally paid a month in arrears and that there is supposed to be up to 14 days' grace for handling it through the benefit agency thereafter. The payment may run a few days later than that. In other words, a family which has not paid for two months might be regarded as presenting a financial risk to the Council of Mortgage Lenders. Two months is the kind of figure which, as regards a family which has failed to pay its rent, local government would take as a warning sign and start investigations to try to ensure that the family did not lock itself into irrecoverable debt.

Even here perhaps I may add that, if the Government really wanted to help families who were beginning to fall into arrears, probably the most useful way of doing so would be to pay the full entitlement of mortgage interest; namely, 100 per cent. from the beginning, and not merely after 16 weeks. It is clear that debt starts fairly early on in a period of income support. However, given everything that the Minister has said and that, out of 320,000, we may very well be talking about only 2,000, 5,000 or 8,000 families who are failing to pay, then I should have thought that this amendment would have met and bridged the concern of the Minister about where the money goes and our concern that families who have always paid on time should not, so to speak, forcibly have their income top-sliced against their own judgment and wishes. I beg to move.

Earl Russell

I appreciate why the Government have brought in this Bill in a hurry. The mortgage repossession situation, as some of us have said, was becoming rather urgent. Also the parliamentary timetable does not allow time for lengthy consideration. When this Bill is put into effect, we hope —not necessarily with great confidence—that the depth of the present emergency about mortgages and repossessions may not last all that long. It is possible that difficulties will emerge in the administration of this Bill which are not foreseen at present. Will my noble kinsman keep the use of compulsion under review, monitor it and undertake to report back to this House to see whether it is really necessary?

We have also had mention of the payment of income support in arrears. My noble kinsman and I have debated this matter before. With the introduction of this Bill we have another reason against the payment of income support in arrears. It keeps the mortgage lender, as well as the person on income support, waiting for money and therefore can have the effect, through the building-up of interest, of exacerbating mortgage arrears and possibly making repossession more likely. I should also like to ask my noble kinsman whether, in monitoring this Bill, he will think again about whether it has created a further argument against the payment of income support in arrears.

7.30 p.m.

Lord Henley

I can give a partial undertaking to my noble kinsman. Of course we shall keep the operation of this scheme under review and we shall keep the operation of all other matters in the department under review, as we always do. I cannot necessarily give an undertaking to come before the Committee at regular intervals to report on the operation of the Bill, but I am sure that my noble kinsman will find ways and means through the usual parliamentary processes to question me on these matters.

I appreciate that the noble Baroness is trying, as she put it, to bridge the gap between us. I understand that a selective approach, as suggested by the proposed amendment, seems to have some attraction. I must resist it on two grounds. First—a point I argued on the earlier amendment —is its effect on the package of measures that we have agreed with the lenders. Secondly, and more important, is the question of the practicality of the amendment.

The identification of all suitable arrears cases could present the benefits agency and lenders with intractable problems. Checking all cases every eight weeks to establish whether they had crossed that arrears threshold would be a very time-consuming and bureaucratic task. It would simply not be possible to rely on lenders being able to identify all suitable cases as some people do not respond to letters from lenders. That could certainly affect some very vulnerable groups of people, including families where the borrower might not always act in the best interests of dependants. It is important to remember that the new arrangements will ensure that the amount of money provided in income support for mortgage interest, which was always intended to be paid to the lender, does in fact reach them. We are convinced that the comprehensive direct payment scheme is the appropriate part of the package of measures aimed at reducing repossessions. I hope, therefore, that in that light the noble Baroness will feel able to withdraw her amendment.

Baroness Hollis of Heigham

I must say that I found that response conciliatory but singularly unpersuasive. I am not sure that the Minister was himself persuaded by his own brief. I could see the logic of his reply on the first amendment, but on the second the argument seems to be, first, that the Council of Mortgage Lenders would not like it—well, of course, it wouldn't, would it?—and, secondly, the question of practicability.

With regard to the effect of the package on the Council of Mortgage Lenders I have to say that I am very uneasy. What seems to be happening is this. In order to help families who are not on income support, who may be receiving family credit or who may be above that level, to have a more supportive relationship with their lenders—that is, their banks or building societies—families on income support who may have no financial management problems whatever, are going to find, whether they wish it or not, their income support top-sliced to improve the cash flow of the building societies and banks. Many of the problems experienced by the banks and building societies have not been the fault of families on income support but caused by the financial mismanagement of the banks and building societies themselves and their misjudgment in making mortgage loans of 100 per cent. too easily available to people on incomes that are too slender or with repayments that form too high a ratio of the total household income. We know that to be the case, even before property prices began to fall. The building societies and the banks were lending at too high a price and they are now paying the bill for that. To bail them out the Government intend to penalise people who have a perfectly good, honourable and decent track record of managing their money. The Government are going to withdraw from those people the right to manage their money as they see fit in order to bail out those banks and building societies from the mistakes that they have made in the past towards families who are not themselves on income support.

I have to say that that is an unfortunate piece of cynicism. That families on income support, who have regularly paid—and there is no dispute between us about families who get into arrears—should have their income support top-sliced in order to help those banks and building societies who have made lending misjudgments in the past is simply unfair. I expect the Minister to recognise it as unfair.

The second point that the Minister made concerns the practicability of the amendment. We all sat through long sittings on the Local Government Finance Bill in which we were told by the Minister, when it suited, that onto a property tax it was possible to graft a discount scheme, a rebate scheme, and to do that on a daily liability basis with people moving in and out virtually on a daily basis. We were told that it could be done with ease, style and elegance by virtue of the computer wizardry that existed in town halls. If that computer wizardry which exists can manage the extraordinarily complex daily liability accounting of the council tax, then I can assure the Minister that it can certainly deal with the infinitely simple operation of ascertaining when people who owe money to building societies and banks are two months in arrears. That can then be cross-checked with benefits agencies to see whether that is indeed the case. I have to say that I cannot imagine a simpler arrangement.

Lord Henley

Will the noble Baroness give way? She is turning her previous arguments on their heads. She and my noble kinsman were arguing for the confidentiality of those who are paying either their income support payments on time or, for that matter, anyone else. She is now asking for the building societies to notify us about everyone who is in arrears, whether or not they are on income support. It is not possible to have it both ways. The banks and building societies do not know who is on income support so they could only notify us about everyone who is in arrears. The noble Baroness cannot have it both ways.

Baroness Hollis of Heigham

If a building society found that someone was two months in arrears it can seek to find out from the person concerned, through letters and so on whether he or she is on income support and what arrangements that person intends to make. If there is no response I find it not unreasonable to check with benefit agencies as to the situation because at that stage a person is in arrears and owes money to the lender. That seems to me that one is targeting the problem of invading privacy at those who, to a degree, have forfeited it by reason of being in arrears. The Minister is saying that whether or not there is a problem everyone on income support will have their privacy invaded in case there may be a problem of a small percentage.

I should have thought that the Minister could accept that the route proposed—and there may be other and better routes; we are perfectly willing to discuss that with him or take the advice of his officials on the matter—at least ensures that only those who are already in arrears will to some extent sacrifice the right to full privacy. They have to be pursued and they have to pay. That seems to me a much less injurious piece of public policy than pursuing everybody whether or not they are paying and putting them on to what is effectively a direct debit system, which certainly exposes their affairs.

Why is it that someone on income support, whether or not he pays, is not entitled to privacy, but for someone not on income support, but who is two months in arrears, the Minister claims the right to privacy? I find that very odd and a species of stigmatising of those on income support which they are not entitled to have, from the Minister's point of view.

However, as I said, I am surprised that the Minister is unable to accept this amendment. It seems to me to be entirely reasonable and would have met the difference between us. However, given the Minister's response I have no alternative but to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Baroness Hollis of Heigham moved Amendment No. 3: Page 3, line 3, at end insert: ("(h) for payment of the sum to the lender within a prescribed period, which shall not be more than 14 days;").

The noble Baroness said: This amendment picks up the point raised by the noble Earl, Lord Russell. One of the problems is that by handing the question of direct payment of mortgage interest to the benefits agency—given that it normally runs four weeks in arrears—we fear that there will be a very real risk that people may find themselves in arrears when they were not when paying the money themselves.

All the experience is that the benefits agency, despite its best intention, does not have an entirely satisfactory record in delivering benefit payments on time any more than, I have to say, the local authorities. To some extent we are touching on some of the arguments we had during our debates on the Local Government Finance Bill.

In some of its research on the council tax Bill the CAB found, for example, that of the 180,000 or so inquiries in the area of community charge with which it was dealing between February and May 1990, 109,000 were associated with delay in payment of benefit. About two-thirds of all inquiries and problems brought before the CAB when handling questions about benefits and the community charge were about the delays by the benefits agency in paying benefit. Therefore, what the Minister is doing is moving away from a system where people themselves pay—as many as 80 per cent. may pay on time—to having a top slicing and payment by the benefits agency which has notoriously failed to perform on time. There may well be a risk not only of the privacy of the person on income support being invaded but of the Council of Mortgage Lenders not getting its money on time.

As the noble Earl, Lord Russell, said, in theory payment should be made four weeks in arrears. But in some areas it is known that payments are made 13 weeks in arrears, which itself causes the very arrears that the Bill seeks to avoid. It would be helpful to have an undertaking that direct payment should be made no later than four weeks in arrears. The CAB quotes numerous cases. There have been delays of six weeks, delays of five months, problems in calculation of mortgage interest, problems of calculation of 16 weeks on half pay, and so on.

I hope that the Minister can tell us whether he will give strong guidance to the benefits agency so that the Bill actually works. It depends and hinges crucially on whether the benefits agency is competent and efficient enough to make those payments in kind. Otherwise we shall move away from a small problem to a very much larger problem and worsen the situation for all concerned. I beg to move.

Earl Russell

If the Committee will forgive me for saying a brief word about a previous matter, I listened fascinated to the exchanges between the noble Baroness and my noble kinsman about notification of the department when people are in arrears. It made me think that the system which we are setting up in the Bill is not necessarily a final system. I could not help wondering whether a good many of the difficulties being discussed would vanish if instead what we were looking at was not something tied to income support but a specific mortgage benefit. We have exchanged ideas about that before but I wonder whether that exchange illustrated precisely why that might be a helpful suggestion.

In the matter of this amendment I have no criticism to make of the benefits office but it is a very sound rule that one cannot make everything top priority. The benefits office has targets which it is required to meet. Those targets include in particular a target for payment of income support. While the targets are as they are at present it is obvious that the benefits office must meet that target. If, under pressure, offices are struggling to meet the target, inevitably something must fall behind in the process. I think there is scope here, among other things, for looking at the way the targets are drafted and making sure that we are not putting incompatible obligations on people.

There is also scope for amending form MI12 which actually has a space in it where the claimant is asked to tick the form to say yes or no to the question "Do you wish the lender to be notified?" Since now there is to be no choice about it, that is of course out of date. I should have thought that an obvious amendment is in prospect there. We have a considerable increase in the flow of the MI12 forms with the worsening situation and now, I should have thought also, an increase as a result of the Bill. A citizens advice bureau has been told by a lender in one case: We have a thousand of these and we don't know when we will be able to complete them". Meanwhile, of course, the forms do not even reach the benefits agency so it cannot process what has not yet reached it. So a situation arises where a part of the income support which is designed for the mortgage repayment may be withdrawn or withheld, and then arrears get worse. Cases of this kind have been notified to us. A citizens advice bureau in London found a case of nine months' delay because the benefit office was awaiting details from the lender. At the end of that only three months' arrears were paid. There are a good many of these cases. In one the payment after six months covered only the sum eligible for M IRAS and not the whole sum.

The pressure of work on the benefits agency will necessarily go up as we have more claimants. We have had a period of rapidly rising unemployment. That means more people claiming benefit, longer queues and more work. That inevitably creates a pressure for more time and more staff. Perhaps one of the constructive ways forward is to think about the Bill in that context. In the Independent on 26th June last the chief executive of the benefits agency was quoted as saying that performance levels of social security benefit offices are being affected by rising levels of unemployment. That is a very reasonable thing to say. It is in the nature of the case that it would be likely to be so. It occurred to me whether it was worth asking whether we could move things on a little better and get better service by raising staffing levels and, to an extent, raising funding.

My noble kinsman may recall that I put down a Question for Written Answer on this subject. My noble kinsman replied that chief executives are principally responsible for managing their agencies by deploying available resources to ensure that they achieve their targets. I would not disagree with that, but it does not advance us very far. I wonder whether my noble kinsman can give tonight a rather more helpful answer to that Question for Written Answer and whether that might do something to ease some of the arrears to which the amendment is directed.

Lord Henley

Delays in making direct payments have been mentioned. I accept that delays can happen, just as the noble Baroness, Lady Hollis, accepted that they happen with benefits administered by local authorities. Obviously I am prepared to look at any specific cases which the noble Earl would like to put before me. However, I cannot comment on them at the moment. There may be some instances of delay. We do not have any evidence that this is widespread. The benefits agency advised its local offices last year that payments to lenders should be made no less than four weekly and this will apply to the new scheme. The agency is very much committed to improving the quality of its service. Perhaps I may say in passing that I understand that the agency is doing extremely well and, largely speaking, is well on course to deliver its income support targets on both accuracy and time.

One of its declared objectives is the core value of customer care. The operation of the new direct payment scheme falls squarely within that objective. The introduction of main frame computer support for what has been until now a wholly clerical operation we hope will further increase the efficiency of the direct payment arrangements.

My noble kinsman also asked whether there would be increased staffing and whether we had taken into account the administrative costs of the new scheme. I can tell him that we have so far taken into account an additional staffing provision of what I understand is referred to as 800 man years allocated to deal with this new task. All the claims will be subject to targets on clearance times and accuracy and processed on the income support computer system.

In this context it is important to note that the benefits agency has work in progress at the moment to enhance the computer system yet further to enable payments to be made to lenders. We hope that this will provide reliable and prompt payment facilities and will greatly assist the local services. It will also help to eliminate what I hope were in the main isolated difficulties that have arisen under the present arrangements.

With those assurances, I hope that the noble Baroness will not feel it necessary to withdraw—I am sorry, I meant to say that I hope the noble Baroness will find that it is possible for her to withdraw the amendment. I gained the impression that it was more by way of a probing amendment in order to seek assurances from us that we would do our best to ensure that payments were made within the four-week period. Certainly the advice from the agency to its local offices will be, "Yes, do try to keep to the four-week period".

Baroness Hollis of Heigham

I thank the Minister for his helpful reply. I hope that the Hansard report of the proceedings will show his correction in full. As Freud said, "You never make a mistake". We were seeking an assurance about the four-week payment. If the scheme is to be introduced we all want to see that it actually happens with the maximum efficiency and effectiveness. Therefore, should the general election results not go the way that we expect, we shall ourselves be asking the Minister for a report on the effectiveness of the four-week payment in six months' time. With the leave of the Committee, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Clause 1 agreed to.

Remaining clause and schedule agreed to.

House resumed: Bill reported without amendment.

Report received.

Earl Howe

My Lords, I beg to move that the House do now adjourn during pleasure until 8.10 p.m.

Moved accordingly, and, on Question, Motion agreed to.

[The sitting was suspended from 7.52 to 8.10 p.m.]