Lords Sitting of 13 September 2004

Preamble
The House met at half-past two of the clock: The LORD CHANCELLOR on the Woolsack.
Prayers—Read by the Lord Bishop of Newcastle.

Lord Steinberg
Leonard Steinberg, Esquire, having been created Baron Steinberg, of Belfast in the County of Antrim, for life—Was, in his robes, introduced between the Lord Harris of Peckham and the Lord Ashcroft.
Lord Alliance
Sir David Alliance, Knight, CBE, having been created Baron Alliance, of Manchester in the County of Greater Manchester, for life—Was, in his robes, introduced between the Lord Owen and the Lord Razzall, and made the solemn affirmation.

European Monetary System
2.50 p.m.
Lord Dykes Lord Dykes asked Her Majesty's Government:
What recent assessment they have made of the economic opportunities that would be available to the United Kingdom upon joining the European monetary system.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Culture, Media and Sport (Lord McIntosh of Haringey): My Lords, the assessment of the five economic tests, published on 9 June 2003, states that, with the five economic tests met, Britain in the euro would enjoy the benefits of greater trade, investment and employment. However, sustainable convergence and sufficient flexibility have yet to be achieved. As the Chancellor announced in this year's Budget,
"while the Government do not propose that a … assessment be initiated at the time of this Budget, the Treasury will again review progress at Budget time next year and report to the House".—[Official Report, Commons, 17/3/04; col. 324.]
Lord Dykes: My Lords, I thank the Minister for that Answer. But does he agree that it sometimes takes an awfully long time for this country to do important things? The Government are facing some complex tasks, including the approach of the general election and, of course, the referendum on the European constitution—very complicated matters. But, from now on, will the Government at long last begin to address the important matter of conveying to the British public the growing success of the euro as an
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international currency both inside and outside the euro-zone and the growing disadvantages that we now face in not joining and in stubbornly refusing to join?
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: My Lords, I cannot agree that we are not continually addressing these matters. The assessment that we published in June last year was extremely—some would say excessively—detailed in 18 volumes, and we still believe that that assessment was the right thing to do at the time. We do not believe that it is necessary or desirable to continue to make public statements updating that basic assessment. Every six months we carry out a study on flexibility and we shall continue to do that.
Lord Lawson of Blaby: My Lords, the European currency has now been in operation without the participation of the United Kingdom for more than five years. What is the Treasury's estimate of the net economic cost to date of our non-participation? Or is this yet another matter which the Chancellor has declined to divulge to the Prime Minister?
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: My Lords, if the noble Lord, Lord Lawson, wishes to pay attention to the tittle-tattle in the newspapers by former employees, he is welcome to do so. But clearly the assessment that has been made cannot be entirely quantified, and there is no single answer to the question that the noble Lord, Lord Lawson, asked. As the noble Lord, Lord Dykes, said, these are complex matters and they are not to be solved by sound bites.
Lord Barnett: My Lords, when the Chancellor initially announced the five economic tests, he said that the most critical one was sustainable economic convergence. Can my noble friend tell us quite how one can ever get sustainable convergence?
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: My Lords, we probably could not obtain sustainable convergence as defined by economists, but if we did it in a more common sense way—I shudder to think what is happening behind me—and used the analysis which was used in June last year, we would be able to see when there is sustainable convergence, and we could see at that time that there was not.
Lord Taverne: My Lords, as far as concerns one of the present weaknesses of the euro-zone—namely, fiscal discipline—do the Government agree that the most recent proposals of the Commission, which put the emphasis on peer pressure, are rather more sensible than a regime of strict rules, severe penalties and no enforcement? Is it not the case that one of the most important matters would be for the Government to stress the importance of the "no bale out" provisions of the Maastricht Treaty, thereby strengthening the pressure from market forces?
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Taverne, is beyond me in some of the detail, but in principle I agree with what he says. On

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3 September the Commission published an analysis of the stability and growth pact following the decision of the European Court of Justice. Three of the four recommendations of the Commission communication are in line with the Chancellor's view of the prudent interpretation of the pact. I think and hope that that is what the noble Lord, Lord Taverne, agrees with.
Lord Tomlinson: My Lords, does my noble friend agree that it is still the Government's position that they are agreed in principle to joining a successful single currency? If that is the case, why are the Government not doing more to explain the benefits for those countries that are already participants in a single currency that they deem to be successful?
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: My Lords, I agree that the Government are in favour in principle of UK membership of a common currency if the conditions are right. However, to convey a message, it has to be relatively simple and understandable. I acknowledge that to say as we do that three of the five economic conditions have been met and two have not is not the easiest thing to communicate in simple terms.
Lord Pearson of Rannoch: My Lords, do the Government accept the recent analysis from the much respected German Bundesbank, which finds that no economic benefits have accrued to the German economy or to other European economies from the single currency or, indeed, from the single market? If so, would they agree that joining the EMS is, at best, pointless?
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: My Lords, no. The most recent assessment of the situation regarding the euro area, which is the European Commission and IMF estimate last Friday, is that the euro area as a whole is achieving a moderate recovery. They are upgrading estimates of growth for 2004 and downgrading estimates of inflation.
Baroness Noakes: My Lords, does the Minister agree that the interview given by the Chancellor last Friday to the Financial Times made a cast-iron case for staying out of the euro, at least for the foreseeable future?
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: My Lords, no. I have it in front of me. I would be glad to debate it in detail with the noble Baroness, Lady Noakes, but certainly it does not convey that impression to me.

GPs: Referrals to Personal Injury Lawyers
2.58 p.m.
Viscount Goschen Viscount Goschen asked Her Majesty's Government:
Whether it is appropriate for general practitioners to be paid for referring patients to personal injury lawyers or claims management companies.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Health (Lord Warner): My Lords, we would find any such practice distasteful but this is a matter of professional medical conduct for which the General Medical Council is responsible. The council's guidance to doctors, called Good Medical Practice, states,
"You must act in your patients' best interests when making referrals and providing or arranging treatment or care. So you must not ask for or accept any inducement, gift or hospitality which may affect or be seen to affect your judgment".
Viscount Goschen: My Lords, is it not wholly unacceptable to have two professional regulatory bodies at odds with each other on this issue? As the Minister said, the GMC has been extremely clear in its views that this practice is unethical and improper, whereas the Law Society earlier this year amended its own regulations for this practice to allow fee sharing despite the fact that the GMC had ruled it unethical. Will the Government now urge the Law Society to change its regulations back again to outlaw this ambulance chasing?
Lord Warner: My Lords, in this country we have a system of professional self-regulation through the General Medical Council and the Law Society. The GMC, as I have said, has made its position crystal-clear. In GMC News in April it said:
"Doctors generally have no expertise in legal services on which to base their recommendation of a particular firm and their chief interests in such schemes is a financial one. For these reasons such schemes are not appropriate".
It is for the Law Society to consider this matter in the light of what the GMC has said and, I understand, it is balloting its members on the change in its introduction and referral code.
Lord Thomas of Gresford: My Lords, is the Minister aware that in a report published in May of this year called Better Routes to Redress, the Better Regulation Task Force recommended that the Chief Medical Officer and the NHS chief executive should issue immediately joint guidelines to hospitals and surgeries on the content of advertising by claims management companies on their premises? Is he aware that these companies and, indeed, solicitors compete in order to gain an exclusive franchise to distribute advertising literature in these articles? Have the Government taken that report on board and what are they doing about it?
Lord Warner: My Lords, we are aware of the Better Regulation Task Force's report. Indeed, it was this Government who set up the Better Regulation Task Force. We are considering very carefully the proposals in its report, Better Routes to Redress.
Lord Clinton-Davis: My Lords, does my noble friend agree that the essential thing is a matter of choice for the potential litigant? No single name should be put forward at any time and clear choice is essential. Does he agree also that it is vital that the potential client

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should understand that having a claim against a particular person or institution should be pursued and that any doubt about that is undesirable?
Lord Warner: My Lords, the Government recognise that great harm can be caused to people and that they have rights of redress. On this particular question we are discussing, the issue is whether the particular proposal from the Law Society is deemed to be appropriate medical conduct by the professional body—the General Medical Council. I think it has made its position crystal clear.
Lord Ackner: My Lords, do I not detect a hint of hypocrisy about the criticism of the Law Society? The Government have permitted, indeed have stimulated, the cult of speculative litigation. Before the previous government permitted that, no professional body would have allowed it. Now ambulance chasing has been made legitimate by the Government in relation to solicitors. This pompous comparison between the two professions overlooks the source of the authority.
Lord Warner: My Lords, I refute that absolutely. Perhaps I could give your Lordships a few figures. The figures from the Compensation Recovery Unit show that the overall number of accident claims went down by 9.5 per cent in the year to March 2004. Of those, public liability claims were down by 16.7 per cent; clinical negligence claims were down by 10.8 per cent; and employers' liability claims down by 14 per cent. That hardly represents government encouraging a compensation culture.
Earl Howe: My Lords, what is the position with regard to health service employees, or indeed other public servants, such as the police, in the context of this question? Is it appropriate for such individuals to be paid to refer people to personal injury lawyers? What is to stop that happening?
Lord Warner: My Lords, people must make their own judgments in these cases. But this is rather wider than the particular question that was raised. I shall look into the matter and write to the noble Lord.
Lord Christopher: My Lords, have the Government given their views on this matter to the General Medical Council? I declare an interest as a past member of the GMC. I am a little surprised at what he has told us as it was news to me. I should have thought that it was inappropriate for any medical practitioner to give particular advice to a patient in a matter of this sort. If a patient seeks an opinion, it is fine to say, "Well, in those circumstances it is not for me to say what you should do. Perhaps you should consult your solicitor". But to go beyond that seems to me to be entirely inappropriate. I am troubled at the prospect of a ballot of GMC-registered doctors coming out the wrong way.
Lord Warner: My Lords, I think my noble friend may have misheard me. I said that the ballot taking place relates to the Law Society and its members on the
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changes to its introduction and referral code. I think that the GMC's position is absolutely clear from the quotations I gave from both its Good Medical Practice guide and the GMC News in April.

Military and Operational Commitments
3.5 p.m.
Lord Astor of Hever Lord Astor of Hever asked Her Majesty's Government:
How long a "demanding … large scale operation", as described in Delivering Security in a Changing World: Future Capabilities (Cm 6269), can be sustained concurrently with standing military commitments and an enduring small-scale peace support operation, without overstretching the Armed Forces.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Ministry of Defence (Lord Bach): My Lords, we acknowledge, as we have always done, that the most demanding, large-scale operations could be carried out only by breaking what we call our "harmony guidelines"; that is, the amount of time our personnel spend on operations or on exercise, compared to the time they spend at home. Our planning assumes that a large-scale operation would be an infrequent, one-off commitment that lasts up to six months, thereafter drawing down to medium scale.
Lord Astor of Hever: My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for that reply. Assumptions that we will win, and win quickly, any large-scale symmetric operation and that our allies will then relieve us is dangerously questionable. Is it not vital at a time of overstretch, and with little time for our Armed Forces to rest and train, that provision to rotate them is built into planning assumptions for the war-fighting duration and follow-through periods?
Lord Bach: My Lords, of course we have to bear that consideration in mind. But defence planning assumes large-scale operations similar in size to Operation TELIC, which became a medium-sized operation well within the six-month period, will occur infrequently. That is our experience over the past 50 years. Of course we realise that our Armed Forces require a period of recuperation prior to being ready to conduct another similar-sized operation. The length of time required to recuperate will depend on the choices we make in prioritising activities and resources.
Lord Garden: My Lords, on which month of which year does the Minister expect to have the necessary people, equipment and training completed to be able to fill all the annex requirements for concurrency in Command Paper 6269? Will it be longer or shorter than the six years the Armed Forces waited for a similar promise to be delivered in the Strategic Defence Review?
Lord Bach: My Lords, I cannot give the noble Lord the exact month or the exact date. He of course was

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playing a leading role in the Ministry of Defence at the time the Strategic Defence Review came out so will no doubt have the answer to his question.
Lord Campbell of Alloway: My Lords, in view of the current situation, to which reference has been made, will the Government defer their proposals concerned with the infantry arrangements?
Lord Bach: My Lords, no, we will not defer those decisions. Those decisions are not ready yet in any event. The Army Board will be meeting later this year to decide on them and one should not expect final decisions to be announced before the New Year. I would recommend to the noble Lord that he look at an article by the Chief of the General Staff in the Spectator magazine of 11 September this year, in which he deals very clearly with the issue. I hope that I will be forgiven if I quote briefly from it. He said:
"The Army Board's duty is to ensure our Army's capability and ethos up to some two decades ahead. It is my duty to lead the board in so doing. That process involves change, inevitably an uncomfortable process, but one which if not grasped would indeed lead to a grave threat to the Army's war-fighting capability. Standing still is likely to realise that threat".
Baroness Carnegy of Lour: My Lords, apart from the technicalities, in which I am not at all well versed, are the Government satisfied that, given the present commitments of the Army, soldiers are able to spend enough time at home?
Lord Bach: My Lords, it has been an extraordinarily busy period—I think that that is the noble Baroness's point. It is true that during the height of Operation TELIC, we were not satisfied with the amount of time that our soldiers were able to spend at home, but the position has improved greatly since then.
Lord Redesdale: My Lords, does the Treasury see the present operation in Iraq as a medium-term commitment? If so, will all the money that is needed for that operation be drawn from within the MoD budget, so that the MoD will not go to the Treasury for further funds, or will the MoD have to go to the Treasury to fund the operation in Iraq?
Lord Bach: My Lords, from the very start of the operation in Iraq—whether during the course of the conflict or now, in the peace support part of the operation—the Treasury has always made sure that the Ministry of Defence is financed in order that it can meet its requirements.
Lord Selsdon: My Lords, can the Minister tell us what proportion of our Armed Forces is currently located outside the United Kingdom and whether he expects that the proportion to increase or decrease?
Lord Bach: My Lords, I fear that I do not have the figures with me, but I will of course write to the noble
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Lord with them. I am not sure that I am prepared to offer an opinion as to which of the two options that he sets me is correct.
Baroness Strange: My Lords, can the Minister tell us why we still need three battalions in the Parachute Regiment?
Lord Bach: My Lords, I very much look forward to answering the noble Baroness's Starred Question tomorrow. It relates, in a small way, to the question that she has just raised. The Parachute Regiment is very different from those that I think that she has in mind in relation to this question. The Parachute Regiment has a proud history, as do the other regiments that she has in mind, and is vital given the increased necessity for expeditionary exercises, which is what we have been involved with much more in the past few years than previously.
Baroness Park of Monmouth: My Lords, the strategic review only glanced at the issue of asymmetric threats and the need for troops here. We also have unexpected events such as, the press says, seven ships having to be held back for a possible fire fighting operation. In the past, 19,000 soldiers have been required for a fire fighting operation. Given that, is there any reason why numbers should not remain as they are until it is much clearer what the needs will be? I am not talking about change; I am talking about numbers.
Lord Bach: My Lords, to move to change, which is what we need to do, it is important to recognise that decisions are vital to ensure that our future capability is, frankly, aimed not at the old threats but at what we see as future threats. As is highlighted in the paper to which the noble Lord referred in his Question, in certain areas we judge our current capability to be disproportionately high now for the actual level of threat. By way of example only, I mention antisubmarine warfare and air defence in particular. That judgment is not dependent on new capabilities that we will be obtaining. We also identify the capabilities in which we need to invest. It is therefore prudent to reduce some capabilities now, tough as that is, while restructuring and investing in our priority areas.

House of Lords: Building Works
3.14 p.m.
Earl Attlee Earl Attlee asked the Leader of the House:
Whether it is appropriate for the House of Lords to sit when major works are in progress and when many facilities for Members are not available.
The Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office (Baroness Symons of Vernham Dean): My Lords, it is unfortunate that some facilities for Members are unavailable at present and that some Members have been disturbed, particularly, I understand, in the Committee Corridor. It is

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hoped that almost normal services will be returned by 11 October. All the work plans were approved by the committees of the House and the impact of the building works was discussed by the House last December, when your Lordships voted to return this September. A detailed notice about potential disruption was sent to your Lordships on 16 July.
Earl Attlee: My Lords, I thank the Minister for her reply, but does she not agree that when the House agreed to sit in September, in many cases it was out of loyalty to the Leader and on her advice? Does not responsibility for this shambolic state of affairs lie right inside the Leader's office?
Baroness Symons of Vernham Dean: No, my Lords, and I think that some of your Lordships should remember—I had this pointed out to me when it fell to my lot to answer this Question—that the committees of the House discussed and approved the works and that the House discussed the sitting times, including the possibility of disruption, which were raised by some Members of your Lordships' House. The noble Lords, Lord Boston of Faversham, Lord Ampthill and Lord Colwyn, certainly spoke of those matters and the House voted accordingly.
Lord Williamson of Horton: My Lords, we do appreciate that, when the House decided to have a September sitting, we were warned of the inconveniences, which are certainly unwelcome. But does the Minister agree that a very relevant point now is that the question of a September sitting is not decided for ever and, if it were to be reconsidered next year, the problem of falling over the carpet and all the other works during a Session would ipso facto be solved?
Baroness Symons of Vernham Dean: My Lords, no doubt there will be issues to discuss about that arising from the Leader's report, which I understand will be published tomorrow. I take the point: there is some dust; there is noise; perhaps there is a little discomfort; and there is inconvenience. But this is not a disaster area. The fact is that we have reassembled because there is business to do. That is what is important, not questions of convenience, dust or difficulties in finding enough refreshments. The fact is that the House has business to do. We have done business over some nine Bills. I myself had the pleasure of talking to your Lordships during a day's debate on Iraq. The fact is that the House is here to discharge the business allotted to it. If that involves a little inconvenience on occasion, so be it.
Baroness Williams of Crosby: My Lords, the Minister is absolutely justified in saying that the House was given full details of the works to go ahead and what might be the consequences, but can she answer two brief questions? First, has she reason to believe that things will be back in a proper state by the time of the reconvening of Parliament on 11 October, or is there any overrun in the expected time? Secondly,
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given that what we are spending is taxpayers' money, can she assure the House that we are living entirely within the budget agreed to by those committees?
Baroness Symons of Vernham Dean: My Lords, I have no reason to think that the budget is any different. I can tell your Lordships that £14.4 million is being spent over the three phases of the refurbishment. I understand that that has been considered by the appropriate committees of your Lordships' House. On the question of whether all will be returned on 11 October, I was careful to say that almost normal services will be available on 11 October. I understand that there will still be a degree of disruption in the Library and to Committee Room G.
Lord Boston of Faversham: My Lords, does the Minister appreciate that sizable numbers of noble Lords dislike September sittings? Does she further appreciate that although she is very good, if I may say so with respect, at keeping your Lordships informed about things in your Lordships' House, the disruption that we suffered last week and continue to suffer this week is, in my experience, much greater than we ever envisaged when we discussed these matters last year? Can the noble Baroness hold out any hope to those of us who take that view of an end to September sittings?
Baroness Symons of Vernham Dean: My Lords, I acknowledge that there are Members of your Lordships' House who dislike September sittings very much. Were it not for that fact, we would not have discussed these sittings twice—in December of last year and November of the year before—when those voices were very clear in their objections.
I agree with the noble Lord that it is undesirable to have this degree of disruption in the House. But it is enormously important that the facilities of the House are put right in order that it can function properly in the longer term. We have had real issues of concern about the facilities, particularly on the question of health and safety for members of our staff for whom we, as sitting Members of this House, have a duty of care. That duty of care has to be discharged.
I do not have the length of experience that the noble Lord, Lord Boston of Faversham, has over the degree of disruption, but the inconvenience that we are suffering is not all that great considering how important these changes are.

Business
Lord Grocott: My Lords, with the leave of the House, I shall make a short business statement.
With the leave of the House, a Statement on regional referendums will be repeated some time after four o'clock this afternoon. The Statement will be repeated by my noble friend Lord Rooker. The Statement will come after four o'clock because there is an earlier

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business statement in the Commons which sets it back. That is why we are taking it later than we normally would.

Housing Bill
3.21 p.m.
The Minister of State, Office of the Deputy Prime Minister (Lord Rooker): My Lords, I beg to move that the House do now again resolve itself into Committee on this Bill.
Moved, That the House do now again resolve itself into Committee.—(Lord Rooker.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.
House in Committee accordingly.
[The CHAIRMAN OF COMMITTEES in the Chair.]
Clause 120 [Termination of management orders: financial arrangements]:
Lord Rooker moved Amendment No. 162:
Page 85, line 40, leave out from "reason" to end of line 42.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
[Amendment No. 163 not moved.]
Lord Rooker Lord Rooker moved Amendments Nos. 164 to 166:
Page 86, leave out lines 9 and 10.
Page 86, line 27, at end insert—
"(5A) The provisions of any of subsections (2) to (5) do not, however, apply in relation to the order if —

(a) the order is followed by a final management order, and

(b) the management scheme contained in that final management order provides for that subsection not to apply in relation to the order (see section 112(5)(c) and (d))."

Page 86, line 29, at end insert—
"( ) The charge takes effect on the termination date for the order as a legal charge which is a local land charge."
On Question, amendments agreed to.
Clause 120, as amended, agreed to.
Clause 121 [Termination of management orders: leases, agreements and proceedings]:
Lord Rooker Lord Rooker moved Amendments Nos. 167 to 169B:
Page 87, line 16, leave out "in the nature of a lease or licence created" and insert "which (in accordance with section (General effect of interim management orders: leases and licences granted by authority) or ( General effect of final management orders: leases and licences granted by authority)) has effect as a lease or licence granted"
Page 87, line 20, after "done" insert "before the termination date"
Page 87, line 30, leave out "that" and insert "the termination"
Page 87, line 38, leave out "(4)" and insert "(6)"
Page 88, line 3, at end insert—
"( ) This section applies to instruments as it applies to agreements."
On Question, amendments agreed to.
Clause 121, as amended, agreed to.
Clause 122 [Management orders: power of entry to carry out work]:
Lord Hanningfield moved Amendment No. 170:
Page 88, line 23, leave out "reasonable notice" and insert "notice a month in advance"
The noble Lord said: We now come to Clause 122, which deals with the power of the local authority or other authorised individuals to enter a premises to carry out work on a property during the interim or final management order.
We have debated previously that such power must be used with caution as they possess the ability of infringing an individual's right to privacy. Can the Minister tell us when such a power of entry would he used and, in particular, under what specific conditions and circumstances?
Amendment No. 170 attempts to clarify what the Minister considers to be a noted period of reasonable time before intended work and entry can commence. As the Bill stands, there is nothing to stop a local authority deciding overnight to enter premises. We are seeking a level playing field on a national basis rather than having a free-for-all that varies widely from one area to the next, merely confusing everybody involved.
Amendment No. 171 would remove from the clause the possibility of legal action and a fine for not complying with allowing an authorised person to enter the premises. This amendment is consequent to Amendment No. 170. If the Minister can provide us with further details of what he considers a reasonable time period with which we are comfortable, I will not pursue this matter further. I beg to move.
Lord Rooker: Clause 122 provides the right of entry for a local housing authority, or other person authorised by it, to a property which is subject to a management order for the specific purpose of carrying out works. The clause is principally aimed at occupiers, rather than landlords.
Subsection (1) provides that reasonable notice must be given to the occupier in order to gain access.
Subsection (4) provides that if an occupier, having been given reasonable notice that the works are to be carried out, refuses access for that purpose, the local housing authority may apply to a magistrates' court for what is described as "an access order".
Subsections (5) and (6) provide that if the access order is not complied with by the occupier, then that person commits an offence and upon conviction may be fined up to £5,000.
Amendment No. 170 seeks to remove the requirement in subsection (4) for the giving of reasonable notice of intention to carry out works, with a requirement that one month's notice must be given in every case. As I have indicated, this clause is concerned to ensure that the local housing authority is not frustrated in carrying out its repairing obligations to occupiers of property that it is managing because of a management order. In a lot of cases it may be perfectly reasonable to give one month's notice if the works are minor or routine, but it is not reasonable if

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the required repairs are to remedy a dangerous or injurious hazard in the property. In those circumstances the local authority would want the work carried out as soon as possible.
Clause 203 allows access for the purpose of inspecting on 24 hours' notice. It would look odd if, having carried out the inspection under that provision and having identified a serious hazard, the local authority could not embark on works to sort out the problem for a month. That would not make sense.
Amendment No. 171 seeks to remove the criminal penalty for non-compliance with an access order. It is safe to assume that in the vast majority of cases occupiers will be more than willing to grant access to carry out the works. They are the direct beneficiaries of the works or improvements. Nor do the Government seek to criminalise occupiers who may have forgotten about the appointment or wish to rearrange it for a more convenient time.
There are two limbs to the access order. If the authority is unable to gain access and it either has some doubt as to the occupier's intention or it is an emergency, then it may apply to the magistrates' court for an access order. It is only if the occupier fails to comply with that order that he will commit an offence.
There will be examples where it is necessary to take this course of action: the resident landlord may resent the local authority having taken away his management of the property and may just want to make things difficult and be a member of the awkward squad; or the landlord may not care and make life difficult—for example, if certain communal features were in his flat and in disrepair. This provision is intended to address that type of case.
The removal of subsections (5) and (6) would have the opposite effect to that intended by the noble Lord. Enforcement of breaches of access orders would have to be by proceedings for contempt of court which could lead to something worse than fines. Imprisonment can be used for contempt of court.
If the concern is that local authorities might act unreasonably in acquiring access—and that is justifiable concern—then government Amendment No. 238M prohibits it by inserting a new clause for authorisations for enforcement purposes including, power of entry under this clause. Any entry has to be authorised by a deputy chief officer of the authority. We do not want to be unreasonable. In only very few circumstances would emergency access be required. In the vast majority of cases, it could be routine. Therefore, one could give longer notice. With that response, I hope that the noble Lord will be satisfied and not pursue the amendment.
3.30 p.m.
Lord Hanningfield: I thank the Minister for that reply. It gives some of the assurances for which we were looking. As with several other parts of the Bill, we need to look at it carefully to ensure that we are happy with it before the next stage. With that, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
[Amendment No. 171 not moved.]
Clause 122 agreed to.
Lord Rooker moved Amendment No. 171A:
After Clause 122, insert the following new clause—

CHAPTER 2
  EMPTY DWELLING MANAGEMENT ORDERS

    EMPTY DWELLING MANAGEMENT ORDERS: INTRODUCTORY
    (1) This Chapter deals with the making by a local housing authority of—

    (a) an interim empty dwelling management order (an "interim EDMO"), or

    (b) a final empty dwelling management order (a 'final EDMO"),

    in respect of a dwelling.
    (2) An interim EDMO is an order made to enable a local housing authority, with the consent of the relevant proprietor, to take steps for the purpose of securing that a dwelling becomes and continues to be occupied.
    (3) A final EDMO is an order made, in succession to an interim EDMO or a previous final EDMO, for the purpose of securing that a dwelling is occupied.
    (4) In this Chapter—

    (a) "dwelling" means—

    (i) a building intended to be occupied as a separate dwelling, or

    (ii) a part of a building intended to be occupied as a separate dwelling which may be entered otherwise than through any non-residential accommodation in the building;

    (b) any reference to "the dwelling", in relation to an interim EDMO or a final EDMO, is a reference to the dwelling to which the order relates;

    (c) "relevant proprietor", in relation to a dwelling, means—

    (i) if the dwelling is let under one or more leases with an unexpired term of 7 years or more, the lessee under whichever of those leases has the shortest unexpired term; or

    (ii) in any other case, the person who has the freehold estate in the dwelling;

    (d) "third party", in relation to a dwelling, means any person who has an estate or interest in the dwelling (other than the relevant proprietor and any person who is a tenant under a lease or licence granted under paragraph 2(3)(c) or 10(3)(c) of Schedule (Further provisions regarding empty dwelling management orders)); and

    (e) any reference (however expressed) to rent or other payments in respect of occupation of a dwelling, includes any payments that the authority receive from persons in respect of unlawful occupation of the dwelling.

    (5) In subsection (4)(c), the reference to an unexpired term of 7 years or more of a lease of a dwelling is—

    (a) in relation to a dwelling in respect of which the local housing authority is considering making an interim EDMO, a reference to the unexpired term of the lease at the time the authority begin taking steps under section (Making of interim EDMOs)(3),

    (b) in relation to a dwelling in respect of which an interim EDMO has been made, a reference to the unexpired term of the lease at the time the application for authorisation to make the interim EDMO was made under subsection ( 1) of that section, or

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    (c) in relation to a dwelling in respect of which a local housing authority is considering making or has made a final EDMO, a reference to the unexpired term of the lease at the time the application for authorisation to make the preceding interim EDMO was made under subsection (1) of that section.

    "Preceding interim EDMO", in relation to a final EDMO, means the interim EDMO that immediately preceded the final EDMO or, where there has been a succession of final EDMOs, the interim EDMO that immediately preceded the first of them.
    (6) Schedule (Further provisions regarding empty dwelling management orders) (which makes further provision regarding EDMOs) has effect."
    The noble Lord said: These amendments provide for the introduction of a new clause after Clause 122 entitled:
    "Empty dwelling management orders: introductory".
    I shall speak to a host of government amendments explaining what we want to do about empty homes. I apologise for the length of the speech. Although this is not brand new material because the issue has been debated—and, indeed, requested from all sides of the House in the other place—it is new in the sense of the Government putting forward a proposal.
    Amendments Nos. 171A to 171H, 174A to 174D and 210A provide for the introduction of empty dwelling management orders. Such management orders would enable local authorities to secure occupation of long-term, private sector empty homes in certain defined circumstances. The Committee will be familiar with the concept of management orders in Part 4 in respect of accommodation subject to the licensing provisions in Parts 2 and 3. They provide for local authorities to "step into" the shoes of property owners in order to ensure responsible management. The amendments extend the control provisions of Part 4 to empty homes.
    The amendments give effect to the Government's commitment in the sustainable communities plan to allow local authorities to lease long-term, private sector empty homes. That commitment was made in response to a recommendation by a Select Committee in another place and we followed it up with a consultation paper, entitled, Empty Homes: Temporary Management, Lasting Solutions, which the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister published 17 months ago.
    Empty homes present a significant problem, but they are also a significant opportunity. Last year, in England, local authorities reported some 718,000 vacant dwellings. Of those, nearly 84 per cent were privately owned. At the same time, local authorities reported that 308,000 privately-owned dwellings had been vacant for more than six months.
    The presence of significant numbers of long-term empty homes, often heavily concentrated in areas of housing decline, can significantly affect the viability of an area. There are many examples in northern England where empty homes have contributed to blight and market failure. That is a matter we are tackling through the housing market renewal programme. But the problem of empty homes is by no means confined to such areas.
    Empty homes may be less concentrated in other areas, but that does not mean they can be ignored. Nearly 2 per cent of the private housing stock in London—more than 43,000 homes—was vacant for more than six months at the last count in 2003. In overall terms, London and the south-east accounts for nearly as many long-term, privately-owned empty homes as the north-east and north-west. The presence of large numbers of empty homes in all parts of the country is something with which we ought to be concerned. But, particularly in areas of high housing demand, their presence is nothing short of a scandal.
    Anyone who is unfortunate enough to have lived next door to a property that has been left empty for a long period of time will understand the sheer frustration that such a situation can create. Poorly maintained empty properties are magnets for vandals, drug users, squatters and even arsonists. Boarding them up to secure against break-in simply identifies properties as long-term empty. It is not sustainable.
    From my former role as a constituency Member, I could give examples of empty homes that were not just inner-city terraced homes. They could be outer suburban three-bedroom semi-detached properties—in ordinary roads with trees and families—which were just left. The properties do not just stay the same: for example, gardens grow, they become derelict, odd windows are smashed but do not get repaired. As I have said, they are an invitation to problems for everyone. People get very frustrated and go to the council saying, "Do something about it". It replies, "Well, it is nothing to do with us. We do not own it". But, of course, the council is the responsible housing authority where people go when there is a problem. So there is a difficulty and we need to deal with it.
    Notwithstanding the annoyance caused to neighbours and others, there is the abject waste of a dwelling. We have a crisis of dwellings in this country. We all know that our house-building programme is not good. It is the worst that it has been since 1924. Our replacement rate is appalling at something like 0.1 per cent a year, whereas in continental Europe it is 1 per cent per year. That is a massive difference. The average dwelling in this country is expected to be maintained for 1,200 years; on the continent it is 100 years. To even say that sounds stupid. But the fact is that that is the current situation with the present building programme and the rate of replacement.
    We can therefore see that empty homes represent a waste of an asset. They are a wasted opportunity for owners who could otherwise make financial gains from selling or letting them. They present a wasted opportunity for those who cannot get a foothold in the housing market. Many local authorities are working extremely hard to develop empty property strategies that seek to offer a package of incentives and penalties to empty property owners. But they believe that their efforts are frustrated by a lack of effective enforcement powers.
    The threat of compulsory purchase can be a useful weapon, but it like the nuclear option: it puts people off because they know how long it can take and how frustrating it is. From the responses to the consultation paper, we know that many local authorities are very

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    reluctant to use compulsory purchase powers. They are very complicated and form part of a long and drawn-out procedure.
    The issue is that the ownership of the property does not necessarily have to be changed in order to bring it back into use as a dwelling for people to live in. So the key is not necessarily the change of ownership. The key to unlocking the potential of empty homes is to get them back into use as homes as quickly as possible. That does not necessarily require a change of ownership. Where the owner is unwilling to do that, we should not be afraid to consider compulsion.
    I recognise that the amendments will not completely solve the problem of empty homes. We are realistic enough to know that there will always be a certain proportion of housing stock that is vacant at any given time. Indeed, vacancy is essential. Without that the market cannot operate, which is why we are not seeking to deal with every empty property on the market. If every home was always fully occupied, buying and selling homes would grind to a halt.
    Nor are we seeking to penalise people for leaving a home vacant for valid and reasonable reasons. Many people leave their principal home vacant while staying elsewhere. That can be through choice: for example, a person may be caring for someone, seeking job opportunities elsewhere, living with a partner or even living in a care home for a period of time with the expectation that he or she may return home.
    While we would caution against leaving a property vacant and unattended for long periods of time, that is a matter of personal choice in which state intervention is not warranted in the examples that I have given. The properties that are the subject of the amendments are entirely different. They are not the principal homes of absent owners, second homes or holiday homes; nor are they homes that are undergoing repair or alteration or are subject to a process that will, in time, lead them to being reoccupied. If they met all those criteria, there would not be a problem. To all intents and purposes, they are abandoned properties that are discarded by owners who are unable to provide a good reason for them not being occupied.
    There are often significant underlying factors at work, such as disrepair, which prevent some homes being occupied. It is not always a question of owners of empty properties being culpable. Our aim is not to penalise people for failing to tackle a difficult problem. The home might be left to the owner as the result of a will. He may not be able to cope with it, or just does not want to know about it in the hope that it will all go away. Our objective is to persuade owners in these circumstances to pass the responsibility of bringing the property back into housing use to a local authority. Of course, we want this to be with their consent. But where that consent is not forthcoming, we do not apologise for granting local authorities powers to secure occupation without the need to obtain consent.
    We have considered very carefully the human rights implications of these measures. We are sensitive about interfering with people's property rights. But the rights of owners to do as they choose with their property
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    must be balanced against the rights of other property owners and the wider community in which they reside. It is the Government's view that these measures strike a fair balance that does not place owners at a financial disadvantage. Indeed, they stand to gain the benefit of an improved asset and an income, where previously they may have had to pay to keep the property empty.
    Above all, the amendments send a clear message to property owners that, by leaving homes idle for long periods of time without good reason, they risk losing their right to make decisions about how the property is managed. We expect this message will help to persuade many more owners to enter into constructive dialogue with local authority empty property officers about the range of services on offer to assist them. The emphasis will remain with voluntary measures. The new powers available to local authorities would sit behind, as a back-up measure, only to be used where it is evident that voluntary measures will not resolve the vacancy.
    I have already apologised for the length of time I am taking, but this is an important part and I am quite happy to go through each amendment, very briefly, because it will assist in the further stages of the Bill.
    Amendment No. 171A describes interim and final empty dwelling management orders. It provides for a local housing authority to secure occupation of an unoccupied dwelling. A "dwelling" is defined as a building intended to be occupied as a separate dwelling, such as a house, or a part of a building so intended, such as a flat. It introduces the concept of "relevant proprietor"—that is, the person who the empty dwelling management order is made against. In most cases, this will be the freeholder of the dwelling, but where there is a leasehold interest of more than seven years, it is the person with the shortest unexpired term of more than seven years.
    Amendment No. 171B requires a local authority to apply to a residential property tribunal for authorisation to make an interim empty dwelling management order. Prior to seeking authorisation, the local authority must attempt to notify the relevant proprietor of the fact, and ascertain if he has any intention to bring the dwelling back into occupation.
    Amendment No. 171C requires that the residential property tribunal must be satisfied that various tests are met, and that the case does not fall within any category of exception prescribed by the appropriate national authority before authorising the making of an interim empty dwelling management order.
    Amendment No. 171D requires the local authority to take any steps it considers appropriate to secure occupation and proper management of the dwelling, pending either a final empty dwelling management order or revocation of the interim empty dwelling management order. It cannot grant rights of occupation without the consent of the relevant proprietor.
    Amendment No. 171E provides that the local authority may make a final empty dwelling management order to replace either an interim order or a previous final order if it considers the dwelling is likely to become or remain unoccupied. It does not require authorisation from the residential property tribunal.
    Amendment No. 171F requires a local authority to take steps to secure occupation and proper management of the dwelling. The local housing authority does not require the consent of the relevant proprietor to grant rights of occupation. A final empty dwelling management order must contain a management scheme for setting out how the local authority intends to carry out its duties and how it will account for the moneys expended and collected.
    Amendment No. 171G provides for a third party to apply to a residential property tribunal for compensation for any interference with his rights as a result of the making of an interim empty dwelling management order or to request the local authority to pay compensation for interference with his rights as a result of making a final empty dwelling management order.
    Amendments Nos. 171H and 174A to 174D are consequential amendments. Amendment No. 210A covers a wide range of matters relating to the operation and effect of empty dwelling management orders and financial arrangements. It is a long and detailed schedule, and is fairly self-explanatory.
    3.45 p.m.
    The general effect of an interim empty dwelling management order is very similar to that of the interim management orders under Chapter 1 of Part 4 of the Bill, and can last for up to 12 months. While it is in force, the local authority takes over most of the rights and responsibilities of the relevant proprietor but does not become the legal owner of the dwelling. Rent collected while the order is in force must be used to meet relevant expenditure, or to pay compensation. Any balance must be paid to the relevant proprietor.
    A local housing authority may vary or revoke an interim empty dwelling management order at any time, on its own initiative or at the request of someone with an interest in the dwelling. However, if the local authority has secured occupation of the dwelling, it may only revoke the order with the consent of the relevant proprietor. It may also refuse to revoke the order unless any expenditure it has incurred up to that point that has not been met by rental income is paid to it either by the relevant proprietor or someone else.
    A final empty dwelling management order may last for a maximum of seven years. The general effect is the same as for an interim order. The only significant difference is that the local authority does not require the consent of the relevant proprietor to grant occupation rights. The procedure for varying or revoking a final order is similar to that for an interim order.
    A local authority has a right to possession of any furniture in the dwelling while the empty dwelling management order is in force, but the relevant proprietor may request possession of it. The local authority may also supply furniture to the dwelling.
    A retail property tribunal may terminate a lease of a dwelling on which an empty dwelling management order is made, if it considers the dwelling is not being occupied and the local authority requires possession to
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    arrange for it to be occupied. This provision is necessary in order to prevent any sham arrangements being put in place to defeat the objective of the empty dwelling management orders. However, we recognise this could deprive someone of property rights, so the schedule provides for the retail property tribunal to order payment of compensation by local authorities to the person whose interest is determined.
    On the termination of an empty dwelling management order, the local authority must pay to the relevant proprietor any balance of rent left after deduction of its relevant expenditure, and any compensation it has been required to pay. lf, on termination, the balance is in deficit, the local authority may seek to recover the deficit from the relevant proprietor if he has agreed to pay it, if it relates to a service charge paid by the local authority and, in the case of an interim empty dwelling management order, if the relevant proprietor unreasonably refused consent to the grant of occupation rights.
    If none of these provisions apply, the local authority must meet the deficit itself. However, if a subsequent final empty dwelling management order is made, the local authority may instead seek to recover the deficit from any surplus made under that subsequent order.
    There are a wide range of rights to appeal to a residential property tribunal against matters that affect a person with an interest in a dwelling on which an empty dwelling management order is made. A relevant person may appeal to the residential property tribunal against a decision of a local authority to make a final empty dwelling management order, or the terms of it; the terms of an interim order, including any terms regarding compensation payable to a third party or a dispossessed landlord or tenant; or a decision of a local authority to vary or revoke, or its refusal to vary or revoke, both an interim or final empty dwelling management order. A third party may also appeal to a residential property tribunal against a decision by a local authority not to pay compensation to him, or a decision relating to the amount of compensation payable.
    In conclusion, we consider that these arrangements strike a fair balance between the right of property owners to determine how their property is used and the duty of local housing authorities to secure occupation of that property in the wider public interest. That should come as no surprise to noble Lords since we consulted on this over a very long period.
    In particular I would point to the fact that the amendments provide for local authorities and residential property tribunals to balance the interests of the community against the effect the order will have on the rights of the owner and of third parties; local authorities would have the right to seek authorisation from a residential property tribunal to make an interim empty dwelling management order; there is a right to seek variation or revocation of an empty dwelling management order and a right to appeal against a refusal to do so; there is a right of appeal against the making of a final empty dwelling

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    management order or the terms on which it is made; and compensation would be paid to persons other than the relevant proprietor whose interests are affected by the making of an empty dwelling management order and to dispossessed landlords and tenants whose leases are terminated by a residential property tribunal in authorising an empty dwelling management order. I beg to move.
    Lord Hanningfield: I begin by saying that we are less than enthused by the way in which the Government have handled this part of the Bill, in particular the introduction of such a large and significant element at this stage. Earlier this year during the deliberations in Committee in the Commons, the Government announced that they would bring forward in this Bill a scheme for the handling of empty properties. To table and publish such an important part of the Bill only last Thursday when they had the whole summer in which to do so borders, I believe, on an abuse of Parliament. It has in effect denied opposition colleagues from being able to scrutinise it in the manner this House expects.
    Part of my concern turns on the fact that this is in no way an insignificant inclusion. The provisions being moved by the Minister today will have a major impact on many citizens, along with the involvement of the state in their private lives—the taking into possession by local housing authorities of an empty but, I must stress, a private property.
    This measure is designed to bring a greater number of properties into the housing sector. However, we have serious reservations about whether that ambition will be met by this scheme. This approach appears to he all stick and no carrot. We agree that there is an issue in relation to empty homes. The scandal of 730,000 houses and flats in England standing empty is one we should all be concerned about. However, we would have preferred some form of voluntary model. Such powers as those before the Committee today should have been introduced as one of a range of options backed up by other, stronger measures.
    There are important questions and points that need to be clarified. For example, the Government need to give further consideration to the legal complexities that might apply in circumstances involving the application of an EDMO in respect of leasehold dwellings, in particular flats. In such circumstances the responsibilities of the lessee will continue, notwithstanding the existence of an EDMO. The OPDM needs to consider whether, given the necessary statutory amendments, this would be practical, or whether the power to make an EDMO is confined to freehold interests only.
    The ODPM needs to consider dispute properties; for example, those where family breakdown has occurred and one of the parties refuses to agree to the property being sold so that the other party derives no benefit from the property as a form of punishment for the relationship breakdown.
    There can he multi-owner disputes. On the death of a single or joint proprietor, ownership passes to one or more members of the family who are unable to agree
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    on the future of the house. One person may wish to retain and improve the property for family use while the others wish to sell and realise the equity. This may also occur where the Court of Protection is involved and cautions have been placed on the sale by other family members in dispute of an agreement or will.
    It should consider DIY owners, those who inherit or acquire empty, semi-derelict properties with a view to use as second or retirement homes. Having undertaken work on a do-it-yourself basis to reduce costs and as a hobby, they find that with the passage of time the condition of the property deteriorates and the costs escalate. They are reluctant to acknowledge that what had been a manageable project five years previously has now turned into a major headache with little chance of being turned around.
    There are additionally issues around cost. Will the operation of the scheme be cost neutral to local authorities and be operated as a commercial enterprise, reclaiming financial expenditure through rent? How long will an authority wait before moving in, and on what grounds will a decision be made? Could we be left with a fragmented system where we have one local authority applying a different interpretation and being rather more keen to seize a property than the authority next door?
    Of the 729,770 empty homes in England, 76,637 are under the tutelage of local authorities and a further 37,625 under registered social landlords. Some 10,110 are controlled by other public bodies and the remainder, 605,398, are in private hands. Surely there is a case for the Government and local authorities to get their own act in order before starting to eye up private properties. Over 100,000 houses are in state hands and yet are still lying empty.
    A further question relates to what will happen to such properties once they have been made fit for human habitation by the local authority. Will they be let to key workers or homeless people in the vicinity? If that is the case, how will such a scheme operate? Who will these people he, and how will they be chosen? What guarantee can be given that such people will not, for whatever reason, subsequently damage the property they are renting? What redress will the owner have if such damage occurs? These are just some of the questions that remain unanswered.
    As I have mentioned, we are not at all impressed by the short period of time we have had to scrutinise these provisions and we are unable to comment today in the detail we would like. I know that my noble friend Lady Hanham will also want to comment on these issues.
    Baroness Maddock: I should say first that we welcome what the Government are doing here. Bodies such as Shelter and the Empty Homes Agency, of which I am patron, also welcome these provisions. However, I agree with the noble Lord in his remarks about the way they have been handled. Having spent the whole of the week before we came back trying to find out whether these amendments had been tabled in order to prepare, I found that they eventually arrived

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    only last week. I am not in a position to employ full-time staff, so that makes life very difficult. I hope that, in the future, the Government will do better with this type of thing. I realise that that is not simple, but it was as far back as 19 May this year that the Government said that they would put forward amendments.
    The Minister has made a number of important points explaining why this is such an important issue. We have a huge number of empty homes in Britain. The noble Lord who spoke before me was a little dismissive of the number of homes and how this would assist in providing the many homes that are needed. But it is a fact that 84 per cent of empty homes are not publicly owned buildings; they are in the private sector. That is why it has been so difficult to deal with them and why it has taken so long to devise a comprehensive and imaginative solution.
    In introducing the provisions, the Minister talked of what happens in areas where there are lots of empty properties. It is a fact that in some of the most deprived areas of the country, we find that a much higher percentage of homes are left empty. Research has also shown that in areas where more than 5 per cent of the dwelling stock is empty, house prices reflect that fact and as a result are much lower. Given the facts—about which we could speak at length, but I will spare noble Lords that debate today—it is clear that there is a need to do something about empty homes.
    I have campaigned on this issue for well over 20 years in my own political life, so I see the provisions to be put on the face of the Bill as something of a milestone. Noble Lords on the Liberal Democrat Benches have pushed for such provisions for a number of years and therefore we welcome them. My only regret is that something was not done sooner.
    These amendments will provide a much-needed tool for local authorities, in particular where the owners of empty properties refuse to co-operate. It must be remembered that these will be provisions of last resort, and we hope that all the best practice we have seen introduced will enable local authorities to operate without having to undertake this kind of bureaucracy. However, it means that many more homes will be brought back into use and we will see more secure homes and a better quality of life for many families up and down the country.
    4 p.m.
    As the Minister said, a good many voluntary leasing schemes are already in operation. In recent times there has been renewed interest in these schemes across the country. Many registered social landlords have become involved; some are running with major portfolios. East Thames Housing Group now has more than 1,500 previously empty properties on its books. That is without this legislation, so it shows what can be done.
    Across the country there is a patchwork quilt effect of private sector leasing. In some areas there are excellent partnership relationships between local authorities and the local registered social landlord, but
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    there are areas where there is no interest from registered social landlords. We need to ensure that there are more incentives for registered social landlords to see that private sector leasing schemes are an integral part of their work.
    I vented most of my anger about the late tabling of the amendments last week. As we have said, it has been difficult to get to grips with them. I tried to listen to what the Minister was saying but did not always catch it completely, so I hope that I am not asking about matters that he thought he had explained. We may pursue other matters on Report.
    The Empty Homes Agency is concerned about compensation. It was not in the initial consultation, nor in the initial position of the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister. I understand that that is partly to do with human rights issues. Furthermore, in some cases consent from the owners of properties is required to rent them. Will the Minister set out the Government's thinking on those issues, the reasons why they came to their conclusions and the reasons for the amendments they have tabled?
    Some people take the view that if people have left their properties empty for a long time they perhaps do not have any right to compensation. If I have read the notes to the amendments correctly, compensation would be awarded only if the owner was not receiving any rent from the property, which is what we hope would happen.
    One of the points that is welcomed by people who work in the area is that if local authorities have not recouped the costs of the initial interim empty dwellings management order, they will he able to apply for another. That is welcome because it should convince local authorities that are averse to embracing the new power.
    One area that is rather sad, although I understand the problem, is that the definition of a dwelling would preclude empty flats above shops if there were no separate access. I can see the problem and that it might be a legal minefield, but will the Minister reconsider it?
    Subsection (2) of the proposed new clause under Amendment No. 171B requires a dwelling to be wholly unoccupied. However, the new schedule proposed by Clause 210A—in Paragraph 2(3)(a)—refers to the rights of existing occupiers. We are confused as to how that will work out; it seems inconsistent.
    I am sure that we shall return to the issue in more detail on Report. With those few comments and questions I look forward to the Minister's response.
    The Earl of Caithness: I am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Maddock, for her comments. She made a plea to the Government to be more timely in tabling amendments. We have been saying that for years; the noble Baroness said it again today, but the answer is that it just will not happen. We will be faced with the same situation as we have now: of little information on anything and late tabling of amendments.

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    We move into an area where we change from a partnership between owners of properties and local authorities into confiscation. The Government are giving draconian powers to local authorities to take away someone's private property for a period of years. That should be done only with the greatest reluctance and after the greatest scrutiny. We are only just beginning our scrutiny and the other place will not scrutinise the provision at all.
    The Minister said that he listened to the committee in another place that analysed the draft Bill. If he listened to the committee on this issue I only wish that he had listened to its other recommendations when it comes to the home condition report and the pack we are about to discuss under Part 5, because clearly they have not listened to the committee at all on those issues.
    The Minister kindly put in the Printed Paper Office the final regulatory impact assessment, which he signed on 7 September. Four different options were put forward. Option 1 was the status quo and options 2, 3 and 4 referred to EDMOs. Under option 2, there are 165,000 properties at stake. Under option 3, about 300,000 are involved, and under option 4, 165,000 properties, the same as in option 2. Needless to say, the Government have gone for the largest number of properties. Will the Minister explain why that action was taken?
    When the Government are doing something as controversial as this, would it not have been sensible to go for either option 2 or option 4, where a smaller number of properties is available, to see how that worked before tackling a bigger problem?
    When we look at the results of the consultation and the analysis, it does not surprise me considering that the majority of the respondents were either local authorities or housing organisations. Out of the 134 respondents, only 10 were individuals. That tends to be the case, but it is a bad way to make decisions. The Government decided to go for option 3, which is the preferred option of only 14 per cent of the respondents. Why are they making decisions when such a small minority is in favour of such a draconian power?
    Like the noble Baroness, Lady Maddock, I have not had the chance to look at the amendment in as much detail as I would have liked. From what she says, I know that I have carried out less work than she has. Is it true that the EDMO has to have a tribunal agreement; does the local authority have to have the tribunal's agreement before it makes an EDMO, or can it make one without the tribunal?
    Does the local authority have to act on every one of the tribunal's decisions, or if the tribunal makes a set of recommendations, can it ignore them and do its own thing? I was confused when the Minister talked about compensation to the owner. I will read in the Official Report tomorrow what he said, but when he replies will he say a little more about how compensation to the owner will work? That might be helpful.
    Can the Minster confirm that when a local authority confiscates a property from an owner under an EDMO, it will take on all the liabilities that go with the
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    property? If it is a flat, can he confirm whether the rental will be paid; and, if it is a house or a flat, whether the council tax, the water rates and so on will be paid by the local authority?
    Can the Minister confirm that the local authority will indemnify the owner once an EDMO has been taken out? Why should the owner be responsible if his property has been confiscated for a period of years? If an EDMO has been taken out, the local authority should be obliged to leave the property in good order. Can the Minister confirm that that is the case?
    Following up the point made by my noble friend Lord Hanningfield about the many situations that could arise and result in a property being left empty, what will occur in the case he mentioned where a family is discussing what should happen to a property, and then resolve that issue in year one of the seven years of the EDMO? Will they be able to apply to the local authority or the tribunal to have the EDMO rescinded and take back the property with vacant possession in order that they may do what they like with it?
    Can the Minister confirm that at the end of the EDMO the property will be returned to the owner with vacant possession and that there will be no security of tenure for any of the occupants that the local authority may have put therein?
    4.15 p.m.
    Lord Greaves: I declare an interest in that I am a member of Pendle Borough Council, an area of northeast Lancashire. I represent a ward which has a large number of empty properties. I recognise the situation described by the Minister when he refers to the problems created by empty properties in areas of otherwise good older housing. He could have been describing a large number of places, such as Colne in Lancashire.
    I regret having been unable to attend on any of the previous days during which the Committee has discussed the Bill because it goes to the very heart of the areas in which I have been involved for the past 35 years in trying to tackle the problem of poor and sub-standard housing. There are many decent streets of good housing in which one or two houses cause the blight of social problems described by the Minister.
    The aims of the government amendments are admirable. I want to stand on a little hill, wave a flag and cheer the Government—which I do not do very often—because their aims and objectives are quite brilliant.
    I share some of the questions that have been raised, including some of those raised by the noble Earl, Lord Caithness. He comes from the opposite end of the scale of rights involved—I start with the problem of the empty houses and he starts with the rights of the owners—but somewhere in between there has to be a balance. Some of the practical problems that have been raised need answering. I hope the Minister will be tolerant if on Report we go into more detail on some

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    of these issues than we would have had they been discussed in the depth that they should have been in Committee.
    Having said that, I wish to raise one or two questions. I am slightly confused about some of the wording in the amendment. It may be that I have not understood it properly. It is highly complex and it is quite likely that I have not understood it properly; I look forward to the Minister explaining it to me. Under the clause heading "Empty dwelling management orders: introductory", subsection (2) of the proposed new clause states that,
    "An interim EDMO is an order made to enable a local housing authority, with the consent of the relevant proprietor"—
    and then, in subsection (3), it suggests that the final EDMO is a successor to the interim EDMO. I do not understand why it states,
    "with the consent of the relevant proprietor",
    when much of the remainder of the amendment deals with a situation where there is no consent from the relevant proprietor. It may be that I have misread it, but that would seem to be the initial definition of interim EDMOs and final EDMOs. It is a matter which can be looked at, or it can be explained why I am wrong.
    The problems in Birmingham that the Minister described are exactly the same as those of which I am aware. Many properties are not in good condition for a reason—they have been left empty for several years. Even in the best of areas, houses which have been left empty for several years often deteriorate; repairs are needed, water gets in, leakages are not repaired and so on. In areas which have more social problems, as the Minister said, windows get broken, kids get in, people break in and steal, traditionally, the fire-back boilers and various other kinds of equipment. Slowly, over a period of time, such houses become derelict or semi-derelict and the local authority steps in and boards them up.
    A process takes place: it starts off with a perfectly reasonable house—which is left empty—and slowly, over a period of time, it gets worse and worse until eventually it becomes derelict. I am not clear about what condition of house the EDMOs are intended to deal with. Quite clearly, if a local authority takes over houses which are not in a decent condition for people to live in, which are not fit to live in or do not meet the new health and safety housing standards, how much spending on such houses will the Government expect local authorities reasonably to undertake?
    If it is a question of a few hundred pounds to put them in order, that would be one thing, but with many of these houses you are talking about thousands of pounds. A figure of £20,000 is not unusual for a house which a local authority may, at the moment, compulsory purchase because it is in such a poor condition. It then has to do it up. It might be more than £20,000, but taking that figure, if you let the property for, say, £60 a week, which might be on the low side, it would take seven years to recoup the money—and that is assuming that there are no other management costs
    918
    associated with it and no on-going repairs in the future, which quite clearly there will be. It may therefore be a long-term operation.
    I am not clear from what the Minister said and from what the amendment sets out whether it is really intended to deal with that kind of situation or whether, if a house reaches a condition below a certain threshold, other measures will be brought in. If the house is in one of the new select licensing areas, if I have got the terminology right, it may be that the other measures will be there to deal with the matter and the authority may have to go down the CPO route.
    But if a property is not in such an area—and, as I understand it, the EDMOs are designed to deal with properties which are not in these designated areas—it may be much more difficult. I should like to get my mind around this question and understand the Government's thinking about the circumstances in which these orders might be made.
    I take the point made by the noble Earl, Lord Caithness, about the combination of sticks and carrots and that this is all sticks. In the old days—I say the "old days"; I am going back to the 1970s, when there was a great deal more money in areas such as my own for improvement grants—local authorities had far more resources than they have now, or at least have had until the recent housing market collapse in partnership areas. We are one of those areas and so we may now be getting far more resources to deal with these problems in different ways.
    The annual capital programme for housing of my own authority of Pendle, for example, was up to £6 million or £7 million in the late 1970s, which was a reasonable amount of money for an ordinary small district. Despite inflation, that amount fell towards the end of the 1990s to less than £2 million. So the amount of money available to local authorities in many of those areas collapsed. Of course, some of that money had to be spent on council housing as well, although in many authorities in north-east Lancashire and others with lots of old terraced housing, the proportion of the HIP that went into the private sector was always much higher than went into council housing. That was just the nature of the situation.
    So resources were not there. I was chairman of my local authority's housing committee, for my sins, back in the mid-1970s. We used to have a combined carrot-and-stick approach of saying to owners of empty properties such as those which the proposals concern, "We're going to CPO it, but we don't want to CPO it. And we will give you a grant. We will work with you to do the house up and do it that way". That approach fell by the wayside when it stopped being possible for local authorities to give grants to private landlords in that way and they had to rely more on the stick than the carrot. Since the local authority did not have the resources anyway, the number of houses which were dealt with like that went down from scores every year to a handful.
    If the Government now intend to allow local authorities to intervene again and to tackle the problem of houses which I call "rotten teeth" in areas

    919
    which have a future and are not going to he cleared, but which nevertheless require this intervention just to deal with such houses, that would be very worthwhile and welcome. However, there is then the question of resources. Where is the money coming from for the local authority to intervene? If the local authority makes an empty dwelling management order, where is the money coming from in the first instance to pay for the repairs in that property before the rent starts coming back to pay for it?
    I am asking the Government these questions because their aims are brilliant, but until we can see how the proposals are going to work in practice, along with the other raft of measures in the Bill—a Bill which I am enthused by as a whole—we will not know whether they are going to work.
    My final point is about compensation and echoes that of the noble Earl. Lord Caithness. Compensation is mentioned in the Bill, but there is no indication of the scale of compensation that the Government think is going to be involved. Will compensation be paid exceptionally—something that happens now and again—or will it be paid as a matter of course? On what kind of scale will it be paid? Will it be related to rents? Will it be related to capital values when the houses are taken over? Or will it be related to capital values after the council has fettled the houses up and made them decent? The whole question of compensation needs a great deal more elaboration.
    Lord Avebury: I agree with the Minister that the problem of empty homes is nothing short of a scandal. I am also in agreement with my noble friend Lord Greaves in thinking that it is a pity that the scheme could not have been extended to deal with the large number of properties over shops which still remain vacant. Although some of them are being modernised—I have noticed this even in my own area in south London—there does not seem to be enough of an incentive for landlords to do it on a larger scale. Therefore, if one looks up above the shops in almost any parade in south London, one will see available property which could be put back into use and which is gradually falling into dereliction.
    My principal reason for intervening is that I tried to find out what was happening to the contracts into which NASS had entered for accommodation for asylum seekers, but which would no longer be required because of the sharp fall in the number of people coming here and seeking asylum, bearing in mind that those were long-term contracts, some of which did not contain escape clauses. When I tried to find out about the matter—first, by asking NASS and, secondly, by tabling Questions on the Order Paper—I was told that those contracts were "commercial in confidence", but that all but two of the contracts signed by NASS expire some time in 2005 and the remaining two in 2006. That means that a large number of properties will be falling vacant in this sector.
    Will it be possible to make an EDMO for properties which NASS no longer requires, but which it cannot relinquish because the contracts do not contain an escape clause? Will the Minister say how many of the
    920
    110,000 properties in other forms of public sector ownership that were mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Hanningfield, actually belong to NASS? I suspect that it is the majority of them. Therefore, it is worth spending a little time thinking about how we deal with the matter.
    NASS is the most opaque public sector organisation of all. One cannot get a thing out of it. It has not published its budget even for 2003–04, let alone for 2004–05, but we know that it spent more than £0.5 billion in the year to March 2003. Therefore, we are not talking about small sums of money and small numbers of properties.
    I hope that the Minister can assure me that, as part of the new scheme that is outlined in the amendments, a very close look will be taken at NASS. He should also bear in mind that if the ODPM does not do it, the National Audit Office is extremely interested in the way that NASS manages its properties.
    Baroness Hanham: The inevitable way in which the amendments have been put down has meant that we have ended up with comments that would have been better made at Second Reading, but I shall add a few more questions to those that have been asked.
    We all acknowledge that there are properties that are left empty for unacceptable reasons. How does one deal with that problem in a way that does not appear to be confiscatory and that does not lead a politically motivated local authority to act in way that it should not?
    The Minister spoke about compulsory purchase orders and the slowness of the process. I agree with that. We went some way in the Planning and Compulsory Purchase Act 2004 towards dealing with that. However, a compulsory purchase order is quite a threat. I know from my experience in my authority that a property comes back into proper order amazingly quickly at the mere threat of compulsory purchase.
    In authorising the making of an interim EDMO, should the residential property tribunal not be expressly required to consider all the reasons why a property is unoccupied? The reasons why an unoccupied property should not be taken over are given in the Government's amendments, but the residential property tribunal does not appear to be required to make sure that those reasons are valid and have not been ignored by the local authority.
    Should not a final, as well as an interim, EDMO require the prior authorisation of the residential property tribunal? It is our understanding that a final EDMO does not require it, but that is the moment when it all begins to bite.
    4.30 p.m.
    As to the question of the rent that will be raised, and what it will be used for when the dwelling is let, is it the Minister's understanding that the local authority will have to obtain the best rent that it can? Who is the property going to be let to? If the private sector is involved, will the property be let to people on the

    921
    waiting list, or will it be let through an agency to people who want to rent or acquire a property in the private sector? Who will manage the property—the local authority, a residential landlord or a housing association? Who will have responsibility, and from where can redress be sought?
    I turn to specific amendments. Subsection (5)(a) of Amendment No. 171A is extraordinarily vague. What is meant by the local authority "taking steps"? When is the moment for a local authority to take steps, and after what investigations? Who is going to inquire into the reason why a property is vacant, and who is going to make a judgment on the conditions that have been laid down?
    In subsection (2)(b) of Amendment No. 171C, what is meant by "immediate"? An owner may be prepared to take steps to put the property right, but, if works are required, there are often delays with letting contracts, planning permission or building regulation approval. It ought to be made clear within these clauses that the owners are allowed a reasonable time in such circumstances.
    In subsection (2) of Amendment No. 171 D, the steps to be taken should not be those that the authority considers appropriate, but those which are objectively considered so—presumably by an independent person who understands property conditions.
    In subsection (4) of Amendment No. 171D, surely if the property cannot be let, the order should be revoked. Subsection (5) of Amendment No. 171D needs to be expanded to make it clear that the local authority is under other duties as a responsible property manager, for example, securing the property and taking reasonable steps to prevent damage, preventing burst pipes and so on in winter.
    As the unfortunate way these amendments have come about means that, inevitably, a lot of this afternoon's questions cannot be answered beforehand, there will be a raft of amendments on Report. That is doubly unfortunate, because on Report we do not have the same opportunity to intervene as we do in Committee. It is deeply unfortunate that we did not have the amendments in time for us to have the opportunity to table our own amendments, which will have to come at a later stage.
    Lord Rooker: I appreciate the tone of the speeches on the group of amendments. I will not go over the details of why they were put down only last week. I will just refer to the fact that, to varying degrees, both the Liberal Democrats and the Conservative Party in the Commons called for action on empty homes, as has the Labour Party in the past. We can argue about which homes are actually empty, but we are talking about the totality of such homes. The Government are now proposing a fairly modest scheme, for reasons I will seek to explain. It is not a question of fobbing colleagues off. I have specific answers to some of the questions I have been asked in the past few minutes, and obviously on Report we will have a more meaningful discussion.
    922
    I have said that this scheme is essentially a longstop. It is not the first port of call. In other words, by and large it is a voluntary scheme. No legislation is required for such schemes, and we want to get the job done on a voluntary basis if we can. Regarding the point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Hanham, about CPOs, our central point, as I said earlier, is that we are not concerned about the dwelling's change of ownership. We do not want the state to take ownership of the dwelling—that would genuinely look like confiscation. That is not the purpose here and it could destroy the scheme. The ownership of the dwelling is a by-product. It is irrelevant to what we are trying to do, which is to get the dwelling used as a home. In fact, we want mixed tenure.
    Even if CPOs were easy, and were not long and drawn-out, there might be good reasons for not going down the CPO route anyway, as that would take the ownership of the dwelling away from the owner. I suspect that that would raise more human rights issues than what we are proposing. I take the noble Baroness's point—that essentially it is possible to get voluntary action with the threat of legislative action, and in some ways that is what is proposed here, but as a last resort.
    I have jumped the gun a little bit. Our estimate is that local authorities will make about three orders a year—that is, a thousand dwellings. That does not mean to say that there will be a total of only three dwellings in each authority; we are absolutely convinced that, because of the backup of the legislation as a sanction, we will get more empty properties back into use. We do not need legislation for a voluntary scheme.
    The noble Lord, Lord Hanningfield, raised the issue of technical problems with long leases. I am not a long lease expert, but I agree with him that they are technical problems. We think the detailed provisions cover most of the problems that have been raised in the consultation, but we are prepared to accept that there may be some issues about the service of notices relating to leasehold matters. We will certainly give that further consideration and come back on Report. This issue has not yet bottomed out.
    It is outrageous that too many state-owned properties are empty, but no legislation is required at this stage to deal with them. They form just 16 per cent of all such properties. There used to be more; it is well-known that the Ministry of Defence, for lots of reasons, needs to keep many empty properties, although it floated off a number of them some years ago.
    In the case of local authorities, for similar reasons to the private sector housing market, there will never be a situation where every dwelling is occupied, because that would block people from moving around and swapping tenancies, just as it would block them from buying and selling properties. We are concerned with dwellings kept empty for longer than six months for no reasonable reason. We are cutting out a huge number of dwellings anyway, but we want to do all we can to encourage local authorities to combat all the empty

    923
    properties in their areas, including the state-owned ones. There is no argument that we want to deal with that.
    I was asked to whom the local authorities will let the properties, and whether it would be to key workers. That will he entirely up to the local authority. We could not be prescriptive from the centre, simply because of the variety of local authorities, who understand the issues in their areas. If the strategic authority takes the view that for its definition of "key workers"—in my view everyone is a key worker, but at present the phrase has certain definitions—then that is a good idea, and it may be the case that some authorities can do that.
    I also want to deal with the issue of "compensation". I looked through the notes again yesterday, and I have listened to noble Lords today. "Compensation" is the wrong word. I suspect the lawyers and the drafters will say that is the word that has to be in the legislation, but it is not compensation as used by noble Lords and Baronesses asking the questions. I will come back to the question on more than one occasion. The relevant proprietor will not receive compensation per se, but rather the balance of any surplus on the rent and the capital appreciation of the property. There is compensation that could go to third parties, perhaps where a lease has been arranged and a finance company is involved. I believe that human rights legislation dictates that a lease is property and, therefore, there is a degree of compensation. The idea that the owner of the empty dwelling will receive loads and loads of compensation because the local authority has taken over the management of the property is not true. "Compensation" is not the correct word. We may consider that. It certainly requires a better explanation.
    What the noble Baroness, Lady Maddock, said about flats above shops is absolutely right. The separate access issue refers to the definition of a dwelling. I fully agree with those who raised the issue about flats above empty shops. Since I was responsible for the housing and planning brief, and indeed since Keith Hill took it over, we have moved much further forward and action is under way.
    Generally speaking, the tenants of shops which are used mainly—but not exclusively—as retail premises and which have flats above do not want to be landlords and neither do the property owners. That difficulty has been identified for some time; we need an intermediary who can deal with that. I must make it absolutely clear that this Bill cannot deal with that. Action in the department is under way on that.
    Subsection (2) of Amendment No. 171B refers to where,
    "the dwelling is wholly unoccupied".
    There is a reference to the rights of existing occupiers in the schedule. The reference to "existing occupiers" relates to people who occupy a formerly empty property at the point when an interim or final empty dwelling management order is made. Some tenancies were granted and the schedule protects the rights of those people at the point when the final empty dwelling management order is made.
    924
    The key order here is the first one, the interim one. One has to go to the residential property tribunal to obtain that order. Following that, one can get people into the property. They are then living there and they are the people referred to. That is why there is this apparent contradiction; but there is not a contradiction because people can live in the property when the final empty dwelling management order is made. That may sound barmy, but they are there because the interim order was made in the first place.
    The noble Earl, Lord Caithness, asked some detailed questions and I hope I have some detailed answers, although I thought that he came a little too close to defending unacceptable practices in the property market. On whether every interim empty dwelling management order requires the authorisation of the residential property tribunal, the answer is yes. Does a local authority have to act on every order authorising an interim empty dwelling management order? The answer is no. The noble Earl then asked whether the residential property tribunal has to approve a final empty dwelling management order. The answer is no. Will a local authority indemnify the owner? The answer is yes. Must a local authority leave a property in good order? I thought that was a brass-neck question. Most of these properties will be in a scandalous condition, but they will be done up, at the end of the day, by the rent obtained from the order. but they will he dilapidated. Yes, it will not be in any worse condition—as left by the owner when it was empty—than it was found in to start with. The answer to his question is yes, it will be left in good order.
    The noble Earl also asked whether the owner can ask for an empty dwelling management order to be revoked. The answer is yes, if the residential property tribunal agrees. Will the property be returned with vacant possession? The answer is yes.
    I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Greaves., for the general thrust of what he said. I almost interrupted him but decided against it. He raised the issue of how much a local authority will spend on a dwelling. In a way, it is for a local authority to make an assessment of the housing needs, market values and the rental incomes in its area. It would not make sense to spend money that it believed it could not get back, say, over a seven-year period. In some ways it shares part of the risk. It is also an incentive against local authorities spending a huge amount of money on properties that they do not own but which they think they will get back from the owners in due course. They may not get that money back from the owners in due course. They have to make a judgment about the best route in their areas. Of course, there may be other schemes that they could follow.
    The noble Lord asked about doing this with the consent of the relevant proprietor—that was under the introductory clause. The answer is that a local housing authority can grant a tenancy only during an interim empty dwelling management order with the consent of the owner. If no consent is forthcoming, the solution is to make a final empty dwelling management order. The hope is that it will not be necessary to make final orders in every case if owners co-operate with a local

    925
    authority and take on the management themselves. The making of an interim empty management order does not require the consent of an owner, but it requires authorisation from the residential property tribunal.
    I have partially covered the issue of compensation, but I now have a note which may provide a better explanation. The note says, "More detail on compensation". As a non-lawyer and as a lay person, I believe that compensation is the wrong word and gives the wrong impression. We do not expect that compensation will be paid in all or in many cases. I can give an example. A property may be subject to a lease of, say, four years' duration. The person who benefits from the lease is not using it. We know that because the dwelling is empty. The residential property tribunal can cancel the short-term lease and so permit the local housing authority to grant tenancies.
    The problem is that human rights case law is quite clear. A lease is a possession and if the state is to deprive an owner of his possession there must be compensation, but the compensation does not have to be excessive. In regard to the owner, called in the amendments "the relevant proprietor", there is no deprivation of a possession. There is a control on his use of that possession and so no requirement to pay compensation arises.
    I have covered a fair amount of the issue. The noble Baroness, Lady Hanham, asked me about making inquiries. We are dealing with properties that have been empty for more than six months for no good reason—I shall not go over the exemptions that I raised earlier. A local authority will have to show the residential property tribunal that it has made full and extensive inquiries about the ownership of the property, or if it has found the owner, it will have to show why nothing has been done about it. A local authority will not be able to walk straight into empty properties and get things cracking straightaway. There have to be good and proper checks. As I said earlier, this is a major change in public policy regarding private sector housing for the greater public interest.
    The noble Baroness also asked about the level of rent and tenants. Those would be matters for a local authority. It may subcontract the management. It will have acquired the management orders from the tribunal and if it has made a final one, so be it. But there has to be a schedule. It all has to be written down and there has to be a set of rules about how a property is managed and the rents that are charged, which will vary around the country. It will be up to a local housing authority.
    As I have said, I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, regarding shops. He referred also to the National Asylum Support Service and to empty properties. It is interesting to see that a note has not winged its way to me on that. It is hardly surprising as I do not know the answer myself and it certainly has not appeared in any of my briefings. Such properties are, by definition, owned in the private sector; they are
    926
    empty but income is being received on them because the Home Office, through NASS, is paying for them in case they are required.
    It is true that contracts were taken out when asylum applications were far higher than they are now, but I defend NASS. I know that problems have arisen. People tend to forget what was happening in London and the south-east counties at the height of the massive influx of asylum seekers. There was almost a collapse in social services and in housing where there were great pressures in Kent, East Sussex and some of the London boroughs. People tend to forget what was happening a few years ago. Operating NASS to disperse asylum seekers was not easy, and from a standing start literally tens of thousands were dispersed successfully around the country so that they could pursue their claims. That was not done without massive operational efforts in securing properties. Some were local authority properties, but one has to go generally into the market because the vast majority of empty properties in this country, as I have made abundantly clear, are in the private sector and longer-term contracts were needed.
    This is not the place for us to debate the issue of why there were no get-out clauses, but before Report stage I will find out about the number of properties and whether there is anything that could be done about that. I suspect that by the time the clause comes into force and is fully operating those contracts will have come to an end. Nevertheless, I will seek further advice on the issue.
    I apologise again for the lateness but it would be wasting time to go over it. We have been requested by all political parties to do something about empty properties; 84 per cent are in the private sector and that is our modest response.
    Baroness Hamwee: The Minister's replies have been extremely helpful. There are a number of points which he clarified today, such as when consent is required and the situation of a wholly unoccupied property. It strikes me that it would be extremely helpful if the department were to produce a flowchart of what is required and when—something that would help us and the people who will operate the system. That would stop me muttering to my noble friend about whether we need to ask for a recommitment of this clause.
    Lord Rooker: That is a reasonable request and I will pass it on to see what can be done. This is an innovative scheme. I do not accept that the scheme is a form of confiscation, as I heard mentioned earlier. Someone is not using an asset; it is not being confiscated—the ownership and the rights of ownership are not being confiscated. The rights of the use are being confiscated, but the asset is not being used for the greater public good. I suspect that there will be some literature produced about empty homes so that everyone understands exactly what the procedures are,

    927
    what the rights are and what happens. If that is the case, the chances are that we will get a lot of voluntary co-operation.
    The Earl of Caithness: I, too, am grateful for what the Minister said. In some cases he clarified the situation; in others he confused it for me. It might be my hearing but I thought at a couple of stages he referred to the "retail property tribunal". I think he meant the residential property tribunal. As far as I am aware there is no retail property tribunal.
    Given the Minister's answer to me about how the local authority should leave the property, presumably that now requires that there should be a schedule of condition before the local authority takes occupancy of the property for somebody. Is that requirement in the Bill?
    The Minister said that we should have a sensible discussion on Report. I do not think that is at all possible. This is such a complicated area. What we have done today is a Second Reading. I see the Whip sitting there and I know what the Whip will say when it comes to Report. We are allowed to talk only once, and rightly so. He will get up and tell us that we are talking more than once. We will not have a sensible discussion.
    I therefore ask the Minister to talk to his noble friend the Chief Whip to recommit this part of the Bill. That is the only way that we will get a sensible discussion. The clause will not be discussed in another place. If we are going to have EDMOs, it is our responsibility now to make certain that they are right and that they function properly. We cannot do that just at Report stage. The clause is too big, too complicated, with a big schedule. I will not speak at length when we recommit, because it would be wrong to abuse it. However, in this instance it is a very good argument to say that we should recommit just this section.
    Lord Greaves: May I—
    Lord Rooker: Could I just respond to that while we are in Committee? I could go back down the list but I have just given the noble Earl more "yes/no" answers to every one of his specific questions, save for one, than I think I have ever given in answer to a set of questions from the Dispatch Box. I shall not go to my noble friend arguing for recommitment because I was able to give the noble Earl such specific "yes/no" answers to his questions.
    Lord Greaves: I was very grateful for a lot of what the Minister said. I shall read Hansard with my usual enthusiasm tomorrow. So far, I have read all the Hansard reports on this Bill. As regards the definition at the beginning—I wrote down the words carefully—the Minister said:
    "The making of an interim EDMO does not need the consent of the owner".
    928
    However, my reading of subsection (2) in Amendment No. 171A is that it does. It states:
    "An interim EDMO is an order made to enable a local housing authority, with the consent of the relevant proprietor".
    There seem to be two opposite provisions. I agree entirely that the threat of compulsion is put there in order to encourage people to volunteer; indeed, that is very clear. The threat of compulsion has to be there, because that is the whole thrust. However, it does not seem to read clearly
    The Minister also said that one cannot put a tenant in an EDMO without the consent of the owner. Yet Amendment No. 171D(2) states quite clearly that the authority, having made an EDMO,
    "must take such steps as they consider appropriate for the purpose of securing that the dwelling becomes and continues to be occupied".
    I am not trying to pick holes in order to make dastardly political points because the thrust of this proposal has my enthusiastic support, but perhaps it was drafted in a hurry at the last minute. Perhaps people need to look at some of the wording to make sure that it works. We do not want to pass legislation and have nice glossy pamphlets telling people how it will work, only to find that it does not stack up when it comes to the courts.
    Lord Rooker: Although I have not gone back to that section, the answer is probably the difference between the interim empty dwelling management order and the final empty dwelling management order. It is the distinction between the two. Perhaps when the flowcharts are organised, the noble Lord will find that that section is clear. We will have a look at that point.
    On Question, amendment agreed to.
    Lord Rooker Lord Rooker moved Amendments Nos. 171B to 171G:
    After Clause 122, insert the following new clause—
    "MAKING OF INTERIM EDMOS
    (1) A local housing authority may make an interim EDMO in respect of a dwelling if—

    (a) it is a dwelling to which this section applies, and

    (b) on an application by the authority to a residential property tribunal, the tribunal by order authorises them under section (Authorisation to make interim EDMOs) to make such an order, either in the terms of a draft order submitted by them or in those terms as varied by the tribunal.

    (2) This section applies to a dwelling if—

    (a) the dwelling is wholly unoccupied, and

    (b) the relevant proprietor is not a public sector body.

    "Wholly unoccupied" means that no part is occupied, whether lawfully or unlawfully.
    (3) Before determining whether to make an application to a residential property tribunal for an authorisation under section (Authorisation to make interim EDMOs), the authority must make reasonable efforts—

    (a) to notify the relevant proprietor that they are considering making an interim EDMO in respect of the dwelling under this section, and

    (b) to ascertain what steps (if any) he is taking, or is intending to take, to secure that the dwelling is occupied.

    (4) In determining whether to make an application to a residential property tribunal for an authorisation under section (Authorisation to make interim EDMOs), the authority must take into account the rights of the relevant proprietor of the dwelling and the interests of the wider community.
    (5) The authority may make an interim EDMO in respect of the dwelling despite any pending appeal against the order of the tribunal (but this is without prejudice to any order that may be made on the disposal of any such appeal).
    (6) An application to a residential property tribunal under this section for authorisation to make an interim EDMO in respect of a dwelling may include an application for an order under paragraph 22 of Schedule (Further provisions regarding empty duelling management orders) determining a lease or licence of the dwelling.
    (7) In this section "public sector body" means a body mentioned in any of paragraphs (a) to (f) of paragraph 2(1) of Schedule 11.
    (8) Part 1 of Schedule 6 applies in relation to the making of an interim EDMO in respect of a dwelling as it applies in relation to the making of an interim management order in respect of a house, subject to the following modifications—

    (a) paragraph 7(2) does not apply;

    (b) paragraph 7(4)(c) is to be read as referring instead to the date on which the order is to cease to have effect in accordance with paragraph 1(3) and (4) or 9(3) to (5) of Schedule (Further provisions regarding empty dwelling management orders);

    (c) paragraph 8(4) is to be read as defining "relevant person" as any person who, to the knowledge of the local housing authority, is a person having an estate or interest in the dwelling (other than a person who is a tenant under a lease or licence granted under paragraph 2(3)(c) of Schedule (Further provisions regarding empty dwelling management orders))."

    After Clause 122, insert the following new clause—
    "AUTHORISATION TO MAKE INTERIM EDMOS
    (1) A residential property tribunal may authorise a local housing authority to make an interim EDMO in respect of a dwelling to which section (Making of interim EDMOs) applies if the tribunal—

    (a) is satisfied as to the matters mentioned in subsection (2), and

    (b) is not satisfied that the case falls within one of the prescribed exceptions.

    (2) The matters as to which the tribunal must be satisfied are—

    (a) that the dwelling has been wholly unoccupied for at least the prescribed period of time,

    (b) that the relevant proprietor of the dwelling does not intend to take immediate steps to secure that the dwelling becomes occupied,

    (c) that, if an interim order is made, there is a reasonable prospect that the dwelling will become occupied,

    (d) that the authority have complied with section (Making of interim EDMOs)(3), and

    (e) that any prescribed requirements have been complied with.

    (3) In deciding whether to authorise a local housing authority to make an interim EDMO in respect of a dwelling, the tribunal must take into account—

    (a) the interests of the community, and

    (b) the effect that the order will have on the rights of the relevant proprietor and may have on the rights of third parties.

    (4) On authorising a local housing authority to make an interim EDMO in respect of a dwelling, the tribunal may, if it thinks fit, make an order requiring the authority (if they make the EDMO)
    930
    to pay to any third party specified in the order an amount of compensation in respect of any interference in consequence of the order with the rights of the third party.
    (5) The appropriate national authority may by order—

    (a) prescribe exceptions for the purposes of subsection (1)( b),

    (b) prescribe a period of time for the purposes of subsection (2)(a), and

    (c) prescribe requirements for the purposes of subsection (2)(e).

    (6) An order under subsection (5)(a) may, in particular, include exceptions in relation to—

    (a) dwellings that have been occupied solely or principally by the relevant proprietor who is at the material time temporarily resident elsewhere;

    (b) dwellings that are holiday homes or that are otherwise occupied by the relevant proprietor or his guests on a temporary basis from time to time;

    (c) dwellings undergoing repairs or renovation;

    (d) dwellings in respect of which an application for planning permission or building control approval is outstanding;

    (e) dwellings which are genuinely on the market for sale or letting;

    (f) dwellings where the relevant proprietor has died not more than the prescribed number of months before the material time.

    (7) In this section—
    "building control approval" means approval for the carrying out of any works under building regulations;
    "planning permission" has the meaning given by section 336(1) of the Town and Country Planning Act 990 (c. 8);
    "prescribed" means prescribed by an order under subsection (5);
    "wholly unoccupied" means that no part is occupied, whether lawfully or unlawfully."
    After Clause 122, insert the following new clause—
    "LOCAL HOUSING AUTHORITY'S DUTIES ONCE INTERIM EDMO IN FORCE
    (1) A local housing authority who have made an interim EDMO in respect of a dwelling must comply with the following provisions as soon as practicable after the order has come into force (see paragraph 1 of Schedule (Further provisions regarding empty dwelling management orders)).
    (2) The authority must take such steps as they consider appropriate for the purpose of securing that the dwelling becomes and continues to be occupied.
    (3) The authority must also take such other steps as they consider appropriate with a view to the proper management of the dwelling pending—

    (a) the making of a final EDMO in respect of the dwelling under section (Making of final EDMOs), or

    (b) the revocation of the interim EDMO.

    (4) If the local housing authority conclude that there are no steps which they could appropriately take under the order for the purpose of securing that the dwelling becomes occupied, the authority must either—

    (a) make a final EDMO in respect of the dwelling under section (Making of final EDMOs), or

    (b) revoke the order under paragraph 7 of Schedule (Further provisions regarding empty dwelling management orders) without taking any further action.

    (5) For the avoidance of doubt, the authority's duty under subsection (3) includes taking such steps as are necessary to ensure that, while the order is in force, reasonable provision is made for insurance of the dwelling against destruction or damage by fire or other causes."
    After Clause 122, insert the following new clause—
    "MAKING OF FINAL EDMOS
    (1) A local housing authority may make a final EDMO to replace an interim EDMO made under section (Making of interim EDMOs) if—

    (a) they consider that, unless a final EDMO is made in respect of the dwelling, the dwelling is likely to become or remain unoccupied;

    (b) where the dwelling is unoccupied, they have taken all such steps as it was appropriate for them to take under the interim EDMO with a view to securing the occupation of the dwelling.

    (2) A local housing authority may make a new final EDMO so as to replace a final EDMO made under this section if—

    (a) they consider that unless a new final EDMO is made in respect of the dwelling, the dwelling is likely to become or remain unoccupied; and

    (b) where the dwelling is unoccupied, they have taken all such steps as it was appropriate for them to take under the existing final EDMO with a view to securing the occupation of the dwelling.

    (3) In deciding whether to make a final EDMO in respect of a dwelling, the authority must take into account—

    (a) the interests of the community, and

    (b) the effect that the order will have on the rights of the relevant proprietor and may have on the rights of third parties.

    (4) Before making a final EDMO under this section. the authority must consider whether compensation should be paid by them to any third party in respect of any interference in consequence of the order with the rights of the third party.
    (5) Part I of Schedule 6 applies in relation to the making of a final EDMO in respect of a dwelling as it applies in relation to the making of a final management order in respect of a house, subject to the following modifications—

    (a) paragraph 7(2) does not apply;

    (b) paragraph 7(4)(c) is to be read as referring instead to the date on which the order is to cease to have effect in accordance with paragraph 1(3) and (4) or 9(3) to (5) of Schedule (Further provisions regarding empty dwelling management orders);

    (c) paragraph 7(6) is to be read as requiring the notice under sub-paragraph (5) also to contain—

    (i) the decision of the authority as to whether to pay compensation to any third party,

    (ii) the amount of any such compensation to be paid, and

    (iii) information about the right of appeal against the decision under paragraph 34 of Schedule (Further provisions regarding empty dwelling management orders);

    (d) paragraph 8(4) is to be read as defining "relevant person" as any person who, to the knowledge of the local housing authority, is a person having an estate or interest in the dwelling (other than a person who is a tenant under a lease or licence granted under paragraph 2(3)(c) or 10(3)(c) of Schedule (Further provisions regarding empty dwelling management orders))."

    After Clause 122, insert the following new clause—
    "LOCAL HOUSING AUTHORITY'S DUTIES ONCE FINAL EDMO IN FORCE
    (1) A local housing authority who have made a final EDMO in respect of a dwelling must comply with the following provisions once the order has come into force (see paragraph 9 of Schedule (Further provisions regarding empty dwelling management orders)).
    (2) The authority must take such steps as they consider appropriate for the purpose of securing that the dwelling is occupied.
    (3) The authority must also take such other steps as they consider appropriate with a view to the proper management of the dwelling in accordance with the management scheme contained in the order (see paragraph 13 of Schedule (Further provisions regarding empty dwelling management orders)).
    (4) The authority must from time to time review—

    (a) the operation of the order and in particular the management scheme contained in it,

    (b) whether, if the dwelling is unoccupied, there are any steps which they could appropriately take under the order for the purpose of securing that the dwelling becomes occupied, and

    (c) whether keeping the order in force in relation to the dwelling (with or without making any variations under paragraph 15 of Schedule (Further provisions regarding empty dwelling management orders)) is necessary to secure that the dwelling becomes or remains occupied.

    (5) If on a review the authority consider that any variations should be made under paragraph 15 of Schedule (Further provisions regarding empty dwelling management orders), they must proceed to make those variations.
    (6) If the dwelling is unoccupied and on a review the authority conclude that either—

    (a) there are no steps which they could appropriately take as mentioned in subsection (4)(b), or

    (b) keeping the order in force is not necessary as mentioned in subsection (4)(c),

    they must proceed to revoke the order.
    (7) For the avoidance of doubt, the authority's duty under subsection (3) includes taking such steps as are necessary to ensure that, while the order is in force, reasonable provision is made for insurance of the dwelling against destruction or damage by fire or other causes."
    After Clause 122, insert the following new clause—
    "COMPENSATION PAYABLE TO THIRD PARTIES
    (1) A third party may, while an interim EDMO is in force in respect of a dwelling, apply to a residential property tribunal for an order requiring the local housing authority to pay to him compensation in respect of any interference in consequence of the order with his rights in respect of the dwelling.
    (2) On such an application, the tribunal may, if it thinks fit, make an order requiring the authority to pay to the third party an amount by way of compensation in respect of any such interference.
    (3) If a third party requests them to do so at any time, the local housing authority must consider whether an amount by way of compensation should be paid to him in respect of any interference in consequence of a final EDMO with his rights.
    (4) The authority must notify the third party of their decision as soon as practicable.
    (5) Where the local housing authority decide under subsection (3) that compensation ought to be paid to a third party, they must vary the management scheme contained in the order so as to specify the amount of the compensation to be paid and to make provision as to its payment."
    On Question, amendments agreed to.
    Lord Davies of Oldham: I beg to move that the House do now resume.
    Moved accordingly, and, on Question, Motion agreed to.
    House resumed.

    Regional Referendums
    4.58 p.m.
    Lord Rooker: My Lords, with the leave of the House, I shall repeat a Statement made in another place by my right honourable friend Nick Raynsford, the Minister for Local and Regional Government. The statement is as follows:
    "With permission, Mr Speaker, I would like to make a Statement to the House on regional and local referendums in the North East, North West and Yorkshire and the Humber. This follows the Statement I made in July, in which I referred to the differences of view in this House about whether we should go ahead with referendums in the North West and Yorkshire and the Humber. I explained the Government's decision to reschedule the referendums in those areas, and confirmed, against a strong confidence in postal-voting—in the northeast, our decision to proceed with the referendum in that region. Members will recall that Parliament approved the orders enabling that referendum to take place.
    "In July, I also gave two assurances to this House. First, I said that the Government would not proceed with the referendum in the North East on the basis proposed if the Electoral Commission produced convincing evidence that it was unsafe to do so.
    "Secondly, I said that, with your permission Mr Speaker, I would make a further statement in September on how we intended to proceed with the referendums in the North West and Yorkshire and the Humber having had the opportunity to consider the Electoral Commission's evaluation report of the June electoral pilots. Today's Statement follows on from those two assurances.
    "Regarding the commission's report and statement, the Electoral Commission published its report on 27 August. In parallel it published a statement setting out its view of the implications of its report for the regional and local referendums in the North East.
    "The report concludes that successful elections were delivered in the four pilot regions. The commission states that to date it is not aware of any evidence to suggest any widespread abuse of postal voting either within or beyond the pilot regions. Moreover, from an extensive public opinion survey, the commission found that people in the pilot regions were satisfied with all-postal voting by a margin of two to one—59 per cent against 29 per cent.
    "Nevertheless, the commission concludes that the all-postal pilots raise a number of important issues that need to be addressed for the future development of voting methods in Britain. It makes a range of recommendations designed to make voting more convenient, to increase the administrative capacity to run elections, and to build greater public confidence in voting arrangements.
    934
    "Above all, the commission identifies in its report the strong public support for electors to have choice as to how to vote—a demand for choice that the commission is clear that all-postal voting does not meet. Accordingly, it has withdrawn its previous recommendation that all-postal voting should become the norm in local government elections.
    "In its place the commission proposes a basis for future multi-channel elections to develop a new foundation model of voting. The commission undertakes to work with government, electoral administrators, political parties, and experts in access and security to design this new approach to voting which must be capable of offering electors both choice and security.
    "It is against that background of findings and recommendations that the commission has drawn up its statement about the conduct of regional and local referendums.
    "As regards the North East referendum, which this House has approved for 4 November, the commission has unambiguously concluded that this referendum should proceed as an all-postal ballot without changes to the process. Central to the commission reaching this conclusion is its recognition that the referendum process is already under way, and its judgment that there would be far greater risk to the process if significant changes were to be made now than if the referendum were to continue as planned.
    "The commission recognises that the system for the North East referendum is an improvement over that piloted in June, particularly as there is no requirement for a witness to sign a security statement and because we have required considerably more assistance and delivery points, at which voters can receive help and vote in privacy. The commission also recognises that there have been no allegations of fraud in the North East, there is extensive experience of all-postal voting in that region and there is greater public support for all-postal voting than in any other region.
    "Accordingly, the commission also explicitly states that it is not making any recommendations for change to the orders already made in relation to the conduct of the North East referendums. The commission undertakes to work with the chief counting officer and government to encourage and promote good practice within the framework of the existing order.
    "There are therefore no grounds for not proceeding with the North East referendum. It will go ahead as planned on 4 November. We as Government welcome the commission undertaking to work with others to encourage and promote good practice, and we stand ready to play our part.
    "I turn now to the referendums in the North West and Yorkshire and the Humber.
    "In its statement the commission states that given the recommendations in its evaluation report, it could not support any future referendums on the all-postal basis now being used for the North East.

    935
    "We welcome the commission's commitment to multi-channel elections—the form of elections that has consistently been the long-term aim of the Government's electoral modernisation strategy. We are ready to work with the commission on developing its proposed new foundation model of voting and we will be discussing further with it how that will he taken forward. We hope that all key stakeholders will join us. We share the commission's belief as to the importance of securing a degree of public and political consensus for significant changes to the electoral process before moving forward. And we note that the commission aims to report on the new model in March 2005.
    "Against this background it would be wrong now to reach final conclusions on the precise timing and form of the referendums in the North West and Yorkshire and the Humber. Over the coming months, we and others will want to see how work progresses on the new foundation model, and to consider and analyse more deeply the full range of the commission's recommendations. We will then be better placed to take final decisions about the form and timing of these referendums.
    "I would, however, reiterate what I said in July. The Government are absolutely committed to these referendums going ahead.
    "It is important that the people of the North West and Yorkshire and the Humber should have their opportunity to express their view for or against an elected regional assembly and the associated local government reorganisation. I understand the concerns that have been voiced about delay leading to uncertainty about the future structure of local government in Cheshire, Cumbria, Lancashire and North Yorkshire.
    "We recognise that concern and we take it very seriously. But we want to make sure that the referendums are held against a background of confidence in the voting system. We will of course aim to minimise the delay. In all events, given the need for primary legislation following a 'yes' vote in one referendum to allow elected regional assemblies to be established and the associated local government reorganisation to take place, there is no reason why this revised timetable for the referendums should cause significant delay to the overall local government reorganisation timetable.
    "The extensive electoral pilots last June have much to teach us all. Already they have led the commission to revise some of its key conclusions about all-postal voting which it drew from earlier smaller pilots. But the way is now clear for the people of the North East to make their choice on an elected regional assembly for their region. And the people of the North West and Yorkshire and the Humber can be confident that they too will be able to exercise their choice before too long".
    My Lords, that concludes the Statement.
    5.6 p.m.
    Baroness Hanham: My Lords, the Minister must find himself in a state of embarrassment, having to bring this Statement which was given in the other place by his right honourable friend Nick Raynsford. First, in July, the Government had to admit that they could not carry out referenda in the North West and Yorkshire and Humberside, in November. Now, they are saying that they intend to put those off indefinitely.
    Of course that really comes as no surprise, as it has become increasingly clear that there is little appetite for changes to government in those areas, and should the referenda be pursued, the Government are certainly not going to win. The Deputy Prime Minister, of course, would not want to lose face in his own area on his own flagship policy. However, could the Minister tell us how much this frolic has cost in terms of government information already put out, preparatory work already done and the cost of each ministerial visit—of which there have been many—and public consultation prior to the announcement of the deferment on 22 July?
    The Government point to the words of the Electoral Commission—words which I quoted to the Minister last Tuesday, but of which he did not appear then to be aware—that one of its key recommendations was that,
    "there should be no further all-postal votes undertaken in the United Kingdom".
    The commission did suggest a further examination of voting systems other than all-postal, but is the Minister really saying that even an organisation so adept and independent as the commission is going to be able to undertake an in-depth consideration of the value of all the other methods of voting, controversial as some of those will be, carry out the necessary consultation and be in a position to make recommendations by March of next year? Would any recommendations then made be expected to play in to both the untimed referenda as well as a general election?
    The Government have got themselves impaled on an extremely sharp hook by insisting on "messing about" with the voting system, which they have now done systematically for a number of years.
    Will the Minister tell the House how he expects Parliament to consider any report of the commission on these matters in a timescale that is commensurate with good organisation—particularly in view of the fact that neither this House nor the other place has yet had an opportunity to discuss the Electoral Commission's report and/or the draft Bill on powers and responsibilities of regional government in time for it to effect the one remaining referendum in the North East?
    Actually, this is a matter of at least as much significance as the decision on the ballot. There has been no parliamentary scrutiny of the commission's report or the draft Bill. In that regard, the Minister may be interested to recall the words of his noble friend Lady Symons of Vernham Dean when she was responding to the debate on the Constitution for

    937
    Europe (Referendum) Bill on 10 September. She said (at col. 851 of the Official Report on 10 September) that,
    "a referendum held before Parliament, the cornerstone and very hallmark of our democracy, has had the chance to scrutinise the"—
    in her case she was talking about the treaty but in our case we are talking about the Electoral Commission report and the draft Bill—was an "extraordinary proposition". Indeed it is and it is apt to the matter about which I have just spoken. Perhaps the noble Lord can give us an indication of when such a debate might take place.
    The Government make much of the fact that the Electoral Commission gave the go-ahead for the North East referendum to take place with all-postal voting, but that, of course, is because Parliament had already been bounced into the decision before the recess—at that stage, before it knew what the Electoral Commission's views would be and, since then, plans have been underway. However, having set up the Electoral Commission to advise them on the pilots, was it not absurd that they took that decision before receiving the commission's report? Had they not done so, it might also have been possible for the North East venture to have been conducted according to a more normal voting system, whether or not the returning officers and others were prepared to carry out the all-postal ballot again.
    The Minister assured the House last Tuesday—the Statement does so again today—that there will be considerably more assistance and delivery points in the North East referendum election. But, as was pointed out last week, the population of the county of Northumberland is scattered, and unless each village and town is assured of several such points, it means that people will still be hampered if they wish to deliver their votes personally.
    This whole regional government policy, as we have said so often, is a mess. It is a policy which is not even widely supported in the regions concerned and one that pretends to be about local government but is nothing to do with local government reorganisation. The Statement underlines that situation.
    The Minister concluded by saying that the extensive electoral pilots last June have much to teach us all. And so say all of us—they have been a disaster.
    5.12 p.m.
    Baroness Hamwee: My Lords, I was going to say that I, too, thank the Minister for repeating the Statement, but I am not sure whether thanks have yet been given. Normally when the Opposition rise on these occasions, they remind me that I must say thank you as well.
    However, I am not sure how much further forward the Statement takes us. That may be because the Electoral Commission made its report when Parliament was in recess and there has been a certain amount of discussion of the issue in the media. Nevertheless, of course one must welcome the information.
    938
    First, I put on record that we on these Benches are delighted that the Electoral Commission has rejected all-postal voting for local elections. The Statement refers to public confidence. I have to say that in my mind public confidence is not satisfied by references only to fraud which leads to successful prosecution. Although I have not read the whole Electoral Commission report, by definition it is the case that there are more allegations of fraud, thus undermining public confidence, than there are successful prosecutions or prosecutions at all. To take one point, we all know the difficulty of persuading witnesses to testify.
    The report refers to the demand for choice. I support that, but it also refers to developing a new foundation model of voting. I have to say that I am not persuaded by the jargon. I would be more persuaded if the new foundation model looked at matters from the point of view of the voter and considered all the issues thrown up in the experience of voters and, no doubt, in the experience of many of your Lordships who have played a part in recent elections. I refer to matters such as considering the timing of the various steps taken in the electoral process so that, for example, ballot papers do not arrive before official information about the election in question, and being clear to the voter about the fact that a postal ballot can be delivered on the day of the election. I am sure we all know of voters who were disenfranchised because they did not understand that kind of issue.
    As regards the referendum in the North East, we welcome the fact that that is to go ahead in order to give residents there the chance to make their own decision. We have said that consistently throughout this debate. But I support what the noble Baroness said about assistance and delivery points. Much of the North East is rural and very sparsely populated, including, to my surprise, as I found out about 10 days ago, parts of Hartlepool—very nice it is too.
    I urge the Government not to get themselves into a situation in the North East in which decisions are taken too quickly and on the hoof. The kind of muddle that that creates for everyone is not fair to the chief counting officer, to the staff, to party activists and, most of all, to voters.
    As regards the other referendums, the Statement ends by saying that people in the North West, Yorkshire and the Humber can be confident that they will be able to exercise their choice "before too long". Is that the same kind of language as "shortly" and "in due course" and so is not capable of very clear definition? If it is capable of clear definition, the Committee will be grateful to hear it.
    I must express some concern that the timing of the referendums appears to be wrapped up with the project of expanding methods of voting. They are different issues. I simply cannot see that sensible work can be concluded by next March. But I thank the Minister for repeating the Statement.
    5.18 p.m.
    Lord Rooker: My Lords, I am the least embarrassed Minister one could ever imagine. I am also probably the least politically correct one. I am not at all

    939
    embarrassed, and nor was I embarrassed last week when I answered the noble Baroness's question. I do not have it in front of me but it was in the following terms: "In the light of the Electoral Commission's report, why are the Government holding the referendum in the North East?" My answer, which I rewrote myself as opposed to using what was presented to me, was that it was in the light of the Electoral Commission's report that we were proceeding in the North East because that was what the report said. The fact that it said, "Don't do it at any other time", was not an issue so far as concerned the North East. I read the full report and made it quite clear what the factors were.
    The noble Baroness asked me about money. I have various figures but, in terms of the information campaign, I think that originally £5 million was set aside for the three regions. The current estimate of the main components of that is up to £3.2 million. That is in relation to the "Have Your Say" information campaign, which I think was being run. Obviously there is nothing happening in the other two regions and I understand that, in any case, that campaign has now finished.
    So far as concerns Parliament, we published the draft Bill. The Select Committee in another place said that it would have a look at that. The implication is that, in due course, the Government will bring forward a Bill, subject to there being a "yes" vote. I am not a business manager but no one has said to me that we should put aside government time to debate the draft Bill when in due course there will be government time for debating the full Bill. The draft Bill is there for everyone, outside and inside, to see what we have said in relation to the powers. So far as concerns a debate on the report of the Electoral Commission, that is a matter for the usual channels and it is not for me to speculate.
    This is a fairly long Statement but—I have to be careful what I say here—it did not say a great deal that was new. The one point that is new is that the Electoral Commission will look at a new model for voting and will report by March next year. That is the new bit of the Statement. That is the news for today. We made the commitment in July simply because of the hiatus in local government reorganisation. Those two areas—the four counties—needed to know. They all know now what was going to be on offer in terms of the options. However, that will no longer be done because there will be no referendum. That can cause problems in terms of recruitment, training and decisions to be made. We fully understand that. Therefore, we do not want any undue delay.
    There are some important dates about which I have been reminded. I do not know whether my colleague, Nick Raynsford, referred to them in the other place, but 16 June 2005 is important in the chronology in terms of what happens when. There are no secrets about this. Everything is in the legislation; that is, the Regional Assemblies (Preparations) Act and referendum orders. There is a series of things to be done after the original
    940
    soundings and process started, and a period by which it has to be completed; otherwise we shall have to start again.
    March 2005 is reasonable; it is six months away. The general election is in 2006, so the law says, or certainly by 2006. I do not know what will happen in spring next year but the Government are very supportive of the Electoral Commission. We are encouraging people to work with it and with our partners in the political parties in arriving at this new model for voting procedures, which will enable us to give a settled view and, hopefully, the opportunity to keep the commitment to people in those two regions that they will have their referendums before not too long.
    5.22 p.m.
    Lord Waddington: My Lords, is it not the case that while this debate about referendums for regional assemblies grinds on, the Government stealthily and without any democratic mandate continue to expand regional government on the ground, hoping, no doubt, that eventually they will be able to say that whatever public opinion says now, the time will come when they will be able to say with great force, "Now these bodies have all these powers, is it not really quite wrong that they should not be democratically accountable?" Where is the evidence that any public benefit will flow from the draining away of power from existing organs of government to these new assemblies? Is it not the case that Mr Prescott seriously thinks that these new regional bodies will be more pliant and more willing to do his bidding so far as planning is concerned than existing local authorities? That is at the back of this.
    Lord Rooker: My Lords, that is not at the back of this, and I wholly reject what the noble Lord, Lord Waddington, said. The Government are clearly making use of the government offices and regions that we inherited from the previous Conservative government. It is true that we are changing functions and structures to deliver some of the issues on a regional basis. That has nothing to do with whether there are elected or unelected regional assemblies. As I said, the regional assemblies are there; they are all unelected at present.
    Lord Greaves: My Lords, as people will know, I live in the North West and I should declare that I was elected a councillor with my biggest ever majority under the Government's all-postal vote pilots. I also have to report that the whole thing was a shambles. If we get to debate this properly at any time I will be able to tell noble Lords many things about what went on. One fellow who was sat in the sun in Nelson town centre filling in ballot papers for all his family was a well known lifelong Labour supporter. One of our people went up to him and said, "This is how the Labour Party win elections, is it?" He said, "We've had a family meeting. It's all right. We've all decided to vote Liberal Democrat this year". It was a shambles. I am very pleased to say that he was not a voter in my ward.

    941
    The Minister said that the date of March 2005 was the new information in the Statement. However, the Electoral Commission announced that in its report on postal pilots. Is the Minister saying that the Government will do something additional by March 2005 or will it simply be the Electoral Commission?
    If the Government are so keen on having these referendums in Yorkshire, the Humber and the North West, why do they not just hold them? Is it that they think that people are so uninterested in this whole project that none of them will bother to go to the polling station?
    Lord Rooker: My Lords, no. As I said, the reason for the Statement made in both Houses today is to keep a commitment that was made in July that we would come back in the short September Session to make a Statement that would be relevant particularly to those areas where there is "local government blight", if I can put it that way. Clearly, there is local government blight in those four counties and they needed to have a further Statement of the Government's view. The Government will give their views on the Electoral Commission's report in due course. We have not yet done that.
    Baroness O'Cathain: My Lords, referring to what was said by my noble friend Lady Hanham, the Electoral Commission did not give wholehearted support for the North East referendum. It prefaced its comments by saying that it would go for it because the process was already underway.
    The Electoral Commission said that it could not support the referendums for the North West, Yorkshire and Humberside and that it would further discuss the issues. However, apparently the referendums will go ahead, if there is a degree of public consensus of support, by March 2005. I did not have the Statement with me so I had to take down what was said. How will that public consensus of support be measured? What does "degree of support" mean? Does it mean if 10 per cent say "yes" or 60 per cent say "yes"? The Statement said that the Government are confident that people will be able to exercise their choice before too long in these three regions. Does that mean irrespective of what degree of support there is?
    Lord Rooker: My Lords, no. I said that the Electoral Commission stated that it will report by 2005 on this new model and then we will assess how the referendums will take place in the two regions. The issue of the referendums taking place is a settled view. Soundings were taken and statements were made to Parliament for the three regions. It was assessed that there was sufficient support for referendums to take place in the three regions, with two regions not doing that. It is still valid to proceed with the referendum up to a certain date based on the soundings that were taken originally. That is the point I made. No one said that the referendums will take place in March 2005.
    942
    If it was the case that it is said that the referendums were already underway and that is the reason we are proceeding with the North East, they were already underway in the other two regions in exactly the same way. So, I do not rest my case on that. I rest my case on the words of the Electoral Commission report—it is a brief report on the website; a couple of pages of A4—which made it quite clear that it has the confidence in the North East to proceed on the present basis on a series of factors. One was that it was already underway but that could not be the only one because it was underway in the other two regions and we are pulling the plug on the other two. For all the reasons we gave—more experience, more support, no knowledge of any fraud or anything like that—it was confident. So, it was not the case that the Electoral Commission said, "Do it in the north-east because it is a fait accompli; Parliament has already approved it". We had already approved it for the other two but we were not proceeding on that basis.
    Lord Hanningfield: My Lords, the Minister referred to the blight on the counties and accepted that there was blight. However, the Minister did not mention the fact that there are county council elections in those four counties on the first Thursday in May. That is very important indeed. The campaign is getting underway for those elections. People are already selecting candidates. I have the same doubts as the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, about this foundation model and it being in place by May. There could well be a general election at some stage next year. There are rumours that it could well be on the same day as the county council elections in May. Perhaps the Minister will comment on what is going to happen with the county council elections. With the confusion in those four counties, how can they proceed with county council elections at the beginning of May?
    Lord Rooker: My Lords, I must read the sentence from the Statement that I read out earlier.
    "And we note"—
    "we" being the Government—
    "the Commission aim to report on the new model in March 2005".
    The Commission is going to report on the new model in March 2005. Nothing will be in place and nothing says about it being in place. As far as I am aware—and I think it is quite spurious to raise these doubts—nothing is going to interfere with the county council elections on 5 May, which I think is the first Thursday in May, of next year.
    Lord Brooke of Sutton Mandeville: My Lords, did the Minister, in kindly reading out the Statement made in another place by Mr Raynsford, re-read the answers given by the noble Lord, Lord Filkin, on more than one occasion expressing confidence in the arrangements which we were going to be exploring during the pilot schemes? It is against the background to those exchanges and the confidence of the noble Lord, Lord Filkin, which turns out to have been mildly misplaced, that I have three questions about the period between now and March.

    943
    First, has any research been carried out in this country into why there is a reluctance among other western European countries to have postal voting on demand?
    Secondly, while all the electoral pilot schemes appear to have been monitored so far by administrators, would there be virtue in also having an independent element in any future testing?
    Finally, with the extension of postal voting, and in the light of recent events, do the Government think that Section 115 of the Representation of the People Act 1983, which relates to undue influence, will need re-writing?
    Lord Rooker: My Lords, they are fascinating questions. On the initial point of the noble Lord, Lord Brooke, about my noble friend Lord Filkin, no, I have not gone back and done that. If one looks at the dates, I suspect that the Government took a decision the day before I made the first Statement in this House, which I think was the morning of Thursday, 22 July, following the debates in the House of Commons 48 hours beforehand, which of course superseded the answers my noble friend had given about other matters.
    In other words, we proved we were the ultimate listening government by listening to what the House of Commons, the elected Chamber, said about the referendums in the two areas. We made the decision on the night, having listened to the House of Commons, which is why I then came to this House to make the Statement.
    I do not know anything about research on the reluctance of others. I would be interested in research on why we are not able to export our wonderful firstpast-the-post electoral system to anybody. We have not exported it to South Africa or to any of the former Communist states because in some ways it is a discredited system. I say that personally; that is not the Government's view, of course. The fact is that every voting system this Government have introduced since 1997 has been a proportional voting system. To that extent, I think the Government have been a very good government.
    I do not think that we have ever looked at the issue of independent testing in pilot schemes. I have no doubt that the Electoral Commission, when thinking about these things and the Government's response to its report about all postal voting elections, will probably look at Section 115 of the Representation of the People Act.
    Baroness Carnegy of Lour: My Lords, I have listened to this interchange with great interest. Of course we are all very concerned about low turnouts in elections. I think that we all understand why the Government have paid so much attention to electoral systems, but I suggest to the Minister that perhaps the Government should now be looking elsewhere in relation to this problem.
    The Survey of public attitudes towards conduct in public life, which has just been published by the Committee on Standards in Public Life, reveals that of
    944
    1,097 people consulted, only 24 per cent reckon that they trust government Ministers to be telling the truth and only 27 per cent trust MPs. It is interesting that 41 per cent an improved figure but still very low—trust their local councillor, whom many people know.
    Perhaps the public's perception of government Ministers, MPs and councillors is the cause of the trouble on low turnout and the Government should look at that before they proceed too far in fiddling about with voting systems in the hope that they will improve turnout. The situation is very worrying. It is part of the cynicism in this country about political processes. It is much the most worrying thing that we should all be thinking about in relation to democracy.
    Perhaps the Government will look very carefully at the public's perception of Ministers, MPs and local councillors and whether there is something here to consider that is even more important than voting systems.
    Lord Rooker: My Lords, the noble Baroness has raised important points. I was going to refer to that report later on the Housing Bill when discussing the issue relating to estate agents, because that is the one body that figures lower than government Ministers in terms of the public's trust. I do not think they are all crooks and all tell lies. I would say that about others in public life.
    However, the noble Baroness has raised important points about the lack of turnout issue. The turnout at the last election was 59 per cent, which is an incredibly low turnout in a modern, mature and allegedly alert democracy. But, if people think that their vote does not count, they are less likely to use it. Turnout is higher in continental Europe where they do not use our voting system.
    Lord Dixon-Smith: My Lords, are not the Government wriggling in a cage of their own making? It seems to me that the people of the North East now have a great opportunity and a great responsibility. Not only are they going to be voting for what might or might not happen in their own regions, but if they take the trouble to reject the regional assembly proposals, then at the same time they would create the opportunity to remove the blight which the Government have placed on local government in the whole of the north of the country, by expressing a definite opinion that they do not like it.
    Of course it remains to be seen whether that is what will happen, but if the North East rejects the regional assembly proposals it would be interesting to know what the Government's view will be on the other two regions where they have putative referendums to come in the future. It seems to me that they would be wise to withdraw the whole lot.
    Lord Rooker: My Lords, I would be extremely unwise to comment on that question. It is the choice of the people of the North East in the referendum to vote the way they want. It would be quite wrong for government Ministers to speculate on what might happen, whatever the choice was, on the turnout, the

    945
    differential between "yes" and "no" votes or "no" and "yes" votes, or whatever. It would be wholly wrong for me to go into that.

    Housing Bill
    5.38 p.m.
    House again in Committee
    Clause 123 [Service of overcrowding notices]:
    Lord Rooker moved Amendment No. 171H:
    Page 88, line 34, leave out "section" and insert "Chapter".
    On Question, amendment agreed to.
    Baroness Hanham Baroness Hanham moved Amendment No. 172:
    Page 89, line 22, at end insert—
    "(10) In deciding whether or not to serve an overcrowding notice, the Authority shall have regard to the prescribed standards referred to in section 64(2)."
    The noble Baroness said: Clause 123 allows for the service of an overcrowding notice where a house in multiple occupation is considered to be overcrowded. The clause will apply only to houses in multiple occupation that do not require a licence because the licensed HMOs will be dealt with under licensing procedure. Under Clause 64 the local housing authority cannot be satisfied that a house which requires an HMO licence is reasonably suitable for occupation by a particular number of households or persons unless it meets the prescribed standards laid down by the national authority. This means that there will be national guidance for local authorities with regard to overcrowding for licensed HMOs. There is, however, no provision, as far as we can see, under Clause 123 for there to be any such guidance. This would lead to different standards being applied between licensed HMOs and those that do not require a licence. The purpose of Amendment No. 172 is therefore to require the authority, in deciding whether to serve an overcrowding notice, at least to consider the same guidance as applies to licensed HMOs. This would give them a yardstick by which their actions should be judged. The amendment would require the local authority only to consider the guidelines. It does not require them to follow them, if there is a good reason for them not to do so. The amendment would result in consistency of treatment for all types of HMOs when dealing with overcrowding issues. I beg to move.
    Baroness Hamwee: I am again asking a question about definitions and pointers. I readily admit that it may be that I have simply missed the point. Clause 123 is about an "excessive" number of persons being accommodated. The term is also used in Clause 124. Is that "excessive" as in Clause 125, where it is not defined but is dealt with? Or is there a definition somewhere else, which I have failed to pick up? Or is it one of those things that one recognises when one sees it, without a definition?
    Lord Rooker: Clause 123, as the noble Baronesses have said, is concerned with the service of
    946
    overcrowding notices in respect of houses in multi-occupation. I understand that there has been some concern that local authorities apply different standards for room sizes and it is felt that there would be more certainty if there were a set of national standards. We have no plans to introduce national standards at the moment. We intend to consult on these provisions, as well as on the overcrowding provisions in Part 10 of the Housing Act 1985, including whether there is a need to retain the current house in multi-occupation specific provisions that are contained in the Bill under which local standards have been set. Clause 187 enables the appropriate national authority to amend or modify the house in multi-occupation specific provisions in this part by order.
    The noble Baroness's amendment provides that in deciding whether a house in multi-occupation is overcrowded, the local authority must have regard to minimum standards that are prescribed for licensing purposes. The overcrowding provisions in this part apply only to unlicensed houses in multi-occupation since the licensing regime itself deals with overcrowding and space standards. This amendment would result in further regulation of the HMO sector—which is probably not its aim—since, in determining whether a non-licensed house in multi-occupation is overcrowded, regard would need to be had of the number and quality of shared bathrooms, toilets, kitchens and other facilities. As currently drafted, the only factor of which local housing authorities can take account in determining whether a house in multi-occupation is overcrowded under Section 124 is whether there are enough rooms, vis-à-vis the number of people living in the property.
    We think that the effect of this amendment, which greatly enhances the local authority's power to serve overcrowding notices in respect of non-licensed HMOs and therefore limit the permitted number of occupants, would be to introduce a shadow licensing regime for the whole of the house in multi-occupation sector that is not officially licensed.
    On the question of whether there is a definition of an excessive numbers of persons in Clause 123(2), as dealt with in Clause 125, the local authority decides what is excessive in its view, taking account of Clause 125. The residential property tribunal will decide on appeal. if there is a dispute about it.
    Baroness Hanham: I thank the Minister for that reply, but I am slightly baffled by it because he said that it would bring more houses in multiple occupation into a licensing system. But the whole of Clause 123 is about the service of overcrowding notices. It is a clause that applies to any house in multiple occupation: not just to licensed HMOs or to unlicensed HMOs, but to any HMO. If it applies to any HMO then, by definition, it will bring it under some sort of statutory control and it is relevant to this part of the Bill and the previous part.
    I do not understand the Minister's reply because our amendment suggests that, as overcrowding is stated in the Bill to be a problem and local authorities are able to take action, they should have regard to the prescribed standards rather than having to implement

    947
    them. It would bring some consistency. Perhaps the Minister might like to come back on why, when there is a clause that encompasses all the HMOs, it should become a problem when one tries to steer it towards a prescribed standard.
    Lord Rooker: My mental answer just then was "No". I did not want to come back because I do not have an answer. Clause 123(1)(b) specifically refers to houses in multi-occupation not required to be licensed. To that extent, the noble Baroness is incorrect. I shall be happy to drop her a note on this matter.
    Baroness Hanham: I would be grateful to the Minister if he would do so because the whole clause is headed "Service of overcrowding notices". If it relates to HMOs that are not licensed, which is what we are talking about, we say that there should be regard to the standards that already exist. I thank the Minister for his reply. We may return to this, depending on his response by letter, if he is able to let me have it before the next stage. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
    Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
    Clause 123, as amended, agreed to.
    Clauses 124 to 126 agreed to.
    5.45 p.m.
    Clause 127 [Appeals against overcrowding notices]:
    Baroness Hanham Baroness Hanham moved Amendment No. 173:
    Page 91, line 7, at end insert—
    "(6) A residential property tribunal may allow an appeal to be made to it after the end of the period mentioned in subsection (1) if it is satisfied that there is good reason for the failure to appeal before the end of that period (and for any delay since then in applying for permission to appeal out of time)."
    The noble Baroness said: Strangely, my Amendment No. 173 is not grouped with the other amendments. Amendment No. 173C, which is a government amendment, does exactly what our Amendment No. 173 would do, which is to extend the period before an appeal to the residential property tribunal is out of time. If that is correct, I welcome it. I think we have got into a muddle about the grouping. I beg to move.
    Lord Rooker: There should not be any muddle. I shall not go back through loads of notes now. So far as Amendment No. 173 is concerned, the Government support it and I recommend it to the House.
    On Question, amendment agreed to.
    Clause 127, as amended, agreed to.
    Clause 128 [Revocation and variation of overcrowding notices]:
    Lord Rooker Lord Rooker moved Amendment No. 173A:
    Page 91, line 19, at end insert—
    "(2A) An appeal under subsection (2) must be made within—

    (a) the period of 21 days beginning with the date when the applicant is notified by the authority of their decision to refuse the application, or

    948

    (b) the period of 21 days immediately following the end of the period (or further period) applying for the purposes of paragraph (b) of that subsection,

    as the case may be."
    The noble Lord said: Clause 128 concerns the revocation and variation of overcrowding notices. A person whose request to have a notice revoked is refused or not promptly dealt with has a right of appeal to the residential property tribunal. The amendments tidy up the appeals procedure by requiring appeals to be made within 21 days, unless the tribunal gives permission for late appeals. I beg to move.
    On Question, amendment agreed to.
    Lord Rooker Lord Rooker moved Amendments Nos. 173B and 173C:
    Page 91, line 23, at end insert—
    "( ) A residential property tribunal may allow an appeal to be made to it after the end of the 21-day period mentioned in subsection (2A)(a) or (b) if it is satisfied that there is good reason for the failure to appeal before the end of that period (and for any delay since then in applying for permission to appeal)."
    Page 91, line 24, leave out subsection (5) and insert—
    "(5) In this section "relevant person" means—

    (a) any person who has an estate or interest in the HMO concerned, or

    (b) any other person who is a person managing or having control of it."

    On Question, amendments agreed to.
    Clause 128, as amended, agreed to.
    [Amendment No. 174 not moved.]
    Baroness Maddock Baroness Maddock moved Amendment No. 174ZA:
    After Clause 128, insert the following new clause—
    "INFORMATION TO BE PROVIDED TO OCCUPIERS
    (1) The local authority shall from time to time take reasonable steps to make those occupying residential accommodation aware of their duties and powers under Parts 2, 3 and 4.
    (2) The local authority shall publish a summary of their duties and powers under Parts 2, 3 and 4 which shall include—

    (a) an explanation of the classes of persons or properties subject to the licensing duties set out in Parts 2 and 3 within the authority's district,

    (b) an explanation of the duties and obligations imposed on those who are licensed, and

    (c) an explanation of the circumstances in which the local authority might exercise its powers under Part 4.

    (3) The local authority shall make the summary available for inspection at their principle office and shall provide a copy free of charge to any member of the public who asks for one."
    The noble Baroness said: I apologise for the lateness of this amendment. The Bill gives a number of duties to local authorities to enable them to licence houses in multiple occupation. The purpose of all those duties is to promote the health, safety and general welfare of occupiers and potential occupiers of houses in multiple occupation and other residential accommodation. In enforcing the various schemes, local authorities are required to notify and to hear representations from those who might have to comply with any licence or order imposed in respect of a particular property. Although occupiers are given some limited information—for instance, when the authority takes over the management

    949
    of a property in pursuance of an interim or final management order—there is no requirement that residents be made aware that there is a duty on the landlord to be licensed or that the landlord may be subject to general or specific conditions if he wishes to retain his licence or avoid a management order or overcrowding notice, which we have just been discussing.
    Given the limited resources of local authorities, which we have discussed as the Bill has progressed, it is important that the obvious and natural ally in the introduction and policing of the above schemes—the occupants of residential accommodation—are made aware of the obligations imposed on landlords by those schemes. Equally, those most likely to know whether their welfare is being affected are the occupants themselves. At present, nothing in the Bill requires local authorities to educate occupiers about the powers available under the Bill. That is the purpose of the amendment.
    In the absence of any information being given to occupiers, the likelihood of any real benefit to occupiers is diminished, as is their ability to participate in the process. That is detrimental if we are trying to help local authorities to roll out the programme, which we all agree is a good idea. We should make sure that there is some publication and some way of communicating with residents. I beg to move.
    Lord Rooker: The amendment proposes that local authorities should provide information about their powers and duties to residents of properties affected by the powers. Although we accept and agree with the points made by the noble Baroness and the way in which she has raised them, we do not think that the amendment is necessary.
    There are provisions in the Bill as drafted that will alert occupiers to proposals for or the existence of such schemes. There are requirements to consult about the making of licensing schemes and to publicise them when they are made. Moreover, the Bill provides general duties on authorities to secure the effective implementation of licensing schemes. The powers and duties under Parts 2, 3 and 4 will be identical for every local housing authority, so we do not think that it is such a good idea to impose a separate duty on each authority to summarise the legislation.
    If it will help, I can assure the noble Baroness that the Government fully intend to promote licensing and that that will include the publication of leaflets advising both landlords and occupiers of the licensing regime. Those will be distributed nationally and should be widely available free of charge from local offices, libraries, housing advice centres, citizens advice bureaux and other agencies. I hope that that will meet the general thrust of the points made by the noble Baroness which, as I said, we take on board.
    Baroness Maddock: I thank the Minister for that reply and will look carefully at the more detailed parts of his answer. In the mean time, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
    Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
    Clause 129 [Index of defined expressions: Part 4]:
    Lord Rooker Lord Rooker moved Amendments Nos. 174A to 174D:
    Page 91, line 33, at end insert—

    "Dwelling

    Section (Empty dwelling management orders: introductory)(4)(a) and (b)

    Final EDMO

    Section (Empty dwelling management orders: introductory)(1)(b)"

    Page 92, line 2, at end insert—

    "Interim EDMO

    Section (Empty dwelling management orders: introductory)(1)(a)"

    Page 92, line 15, at end insert—

    "Relevant proprietor

    Section (Empty dwelling management orders: introductory)(4)(c) and (5)

    Rent or other payments (in Chapter 2)

    Section (Empty dwelling management orders: introductory)(4)(e)"

    Page 92, line 17, at end insert—

    Third party

    Section (Empty dwelling management orders: introductory)(4)(d)."

    On Question, amendments agreed to.
    Clause 129, as amended, agreed to.
    Baroness Hanham moved Amendment No. 175:
    After Clause 129, insert the following new clause—
    "POWER TO REQUIRE EXECUTION OF WORKS TO REMEDY NEGLECT OF MANAGEMENT
    (1) If in the opinion of the local housing authority the condition of a house is defective in consequence of neglect to comply with the requirements imposed by regulations under section 198, the authority may serve on the person having control of the house, or the person managing the house, a notice specifying the works which, in the opinion of the authority, are required to make good the neglect.
    (2) The notice shall require the person on whom it is served to execute the works specified in the notice.
    (3) A person commits an offence if he fails to comply with a notice under this section.
    (4) In proceedings against a person for an offence under subsection (3), it is a defence that he had a reasonable excuse for not complying with the notice.
    (5) A person who commits an offence under subsection (3) is liable on summary conviction to a fine not exceeding level 5 on the standard scale.
    (6) The provisions of Part 3 of Schedule 1 shall apply to a notice served under this section as if it were an improvement notice (omitting paragraphs 12, 13, 17 and 18)."
    The noble Baroness said: The Committee will be aware that the management regulations are a detailed set of regulations dealing with the day-to-day running of all houses in multiple occupation, not just licensed HMOs. The regulations are prescribed by central government. Currently, the regulations deal with issues such as cleaning, maintenance, testing fire alarms, ensuring that banisters, stair carpets and floor coverings are safe, boundary walls are kept in repair, letterboxes work properly, gardens are maintained and that the manager displays details of his name and address. That is just a brief summary; there are other

    951
    provisions. The Government will be redrafting the management regulations, but the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister has said that they will continue to cover essentially the same ground.
    Under the Bill, any breach would be a criminal offence. Breaches could be trivial, such as having a broken letterbox or unkempt garden. The current management regulations provide for criminal prosecution in the event of a breach but also allow for the service of a works notice where work is required to remedy a breach. Current government circular advice advises local authorities normally to resort in the first instance to service of a works notice rather than instituting criminal proceedings in the event of a breach. Experience in Leeds has shown that that is what the authority does, save in the most serious cases. Landlords are concerned about the extent to which the criminal law is being relied on in the Bill to deal with breaches.
    The proposal contained in the new clause would retain the existing alternative of serving a notice in the event of breach. Failure to comply with the notice would be a criminal offence. The notice procedure provides a half way house, so that one does not have to resort immediately to criminal proceedings.
    The Government have rejected that suggestion because they want local authorities to rely on the HHSRs to carry out a risk assessment under that system in the event of a breach. That approach fails to take into account the detailed nature of the management regulations. The failure to clean up a room in a property or mend the letterbox, although a breach of the management regulations, is unlikely to attract a score at all under the HHSR system. Furthermore, it is really a waste of resources for an environmental health officer to go to the lengthy and detailed procedures envisaged under the guidance to deal with minor matters. Prosecution is a sledgehammer to crack a nut.
    A simple notice procedure to deal with such small breaches is a useful method in the local authority's enforcement armoury and will also save costs. I beg to move.
    Baroness Maddock: I shall speak to Amendment No. 238A, which is grouped. We think that there has been an omission from Clause 198. My amendment replicates powers currently contained in Section 372 of the Housing Act 1985, which requires the execution of works to remedy poor standards of management. A similar power is not contained in this Bill. That is why we are moving the amendment.
    The Government may think that everything in Clause 198 covers that, but as it is something that has been in operation for a number of years and something which officers of the Chartered Institute of Environmental Health think is important to keep, I would like to hear the Minister's view on this amendment.
    6 p.m.
    Lord Bassam of Brighton: These amendments deal with issues that are similar to each other but not exactly the same.
    952
    The amendment tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Hanham, would permit a local authority enforcing the management regulations to issue a notice specifying works to remedy physical defects if the property was defective in consequence of neglect to comply with the requirements imposed by the management regulations under Clause 198.
    The amendment is well intentioned but it misinterprets the purpose of the management regulations, which set out basic management duties for HMO managers with regard to those HMOs that are of the description so specified.
    The focus of the management regulations will he on the management of the property. They are not intended to address the physical fitness of the property. That is where the misunderstanding arises. The physical conditions of properties, including HMOs—whether licensed or not—and all required works can be dealt with by the powers available to local authorities under Part 1 of the Bill.
    It is not our intention to create unnecessary bureaucratic duplicate measures which are already provided for in the management regulations powers. Management regulations are only concerned with management duties while the powers provided under Part 1 of the Bill are the correct vehicle for tackling the hazards to which the noble Baroness has drawn attention.
    We understand why the amendment has been put forward, but we do not think that it is necessary or that it will work in the way in which the noble Baroness suggests.
    I am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Maddock, for her amendment. It would amend Clause 198 to include in the regulations powers that enable a local authority to serve notices on owners of HMOs to carry out works or actions that may be necessary to ensure satisfactory standards of management and that they are in place in the HMO.
    The noble Baroness was seeking a response to whether we felt that we had left something out from previous legislation. We have not.
    If works relating to the physical conditions of properties are required, the powers available to local authorities under Part 1 of the Bill can be used to require them to be carried out. I understand where the demand for "works notices" under the management regulations comes from. Local authorities are used to these tools under the existing management regulations, made under Section 369 of the Housing Act 1985.
    The flexibility and powers for local authorities conferred by Part 1 make it unnecessary for management regulations to continue to be the vehicle for ensuring that works are carried out. Again, we do not want to create unnecessary duplication between Part 1 powers and management regulations.
    It may help if I give an illustration of what management regulations are aimed at tackling. The management regulations will be able to place a duty on a manager to ensure that means of escape from fire are

    953
    not blocked. If the local authority discovers that they are, then it will be able to prosecute that person for failure to comply with the management regulations. However, if blockage of the fire escape constitutes a hazard to the health and safety of the residents, the local authority can take action under Part 1 of the Bill to require the landlord to remove the hazard. It is not necessary to confer an additional power on the local authority to serve a different kind of notice on the landlord because the type of work that needs to be carried out relates to something that is covered by the management regulations.
    The solution to the problems and difficulties to which both noble Baronesses have drawn attention is dealt with in the practical workings of the management regulations. I hope that that explanation helps.
    Baroness Hanham: I thank the Minister for his reply. I am sure that his explanation is absolutely spot-on. But we need to reconsider what the management regulations are set to do against Part 1 of the Bill.
    The requirement to do the improvements which are set out under the management regulations—which are more trivial matters—are covered by the improvement notices in Part 1. I am not sure that I agree with that, although I hesitate to say that the Minister is wrong. I would like the opportunity to check that and, if necessary, return to these matters on Report. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
    Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
    Clause 130 [Meaning of "residential property" and "home information pack"]:
    The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Viscount Allenby of Megiddo): Before calling Amendment No. 176 I should inform the Committee that Amendment No. 199A has been added to this group.
    Lord Hanningfield Lord Hanningfield moved Amendment No. 176:
    Page 92, line 25, leave out "or intended to be occupied"
    The noble Lord said: All the amendments that we have tabled under Part 5 of the Bill have to be seen in light of the fact that we have serious concerns as to the inclusion of this part. The Minister in the other place was able to show that he, too, had doubts about the feasibility of some aspects of the home information packs and, indeed, the home condition reports and he welcomed sensibly tabled amendments that improved the overall quality of this legislation.
    There are many aspects of this Bill that we welcome. Part 5, however, the compulsory provision of home information packs, we do not.
    We appreciate that the Government have had such a scheme in mind for quite some time. Indeed, the improvement of the current system by which property is bought and sold has been one of their long-held election manifesto pledges. Any initiative that attempts to improve the way in which the housing market works on a day to day basis we welcome.
    However, the issue here seems to be that neither we, nor the property industry at large, had fully appreciated that sellers would be obliged to provide
    954
    these packs, at substantial costs to themselves, and that the packs would have to be available as soon as the property was put on the market.
    We therefore disagree wholeheartedly with the compulsory nature of these packs as well as when the legislation requires them to be produced and the onus that this places on the seller and their agents. As well as this, although we appreciate the need for consistency, we disagree that every house to be sold should need one.
    To that end, I would like to begin by moving Amendments Nos. 176 and 177 and also, with your permission, speaking to Amendments Nos. 210 and 199A, which cover the issues of warranties, to establish what property requires a home information pack. The need for clarification on this point is much needed.
    If a house is clearly derelict and in need of much renovation, why should the vendor have to produce a lengthy, expensive report on its condition when it is clearly obvious that any buyer will realise that the house he is thinking of purchasing is clearly a renovation project?
    At the other end of a house's life cycle—the formative years—how can a home information pack be necessary for a property that has not yet been built? The final specifications may need to be clarified to suit the buyer's requirements, such as issues regarding tenure and other essentials. All this sort of information, that the Bill expects to be available, may not have been finalised when the property is put on the market. Indeed, we will be discussing the timing of the production of these packs at a later point in the proceedings.
    Likewise, if a property is brand new and entirely covered by adequate guarantees and warranties by the builders, why should an information pack be provided over and above what has already been put in place? On the issue of warranties, our amendment makes clear that a warranty provider means the National House-Building Council or another provider duly approved by the appropriate national authority.
    Will the Minister assure us that there will be enough inspectors in place before the legislation is rolled out across the land? We accept that the National House-Building Council and other approved bodies are well qualified to carry out the inspections envisaged for the production of home information packs. But, so far, there have been a wide range of figures bandied about as to the number of inspectors that will be required. I beg to move.
    Baroness Maddock: This is a new section. We support efforts to assist consumers with buying and selling houses. But, as will become apparent—in particular, my noble friend Lady Hamwee will make it apparent—we are very concerned about much of the detail and implementation of home information packs.
    I support the intention of Amendment No. 199A. It is important because the National House-Building Council provides warranties for new houses. We need to be careful I have said this in reference to other

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    parts of the Bill—that where things are operating satisfactorily, we need to be able to draw them into legislation and not work against them. Obviously, the National House-Building Council expressed quite a lot of concern about that. When new homes are first marketed, it would like them to be exempt from having to have the home condition report. As regards "second-hand" homes, the NHBC refers to a 10-year warranty. I am a little worried about blocks of 10 years, but I am sympathetic to the points that it has made. We do not want completely to do away with the present system.
    One reason why people buy new houses is because they get a warranty and know what is happening. It may be that there is certain other information that also needs to be provided. But I hope that the Government will be sympathetic to the position of the National House-Building Council. I am fairly sure that they are, but I should like to hear in some detail what the Minister has to say about that. So I am supportive of the principle behind Amendment No. 199A.
    Lord Borrie: It was right that the noble Lord, Lord Hanningfield, and the noble Baroness, Lady Maddock, should give their broad views on this controversial part—Part 5—before we get into the detail of a great deal of separate amendments. I would like to express a different view on the two fundamental questions that they have both mentioned. When, if there is a duty to supply a home information pack and a house condition report, should that be required? Should there be a gap in time before it is due, although the house is put on the market?
    That would be severely detrimental to Part 5 and the valuable consumer protection embodied in it. If there is a time gap before a home information pack is required, that would be a blow to the intentions of the Bill. Apart from preliminary thoughts that the vendor has about wanting to sell, if he puts it on the market to the general public he or his estate agent should have the pack available. As to whether it should be compulsory or voluntary, we all know that there have been a number of voluntary schemes in operation up and down the country, many of which have been very useful. We have all seen some of the lessons that have been learnt from that.
    If a scheme is introduced for England and Wales that is not compulsory, it inevitably means that if there are chains of vendors and purchasers—we all know that that is one of the great problems vendors and purchasers have—the chain will be only as good as each link. If one of those links is broken because there is no home information pack or house condition report, the rest will not go through effectively. In other words, compulsion is required to make the scheme effective.
    It is a valuable scheme. We all want reassurances from the industry. No doubt the Minister can convey assurances on matters such as how many inspectors there will be and whether purchasers will be satisfied or want their own surveys or valuations done as well, which would somewhat destroy the purpose. We all want answers to those questions. But if, from the
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    beginning of the discussion on Part 5, we allow some period when the vendor markets the property but does not have to produce the pack and, a fortiori, if we have the scheme only voluntarily and not compulsorily, we would probably be wasting our time.
    6.15 p.m.
    The Earl of Caithness: I am sure that we will come on to the points raised by the noble Lord, Lord Borrie. In fact, I think that we start looking at the points he raised at the next amendment. This is a different amendment. I must declare my interest. I am a consultant to an estate agency in London. I am a surveyor and have practised for probably more years than I care to remember just at the moment.
    I should like to raise one point of major concern with the Minister; that is, the lack of response and information that I have received from his department. At Second Reading, I raised a lot of issues; it was only last Friday that I received the final piece of information. On 26 June, I received a letter from the Minister in which he said that he would write in more detail in days to come. I looked forward to receiving that letter. Coincidentally, I wrote to him on 26 June, reminding him that, with Committee stage coming up, I was looking forward to receiving a detailed reply. On 15 July, the Minister wrote a letter that I did not receive. But that did not answer any of my specific points. I got answers to those specific points only on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday of last week.
    This is a completely new part of the Bill; that is, Prescott's penalty on property owners. It is new, unchartered territory. No other country in the world does what we are going to do. Therefore, it needs to be scrutinised with very great care. The amendments were ably introduced by my noble friend. But I want to clarify with the Minister how one is supposed to produce, as an agent, a home information pack containing a home condition report when one is selling a property that has not yet been built from a plan. There is a show house. The next house will be identical. Someone comes along wanting to buy it straight off the plan. A home information pack cannot be produced. If a property is three-quarters built, a home information pack cannot be produced, let alone a home condition report. This part of the Bill therefore starts off as a nonsense. I therefore strongly support my noble friend Lord Hanningfield in moving the amendment.
    Baroness Gardner of Parkes: I have not taken part in discussions so far on this Bill. This is the part of the Bill in which I have a particular interest—perhaps I should declare an interest. There is another major problem. As regards houses that have not been built, valid points have been made, although, presumably, one would be able to say that they will be built to a certain specification.
    I am more concerned about how one gets anyone along to certify exactly the condition of a building. Many people may find themselves in that difficulty. My home in London is surrounded by redevelopment. In fact, 20 years ago, I had to rebuild my whole house. The building opposite went down three storeys

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    underground and split my house apart. If the seller's pack had existed, perhaps the vendor would have revealed to me that the house was fatally flawed, and it might have helped me.
    Since then, all those big buildings that were built then have been demolished and they are rebuilding everything. Pretty well everyone in the area has cracks developing in their houses. Now, no one can get any surveyor round to look at the cracks. Although you would imagine that the groups that were just finishing building would want to be quite sure of the condition of your house, so that they did not get the blame for what the next huge developer is going to do, this is not the case. Certainly, surveyors who were asked to come in July to look at new cracks developing have not been seen yet.
    What concerns me—and I speak as a dentist who knows how hard it is to get a dentist at the moment—is how you are going to find enough surveyors or qualified people to comply with all of these home information packs. There is real cause for concern there. The Minister will have to satisfy the Committee that people will be in sufficient quantity, and sufficiently available, at a cost that people can afford if they want to sell their property, whether is it new or old. Certainly, in the area of London I have spoken about, you could not possibly produce a pack if you could not get anyone to walk in the door. It may be that we will all be bidding up more and more, and whoever pays the surveyor most will get one to come to their house. Who knows? But it is just not good enough. This is a very important point.
    Another important point is that when the housing market is running hot, as it was in the past when houses were selling so quickly, you would have to be very quick with your pack. But it is quite a different matter if the market is slow, and your house is on the market possibly for a year or two. How many packs are you going to have to produce in that time? I see that there is a later amendment which says the pack must not be more than three months old. That is quite a horrific thought—you would have to pay repeatedly for the same conditional survey to be made. This part of the Bill really causes worries.
    Baroness Young of Old Scone: I want to address Amendments Nos. 210 and 199A, because there seems to be some misunderstanding of the issue of a warranty, and a more fundamental misunderstanding about the very valuable purpose of the home condition report and the home information pack. Since everyone has been making mini-Second Reading speeches about this section, I might as well join in and say that I am a great fan of both of those provisions, and I think they will help considerably in a number of ways.
    One of the issues I want to raise in the context of these two amendments has not been raised previously. The warranty that a house has as a new build primarily relates to the structure and condition of the building. The home condition report contains other elements, for example, the environmental efficiency of the building, which are important concerns to the purchaser in terms of what
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    that will do to future fuel bills, as well as, I hope, to many purchasers in terms of the environmental impact that their intended purchase will have. I hope also, being a great fan of the home information pack and the condition report, that we will see other environmental condition issues associated with that. The provisions already contain information about flood risk management, which is of vital importance to buyers of property.
    I hope that the Minister, in dealing with these two amendments, will recognise that the warranty is only very partial in what it covers. I take the point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Maddock, that if the system is working then it should not be amended. The warranty will no doubt be a very valuable input into the home condition report for those houses that are new.
    Lord Phillips of Sudbury: As this is the first time that I have contributed to the debate, I had better declare an interest as a solicitor whose firm does lots of conveyancing. I myself used to do a lot. I would like to illustrate what the noble Baroness, Lady Gardner of Parkes, said about the virtue of Amendments Nos. 199A and 210. It seems to me that if those were added they would exclude from the purview of the HIP a considerable number of transactions. I am as keen as anyone to improve our conveyancing system, to make it easier and less expensive. But I do not think there is any point in trying to pretend that the HIP will make things any cheaper.
    If one considers the prospect of a pack becoming out of date when the market is flat—as the noble Baroness, Lady Gardner of Parkes, said, it is commonplace for properties to be around for well in excess of the likely period after which one is going to have to renew surveys and searches—then one is really into major expenditure. I do not know whether the statistic has been given hitherto, but to give one specific example of my home patch in Suffolk, Babergh District Council now charges £129 for a basic search. It charges another £74—and this is national—for drainage and environmental searches, and it charges £10 extra for each of 15 optional enquiries. So if one had the whole 15 optional enquiries, plus the basic search, plus the drainage and environmental searches, one is talking of £350. And many local authorities charge a lot more than £129 for basic searches.
    It seems to me that there is no point in being anything other than profoundly pragmatic about all this. If these two amendments are, as I say, going to reduce the potential costs of conveyancing—which ultimately, one way or another, find their way back into the system, whether through increased prices or however else—without any major drawback, then I hope the Government will go with it.
    Lord Rooker: Unfortunately, I am not in a position to make a Second Reading speech, but to answer the amendments. I am going to have to stick to that, because lots of issues have been flagged up.
    I think I shall kick off before I start on my notes with one specific answer to the noble Lord, Lord Hanningfield, who moved these amendments.

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    He made the point that, if a house is derelict, why should there be a home condition report? If it is marketed—and this is the key—for residential occupation, then a home condition report is required. If it is marketed for redevelopment, then no home condition report is required. We will achieve that by regulation. I am happy to give that assurance. Quite a bit will be in secondary legislation.
    I was also quite pleased to listen to the last few speeches, because we got away from the London-centric argument. I take the view that London is slightly different from the rest of the country. Particularly, the part of London where the noble Earl, Lord Caithness operates is completely different to the rest of London, so far as I am able to ascertain.
    On the issue raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Gardner of Parkes, on skills, I take the point about the shortage of people, and we will come to that in later amendments. First, we would not operate the system if it did not work, because it is not planned to come in overnight anyway. Secondly, we do not envisage a massive shortage of people qualified to do the home condition report. I think the figure is somewhere around—do not hold me to this, because it will turn up later on —7,000 nationally. It is not envisaged that there will be difficulty in getting the people trained and skilled to do the report in this legislation. It is horses for courses. I fully accept the point the noble Baroness made about the individual issues she raised. Nevertheless, there are many issues that have been flagged up that we will come to later. I am not trying to pre-empt those, by the way, it is just that it enables me to kick off this section and give a few answers before questions start being raised.
    6.30 p.m.
    I turn now to this group of amendments, and the two others related to it to which I shall be happy to respond. It is the Government's intention that the marketing of single dwellings for sale with vacant possession should be subject to the home information pack obligations. The definition of "dwelling-house" in Clause 130(1) is key to securing this. Making the deletion suggested in Amendment No. 176 would run counter to that objective.
    The effect of deleting the words,
    "or intended to be occupied as a separate dwelling",
    from subsection (1) would be to remove unoccupied homes from the home information pack duties. But there are many reasons why a property might be unoccupied while it is being marketed. Obvious examples include cases where the owner has already moved, or where someone is selling the home of a deceased relative. The benefits of up-front information in the home information pack apply just as much to homes which are vacant during marketing as they do to homes that are occupied.
    We see no reason for opening up what would be a potential loophole, as well as putting the customer at risk. This is a consumer protection issue.
    Amendment No. 177 would delete the words,
    "and includes one that is being or is to be constructed",
    from subsection (1), thereby excluding homes which are not yet built or still in construction from the definition of a dwelling house and thus from the home information pack duties.
    I shall seek to explain why the amendments are undesirable. It is common practice for house builders to market new homes before construction is completed. Indeed, I know that in many cases the marketing takes place before construction has even started. It is commonly the case that houses are marketed "off plan", before a single brick has been laid—assuming, of course, that any bricks are being used to build the houses. That is not always the case these days. Buyers of such homes need up-front information of the sort the home information pack will provide just as much as the buyers of existing homes. This is already recognised by house builders, most of whom provide prospective buyers with a pack of helpful information about their new home. Our intention is that the home information pack will bring this information into line as far as possible with that available to the buyers of existing homes.
    I accept that commissioning a home condition report on a house that does not yet exist, or is only half built, is unnecessary and not what we propose. The Bill provides in Clause 144(9)(c) power for the Secretary of State to address this in regulations. We will do that because we want a sensible market to operate in which people have access to better information. We are reasonably convinced that, overall, the market will operate better and to the benefit of consumers.
    Our consultation paper on the contents of the home information pack included a proposal to allow home condition reports to be omitted from the pack for first sales of newly built homes so long as the structural integrity of those homes is covered by a satisfactory warranty. To qualify, warranties would have to provide the necessary cover for any undisclosed defects, and therefore offer an effective substitute for the home condition report for first sales of new homes. We are setting up specialist working groups that will consider this and advise us on the appropriate contents of home information packs for sales of new homes.
    I turn to Amendment No. 177A. This would delete the words "or may become" in subsection (2) and thus would amend the definition of "home information pack". The effect would be to disapply the definition from properties that are not yet on the market. The amendment may seem relatively innocuous but, when taken together with similar amendments tabled by the noble Earl to other clauses—Amendment No. 178A to Clause 131 and Amendment No. 194A to Clause 141—a different picture emerges.
    The amendments would open up a loophole that would enable estate agents to engage in supposed pre-marketing activities that would amount to actual marketing in all but name, but without triggering the home information pack duties, which I presume is the fully declared intention of the mover of the amendment. It would, for example, enable someone to evade the duty

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    to have a pack when marketing begins by advertising the property as "becoming available for sale shortly" knowing full well that potential buyers would see this as a marketing gambit. That is what it is and we might as well call a spade a spade. It is a loophole waiting to be exploited and is therefore not something I could recommend to the Committee.
    Amendment No. 199A seeks to add a new subsection to Clause 144. The new subsections, as set out in Amendment No. 210, would exempt the responsible person from providing a home condition report for the sale of a new home. The amendment would also provide that there is no duty to have a home condition report where the property is resold during the period in which the warranty cover remains in place.
    Although we do not intend that home condition reports should be required for the sale of new homes—that is, from the builder to the first buyer—for the reasons I gave earlier, we are not convinced that this exemption should apply throughout the 10-year warranty period.
    Amendment No. 210 would have a similar effect to that of Amendment No. 199A. I have already explained that we intend to exempt sales of new homes, but still believe that the home condition report is required for subsequent sales of new homes—that is, new homes that would then be second-hand. Subsection (8)(c) of Amendment No. 210 would provide that a home condition report is not needed when the ownership of a new home is transferred from a developer to another company prior to marketing and where the company assuming ownership is registered with a designated warranty provider.
    To be frank, this provision is not necessary because the home information pack duties are triggered only when there is marketing to the public or a section of the public. A pack is therefore not required when a property is transferred from one person to another in these circumstances. It is necessary only when the property is put on the market, or where a "qualifying action" is taken by an estate agent. I can also assure noble Lords that, while we debate these issues in Committee and on Report, officials in the department are continuing to work extremely closely with interested parties to discuss all the issues relating to this part of the Bill, including those relating to new homes.
    Because we are at the beginning of this group, I think that it is worth putting a little more on the record, although it would not normally be required. I turn to warranty schemes, which have already been raised. In our view, an effective housing warranty scheme will involve inspections at the construction stage with a view to preventing or correcting defects before completion. An effective warranty scheme will also provide a good measure of redress for the home owner if defects come to light after completion. It should provide for the builder to rectify defined sorts of defects, including quite minor ones, for an initial period and should then provide a "no fault" insurance cover for a further period against significant damage
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    arising from defects in the original construction. The designation of any housing warranty scheme by the Secretary of State would be on the basis of a scrutiny of the operational effectiveness of the scheme and the extent of the cover provided.
    As mentioned, we intend to consult separately about the designation criteria for designated housing warranty schemes. We envisage that the criteria would have regard to a series of issues: the process for vetting builders seeking admission to registers, and for monitoring builders on the registers; the technical standards laid down by the schemes; builders' undertakings in relation to compliance with the scheme standards; warranty scheme operators' arrangements for checking plans and carrying out site inspections; the arrangement under schemes for resolving disputes between owners and builders over what remedial work is needed to bring a home into compliance; the terms of the insurance cover underpinning the builder's obligations; and the terms of the insurance under which the owner can claim if damage due to non-compliance with the scheme standards comes to light following the end of the builder's warranty period. I think that it is worth putting those points on the record further to help our debates.
    I am reminded that I have spoken to Amendment No. 177A tabled by the noble Earl, Lord Caithness, that has been regrouped and therefore has not yet been moved. He now has advance warning of what my response will be. I apologise for that.
    The Earl of Caithness: I was going to thank the Minister and remark on how kind it was of him to give me an answer to something I have not yet spoken to. However, I can assure the Minister that I will speak to the amendment in due course. The noble Lord also said that I operate in a different market from anywhere else. Of course I do; that is the housing market. There is no such thing as the single housing market as a general or specific area. The housing market in England and Wales is comprised of thousands of separate housing markets. It is different throughout the country from one area of town to another; it is different from street to street. That is why we need qualified surveyors to know the differences.
    The Minister spoke about the regulations to be laid under Clause 144(9)(c). When are we going to see them? I fear that much of the debate will be shoved away under the promise of regulations, but unless we see draft regulations before Report stage we will not be able to carry out the work that we need to do satisfactorily in Committee. For instance, in Clause 144(9)(c), the Minister will be able to provide for different types of property market. Where houses are of a particularly low value he will exempt them from having a home condition report or an HIP. We will create all sorts of false markets. Unless we can discuss that in Committee, the House will be prevented from doing what it should.
    The Minister referred to the warranty and said that there would be no HIP when it came to the first sale from the developer to the first owner. He did not like the idea of a 10-year warranty. The noble Baroness,

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    Lady Maddock, was also concerned about it. What happens if an owner puts down a deposit on a house that is yet to be completed and for all sorts of reasons is unable to proceed with the purchase that he is legally contracted to buy? That person will then have to sell that property. Surely in those circumstances it would be wrong to have a home condition report.
    Would it not be wise to have the warranty extending perhaps not for 10 years but to have no HIP necessary for the first two years after the house is completed? At that stage I can see a logical argument for bringing in a home information pack. The housing market is full of such circumstances in which we will catch people and subject them to extra unjustified expense.
    Lord Rooker: I did not apologise to the noble Earl for the delay in response to his question at Second Reading, so I apologise for forgetting about that. In response to his example of someone who puts down a deposit on a new property covered by a warranty, who does not live in the property but is required to purchase it—I am not sure about the contractual obligations if the property has never been lived in—I am not sure how the sale would figure. I shall take advice. It is the kind of nitty gritty example for which we need to have an answer.
    We would like to cover every property sale in the country, but to cover 100 per cent is probably not a practical proposition for the kind of example that the noble Earl has just given. I am not giving an answer, but I can envisage the circumstances of a brand-new dwelling that has been sold off-plan, where someone who has put down a deposit is for some reason required to go the whole hog and buy the property and then market it to sell it—although it cannot be completed and they have never lived in it. We would not want to open up loopholes, but such practical questions have to be dealt with. That is why we aim for 100 per cent, but we will probably never fully achieve it.
    Forty thousand people market their property every week. No matter what happened to the 40,000 that marketed last week—if any problems arise—another 40,000 people will market this week. In other words, any government who introduce such a programme need to be certain that everything is in place to run the system, simply because they are people's homes and it goes without saying. Forty thousand homes every week is about 2 million per year. If something does not work, it is not just the 40,000 people who marketed last week who will be affected, but those marketing this week and the next week and the week after that. The rules have to be in place and copper bottomed.
    Many questions on many issues must be answered and people must be trained, as I said to the noble Baroness. No one denies that it is a big operation. It is also because the majority of properties—I will not argue about the number—are in a chain. That is why the system has to be compulsory; it cannot be voluntary. A voluntary system will not work, simply because of the majority of properties being in a chain. We shall come to that issue in later amendments.
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    6.45 p.m.
    Twenty-eight per cent—one quarter—of transactions fall through after an offer has been made and accepted. Think about that: 40,000 properties are marketed every week; think about the distress, the anxiety and the frustration and the cost to the person who has made the offer and obtained the surveys. I spoke to someone yesterday who had paid as prospective purchaser for two surveys and both dwellings had fallen through: he was extremely angry.
    Many people are involved in this matter and we must get it right and answer as many questions as possible and be open and honest: to get it 100 per cent right will be extremely difficult given the type of example raised by the noble Earl.
    Lord Phillips of Sudbury: On 7 June at Second Reading the Minister twice said that he would not detain the House regarding the information and evidence on which key parts of Part 5 are based. He invited that debate—I think he called it—to happen in Committee. I refer to the crucial nature of the 28 per cent statistic—as he put it, 28 per cent of transactions break down between offer and exchange of contract, with all the attendant heartbreak and expense and so on. Everyone here accepts that; those of us in the business have seen it too often.
    Have the Government undertaken substantial and widespread research among the body of people who will know this better than anyone—namely, solicitors engaged in conveyancing—as to how that 28 per cent figure is compiled and, more importantly, what causes they ascribe to the breakdown of transactions? They are many and disparate.
    Lord Rooker: I do not have the answers off the top of my head, but there are many disparate causes, not least finding out about the property on which one has made an offer. It beggars belief that people make offers on property not knowing much about it. They will spend less time in a house than in the supermarket and make an offer. Then they start to find out about it when the seller has to give the information about what is available, rows with neighbours, fixtures and fittings, which is the fence and all the basic stuff that has to be filled in now. The majority of requirements under the Bill already have to be provided now.
    We are trying to get most of the information upfront to enable people to make an informed decision on an offer, knowing more about the property in the hope that the sale will take place rather than falling apart if they make an offer that is accepted. I understand that solicitors have an interest; I cast no aspersions on the noble Lord—far from it—but I understand that the Law Society is not very happy about the scheme. Many other people who know about the heartache are coming on board, the more they find out about it.
    I freely admit that the proposal has changed since the Government first brought it forward before the last election when we were criminalising people and doing all kinds of things—it quite rightly got a drubbing and we have made substantial changes. I will see whether a

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    breakdown of information is available, because I am happy to have a debate in Committee to see how the 28 per cent figure breaks down. I have seen so much about it over the past few months, but I am not sure whether there is a breakdown of the figure.
    Lord Phillips of Sudbury: I am grateful to the Minister. It is very important that he should do that. When he replies, will he make reference to the Home Office document on this issue, which it describes as a "small study by economic consultants"? It concluded that the proposed HIP could create benefits. I hope that the information upon which we are proceeding does not rest upon this small study. It does not look as though it does.
    Lord Rooker: No, I do not say it rests completely upon that study. This issue was piloted in Bristol on a voluntary basis—indeed, some people around the country are still operating such a system—but, because it is voluntary and because of the chain system, you cannot check the effectiveness of it. That is a part of the problem.
    Even I have said in my musings, "This is a big operation—40,000 a week across the country. We have got to get it right. Why can't we pick a region and consider everything in that region?". But, of course, you would get all the arguments about people buying and selling out of the region and on the margins. Most people will be buying and selling within the region, subject to job changes and so on, but I was convinced—as indeed the current Minister has been convinced—that it will not work unless everyone plays ball because the vast majority of properties are in a chain. That is the major difficulty and one which I freely accept.
    There will be amendments in due course in relation to estate agents who are not even based in England. They think that that will be a way around the measure, but it is not. However, there is a way around it for us.
    We have to face these matters—it is a complicated issue—but we are satisfied that this is a major consumer protection measure. I believe that it is one that will get a good wind the more information that is known about it.
    Baroness Hamwee: I agree that it is a consumer protection issue. I am not sure whether I have declared my interest as a solicitor, albeit as one in a practice where everyone else does the conveyancing because it would not be safe if I were let loose on it.
    As regards the Minister's comment about people spending so little time looking at a property, with the first flat that I bought—I was influenced entirely by the spiralling prices in the early 1970s—I spent about seven minutes in the property, spotted the offers that the vendor had received and offered him £100 more than he was asking. That was a lot of money at the time.
    Noble Lords have received a briefing from the National Association of Estate Agents and I take this point from that briefing. According to the Government's
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    own document, Key research on easier home buying and selling, the most common reasons for failure are related to the property price not meeting the lender's valuation or a change in the buyer's financial status. Thirteen per cent of aborted purchases were caused by a bad survey, which is arguably the only factor that could be dealt with by the introduction of home information packs.
    From the same briefing, the Minister referred to the trial in Bristol. The home information packs were free of charge. There were 159 volunteer transactions during the six-months' trial period, of which only 61 exchanged or completed a sale by the end of that six months' trial. However, 4,400 sales were completed in Bristol in a six month period in the same year—in other words, not the same six months. But the figures are helpful.
    The Earl of Caithness: Let me put what the noble Baroness has just said in context; the 159 transactions in the Bristol survey excluded the new Beazer homes. With those excluded, you get 159—which shows that it is a very small survey on which the Government have based their legislation. The Government, of course, paid for the home information packs. The noble Baroness was right to quote the key research. The valuation—on which there will be nothing in the home information pack—is the major cause of failed purchases.
    The Minister referred to 40,000 properties marketed per week, but one of the great sources of information on which the Government rely is what is happening in Denmark. We market 40,000 properties a week in England and Wales; in Denmark, there are fewer than 70,000 property transactions a year. Again the Government have used a totally wrong comparison to bring forward in the Bill. As they did with New South Wales and Denmark, they have done with Bristol. This is based on a very shaky foundation.
    The Minister did not answer my point about whether he will publish the draft regulations under Clause 144(9)(c) before the Report stage. It is very important that we should know.
    Lord Rooker: I cannot answer that. Obviously we want to publish as much as possible before the Report stage. We want to give the House answers because that will help us to obtain a fair wind for the Bill.
    Of the figures that have been given in terms of failure rates, there are currently arguments that the transaction failure rate is now only about 15 per cent. But the Government have carried out an informal survey with major groups of corporate and independent estate agents. That indicates that transaction failures are still, running at about 30 per cent, and of those about 43 per cent were attributable to an adverse survey.
    I freely admit—I almost declare an interest—that in 1979 I pulled out of a purchase following a survey which stated that the roof was on the move. I have gone past the property on the train since and the roof was still there. But the report said it was on the move and I said, "No, I am not getting into that", and pulled

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    out. I do not rely on Denmark but it is worth pointing out that, although it is true that it is smaller, it is a very similar market to England and Wales. More than half its homes are owner occupied; the annual transactions-to-population ratio is similar at one to 55; more than 90 per cent of home sales are conducted through estate agents; and Copenhagen, which has a population of 1.75 million, has a vibrant market and is similar to large cities in England. All the main players in the Danish home buying and selling industry agree that the system works well and is an improvement on the old system.
    No one is saying that it is the same—it cannot be because of the population difference—but, as I said, the ratio figures indicate that it is not totally unfair to look at it proportionally as a market with conditions similar to our own.
    Lord Hanningfield: We have many more amendments. Shall we move on to some of them?
    The Earl of Caithness: I want to pick up on two points. First, to thank the Minister for what he said about the regulations. Secondly, the 43 per cent that he mentioned is 30 per cent of adverse valuation surveys—it had nothing to do with the structure of the buildings—and that is not covered in the home information pack. Only 13 per cent was due to an unfavourable survey. So it is not 43 per cent; it is only 13 per cent.
    Lord Hanningfield: We have had an exciting debate on the amendment. There are dozens of these amendments so we had better have another day or two for the Committee stage of the Bill. We always knew this was going to be an interesting area.
    There seems to be a great deal of support for Amendments Nos. 199A and 210. I repeat the points made by several noble Lords about new houses either not being completed and resold or houses being sold in the first few months of completion. I was interested to hear the Minister's tremendous enthusiasm for it all. I can remember Ministers having the same enthusiasm for the community charge and having several debates on it; they were selling it to us over and over again.
    It might be a good idea if this legislation was brought in before Christmas this year. My feeling is that it will be as popular as the community charge. I am surprised that the Minister said he has had many people supporting this provision; I have heard very few people support it. It is a pity that we have to wait two years for it because it might create the same reaction as the community charge.
    We will obviously debate the matter later in Committee, as well as on Report and at Third Reading. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
    Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
    [Amendment No. 177 not moved.]
    7 p.m.
    The Earl of Caithness The Earl of Caithness moved Amendment No. 177A:
    Page 92, line 30, leave out "or may become"
    The noble Earl said: This is a simple amendment to which the Minister has already said a few words. I hope that he will say a few more.
    Clause 130(2) states:
    "References in this Part to a home information pack, in relation to a residential property, are to a collection of documents relating to a property or the terms on which it is or may become available for sale".
    I can understand why the home information pack relates to properties that are for sale, but having it relate to properties that "may become available for sale" has much wider implications. There are implications for those who are just considering selling their property in due course. The clause seems to put an onus on people to have a home information pack ready and available whether or not they are going to put their property on the market. I beg to move.
    Baroness Hamwee: I know that the Minister has commented on these words already, but I have a lot of sympathy with the noble Earl. It may be that I did not understand the Minister's arguments, but perhaps he could set out what other stages between a sale being a twinkle in a prospective vendor's eye and putting the house on the market the Government have considered and how they came to this form of words. There are quite a lot of stages between considering putting a property on sale and doing it. This seems to be so open that it is hard to support it on the face of it.
    Lord Rooker: To be honest, I am confused. I am not clear whether the noble Baroness is supporting the noble Earl or not. She seemed to start off that way and then to come round to the commonsense view of opposing him towards the end.
    I have nothing new to say beyond what I have already said, except to point out that the amendment is part of a little group that is littered around the Bill that opens up a massive loophole that would enable estate agents to engage in supposed pre-marketing activities. The key question is: is the house on the market? If it is known that one can go to an estate agent, put one's head around the door and say, "Have you got a filing cabinet of people not featured in the window who think they might sell if someone wanted to buy?", dozens of estate agents, and the crooks and spivs of this world, will operate a black market and say, "Oh, you can come to us. By the way, people who put their head around the door, we'll send them up to you and if they like your house and make an offer, you don't need to get a home information pack". That would be pre-marketing that really amounts to marketing. A massive loophole would be opened up if the amendment were accepted, without triggering the duty to provide a home information pack. The amendment goes against the whole thrust of this part of the Bill.
    Lord Phillips of Sudbury: Would the Minister employ an estate agent who is going to market his

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    property in such a manner? How on earth can an estate agent get the best coverage, the best price and the maximum number of offers if he keeps it in his filing drawer?
    Baroness Hamwee: I agree with the Minister in that I would not want to open up a loophole. I would much rather that legislation was straightforward and enforceable. However, is it right to make duties enforceable, attracting penalties that are set out later in this part of the Bill, in connection with a property which may become available? I have not analysed the Bill to see whether one would ever get to that point, but it seems to be relevant to the arguments that the Minister was using.
    Baroness Gardner of Parkes: The "may become" provision is extraordinary. What if a group of people are sitting around a dinner table and someone says, "Well, have you thought of selling this house?" If the reply is, "Oh, I might think of it", does that mean that the house "may become available"? Or does one have to approach an estate agent? I am all for closing loopholes, but why can there not be a specific, designated means of defining when one's home is now for sale? The Minister spoke about estate agents saying a property might become available, but that is the technique that they use now. They are always ringing up and saying, "Would you like to sell your house?" Then they will say to someone else, "Would you be interested if so-and-so decided to sell?" That matching of people goes on even now. That is more likely to happen at a time when property is hard to sell. People will not be prepared to pay for a home information pack when no one is buying and when they think that they will have to repeat it. Will there be a ceiling on how much one has to pay constantly to repeat one's home information pack if it sticks?
    Lord Rooker: If the chat around the noble Baroness's dinner table is such that someone says, "I might want to do it? Are you interested?", the property is not being marketed to the public. The trigger is marketing to the public or a section of the public. I suspect that the noble Baroness's dinner table would not count as the public. It is only if a seller indicates to a section of the public or to the wider public that his property may be available for sale that he would need to have a home information pack. For the estate agent, the definition of "qualifying action", which is the trigger, is in Clause 141. That definition is quite tight. There are grey areas. We do not want to legislate for further grey areas. We want to make the legislation as black and white as we possibly can.
    The Earl of Caithness: The Minister has moved on to Clause 131 while I am on Clause 130. I am not yet talking about marketing, although I shall talk about it. I am talking about a home information pack for a house that "may become available for sale". That is nothing to do with marketing. We have not come to marketing yet. I might not even employ an agent, so the clause relating to agents is not relevant yet. I am
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    grateful for the support of the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, who, with her solicitor's brain which I do not have, also sees the provision as a problem. In order that we can move on, will the Minister have a look at this point, not from the point of view of marketing—we will do that under Clause 131—but from the point of view of a house that may become available for sale. For example, we may know that somebody is going to sell a house because his parents have deceased or whatever. He has not given instructions. From my interpretation, he is caught, because that house may become available for sale. He has not yet reached that stage, but the stage before that.
    Lord Rooker: Perhaps I am doing the noble Earl a disservice, but as I said before it was moved, Amendment No. 177A is seductive and looks relatively innocuous. However, we are not stupid. The Marshalled List is public knowledge. As I have said, if the amendment is taken together with two other amendments, regarding Clauses 131 and 141, which is the intention, a different picture emerges. It is not as innocuous as it first appears. Taken together, they open up a massive loophole. That is what I am warning the House about, so we do not go down that road. On its own, the amendment is innocuous, and the noble Lord can make a reasonable, moderate case for it. However, the other amendments grouped with it would be highly damaging.
    The Earl of Caithness: I am grateful for the Minister's last remarks, because we will come back to this. To take up what the Minister said, the Committee could accept my amendment but refuse the amendments to clauses 131 and 141. My Amendment No. 177A, which he looks at with dread, is so innocuous that the House could accept it at a later stage. Meanwhile, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
    Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
    Lord Hanningfield moved Amendment No. 178:
    Page 92, line 30, at end insert—
    "( ) The Secretary of State may by regulations prescribe the operational date of all or part of the introduction of this Part with regard to the capacity effectively to implement.
    ( ) The Secretary of State may not make any regulations under this section unless a draft of the regulations has been laid before, and approved by a resolution of, each House of Parliament."
    The noble Lord said: I do not wish to dwell on this amendment for too long, but suffice to say, given the debate we have already had, there is a lot of doubt as to whether the Government can really establish Part 5 of the Bill and have it implemented by the Minister's date of early 2007. We all share concerns about the level of expertise available to produce the packs. The Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors claims that although 2,000 of its residential property surveyors are currently sufficiently qualified to carry out the inspections needed to compile the packs, the likely need, according to the Government, is for 7,000 inspectors by 2007. The Minister said so himself

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    several times during the debate. Given that surveyors will need to go through a 12-month conversion course, followed by several months of in-role training, we are being very optimistic if we think that in a matter of 24 months we will have a sufficient number of qualified surveyors to do the work.
    That is why, and I am sure the Committee will agree with me on this point, it is important that the legislation gives the Secretary of State a degree of latitude as to when he can go about the implementation of Part 5. I am particularly keen to see the first subsection of Amendment No. 178. The capacity to implement effectively is the point I want to emphasise. Without the necessary surveyors in place, it is not difficult to envisage the entire housing market grinding to a halt as house sellers wait their turn for a surveyor to carry out the necessary inspections. As the Minister said on an early amendment, between 1.3 million and 1.4 million house transactions take place every year in the United Kingdom. Even taking into account a slight steadying of the market come 2007, it is unlikely that number will have dropped very much. In fact, due to the demands of the Deputy Prime Minister for thousands more new houses, particularly in the south east and my own county of Essex, the housing market will be even more full. It is important, therefore, that the Secretary of State has discretion over the implementation of Part 5.
    I now talk briefly to the second part of the amendment, which is designed to ensure that the process behind Part 5 is revisited fully by both Houses before it is implemented. I am sure none of us has any particular desire to trawl through this debate again in two years' time, but it is important that the conditions are right for the implementation of that part. I do not need to point out that the world may well have changed a lot by 2007, both in the country nationally and perhaps quite rightly in Westminster too. To that end, it is important that the process is revisited.
    Lord Borrie: The noble Lord, Lord Hanningfield, has raised an important matter—that of the numbers of inspectors qualified to do the job. He used the word "surveyor", perhaps loosely. I do not think it requires a qualified member of the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors to do the job, and, as the noble Lord is well aware, many people have talked about an appropriate NVQ that would be quite adequate. The Government's statement about 2007 is based on the view that time is needed to get an adequate number of inspectors.
    The key point is that this is a chicken and egg situation. If Parliament passed an amendment of this sort, the prospect of the actual introduction of home condition reports and the need for inspectors would be put that much further forward in people's estimation. As it is, with the Government's plans reasonably firm on the matter of date, once the Bill goes through there will be some sort of incentive and interest in attaining that qualification, interest which would not be there if the prospect were pushed away several years ahead.
    7.15 p.m.
    Baroness Hamwee: On the amendment, though I am not following the line of argument of the noble Lord, Lord Hanningfield, can the Minister amplify the statement made in the compendium letter sent to noble Lords following Second Reading, and indeed the comments made today, about taking time to introduce home information packs "on a compulsory basis"? That is the wording in the letter dated 26 June. We would not introduce HIPs on a compulsory basis until we were confident that the packs could be assembled quickly and efficiently and in a form that people would find easy to use. We will come to the issue of voluntarism later. Will the packs' introduction be achieved by the commencement orders, or is there something more complicated behind it?
    Lord Rooker: Off the top of my head, the phrase in the letter covers a situation where the date is set. We know early 2007 is challenging. but we believe it is possible. When we are getting close to that date, the legislation is in place and the training is under way, it will be much easier to encourage the industry to implement the system anyway, in advance of the actual date. It is not as if nothing will happen in property marketing one Friday, and then everything will all happen on the following Monday. The radicals in the industry and those who can see the benefits of consumer protection, and actually of marketing the issue as one of protecting consumers, will be up and running before the statutory date. That was what the terminology in the letter was intended to cover.
    We have no intention of introducing the home information pack requirement until we are satisfied all the pieces of the jigsaw—and it is a jigsaw—are in place. We will not, for example, introduce the home condition report until we are satisfied that adequate numbers of appropriately qualified and insured home inspectors are available. We want to ensure there is capacity in the industry to implement Part 5 of the Bill in an efficient and effective way, and therefore we will continue, as we do now, to work closely with representative bodies affected and the industry in general, as we develop the regulations and prepare for implementation of the home information packs.
    We have set up new programme management arrangements designed to ensure that the home information pack proposals are implemented smoothly, so the interests of consumers are safeguarded and the disruption to the industry is minimised. We do not want a black hole to appear. By and large, those arrangements have been welcomed by the industry and consumer representatives, and we look forward to working closely to achieve a realistic implementation.
    As I have said, the research to date suggests the beginning of 2007 is an achievable target for implementing home information packs. It is challenging but nevertheless achievable. If the blueprint shows that is not the case, we will think again. This is not our poll tax. We learnt our lessons from that tax: unless we are ready and convinced, we will not do it. Therefore, if enough

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    pieces of the jigsaw are put in place we shall pull back. There is no question of us implementing this proposal until everything is in place for a successful introduction.
    Of course, we would encourage the widespread use of home information packs well before the period of implementation of a compulsory system—six months beforehand. There has been an enormous amount of government publicity and from the industry. The industry will gear up before the system becomes universal. That should give ample reassurance that a commencement order is sufficient to introduce the operational date of the home information pack duties.
    The demand issue was raised by the Select Committee on the draft Bill in the other place. I have repeated the assurances that we gave the Select Committee about not implementing it unless we are satisfied. Our view was that to satisfy demand for home condition reports there is a need for some 7,500 to 8,500 inspectors, assuming a mix of full and part-time working, so it will not necessarily be a full-time job: 40 hours a week. Sufficient numbers, with a satisfactory geographical spread across England and Wales, will be required. It is no good if they are all based in London.
    Research has been undertaken by the relevant sector skills council. We have figures; for example, from the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors. I take the point made by my noble friend Lord Borrie, that such a qualification may not be necessary. The Royal Institution estimated that 4,500 chartered surveyors were carrying out residential surveys.
    On a central basis, it is estimated that there are between 10,200 and 17,000 people currently employed in property services or adjacent sectors who may be expected to convert to work in home inspection. It is not as though we want to re-invent the wheel and that nothing similar is being done. Among other interested professional bodies, the Asset Skills research shows the following levels of interest: the Association of Building Engineers at 1,500, the Chartered Institute of Building, 500, and the Institute of Maintenance and Building Management, 1,250. A range of people in the country are undertaking similar or ancillary work.
    It is a matter of the industry gearing up once we have the appropriate training. Not only do they need to be trained; they also need to be insured. It is fundamental for the security of the buyer and the seller and for everyone involved in the chain that they are not just qualified but actually insured for the work that they undertake.
    Lord Phillips of Sudbury: In the spirit of genuine cooperation, does the Minister consider that there is no merit in having a fully-fledged pilot of this elaborate scheme before it goes national? We had a small, partial pilot in Bristol, I think, in 1997. It was a different scheme. All the packs were paid for by the Government. There are so many potential loopholes and problems and so much dissent about whether it will be more or less expensive and whether it will save
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    much heartache, and so on. Might it be wise to take a county like Northamptonshire, run the scheme there full-tilt for a year and then take stock?
    Lord Rooker: When I was responsible for the day-to-day aspects of this, I raised the issue because of the scale. None of the pilots has been compulsory because there has been no legislative framework. That is an issue. If it is not compulsory because of our changed system, no pilot, however big, will tell one what one needs to know. The noble Lord makes a suggestion. Ministers are listening to what is said in Committee. At present, we intend to roll out nationally on a compulsory basis. We do not have closed minds on this. Yesterday I saw a poster which said, "Minds are like parachutes: if they're not open, they're not working". The noble Lord suggests carrying out the scheme on a county or a regional basis. This is an important issue which affects millions of our fellow citizens on a yearly basis. It is not just the individual sellers, but their families and everyone else who becomes involved. I shall take away the suggestion of the noble Lord.
    The Earl of Caithness: I thank the Minister for that. It is terribly important that we conduct a better, bigger and wider trial than we have had so far. That is what the Select Committee in another place recommended, but it was turned down by the Government. I am grateful for the tone of the Minister's reply to the noble Lord, Lord Phillips. As we all recall, the home information packs, or the sellers' packs as they were then known, were supposed to be in effect by 2003—so they have dropped back four years to 2007. I believe that if we carried out a much bigger trial, over a longer period of time, we would still find wrinkles that would be best sorted out before the system went national.
    Lord Hanningfield: We have had another interesting debate on this group of amendments. The Minister said that it was not to be his community charge or poll tax. I remember many people wanting to get the matter right with all aspects planned, as the Minister said, to make everything certain. The more we talk about it the more complicated it becomes. That was certainly the purpose of the initial introduction of the community charge. Then the Secretary of State, Nicholas Ridley, decided to do it much quicker. If it had had the right kind of planning and thinking and the right time spent on it, we may still have the community charge.
    We have already had one bad experience this year on all-postal ballots. I feel that this could be much worse than all-postal ballots. We shall carry on and only time will tell. We shall have several more interesting debates on this theme during this part of the Bill. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
    Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
    Clause 130 agreed to.
    Lord Bassam of Brighton: I beg to move that the House do now resume. In doing so, I propose that further consideration of the Bill in Committee recommence not before 8.30 p.m.
    Moved accordingly, and, on Question, Motion agreed to.
    House resumed.

    Child Support (Miscellaneous Amendments) Regulations 2004
    7.27 p.m.
    Baroness Andrews Baroness Andrews rose to move, That the draft regulations laid before the House on 5 July be approved [25th Report from the Joint Committee].
    The noble Baroness said: My Lords, the regulations before us today make a number of amendments to eight of the many sets of regulations which provide the structure of the old and the new child support schemes.
    The amendments cover a range of regulations, some affect the old child support scheme provisions and some the new scheme, and the rest, both schemes. Included are amendments to the transitional regulations, which provide for the transfer of cases from the old scheme to the new scheme. Some cases—linked to new cases—have already moved from the old to the new scheme.
    I could not introduce these regulations without referring to the fact, as noble Lords will know, that there have been problems with the new IT system. I can reassure the House that the agency is working closely with EDS, the contractors, to correct the defects as a matter of urgency. We have made it clear that we will not make arrangements to transfer cases from the old scheme to the new until we are satisfied that it is working well. In the mean time, we need to ensure that the legislation for both schemes is kept up to date and is fit for the purpose. Hence this group of changes.
    This package consists mainly of clarifying and technical amendments which support the policy intention. I shall give a brief explanation of each regulation. I shall group them according to the status of the scheme, starting with the amendments to the old scheme. I am always happy to provide more detail if noble Lords want it and to reiterate that some of the changes in this package, to make them fit for purpose, are being made as a consequence of changes elsewhere in other legislation; for example, the introduction of the educational maintenance allowances.
    To help noble Lords—I hope that it has been a help—we have provided a schedule to allow noble Lords to see how the regulations, as amended, will look. That is for guidance only and has no legislative status. I hope that is helpful.
    I turn now to the amendments and will concentrate on the old scheme. Regulation 4 amends Regulation 17 of the Child Support (Maintenance Assessment Procedure) Regulations 1992, which provides for the revision of child support decisions in the old child support scheme. The amendment introduces a new
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    subparagraph into paragraph (1) of Regulation 17. The subparagraph itself mirrors changes that have already been made to the Social Security and Child Support (Decisions and Appeals) Regulations 1999, for new scheme cases, so we are bringing that into line. It allows the agency to revise the decision appealed at any time between receipt of the appeal and determination at an appeal tribunal. Where the appeal is revised in the appellant's favour, the appeal will not go on to tribunal. Instead, the appellant will receive a new decision, with new appeal rights.
    Regulation 5 amends the Child Support (Maintenance Assessment and Special Cases) Regulations 1992, which provides the basis for old scheme child support liabilities to be assessed. One amendment is made as a consequence of the introduction of a national scheme for the educational maintenance allowance, following, as noble Lords will know, a very successful pilot exercise. EMA payments are made to young people aged 16 or over who continue in education. In most cases the person receiving EMA will be the child of the Child Support Agency's client. But, in a very small number of cases, the beneficiary could be the client, or the partner of a client. The amendment ensures that in all cases EMAs do not count as income.
    Other changes have also been made to allow for travel-to-work costs to be calculated in metric measurements instead of imperial ones. The calculation will be made by a small stand-alone computer system, and, to avoid any possible confusion, forms and leaflets will explain that 240 kilometres is broadly equivalent to 150 miles.
    Noble Lords may ask why we are making that amendment now. The regulations as they stand can be interpreted as already compliant with the EU directive because there are generic regulations—DTI regulations—converting imperial measurements in existing legislation. However, the regulations apply in a fairly broad-brush manner. Therefore, in order to remove any prospect of uncertainty, we have introduced this amendment which puts the legal position beyond doubt.
    A further amendment made by Regulation 5 reflects financial help recently introduced by the Government for employees who have become fathers or have adopted a child. In common with similar payments, statutory paternity pay and statutory adoption pay are included as earnings.
    I turn now to the second group of the new scheme. Regulation 2 amends Regulation 6B of the Social Security and Child Support (Decisions and Appeals) Regulations 1999 which, among other things, provide for decision making in child support. Regulation 2(2)(a) and 2(2)(b) make minor clarifying changes of a somewhat technical nature in relation to the operation of what we call the tolerance rule in child support. Briefly, this rule means that small changes in income are ignored and do not lead to changes in maintenance due. The importance of that to the parent and family is that it provides parents with some stability and certainty of the amounts of maintenance payable. We all know how important that is.
    Regulation 2(2)(a) covers cases where both income and non-income changes—for example, the arrival of another child—are notified together and the non-income change leads to recalculation of maintenance. In these circumstances the new liability will take account of both changes, irrespective of whether in itself the income change would breach the tolerance rule. As I said, this might be where there is a change in the number of qualifying children and a small change in net income of a non-resident parent of less than 5 per cent. In these circumstances the CSA would alter maintenance to take account of both changes.
    Regulation 2(2)(b) makes clear how we deal with cases where an earlier reported change in income did not breach tolerance and so maintenance was unaltered. It ensures that any new liability resulting from a subsequent non-income change—for example, new shared care arrangements—will also reflect the earlier income change. Both changes will be effective from the date of the later change.
    It is sensible to clarify these matters in legislation since, as maintenance is being recalculated because of non-income changes, the agency will also sweep up any small income changes.
    Regulation 6 amends Regulation 29 of the Child Support (Maintenance Calculation Procedure) Regulations 2000. These provide for start dates for child support liability in specified cases. Some non-resident parents are liable to pay child support for children by different persons with care. Our term for these parents is "multiple parent with care cases". Existing legislation provides start dates for paying maintenance in these cases. The provisions assume that the first maintenance calculation, though in force when the application from the second parent with care was made, remains in force when liability for the second parent with care is calculated. However, this is not always the case.
    Sometimes it will be the fact that maintenance for the first parent with care has come to an end after the second parent with care has made her application. This might be, for example, because the qualifying child in the first case has reached the age of 19 or found employment. The old scheme did not provide for this, or provided it in different ways, so the amendment provides new, initial start dates for these cases where liability in respect of the first parent with care has ceased before a maintenance calculation in respect of the new parent with care has been made. There will not be many of these cases, but, where they do occur, the current effective date provisions would be insufficient. That is why we need to make this change and remedy the gap that exists.
    Regulation 7 amends the Child Support (Maintenance Calculations and Special Cases) Regulations 2000, which also provide for the calculation of child support maintenance in the new scheme. One amendment within this group mirrors the one which I have described in Regulation 5, providing for statutory adoption and statutory paternity pay to be treated as earnings. The remaining amendments in
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    this regulation are intended to clarify the legislation and to ensure that it reflects the policy intention. In the new child support scheme the maintenance due is calculated as a percentage of the non-resident parent's net weekly income. A parent with income of less than £5 a week is required to pay nothing. A non-resident parent on benefit is normally required to pay a flat rate of £5—but if their income, including benefit, is less than £5 a week, again a nil rate will apply. The amendments clarify that social security benefits are net weekly income for the purposes of establishing whether a non-resident parent can be assessed to pay nothing.
    Regulation 9 contains two minor technical amendments to the Child Support (Variations) Regulations 2000, which allow for child support maintenance calculations to be varied in specified circumstances.
    The final group of regulations applies to both schemes. Regulation 3 amends the Child Support (Information, Evidence and Disclosure) Regulations 1992. The amendment clarifies that when an appeal is made to an independent tribunal, the Secretary of State may disclose the relevant information to the non-resident person(s) with care and any other person with a right of appeal.
    Regulation 8 makes several amendments to the transitional regulations. The transitional regulations ensure that there is a proper legal framework for the conversion of old scheme cases to the new child support scheme. They also allow changes in liability to be phased in over a period of up to five years in specified circumstances. I stress that the amendments ensure that the provisions in this area work as we intended them to. Some old scheme cases that are linked to a new application have converted or will convert early to the new scheme. The bulk of the old scheme cases will be transferred to the new scheme when, as I said, we are sure that it is working well.
    Regulation 8(3) ensures that a conversion can happen on cases where there is an outstanding departure direction, revision or supersession which cannot be resolved until more information is provided. Here we will provide that the conversion decision will be based on the information used or considered to make the maintenance assessment being converted. When the full information becomes available, both the old and new scheme decisions will be corrected as necessary.
    Amendments made by Regulations 8(4) and 8(7) allow the child support payable to a parent with care in the new scheme to be adjusted where a non-resident parent has overpaid maintenance under the old scheme. Regulation 8(7) also allows payments made by a non-resident parent in the new scheme to be attributed to arrears which accrued under a maintenance assessment in the old scheme. So these amendments essentially provide a bridge by which overpayments and underpayments of maintenance can be offset between the two schemes.
    Those are perhaps the most significant changes in this package, which we readily acknowledge is very technical and very detailed. I intend to leave it there. If

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    noble Lords wish to raise other points of detail, I will do my best to respond or at least to reply in writing. The important point is that with these minor but important amendments we are trying to ensure that the new and old schemes operate as fairly and effectively as possible for the families and particularly for the children concerned. The regulations underpin our continuing commitment to ensuring that child support works for parents and children.
    I am satisfied that the regulations are compatible with the European Convention on Human Rights, and I commend them to the House.
    Moved, That the draft regulations laid before the House on 5 July be approved [25th Report from the Joint Committed].—(Baroness Andrews.)
    Lord Skelmersdale: My Lords, the House will be extremely grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Andrews, for explaining these amendment regulations so clearly and so briefly. To summarise the changes that these regulations make to no fewer than eight existing pieces of legislation in such a way is indeed masterly. I applaud, too, the Explanatory Notes—provided originally, I understand, to the Joint Committee on Statutory Instruments.
    I use the word "legislation" advisedly because one should never forget that much more law is made by statutory instrument than by Act of Parliament. That becomes especially important at a time in our history when so many Acts are framework ones, so that the devil is in the detail. Not that I have detected any devils tonight, though I do detect that amendments are being made to both child support schemes under the 1991 Act and the 2000 Act—what the noble Baroness described as the "old" and the "new" schemes.
    As I understand it, the policy behind Regulation 2 covers a situation arising under both Acts and is to do with a change of circumstance; for example, the absent parent's income or a change to the number of children involved—which I would have thought would be a lot less likely. It must be very rare indeed that an absent parent of, say, two children would suddenly find that they are responsible for three living with their original partner. How many cases of that does the noble Baroness know of? Slightly more likely is a case where the absent parent has had more than one partner with children born to more than one partnership. Again, can the noble Baroness tell me how many maintenance payers—because that is what we are talking about that applies to?
    The new recalculation rules make such perfect sense that I am surprised that they have not been in place since the commencement of the 2000 Act.
    The clarifying Regulation 3 does not concern me. It is only fair that all parties to the appeal should have the information. However, like Regulation 4, which started under the 2000 Act, it corrects an omission, and now the revision or lapsing of an appeal against a child support decision will be the same as under the 1991 Act. Again one wonders quite how the omission occurred, but I shall leave that perhaps for another time.
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    Regulation 5 amends the two schemes by virtue of new legislation such as the statutory adoption and paternity pay and the educational maintenance allowance. I am not clear, however, who benefits when. Clearly, the educational allowance is person specific and should not affect maintenance. However, paternity pay given to an absent father should be included in the maintenance calculation, as should adoption pay.
    It is all, in a sense, part of the maintenance calculation procedure, whose scheme is being amended by Regulation 6, which seems to tidy up a slight muddle in the definition of the date when an award is made. Circumstances change, such as when one child becomes 19—as the noble Baroness suggested in an example—maintenance is no longer payable and so a new calculation has to be made. As I understand it, the new regulation makes provision for a time overlap between the absent parent being contacted either before or after the change of circumstance.
    I hope that I have that right. It is a complicated matter. Indeed, it is so complicated that I thought I heard the noble Baroness say that a change in income of 5 per cent would be tolerated. Did she in fact mean £5 a week, which I think is much more likely and is the figure given in the Explanatory Notes?
    Finally, I observe, however much I regret it, that the word "partner" has now become established in English law. As far as child support is concerned, it is no longer necessary to specify what it means in each and every piece of legislation. I suspect that we will see a whole lot of social security orders where the definition of the word "partner" will be cited as that in paragraph (10)(c) of Schedule 1 to the 2000 Act.
    For years after the setting up of the Child Support Agency there were complaints of its activities, both from the recipients of maintenance and from those from whom the agency collected the money. Those seem to have died down and I have not heard of any recent problems barring the introduction of the newish computer system to which the noble Baroness referred. With the large number of absentee parents—some 800,000, I believe—that is surprising. Can the noble Baroness confirm that the agency is now on an even keel and that the system is working well and will work even better once the new IT is up and running?
    Baroness Barker: My Lords, I too congratulate the noble Baroness on her introduction. She was given a job to do and it was perhaps one of the worst. In my experience, when the DWP announces that something is just "technical", it is time to run for cover. However, she stepped up to the plate and she did an extremely good job of introducing what I think her colleague the noble Baroness, Lady Hollis, would call "very techie" amendments. I thank her very much indeed.
    I thank the noble Baroness also for providing the schedule of regulations. It was extremely helpful to see these provisions embedded within the clauses to which they relate. It helped to explain many points.

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    We on these Benches welcome quite a few of the provisions. We strongly welcome the provisions on the educational maintenance allowance exceptions. We also accept the overall proposition that minor changes in circumstances amounting to not much more than a small change in the non-resident parent's income should be within what the noble Baroness called the tolerance rules. We think that that is an example of effective administration. We welcome also the exemptions on statutory paternity pay and statutory adoption pay.
    I noticed that the noble Lord, Lord Skelmersdale, resisted the temptation to deal with the regulations that recalculate distance in kilometres instead of miles. Why we do not make the rest of Europe multiply distances by eight and divide by five, I do not know—but it is a thought.
    The point at which the noble Baroness started and the one on which the noble Lord ended is perhaps the key background to this—the two IT systems that the DWP is attempting to run, both containing roughly 1 million cases but neither working particularly effectively. As my honourable friend in another place, Paul Holmes, noted, and as my honourable friend Steve Webb noted over the summer, 76 per cent of cases are on the old system and 24 per cent are on the new, but neither of the systems is working very well. The noble Baroness rather glided over that. The payments perhaps do not involve substantial sums, but they are made to people who badly need them. The timing of payments is critical to their ability to balance their budgets and the bad performance has had a major effect on their lives.
    One matter about which I am most exercised is in Regulation 8—the provision that seems to imply that people may be transferred from the existing system to the new system with incomplete information. The regulations refer to examples where assessments are made with incomplete information. Does the department have an estimate of how many people are likely to be transferred from the existing system to the new system with incomplete information, and, on average, how long it will take to find that missing information? Will assessments and payments start to be made on the new system based on incomplete information or will there be a pause or delay between the two?
    The noble Baroness spoke with considerably more awareness than I have about cessation orders and continuation orders. From what she said, I take it that, if there had been an over-payment or under-payment on the old system, that would continue into the new system but, when payments were remedied, there would be a period of time under which the correction would take place. When those recalculations of payments are made, can the noble Baroness tell us—perhaps not now but in writing at a later stage—whether they are intended to be made over periods of time and whether they will be made in exact amounts or in bandings?
    I think that the noble Baroness has been given an impossible job this evening—not in explaining the technical nature of the regulations but in defending the
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    department's computerisation. I have every sympathy for the people who have to use the system. It is clearly extremely difficult for them to do so with any sense of accuracy, but I have even more sympathy for those who are dependent on the system for the payment of small but necessary amounts, which impact on their household budgeting and their ability to keep their heads above water.
    I thank the noble Baroness very much for the way in which she introduced the regulations. I hope that at some stage—perhaps not this evening—she may be able to answer some of the questions.
    Baroness Andrews: My Lords, I am very grateful for the welcome that noble Lords have given to the regulations and for the kind words that they have offered me. I appreciate that.
    I start at the point at which the noble Lord, Lord Skelmersdale, and the noble Baroness, Lady Barker, finished—that is, matters relating to the future of the system. In evidence to Select Committees and in presentations to the House, no Minister has disguised the frustration that he or she has felt at the difficulties that we have had in implementing the scheme. Those frustrations are obviously shared in particular by the staff, who are desperate to make the scheme as good as possible, to make the payments as swiftly and accurately as possible and to ensure that the money reaches the children. We may be talking about small sums of money but they are critical sums.
    I can tell the noble Lord that there is no doubt that the system is improving. A number of statistics now show that a steady increase in the number of cases is being dealt with and that there is growing capacity in the system. I shall give a few brief examples which indicate the volume of work with which the scheme is coping. The scheme started in March 2003 and, as of June 2004, the CSA received 404,616 applications of which 197,000 have been cleared and 117,000 have had maintenance calculations made on them. It is a huge undertaking involving a huge volume of work. Although the system did not prove as robust or as resilient as we had hoped, we are looking at a steady increase in capacity; we are dealing more readily and more speedily with the new cases that come in; and the cases which had become stuck are being freed up.
    However, I reiterate—this goes to the heart of what the noble Baroness said about overpayments and underpayments and the timescale for ensuring that people receive the benefits of the schemes—that we cannot afford to transfer the old cases to the new scheme until we are absolutely sure that it is as good as it can be. That is where we stand in relation to that matter. But we are making progress and, in particular, claimants say that they prefer and appreciate the new simplified system. It is a huge bonus to them. But our prime concern is to protect their interests and to ensure that their maintenance is made, paid and maintained. I am grateful for what the noble Lord said about it.
    Perhaps I may address the issues with which I am able to deal. In relation to the question raised by the noble Lord, Lord Skelmersdale, we do not know how

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    many non-resident parents become liable for an additional child with an original parent with care or another parent with care under Regulation 2. We know that people live very complex lives and sometimes additional children are born to the original mother, perhaps following a temporary reconciliation, or other children may be born to other, different mothers. We do not collect information on that, but more commonly the issue will arise when a new child is born into the non-resident parent's new household. I am afraid that that is as far as I am able to respond to the noble Lord.
    The noble Lord asked about the tolerance rule and the figure of 5 per cent. I did mean 5 per cent. For the new child support scheme, we recalculate liability only when changes in net income exceed 5 per cent of the figure used in the current calculations. I probably did not make that clear. Therefore, under the old scheme, the tolerance rule ensures that payments of child support are adjusted in most cases only where the difference between the old and the new assessment is at least £10 per week. Therefore, it is slightly more complex.
    The third point raised by the noble Lord related to Regulation 5. I can confirm that statutory paternity pay and adoption pay do count as earnings. I believe that that was the question that the noble Lord asked.
    The noble Baroness asked me about the transfer to the new system. She raised the problem of incomplete information and asked whether we knew how long it would take to find the missing information. We do not know. We do not know many things about the length of time that matters are taking because the IT does not enable us to be certain of some of them. However, obviously we want as much complete information as possible to be used as the basis of the assessments and as soon as possible. Again, that is a reflection of how we need the scheme to be as robust as possible.
    The noble Baroness asked about the process of overpayments and underpayments. Because this is quite a technical issue and good social security practice relates to both schemes, if the noble Baroness will allow me, I shall write to her on that point.
    If I have not picked up any of the questions raised by the noble Lord or the noble Baroness, I shall read Hansard very carefully and follow up those points of detail. In the mean time, I again commend the regulations to the House.
    On Question, Motion agreed to.

    Criminal Justice and Police Act 2001 (Amendment) and Police Reform Act 2002 (Modification) Order 2004
    7.58 p.m.
    The Minister of State, Home Office (Baroness Scotland of Asthal)The Minister of State, Home Office (Baroness Scotland of Asthal) rose to move, That the draft order laid before the House on 19 July be approved [27th Report from the Joint Committee].
    The noble Baroness said: My Lords, the penalty notices for disorder were introduced by the Criminal Justice and Police Act 2001. These are on-the-spot penalties for disorderly behaviour. Police officers may issue penalty notices in respect of offences listed in Section 1 of the Act. Current penalty notice offences include being drunk and disorderly, causing harassment, alarm or distress, wasting police time and being drunk on a highway. Therefore, they are targeted at a range of low-level anti-social offences which can blight our neighbourhoods and communities and which serve to increase the fear of crime.
    As noble Lords know, penalty notices for disorder form an important part of the Government's determined campaign, working with the police, local authorities and concerned citizens, to tackle antisocial and nuisance behaviour and offending. But this type of offending is at the lower end of the scale of seriousness and therefore needs to be dealt with in a way which punishes the offender and reassures the community but which does not take up large amounts of police and court time.
    Penalty notices for disorder have proved that they fulfil that remit. They enable offenders to be dealt with quickly on the street or at the police station by the issue of a ticket. A significant amount of police time is already being saved by not having to prepare the paperwork necessary to take an offender to court—around two-and-a-half hours per case. Further time is saved by the police officer not having to attend the court hearing. That means that police officers are free to spend more time on the streets deterring crime and dealing with other offenders who might otherwise never be apprehended. In addition, court time is freed up to deal with more serious offending.
    Penalty notice amounts are currently £80 and £40. The recipient of a notice has 21 days to decide how to respond to the notice. If he pays the penalty within that time he cannot be tried and receives no criminal record for that offence. If within 21 days he chooses instead to go to court so as to contest the notice, he may be tried for that offence. If he does nothing, a sum of oneand-a-half times the original penalty amount is registered against the offender as a fine. Such fines are then enforced in the normal way. That is very similar to the discussion we had on Friday about these notices.
    The penalty notice scheme was piloted and then rolled out nationally earlier this year. The police have welcomed it and have asked for it to be extended to further offences. One new offence, that of causing harassment, alarm and distress, was added to the original list in 2002 and is well used, representing as it does almost half of penalty notices issued. The Government have now decided that the time is right to add a further 10. They are largely low-level offences which are suitable for penalty notice disposal or. in two cases, offences for which the least serious examples are suitable for such treatment. It is the addition of these 10 offences which we are debating today.
    The proposed new offences are four offences involving alcohol misuse by those under 18; three new firework offences; destroying or damaging property where the damage is valued at under £500; retail theft under the value of £200, and dropping litter. A further order is to be laid before the House which will set the penalty amounts for each of these offences. The order proposes that the majority of these offences should become penalty notice offences by 1 November but the three firework offences will be available for penalty notice disposal two weeks after the order comes into force, bearing in mind the proximity of bonfire night. That will mean that police officers will be able to issue penalty notices for many offences associated with fireworks in the run-up to 5 November. That should help to combat a very serious problem involving firework misuse which is experienced daily on our streets across the country.
    As the House knows, theft and criminal damage are generic offences and can cover a wide range of behaviour. As I said, for theft it is no more than £200 and for criminal damage where the value is no more than £500.
    The order which is before the House today pursues, therefore, the Government's commitment to tackle anti-social behaviour and nuisance offending. I beg to move.
    Moved, That the draft order laid before the House on 19 July be approved [27th Report from the Joint Committee].—(Baroness Scotland of Asthal.)
    Viscount Bridgeman: My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for that succinct explanation of the order. The extra offences which have been added to the existing ones for which a penalty notice can be issued, which she has enumerated—namely, theft; destroying or damaging property; depositing and leaving litter; and the widening application of fireworks offences—clearly make a lot of sense.
    The order also includes a widening of alcohol-related offences. While we fully recognise the dangers to the public peace and, indeed, to the personalities of the young persons, of binge drinking, I share with my right honourable friend Mr David Davis his concerns that the highly publicised plans to clamp down on binge drinking are but a prelude to the imposition by the Government of cash curbs on pubs and breweries, especially in view of the failure of the Licensing Act to address the problems posed by many pubs in residential areas. I would welcome an assurance by the Minister that he has no intention of imposing these burdens in future.
    Turning to the modification of powers exercisable by police civilians—in this House, we rise above such cheap epithets as "Blunkett's bouncers" or "plastic policemen"—this is a proposal which we welcome, provided that it releases police officers to deal with more serious forms of crime. However, this widening of the role of community support officers must not be used as a cloak to avoid addressing the fundamental need to increase the number of police officers, which,
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    in the view of my own party, is the only really effective way of reversing the tide of anti-social behaviour and restoring respect for authority and the law.
    I would remind your Lordships that my party is pledged to increase police numbers by 40,000, to remove central government interference on local policing and to put it on to a sustainable financial footing, also to create a genuine partnership between police and public by establishing directly elected police authorities in England and Wales. However, with those reservations, I agree with this very comprehensive order.
    Lord McNally: My Lords, one of the reasons why we on these Benches are suspicious of secondary legislation is that when we have the major debate on the key Bill, there is always the suspicion that what is being debated is the tip of the iceberg and it is at the secondary legislation stage that we shall see what the Home Office really intends.
    It also means that mini-debates such as this are on very narrow specifics when they need to be taken in a broader context. Most of the measures in these orders or the problems that they are trying to address are, by common consent, a desire by people to see something done. There is wide concern about unruly behaviour. The problem I face is seeing any kind of coherence in the government response. One worries that sometimes this little package or series that we see is designed to cover the Government's Daily Mail flank in advance of a general election rather than to put some of these issues in their proper context.
    As far as policing is concerned, what we are doing at the moment is trying to catch up after a decade of cutting police numbers by both parties when they had responsibility for these matters. One of the advantages of being in this House for almost 10 years is that I remember pressing the noble Lord, Lord Bassam, about the Government sticking to the previous government's record and intentions on police spending and being assured that new technologies and greater mobility mean that we did not need extra police on the street. So, I am glad that there is now common consensus that we do. I should also point out that this party was advising community support officers a decade ago when again it was seen as some kind of weird liberal thinking.
    Today most of these orders are aimed mainly at young people. Young people cause most public concern. My eyes were caught by two things: first, today's Guardian headline, "Today's youth: anxious, depressed, antisocial"; and, secondly, a booklet on social exclusion published by the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister entitled Breaking the Cycle. It states:
    "Social exclusion is about more than income poverty. It is a shorthand term for what can happen when people or areas face a combination of linked problems such as unemployment, discrimination, poor skills, low incomes, poor housing, high crime, bad health and family breakdown".
    I draw attention to that because social reformers in all parties believed that if those problems were cured, the anti-social behaviour—crime itself —would diminish in the better, richer society that would be created.

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    What is worrying about the research published in the Guardian today is that it found:
    "The increases cannot be explained by the rise in divorce and single parenthood … because they found comparable increases in all types of families, although there is a higher rate of adolescent mental health problems in single-parent families.
    "Nor can growing inequality over the 25 years explain the rise in problem teenagers because rates of increase were comparable in all social classes. There was no difference between white and ethnic minority teenagers".
    In some ways it is extremely worrying that this rejection of society's behavioural norms is taking place. One finds it in so many ways. You talk to teachers who find that they cannot teach because of the simple defiance of students that will not take authority. Then we find that the rules and regulations make it very difficult to exclude those who then destroy the education for a whole class. You talk to policemen who say that the youth seem to be very well versed in their rights, with very little idea of any kind of social responsibility.
    The temptation therefore is to appease that concern by ever more draconian measures. On Friday, these orders were slapped on 10 year-olds and now we are going to fine people on the spot for theft, which seems a slightly odd way of punishing theft. It might be an encouragement to go and steal something else to pay the fine.
    I am really putting a marker down. I know that the Government have other studies coming up on the educational and training aspects of 15 to 18 year-olds and their leisure pursuits. Some studies show that crime drops where the old youth club provisions are restored and where sport and other leisure pursuits are available. I cannot believe that that is not a better route than simply relying on ever more draconian policing.
    I suppose it is a sign of old age when one starts thinking nostalgically. I have a teenage son. Sometimes when I raise my voice at him I think, "Where have I heard that before?" Then I realise that it was from my father. It is a difficult period, but this generation does seem to be throwing up even greater challenges.
    I have a small point on fireworks, about which I do not think there will be great protest. Members of the general public often ask me why, when in our youth fireworks happened on bonfire night, they now seem to run for three months beforehand and three months afterwards and are let off almost anywhere at any time of day or night. If this order can help in that regard, it will be welcomed.
    As I say, I am worried that the motivation behind the order is not the more efficient policing to which the Minister referred but ticking another box for the Daily Mail. We welcome the order in a limited way because we believe that the wider issues, of which it is a part, need to be addressed in a wider context.
    8.15 p.m.
    Baroness Scotland of Asthal: My Lords, I thank the noble Viscount, Lord Bridgeman, and the noble Lord, Lord McNally, for their comments. Although they
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    went very wide of some of the issues with which we are dealing, I have taken from them that I have general assent to the orders that we are bringing forward.
    I say to the noble Viscount, Lord Bridgeman, that binge drinking is an issue of concern. Of course, I can make no commitment to any further introduction or change of policy. The targets we have in our sights as a result of this order are the selling of alcohol to under-aged children, the delivery of alcohol to under-aged children, the purchase of alcohol by under-aged persons and the drinking of alcohol by under aged persons in a bar. Noble Lords will know that alcohol has had a significant impact upon the behaviour that, regrettably, we are seeing in many of our city and other centres. It has been a real problem.
    The Government's alcohol harm reduction strategy for England, published by my right honourable friend the Prime Minister's strategy unit on 15 March 2004, included recommendations aimed at encouraging greater use of penalty notices for disorder to clamp down on the low-level drunk and disorderly behaviour that we are seeing. They are quick, easy and direct. I can assure your Lordships that before they are issued an officer has to have clear evidence that such an offence has been committed.
    The noble Lord, Lord McNally, talked about draconian measures but these penalties are seen by others as a quicker and more efficient way. Instead of pulling people right the way through the criminal justice system, criminalising them for what may be a one-off piece of foolishness, they are a way of punishing it, recognising that it is wrong, but dealing with it. We think that it is a more effective, and often more speedy, response.
    I assure the noble Lord that the police have welcomed it. Governments quite often come up with ideas that people in the field do not find to be of much use. The impression that we have from officers is that, for once, government have come up with something that works, which is useful and which has made a difference. Already 20,000 penalty notices for disorder have been issued to great effect. Most of them are being paid. Noble Lords should think about what that says for our criminal justice system.
    In relation to theft, the difficulty that we have in terms of the volume of crime is petty theft from shopkeepers. We have consulted shopkeepers and they very much welcome this. Particularly, in relation to the younger element, not criminalising a child who has stolen a 10p sweet from the local sweetshop may be seen by many as a very good thing. I know that noble Lords on the Liberal Democrat Benches will applaud telling the child that it is wrong, making sure that the parents know what the child has done and intervening swiftly in a way that does not unnecessarily criminalise the child but which, we hope, brings an end to the behaviour. This is not to placate the Daily Mail or anybody else.
    I know that there is a wider debate. I listened with great care to what was said by the noble Viscount, Lord Bridgeman, and the noble Lord, Lord McNally, but we have done more than any government before us

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    to increase the numbers of police officers on the beat. We are taking a holistic approach. We are looking at education and diversion with the work we are doing with DCMS; work is being done with NOMS and probation to find diversion, and we are doing work on drugs. There is obviously a lot that we can discuss, but maybe not tonight and maybe not on this order.
    I say to the noble Lord, Lord McNally, that this is not electioneering. This is hard work that needs to be done and is being done well. It is already proving to be very successful. I am glad that we have unanimity on all our Benches that this is a good thing and we should get on and do it. I commend this order to the House.
    On Question, Motion agreed to.
    Lord Davies of Oldham: My Lords, I beg to move that the House do now adjourn until 8.30 p.m.
    Moved accordingly, and, on Question, Motion agreed to.
    [The Sitting was suspended from 8.19 to 8.30 p.m.]

    Housing Bill
    House again in Committee.
    Clause 131 [Meaning of "on the market" and related expressions]:
    Lord Bassam of Brighton Lord Bassam of Brighton moved Amendment No. 178ZA:
    Page 93, line 1, at end insert—
    "(A1) In this Part references to "the market" are to the residential property market in England and Wales."
    The noble Lord said: This is the first of a number of government amendments. This one is intended to remove a potential ambiguity about the meaning of the expression "on the market" in Clause 131. The amendment makes it clear that for the purposes of Part 5 "the market" is the residential property market located in England and Wales.
    Amendment No. 181B follows on from Amendment No. 178ZA and removes a redundant reference to England and Wales in Clause 136.
    Amendment No. 210F includes "The Market" in the index of defined expressions in Clause 155, specifying the meaning in accordance with Clause 131 as amended. It is thus consequential on the first amendment.
    Amendment No. 181ZA clarifies that for the purpose of Clause 132,
    "a business in England and Wales",
    includes any business conducted from premises that are not used exclusively or mainly for business purposes—for example, a residential property.
    The small drafting changes in Amendments Nos. 178B and 194ZA are intended to clarify the point that only actions that are taken with "the intention of" marketing will trigger the HIP duties. This phrase describes the policy aim more clearly than the expression "a view to marketing", which it replaces.
    An estate agent is not in breach of the duty if, for example, he or she tells a spouse or colleague that a particular property is going on the market, but this would not be a qualifying action within the meaning of the part, provided that the communication was not aimed at marketing the property.
    Another example is where an estate agent is seen at a property that is not yet on the market and is asked whether it is up for sale. If the estate agent were to answer truthfully, "Not yet, but it will be as soon as the home information pack is ready", that would not be a qualifying action either.
    Amendment No. 181ZB is intended to simplify the explanation for the purposes of Clauses 134 and 135, which detail responsibilities of the estate agent and the seller respectively, by defining the property as a residential property that is "on the market".
    Amendment No. 185ZA is a small drafting change to achieve consistency of expression with Clause 138(6). Both will now read,
    "where the responsible person is the seller".
    Amendment No. 188B removes and replaces Clause 138(6) and thereby removes the unnecessary requirement that a seller must believe that the other person responsible for marketing his property—for example, the estate agent—has a home information pack in the situation when a request is made for a copy of the pack. This requirement is unnecessary because, by definition, one of the responsible people must have the HIP, and where the seller does not have one, the other person must have one.
    Amendment No. 191B deals with the situation where the seller imposes a condition on Clause 139(2), requiring the buyer to pay a charge to receive a copy of the HIP or part of it. The amendment ensures that all conditions under the clause, including these, are effective only if notified to the potential buyer before the end of the 14-day period after a request for the pack is made.
    Amendments Nos. 192A and 192B remove a slight verbal ambiguity by ensuring that "purporting to be" in Clause 140(1) refers both to the pack and to any document included within it. Amendment No. 193ZA removes a potential loophole that might make Clause 140(4) seem to catch cases where there is no duty to comply with a request made under Clause 138(1). The duty to comply with,
    "a request to a responsible person for a copy of the home information pack",
    does not apply in various situations detailed in Clause 138. That includes, for example, when the responsible person reasonably believes the person requesting the pack does not "have sufficient means" to make the purchase or,
    "is not genuinely interested in buying a property".
    Finally, Amendment No. 210ZC clarifies the period during which a penalty charge notice may be given in the case of a continuing breach of any duty, under Clauses 137 to 141 or Clause 147(4). In the case of a continuing breach,
    "A penalty charge notice may not be given after the end of the period of six months beginning"

    991
    on the last day of the breach. I hope that that explanation is clear. I beg to move.
    Baroness Hamwee: Perhaps I may ask a question about Amendment No. 193ZA. I understand that there should be relief from the duty to provide a pack if one does not think that a person can pay for the purchase or is a serious prospective purchaser, but that does not seem to be what it is about. The duty under Clause 140 is about ensuring the authenticity of the document. That confuses me. It suggests that "spoof" documents could be supplied. I am sure that that is not what is meant.
    Lord Bassam of Brighton: I am sure that that is not what is meant but, in due deference to the noble Baroness, I will ensure that we check that point. It seems fair that we should.
    Lord Phillips of Sudbury: I find all these amendments inoffensive, except for Amendments Nos. 178B and 194ZA. They are the same but concern different clauses. This is rather a micro-point, but it is worth making. Amendment No. 178B affects Clause 131(1). It would change the words, "a view to" to "the intention of". That would be senseless. The clause states:
    "A residential property is put on the market when the fact that it is or may become available for sale is, with a view to marketing the property, first made public in England and Wales".
    Instead of the words,
    "with a view to marketing the property",
    the clause would read,
    "with the intention of marketing the property".
    So far as I can see, if a property is put on the market, it is with a view to selling the property. Surely, that should be the amendment. It is wholly unreasonable to expect the Minister to give a running answer to that rather knotty point. But it is one that I hope his learned advisers will think about. I would commend to the Committee that my wording is a heck of a lot better than theirs.
    Lord Bassam of Brighton: The noble Lord, Lord Phillips, is being entirely reasonable in giving me a get-out clause before responding. As a lay person, if I want someone to market my property, I would want him to have intent rather than a view maybe to marketing it. It is possibly a question of emphasis, but I hear what the noble Lord says. Of course, we will take learned advice.
    Lord Phillips of Sudbury: If you put the thing on the market, which is what they start by saying, it is with a view to selling it. You do not put it on the market with a view to marketing. It is not a big point.
    Lord Bassam of Brighton: You put it on the market with the intent of selling it. Well, I think most people do.
    Lord Phillips of Sudbury: Selling it.
    Lord Bassam of Brighton: The noble Lord makes a point, and we will reflect on it. We can do no more than that.
    On Question, amendment agreed to.
    The Earl of Caithness The Earl of Caithness moved Amendment No. 178A:
    Page 93, line 2, leave out "or may become"
    The noble Earl said: We now come to the serious business of marketing. This is one of the most important areas of the Bill. The Government are taking away the right of somebody to market their property as soon as they want to do so. They are shackling that person's freedom, that they currently have, and making it impossible for them to do something that is done successfully, and without any great difficulty, at the moment. This erosion of freedom is unnecessary, and will cause great resentment if the Government pursue it. It is quite common in estate agency for people to make very quick decisions about the need to sell a property. This can be for a variety of reasons. The most common reason cited, perhaps, is that they find a property that they want, or that they have been looking and looking and have now seen something that really interests them. In order for them to proceed with that purchase they have to sell their own property. However, the Government are not going to let them do that until they have a home information pack available to them. That could take some days or weeks to prepare.
    Let us take the simple case of a freehold property. That should not be too difficult. You now have a home condition report, you have to get all the searches and all the requisite information, and that could take up to 10 days. But what happens if you own a flat, and you have managing agents who are less than diligent in providing you with information about service charges, costs of repairs, future programmes or sinking funds for future costs? I have battled endlessly with management agents in selling flats over the past. They can cause quite a major delay to the sale of a property.
    Quite often the managing agents are nowhere near where the flat is. I have sold flats in London where the managing agents have been up in Manchester, and getting information out of them has been horrendously difficult.
    The owner of that flat is now going to be faced with the situation that he cannot sell his property because he is not allowed to market it. That is quite wrong. If we are going to have home information packs, and we want to speed up the process of buying and selling properties, surely the property should be allowed to be marketed at day one?
    The other extreme is the ability to sell quickly. I have sold a property within 24 hours of being given instructions. I had the right purchaser, at the right price, for the right property, and it all worked. It does not happen very often, but it did happen. Why should, in that instance, an owner have to go to all the expense, time and trouble of preparing a home information pack? He might well have lost the sale. The sale was critical because the purchaser had to choose between two properties, and he was either going to sign an unconditional contract with my vendor, or somebody else's vendor, within 24 hours. So the sale went through.
    However, what the Government are now doing will distort the market by preventing marketing at day one. That is crucial to how the current market works. If the Government persist in the view that one cannot market at day one, there will be a seismic shift in how the property market works and how quickly it can flow.
    In due course, some 20 years down the road, I do not believe that it will be such a problem, but it will be a major problem in the early days of providing a pack. For that reason, we need to provide flexibility to allow a vendor to market a property immediately he or she wishes to do so. I beg to move.
    8.45 p.m.
    Baroness Hanham: Amendments Nos. 179 and 180 tabled in my name are probably rather tendentiously grouped with this amendment. However, they refer to "marketing", which must have brought them together.
    The purpose of these amendments is to help the Secretary of State, and I hope that the Minister will view them in that light. I understand that, in law, information is deemed to be public once it has been published in the London Gazette. I am not entirely convinced that many prospective house buyers scan the pages of that fine journal, and to that end I congratulate the draftsman of subsection (3) of this clause for including the expression,
    "public or to a section of the public",
    thus getting over that particular hurdle.
    I turn to the issue of what constitutes a "section of the public". If I were to say in passing at a council meeting that I was thinking of selling my house, would I then be required to produce a home information pack that day? On a more serious note, if a property developer were to place an advertisement in a London evening paper—not the London Gazette—prospecting for buyers of luxurious riverside apartments just down the river from here in a development that is yet to be built, would that be deemed to be marketing to the public?
    We touched on some of these matters earlier, but as my noble friend Lord Caithness has pointed out, marketing is now a major issue in this part of the Bill. We feel that the most expedient way to deal with it would be to delete this clause and simply leave the definition of marketing to the public to the Secretary of State.
    Lord Borrie: We all know of the experience of the noble Earl, Lord Caithness, and it is valuable to the Committee to have the benefit of his thoughts. However, I regard some of his language as a bit extreme and emotional. The use of the phrase, "shackling" the freedom of the vendor to market his property and the citing of certain examples suggest a touch of special pleading.
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    Let us take the instance of someone who has set his heart for many years on buying a certain property in the neighbourhood. It comes on sale and therefore he is keen to buy. In order to finance the purchase, he has to sell his existing property. That person will want to put his existing property on the market as soon as possible. I fully understand that. But why should he be able to put that property on the market without enabling the buyer to have the benefit of the provisions we are discussing in this part of the Bill—namely, a home information pack and a house condition report—just so that he can put his house on the market quickly, in order to move ahead of other people who may be interested in the property which he has been keen to buy for many years?
    Should we suggest that the Bill be radically altered and reduced in its impact in order to deal with a special instance of that kind? The rush to market which it is suggested that the vendor should be able to do would be made at the expense of those who want to know what kind of property they may be bidding for if they interest themselves in his existing property.
    Lord Phillips of Sudbury: I strongly support Amendment No. 178A in the name of the noble Earl, Lord Caithness. I am unable to support Amendment No. 179 in the joint names of the three Opposition Peers. I would like some elucidation from the Minister on Amendment No. 180. I do not support Amendment No. 179 because, rather than giving the Secretary of State power to make more regulations on a central issue—namely, what marketing is—I would rather leave that word to be construed by lawyers in the courts under common law principles. Any statutory definition of marketing will be a mess.
    I particularly support the amendment to delete the words "or may become available" in Clause 131(1). The provision seems to extend in a most unsatisfactory and unclear way the potential ambit of Clause 131—which is an important clause—to say that residential property is put on the market when it "may become available" for sale. That seems a contradiction in terms. I do not see the rationale or justification for those three weaselly words.
    I turn to Amendment No. 180. Those who want subsection (3) to be deleted could be fouling their own nest. It is helpful to say that a fact is made public when it is advertised to a section of the public, but it would help the Committee if the Minister were to tell us what the Government understand the words "section of the public" to mean. Is it any group, anywhere, at any time, as one might logically think, or does it have some particular meaning? Given its importance, it would be interesting to know if he can give us any help.
    The Earl of Courtown: Can my noble friend Lord Caithness tell the Committee how long a delay the legislation would instil into the selling of property—or can the Minister?
    Lord Bassam of Brighton: As long as it takes me to get on my feet. That last point is for the noble Earl, Lord Caithness, to deal with. I shall deal with the

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    amendments in turn. I start with Amendment No. 178A. I am sure that all Members of the Committee involved in the debate understand that Clause 131 defines the circumstances in which a property is regarded as having been placed on the market and the period during which it is regarded as remaining on the market.
    As the noble Earl, Lord Caithness, ably explained—as one would expect—the first amendment is about what he sees as obstacles to sale. The noble Earl made the case from the perspective of estate agency businesses of the provision being seen as an erosion of the freedom to take to market. While I appreciate the sincerity and commitment of that view, we take a different approach. It comes down to that: we have a different view of how we see the market working in the future.
    The Government are rightly making the case that we want to have a well-informed market. Some of our common and personal experiences suggest that it is highly desirable that people have more information. That is the purpose of the home information pack and why we take the view that it is important for that information to be available as early as possible in the process. We therefore believe this amendment is inappropriate and that it would open a loophole by enabling a marketing process to begin before that information had been properly assembled.
    A seller in those circumstances could simply advertise the fact that his home was about to become available for sale and thus start the marketing ball rolling in all but name, but without having to have a pack ready. That would obviously trigger inquiries, offers and negotiations without either side being in possession of the information needed to make meaningful decisions. I listened with care to what the noble Earl said, because his comments expressed clearly that a potential buyer might have to make decisions and take a view about complex matters in the process of considering and making a reasonable assessment of the offer.
    Our case is that they will be better placed to do that with the information contained in the home information pack. While I can see that taking something to market at an early stage may have some potential advantages, there will also be delays at a later stage in the process if that information is not available and the potential purchaser is unable to make reasonable judgments.
    As we see it, the absence of the pack at the outset will continue to perpetuate the problems that all house purchasers and potential home purchasers experience at the present time, with a high rate of transaction failure and the unnecessary worry, stress and waste of time that come with it. That is the reasoning behind our objection to the amendment. We do not think it will help in the process of improving the way in which the market operates. I was very taken by the points made by my noble friend Lord Borrie in opposing the view expressed by the noble Earl.
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    I was interested in what the noble Lord, Lord Phillips, said about Amendment No. 179. We think that the amendment is unnecessary because Clause 131 already provides for the definition. It states:
    "A residential property is put on the market when the fact that it is or may become available for sale is, with a view to marketing the property, first made public … by or on behalf of the seller".
    Of course, a property will remain on the market until it is taken off or sold.
    As the noble Lord, Lord Phillips, said, Amendment No. 180 would delete Clause 131(3). That subsection defines when a fact is made public. Its removal could make it unclear when a property is put on the market and the associated duty to have a home information pack commences. We believe it is important that sellers and their agents should be clear about when the home information pack obligations kick in and when they conclude. The proposed amendment would not help that. For those reasons, the amendment cannot he supported.
    The noble Lord invited me to say a few words about expressions—in particular the expression "section of the public"—which are used in the clause but are not defined in the Bill. Our understanding is that the phrase has been used in other Acts of Parliament where some flexibility is desirable. The noble Lord is usually attracted to things like that. The case law indicates that "the public" relates to the public at large; and that "section of the public" indicates a slightly more restricted group. Thus, for example, the placing of an advertisement in a national newspaper could be described as "marketing to the public" as everyone in the country could potentially see it. By contrast, the placing of an advertisement in a local shop window would be marketing only to a "section of the public" as only a small proportion of the public would he likely to see it.
    Family members, individuals or small groups of people—one's immediate colleagues at work, for example—would not be considered as a section of the public for these purposes. Marketing to such people will therefore not be affected by the duties described elsewhere in this part of the Bill. Generally speaking, the seller would know such people in a private capacity and the property would therefore not be available for sale on the open market.
    I realise that I have probably inadequately responded to all the points that have been made, but that is our case. There is a clear difference of view. Returning to the first of the amendments, the noble Earl made the point that in the future he did not think there would be a problem with the way in which the clause is currently drafted and that it will work. That is a very significant point.
    Throughout the debates on this issue, my noble friend Lord Rooker has made it clear that implementation will be steady. We acknowledge that there are difficulties to overcome. We will make sure that the introduction of this part of the legislation. which is very important, travels at a pace but at a pace which understands and respects the fact that the

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    market will change because of the constraints we are placing on it by putting into place important changes through the home information pack.
    9 p.m.
    Lord Phillips of Sudbury: Before the Minister sits down, I note that he accepted that Clause 131 is the lynchpin of the whole of Part 5 of the Bill. However, if an auctioneer is auctioning Black Acre and at the end of the auction says, "A number of people have asked me whether the owners are going to sell Whiteacre. Well, they're considering that, but they may be bringing it to market in the spring", why on earth should that, which clearly brings it within the "may become available" provision of Clause 131, trigger a requirement on the part of the owner of Black Acre to go to the significant expense of putting together a home information pack when he has not even made up his mind to sell? Can the Minister answer that, because I am blown if I can see how it serves a useful purpose?
    Baroness Hamwee: While the Minister is thinking about that, I turn to "public or section of the public". If I were to put a couple of lines in a company's newsletter, which went only to those who worked there, would I be advertising to a section of the public?
    Lord Bassam of Brighton: I am less confident in giving an explanation to the noble Lord, Lord Phillips, but in response to the noble Baroness, I can say that that would be deemed as marketing to a section of the public. I do not think that there is any question about that. I want to reflect further on what the noble Lord, Lord Phillips, said, because his example depends very much on the exact form of words used. Of course, there will always be difficulties in those sets of circumstances. In the end, this legislation will work well if we use our common sense and have goodwill. In bringing about an important change for the potential buyer, we have to give careful thought to that, because the advantages are paramount and obvious to all.
    Lord Phillips of Sudbury: I think that the Minister sees the point, but it is often useful to the people of a town or a group of property developers to have some inkling that a particular property may be coming on the market. As the legislation stands, just saying that is going to trigger the need for the home information pack.
    Baroness Hanham: I refer specifically to Amendment No. 180, which would remove Clause 131(3). Much of our debate has shown why that should be; namely, the suggestion that bringing the matter to the attention of the public is an advertisement in itself and triggers the marketing clauses. It is very unclear what "advertising to the public" and "section of the public" mean. It is not even clear whether putting a picture in an estate agent's
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    window and not advertising in any other way would be covered by the clause. More questions are raised by Clause 131(3) than are answered.
    The Earl of Caithness: I shall read with care what the noble Lord, Lord Bassam, said, because he made some points that I would like to pick up at a later stage. The noble Lord, Lord Borrie, accused me of special pleading. If he means that I am making a special plea on behalf of the market in which I work, I shall plead guilty, because the housing market is a mixture of different markets around the country that come together to form the housing market of England and Wales. If I have made special pleading, I have acted no differently from that area of the country which has made special pleading that houses below a certain capital value should not need home information packs. There is no difference—it is just another section of the market with a particular problem, caused by this piece of legislation. I work in the international market in London, which is undoubtedly faster than most other parts of the country and much more international and cosmopolitan.
    The noble Lord, Lord Borrie, said I was making a special plea for the vendor, but I am doing the same for the purchaser. If the noble Lord and I are seeking the same property, Whiteacre—mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Phillips—and the noble Lord, Lord Borrie, really wants the house, but I have my house on the market with a home information pack, he is at a disadvantage because he cannot submit an offer to the noble Lord, Lord Phillips, as he does not have a HIP. The pack works both ways for the vendor and the purchaser, and—I have to repeat the word—it shackles an important sector of the market, though not at all the majority, that will be hamstrung by this legislation.
    The noble Lord, Lord Bassam, said that we could advertise that the property is likely to become available. Does that mean I can now put Whiteacre into London Property News, saying, "We haven't actually received instructions, but it's possible that we will do so, and the property is likely to come on the market"? In that case, the noble Lord, Lord Borrie, who is desperate to get Whiteacre, can now see that, "Ah! That is the house I have really been after. I will drop the purchase price of my house because I want a quick sale so that I am in a position to buy Whiteacre".
    When we look at the practicalities of what the Government are trying to do, we get into some very difficult areas. It is no good the noble Lord, Lord Bassam, saying "Well, we have all got common sense and we can all handle this". We are dealing with a cut-throat business market where at times people are desperate to get, or to sell, a particular property. The noble Lord went on to talk about making the market work properly. Do not let us forget that over 70 per cent of present transactions go through without any hitch at all. We are not talking about a market that is not working—just about a minority sector of a market that can be improved. As an agent, I would dearly like to see that, and I know the noble Lord, Lord Phillips,

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    wants it improved from the solicitor's point of view. However, we are not talking about the great majority of transactions.
    Clause 131 is crucial. The noble Lord, Lord Bassam, did not answer any of my points with regard to flats. I know it will be difficult for him to answer at the moment, but this time I hope that he or the Minister will write to me promptly. At what stage can a property be put on the market with an incomplete pack? At what point can the noble Lord, Lord Phillips, start marketing Whiteacre? He gives me instructions to market the place; it is a flat, and I cannot get the service charges, any of the building costs, the plans for repair or indeed the schedule for the last five years, or details of the sinking fund. I am hamstrung. I will go to my client and say: "I'm sorry, I cannot market your property. You might want to, but you can't, and I can't either. The Government won't let us". At what stage can we actually get on and start marketing the property? Why can it not be at day one, if there is an intention to prepare the pack as soon as possible?
    Lord Bassam of Brighton: Because the noble Earl made particular points about flats, I ought to try and respond to some of what he said. I apologise for the discourtesy of not picking up those points earlier. If there are further points that the noble Earl wants covering and I do not cover them, of course we will try to provide him with some more information between stages.
    The noble Earl raised the issue of acquiring information on flats and delay in the marketing process. I understand the point. I know that the noble Earl is concerned that managing agents will struggle to provide the information in real time and in the time that assists in the marketing process, particularly at an early stage.
    Our view is that the contents of the pack will, in most circumstances—the noble Earl almost made the point for us—enable the market to work well, with 70 per cent of transactions proceeding at an orderly pace. That is not to say that there cannot be improvements, even for those who feel that the system works well as it is. Most of the information will be there and the seller will already have it in his possession. Where information is not readily available and to hand, sellers will be able to market with incomplete packs after a defined period—that will be set out in regulations—provided that they can show that efforts have been made to obtain the missing information.
    I believe that over time—perhaps this is behind the point made by the noble Earl—these changes should not cause a problem. In any event, reforms to the Commonhold and Leasehold Reform Act will strengthen leaseholders' rights to obtain information from landlords in a more appropriate and accessible way. One has to look at the changes that we are putting in place as being part of a longer-term programme of improvements to the market and to access to information for those involved in the buying and selling process. Information is there for those who manage the market through estate agencies, sales and so on.
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    Returning to my earlier point, if we approach this matter with goodwill during the period of time in which we build up to implementation, many of the problems that can now be seen, or imagined, will begin to dissipate. We need to focus on solving them in a practical and hard-headed way. The advantages, certainly for those buying and needing more information to make a reasonable judgment about property, are paramount and very important. That is why I believe that purchasers will see the longer-term benefit of the changes that we are making.
    The Earl of Caithness: I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Bassam, for that further explanation. He has made an excellent effort to reply to me. He is absolutely right: we need to focus in a hard-headed way. We need to focus on what is going to happen on day one, when we have these packs, which are totally unused by any other country in the world. We are pioneering a new worldwide system in a very complex, large and diverse housing market.
    The Minister reminded me of something that I said on an earlier amendment to the noble Lord, Lord Rooker. The noble Lord, Lord Bassam, said, "We will set out in regulations". Could the Government lift the veil gently on these regulations so that we may see them? If we cannot look at the regulations, we shall not be doing a proper job of scrutinising the Bill. Again, I make the plea to the noble Lord, Lord Bassam: can we please see the draft of the regulations before we go into Report stage? Meanwhile, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
    Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
    Lord Rooker Lord Rooker moved Amendment No. 178B:
    Page 93, line 3, leave out "a view to" and insert "the intention of"
    On Question, amendment agreed to.
    [Amendments Nos. 179 and 180 not moved.]
    Clause 131, as amended, agreed to.
    Clause 132 [Acting as estate agent]:
    [Amendment No. 181 not moved.]
    Lord Rooker Lord Rooker moved Amendment No. 181Z.A:
    Page 93, line 16, leave out "of business""
    On Question, amendment agreed to.
    9.15 p.m.
    The Earl of Caithness The Earl of Caithness moved Amendment No. 181ZAA:
    Page 93, line 22, leave out subsection (3) and insert—
    "(3) A person may not act as estate agent within the meaning of this Part unless he is qualified under regulations made under section 22 (standards of competence) of the Estate Agents Act 1979 (c. 38)."
    The noble Earl said: We move now to the qualifications for somebody selling a property. The Committee will not be at all surprised to find me raising this amendment. I have moved something

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    similar before in your Lordships' House and I remember the Estate Agents Act 1979 going through this House.
    It seems to me utterly ludicrous that we can have a situation in this country where if the noble Lord, Lord Bassam, wants to sell £100 worth of shares he has to do so through somebody who is highly qualified, has passed all sorts of financial exams and is stringently regulated by the FSA. If the noble Lord, Lord Bassam, wants to sell perhaps the major asset that he owns—his flat or his house—it can be done by anybody without any qualification; that person need have no training whatever. That is a nonsense and it does not happen in other places in the world.
    The Government have used Denmark as an example for the housing market. The noble Lord, Lord Rooker, said earlier how similar Denmark was to Britain. But in order to deal with the complexities of the home information pack in Denmark, estate agents have to be licensed. To gain a licence, agents must have a good theoretical and practical knowledge of property matters. From June 2003 all new licensees must have a degree in property transactions and have completed two years' practical training. There is no comparison with England and Wales—we have nothing.
    But we are lucky. The Labour government of the 1970s passed the Estate Agents Act 1979 in which Clause 22 contains standards of competence. It states:
    "The Secretary of State may by regulations made by statutory instrument make provision for ensuring that persons engaged in estate agency work satisfy minimum standards of competence".
    Here is the Fifth Cavalry coming to the help of this Government. The Secretary of State can prescribe professional academic qualifications, designate any body or persons as a body which may itself specify professional qualifications, make provision for the establishment of a body to examine and inquire into the competence of persons engaged, or professing to engage, in estate agency work, and delegate powers to that body.
    The net result is that,
    "no individual may engage in estate agency work on his own account unless he has attained the required standard of competence",
    and that,
    "no body corporate or unincorporated association may engage in estate agency work unless such numbers and descriptions of the officers, members or employees as may be prescribed have attained the required standard of competence; and any person who contravenes this subsection"—
    subsection (3) of Clause 22—
    "shall be liable on conviction on indictment or on summary conviction to a fine which, on summary conviction, shall not exceed the statutory maximum".
    The noble Lord, Lord Phillips, will now tell me what that is! But the principle behind that is that as the Government make the process of buying and selling properties that bit more complicated, it is only right that when one is dealing in most cases with the most precious asset a person has, the person handling that transaction should be qualified. It is not right that the
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    mess should be cleared up after that person makes a mistake. We should tackle it before it happens and get the standards right now. I beg to move.
    Baroness Hanham: I rise to support the amendment of the noble Earl, Lord Caithness. It is fundamentally important, if the Bill is to proceed in the way it is, that people can trust the estate agents who deal not only with the sale of their house but in many cases on the compiling of the home information pack.
    As it stands, currently only one in three estate agency businesses in this country are even members of the ombudsman for estate agents. The ombudsman for estate agents does not offer legal redress for consumers who have to complain about estate agents, but who can do so only if the agents are members of the scheme. The majority of estate agents offer no legal redress or indemnity and can be called to account only through the courts. That inevitably means that the home inspectors will carry the can if something goes horribly wrong.
    I have always been enormously surprised that estate agents are not regulated in a way that would give comfort to the public who are buying and selling through them. I therefore support the amendment.
    Lord Borrie: One of the advantages of the present subsection (3), which the noble Earl, Lord Caithness, would like to remove, is that it covers those who act as estate agents—that is, act on behalf of a vendor with a view to marketing residential property—regardless of whether they describe themselves as an estate agent. Therefore, as the Explanatory Notes to the clause mention, a solicitor who acts as if he was an estate agent shall be treated as such for the various provisions of the Bill. It therefore follows, and perhaps this is an unintended consequence of the noble Earl's amendment, that a desirable feature of subsection (3) would disappear. But of course that is not the main part of what the noble Earl is seeking.
    I feel a sense of déjà vu for the quarter of a century in which the Estate Agents Act 1979 has been in force but for Section 22. Through the 1980s, when I was Director-General of Fair Trading and had certain powers under that Act to ban people from acting as estate agents for various kinds of wrongdoing and misdemeanours, there were many occasions when various interest groups and members of the public suggested the very sort of logic that the noble Earl and the noble Baroness have put forward—that, surely in this important transaction, those who act as agents for the vendors should have some sort of qualification.
    The noble Earl may be right. I am not sure that the method of implementing Section 22 that he suggests is the right way of doing it, but I think that, for the purposes of debate, and certainly for the purposes of hearing what my noble friend the Minister may say, I should indicate that the arguments as I remember them for not implementing Section 22 over the years went something like this.
    In the first place, it was said that standards of competence differ a great deal according to what the estate agent is doing, what kind of property he is

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    selling, and whether indeed he is doing valuations and surveys and the other things that estate agents often do, especially those qualified by the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors. It might be quite difficult to have either a range of qualifications or to think of a common denominator that would be appropriate for all.
    I remember banning certain people from acting as estate agents because they had been in gaol for fraud. I remember that many of the complaints about estate agents were not about competence. No one was suggesting that they were not capable of doing the job; they just were not honest. They were doing all sorts of things like failing to pass on offers to the vendor because they got a handout from someone else and that kind of thing. A number of them did that, and no doubt a number of them got off from various charges. However, in my day, and I dare say that it may not have changed all that much, some of them were dishonest—or, at any rate, shall I say that competence is not necessarily the same as integrity?
    Finally, in relation to insisting on qualifications for doing any particular task in life, holding any particular post or being in a particular occupation, the question always was and always will be asked: does that not unduly inhibit competition, which is normally beneficial to the public'? The argument is made that there should be rivals for the custom of the public and that, if the requirement for competence is raised to an unduly high level, that may be nicely comfortable and cosy for those who are already in the relevant profession or occupation but it is not necessarily a good thing for members of the public who want a wide range of people who are, I dare say, moderately qualified and certainly people of integrity. But sometimes one wonders whether systems of qualification and registration and so on achieve that.
    I am not sure that I can say more, other than I do not think that this is the way of achieving what the noble Earl is seeking. However, I am glad that he put forward the amendment because we shall all have the benefit of hearing the Minister's up-to-date view.
    Lord Phillips of Sudbury: Before the noble Lord, Lord Borrie, sits down, can I ask such a useful witness of reality whether, during his time as director-general, those whom he disciplined for various acts of misbehaviour among the estate agent fraternity were disproportionately people who had no RICS qualifications or whether he can recollect little distinction in the numbers between the qualified and unqualified estate agents?
    Lord Borrie: My memory is not as good as the noble Lord would like it to be, but I do not think that most of them were members of the established qualified institutions—the RICS and, at that time, the Incorporated Society of Valuers & Auctioneers.
    Lord Hylton: When the Minister comes to reply, I think that it would be very helpful if he could confirm,
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    or otherwise, that the relevant part of the Estate Agents Act 1979 is in force. If it is in force, does the current Bill produce a conflict of laws?
    Lord Phillips of Sudbury: I find myself a little torn by the amendment of the noble Earl. On the face of it, it looks eminently reasonable and I should be as interested as others to hear what the Minister says in response. The whole world of property has, like everything else, become more and more complicated over the years, and therefore the time may have come to implement this part of the legislation. But one should make no mistake about it: the points made by the noble Lord, Lord Borrie, in terms of bureaucratising and, to some extent, slowing down the competitive ability of the estate agency world may be inhibited.
    One point that I want to make strongly is that the first part of the noble Earl's amendment—that is, to abolish the existing subsection (3)—should not stand because, as the noble Lord, Lord Borrie, hinted, many solicitors' firms act as estate agents and do the whole job. They sell the property and convey it, and it would be quite wrong if, in seeking to make an improvement in one area, he were to destroy a perfectly satisfactory practice that goes on in another.
    Lord Rooker: I apologise for missing the first part of the debate, but I had a perfectly good and honourable reason.
    Lord Phillips of Sudbury: Was it the noble Lord's dinner?
    Lord Rooker: No, I had no dinner. I am afraid that I have brought a bucket of cold water for this amendment as well. I can just about remember the Act in question. If I remember right, it was a Private Member's Bill in 1979. I can see my colleague but I cannot remember his name.
    Lord Borrie: The noble Lord, Lord Davies of Oldham, was one of the two sponsors.
    Lord Rooker: That just shows you. Of course, there was general consent for the Bill because of the fall of the government. It was a Private Member's Bill that got a fair wind through both Houses because of the vote of no confidence. But, since then, no government have seen fit to make the regulations under Section 22.
    9.30 p.m.
    When the Act was originally debated in the House, the government spokesman said that it would not prescribe any standards unless and until the need for them was apparent. Section 22 has not been brought into force, which is the answer to the noble Lord, Lord Hylton. Presumably, there has been no commencement order; hence no requirement for regulations.
    The Office of Fair Trading report looked very carefully at the issue of competence requirements for estate agents. The report concluded that the range and

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    complexity of the legislative requirements placed on estate agents do not justify a regulatory requirement for minimum standards of competence. That is what the report concluded.
    The Government agree with the OFT's "intellectually rigorous" analysis, although those words are not in my notes. Placing competence requirements on estate agents would lead to an increase in their costs which in the end would be passed on to consumers in the form of higher rates of commission. We do not believe that that is justifiable as it would impose unnecessary costs on business and inhibit competition without delivering sufficient improvements.
    I suppose that in a way I would rest my case on that last sentence. I do not think the case is that strong otherwise. In other words, if there is to be regulation it must have material benefit for people. There is no question about that, otherwise it would be a waste and a fraud to do it. It would give a false impression to people that by regulating, things will be great. In this case we could do all these things but it would not deliver sufficient improvements to make the job worth while. I think that that is the honest view. Common sense would tell you that they should be competent, but the legislative proposals would be so complex that it would not be worth while for the gains that would be made. That is fair and I am quite happy to stand here and make a robust defence on that basis as opposed to my earlier sentences.
    On the other hand, there is help on the way. One has to look at this in the round. I realise that we go through the amendments one by one. Nevertheless, the Government have tabled Amendments Nos. 210C to 210E. We believe that that little package of amendments, which is on the second page of the Marshalled List—certainly we shall not reach them tonight—provides for a requirement for estate agents to belong to a redress scheme approved by the Secretary of State. We think that that potentially offers a more effective and efficient mechanism for improving standards in the sector.
    Let us suppose that once estate agents have had to sign up to a redress scheme, the independent body that runs the scheme decides on a dispute between an estate agent and buyer or seller, finds for the buyer or seller and then says to the estate agent, "Legally, you have to make redress"—which is not the case at present. There would then be a cost upon them and they might start to clean up their act as regards the competence of the people working in the estate agency who had caused the problem in the first place. It offers a mechanism for improving standards in the sector. It is a backdoor means of raising competence because we are more or less saying, "If you get yourself in trouble, it will cost you a fortune if you have incompetent staff and you fall foul of the person doing the adjudication". It will be a legal requirement to be a member of such a scheme.
    Although we are opposed to compulsory training and competence requirements, we accept that there may be a case—there is a case; there is no question of
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    that because everyone should be qualified to do what they do, whatever the job—for developing a recognised qualification and national quality standards for residential estate agents. If done properly, this could provide a career incentive to improve standards. There is no question of that. There are thousands of people involved in this industry. It is very competitive so there is opportunity there for career incentive. We see this primarily as a matter for the industry. However, as the Government, we are prepared to offer help and advice and support to stakeholders involved in the development of the process.
    We do not say that we do not agree with the amendment, but in the light of the Government's own package of amendments for estate agents to belong to redress schemes, I hope that the noble Lord will withdraw his amendment.
    I wonder whether I can take the opportunity—this place does not have any rules so I can probably do this—to ensure that something I said earlier in answer to the noble Lord, Lord Phillips, is not misunderstood, not so much by people here but those outside. By Report stage, we will offer to spell out in more detail what the "dry run" will entail: in other words, the six months before the compulsory date that the pilot starts. I have clearly said in the six months beforehand. I was not saying that we do not want to offer a pilot.
    There is a problem. I have taken further advice on the matter since I am not as up-to-date as the day Minister on this. The industry is dead against any single pilots, compulsory or otherwise. The view of the National Association of Estate Agents, the Council of Mortgage Lenders, the RICS and the Consumers' Association is that we need to have a date for the pilot across England and Wales. Otherwise, the education institutions will not gear up for the home inspector courses. We are not likely to get people on the courses, which we need to do a reasonably sized pilot.
    The industry apparently is dead set against pilots, even in just one area, because of these difficulties, so there are some major problems. The matter has obviously been discussed. To my certain knowledge it has been discussed. We are offering a six-month dry run, as I said earlier, before the compulsion commences so that we can run the publicity, offer encouragement and everything else. By Report, we will come back and spell out more about what we mean by that dry run. I am not saying that it is the equivalent of a pilot, but it will not mean that everybody goes home on Friday under the same old discredited system—and it is a discredited system for those that fall foul of it—and come in bright and perky on Monday morning to a brand new system.
    It clearly would not work like that anyway. We need something programmed and a managed introduction. Although it becomes compulsory on a date, it must be a managed introduction, hence our use of the term "a dry run". It is a national dry run in that sense. I will gladly give way to the noble Baroness.
    Baroness Maddock: Perhaps the Minister could clarify a little more what he means "by Report". The

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    plan was that we would come to Report the first week we are back in October. I can see that we will be in the same position. I will be running around the week before trying to find out what is available and maybe not finding it. I am sorry to be so sceptical but the last week has been hell.
    Lord Rooker: I have no knowledge of the dates of Report. I genuinely have not seen any dates.
    Baroness Hanham: Day one of Report.
    Lord Rooker: I am told that day one of Report is 13 October. That is the first Wednesday that we are back. That information is available to the usual channels. I am just a humble Minister who comes here to conduct the business. Whatever day it is, I will be here.
    However, I take the point of the noble Baroness. One can see by the size of it that this is a major Bill at the fag end of a Session. It is quite clear that this Bill was always going to be "running late", as it were, up against the end of the Session. We will use our best endeavours to get more information available in advance of tabling amendments, such as other documentation to assist proper scrutiny of the Bill.
    I do not want this Bill not to be properly scrutinised, believe you me. I get as annoyed as anybody else because I feel as though we are being rushed without adequate time, especially on issues of course—I am not saying this is relevant—that the other place did not discuss. There is a lot of new material in this Bill.
    The Earl of Caithness: I am very grateful to all noble Lords that have taken part. The noble Lords, Lord Borrie and Lord Phillips, took me up about the drafting of my amendment and wanted me to omit the first part, which is to leave out subsection (3). I had a huge amount of difficulty with the Clerks in tabling this amendment. They were very against my tabling anything like this. They said that it was not within the Long Title of the Bill. However, I managed to find a way, thanks to the Estate Agents Act 1979, but it was the Clerks who advised me to put down,
    "leave out subsection (3)".
    I did not want to leave out subsection (3); I thought it was rather good. But the Clerks said that that is what I had better do, so who am I to argue with them? Having won the major battle, I was not going to fight over a few words like that. But it does amuse me that it has worked out the way it has.
    The noble Lord, Lord Borrie, said that estate agents are not all that honest or have the requisite integrity. As an estate agent and surveyor, I could not agree with him more. That is what worries me about my profession. I think the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, hinted earlier that even estate agents are less popular than politicians. As I have sold a second-hand car, and
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    been a politician and an estate agent, I can only look up now, I hope. I cannot get much lower on the ladder in people's estimation than those two things.
    Baroness Hanham: You could become a journalist.
    The Earl of Caithness: God forbid! I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Borrie. That is exactly why I put down this amendment. I am seeking to raise standards. The noble Lord, with his great experience—I remember him well in the 1980s—talked about the difficulties that having qualifications poses. I put to him the argument that he was using earlier this afternoon, many hours ago. It is consumer protection. Too many people are being taken by estate agents. We need higher standards. I do not think that the profession is honest or has enough integrity. In a lot of cases, it does, but there are too many bad cases. We want to weed out those bad cases. My view is that we should weed them out beforehand rather than afterwards. Although I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, his amendments are some sort of backdoor scheme and, in this instance, I prefer to go in through the front door. Let us be bold about it. I hope that the noble Lord will think again and say that we must get a grip of this situation. We now have a wonderful opportunity to take this forward.
    I take issue with the Minister on one point. He said that the present system of buying and selling is discredited. It is not discredited. Over 70 per cent of transactions go through all right. That can be improved. It is a section of the market that is not working as well as it could. I heard what the Minister said about the dry run. I want to read with care what he said. It is important. People in the profession with whom I have talked are very keen that there is a further trial area on a much bigger scale than the rather miserable one in Bristol.
    In view of the amendment that I tabled, I wrote to a number of estate agents, some of which are quite large firms. I wrote about a dozen letters asking them whether they employed qualified people and what they did. I got one reply from an estate agent who said that his firm did not employ qualified people but did some in-house training. That is not good enough. It condemns my profession. It is for that reason that I shall support the Minister when he comes to his amendments but I hope that he will support me and say that we have got to wield a much bigger stick to this bunch. I might come back to this but, at this stage, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
    Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
    Clause 132, as amended, agreed to.
    Clause 133 [Responsibility for marketing: general]:
    Lord Rooker Lord Rooker moved Amendment No. 181ZB:
    Page 93, line 31, leave out from "is" to "; and" in line 32 and insert "on the market ("the property")"
    On Question, amendment agreed to.
    Clause 133, as amended, agreed to.
    Clause 134 [Responsibility of person acting as estate agent]:
    The Earl of Caithness The Earl of Caithness moved Amendment No. 181A:
    Page 94, line 5, at end insert "or"
    The noble Earl said: This is a very simple amendment. It is to insert the word "or". The purpose of this amendment is that an agent cannot act without instructions. Therefore, the ceasing of any marketing is de facto sufficient that he is no longer instructed so it should be "or" rather than a separate paragraph. I beg to move.
    9.45 p.m.
    Lord Rooker: I regret to say that I have a much longer speaking note than the noble Earl's introductory speech. It is another one of those little, innocuous amendments, I am afraid. Clause 134 describes the responsibilities of a person acting as an estate agent, when they apply and when they cease to apply. The agent must comply with the duties set out in Clause 137 for as long as he is instructed by the seller to act and is taking steps to market the property on the seller's behalf. He stops being responsible when all the following three conditions are met: his contract with the seller is terminated; he has ceased to take any action to make public the fact that the property is on the market; and any such action taken on his behalf has ceased.
    The amendment would insert the word "or" after the first condition. The intention would appear to be to provide that an estate agent is to be regarded as responsible in cases where his contract had been terminated but he continues to carry out marketing activities. We are not persuaded that that would assist consumers, to be honest. In fact, it is the very opposite: the effect would be to make more ordinary sellers become responsible persons under the Bill and subject them to the home information pack duties. If the estate agent is still actively marketing a property, he ought to be the one complying with the home information pack duties.
    The amendment would also mean that an estate agent would no longer be subject to the duties under the Bill where the agent's contract had not been terminated but marketing activity had ceased. That could present huge problems to which the noble Earl did not refer.
    The Bill as drafted relieves agents of complying with the duty when a property has been taken off the market. To replace that with an arrangement whereby a property could still be on the market but the pack obligations would come and go according to the level of activity of the agent concerned would be impossible for anyone to police. It would be impossible for trading standards officers. As drafted, the Bill sets up a straightforward, sensible and easily understandable arrangement. I therefore hope that the noble Earl will
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    not pursue what appears to be his innocuous, seductive, sensible amendment, because it is not so in reality.
    The Earl of Caithness: That was quite fascinating, but not at all what I was expecting. Clearly, I have started something much more ingenious than I thought. I was under the simple impression that if I stopped marketing a property, I was no longer instructed. As long as I am instructed to sell Whiteacre for the noble Lord, Lord Phillips, I will market it. If I do not market it, I will be got rid of. My job is to market property. So it was in fact a simple amendment. However, it is clearly much more complicated than I had anticipated. I will read what the Minister said and am delighted that he spoke for much longer than I did. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
    Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
    Clause 134 agreed to.
    Clause 135 agreed to.
    Clause 136 [Application of sections 137 to 140]:
    Lord Rooker Lord Rooker moved Amendment No. 181B:
    Page 94, line 29, leave out "in England and Wales"
    Clause 136, as amended, agreed to.
    Clause 137 [Duty to have a home information pack]:
    Baroness Hanham Baroness Hanham moved Amendment No. 182:
    Page 94, line 38, leave out "the duty of a responsible" and insert "a matter of voluntary discretion for a"
    The noble Baroness said: This is a large group of amendments, including Amendments Nos. 182, 184 and 185. The remaining amendments are consequential on those first three. They are all linked and would, if implemented, make the information packs voluntary. During the course of the day, we have had some discussion on the desirability of a voluntary or statutory home information pack. It is still our view that this part of the Bill is wrong and that we should try to advance amendments to bring the Government to a commonsense view and stop these home information packs being an absolute requirement.
    We understand that some people might find some merit in producing the packs and. without doubt, in some circumstances they would add to the marketability of the property. However, as a general rule, producing home information packs could be seen as one of many options available to a home seller.
    While we recognise that they may well have some merit in simplifying the process of presenting a home on the market—indeed, many people may chose to produce the packs in order to increase the desirability or marketability of their property—imposing a duty to produce such a pack is unnecessary, will force people to sell their properties privately and will he most unhelpful to all concerned.
    There are many reasons that bring us to this view and some of them will be discussed further on in the course of the Bill. At this stage I put down a marker that we believe that these packs should be voluntary. I beg to move.
    Baroness Hamwee: That is a view that we share. The more the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, convinced himself about the need for a compulsory scheme—talking about 40,000 last week, 40,000 this week, 40,000 next week, so we have got to get it right—the more I thought what a jolly good idea it would be to have a voluntary scheme which would enable us to gain the experience to get it right. We could tweak the scheme over a period in the light of that experience.
    The arguments for home information packs have been about transparency and speeding up the process. I am unconvinced that this is the way to speed up the process. I hope that the electronic mechanisms that are becoming available—on-line searches, and so on—will do that. It defies my belief that the packs will. We simply do not see eye to eye on that matter.
    The best evidence of the potential of the pack comes from the experience that some agents are able to put before us. There are voluntary schemes going on now.
    Over the summer I was interested to read an item in the press—given the time, I will not share the full article with your Lordships—about an agent who operates a voluntary scheme. He said that it should not be forced on sellers. He is quoted as saying:
    "If the Government were involved, it would become far more complicated and less flexible".
    That is a sad reflection on the Government, but one I fear that I share.
    The underlying point is that we should get proper experience. We have heard from the Minister of the problems that the industry is reported as seeing in the pilot. For goodness sake, let us not get it wrong.
    The Earl of Caithness: This is a very important set of amendments.
    Under the proportionality section of The Principles of Good Regulation published by the Better Regulation Task Force, it is stated:
    "Policy solutions must be proportionate to the perceived problem or risk … don't use a sledgehammer to crack a nut".
    In the report on the Bristol seller's pack trial—which the Government think is the greatest thing since sliced bread but is in fact useless—it was reported in paragraph 7.11:
    "Thirty eight per cent of sellers considered their experience with the seller's pack worse than expected";
    and in paragraph 9.4 it says:
    "The buyers' exit survey showed that only 23 per cent felt that the pack helped them to decide whether to put in an offer".
    The same report stated:
    "One of the aims of the seller's pack was to help the buyer make an informed decision on whether to purchase".
    Yet only 42 per cent consulted the pack before making an offer. There is no great demand for the pack.
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    What about the cost? There will be a huge added cost to the whole of the property market for buyers and, particularly, for sellers. It is alleged that the current system costs about £350 million due to aborted transactions, which I seriously question. That £350 million figure is based on the analysis and extrapolation of costs incurred in just 30 transactions—I repeat, 30 transactions—when we market more than 40,000 per week in this country. That is a highly suspect figure.
    But we know that the home condition report is an added cost of a minimum of £300 per report: 2 million transactions would cost £600 million. So we would practically double what the Government say the present system costs. That is a nonsense of a way to make legislation. The Government are imposing Prescott's penalty on property owners. There is no doubt that this is a huge added burden, which will cost a great deal of money. It is not "cost equal". For that reason, these amendments, with some of those that we discussed earlier, are absolutely crucial to getting the balance right.
    Lord Phillips of Sudbury: I am grateful to the Minister for saying that what he had offered before supper was not now possible. The least persuasive part of his explanation was that the industry did not like the idea. Without being too condemnatory in saying it, one has to say that the estate agency industry has a vested interest in the passage of this measure. There is no question but that very many transactions. which, for all sorts of reasons, currently go through without any survey being undertaken will now have to have a survey.
    At Second Reading, the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, said that there was evidence from other countries of the success of packs. But what is so manifestly lacking here is a lack of evidence from this country. When we debated this issue in relation to the Homes Bill in 2001, I went to see the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, to discuss the evidence on which the Bill had been brought forward. He was very frank: the evidence was extremely thin, about which he was quite open.
    Given the scale—to which the noble Lord just referred—and reach of these reforms, which could not be more profound, affecting as they will up to 2 million transactions a year and members of the so-called ordinary public, it is a folly for us as a House to go forward with this hugely different, highly complex, Byzantine regime without solid evidence. What proportion of failed transactions will be addressed by the buyer's pack? What will be the extra costs? We have had no remotely convincing statistics of what they are likely to be. What are the savings likely to be? We have had mere speculation as to what the savings are likely to be.
    At the time of the Homes Bill, I conducted a detailed survey among the solicitor practitioners of the Suffolk and North Essex Law Society, which had no axe to grind. Its net conclusion was that that Bill was likely to impose significant extra costs on the "conveying"

    1013
    public—if I may put that way. There is no question that those costs will find their way back into the costs of acquisition and disposal.
    Of all the aspects of this debate that make me believe that this set of amendments must be right is the sheer lack of basic evidence that what we are doing is workable and likely to achieve its purpose. I urge the Government to think hard about that. Although this may not be a poll tax—that is somewhat hyperbolic—there is no doubt that interfering wholesale, as we are, with an extremely well tried, well honed, organically developed system of conveyancing in this country, really is tampering with things one knows not of. My fear, frankly, is that the best intentions in the world may not relieve the proposals in this Bill from pretty dire consequences downstream. I simply do not see why we need to take that risk. I was very grateful for the Minister's reception of my suggestion of a pilot earlier, and I really do not see why it should not be undertaken. I am deeply unimpressed by the industry not thinking much of it. I concede the difficulty of training the inspectors, but that is a superable problem. I think if you decided to take a county, and Northamptonshire was going to be the pilot, one could set up training for inspectors in that county quickly and efficiently, so that you could get the pilot on the go.
    For my part, I wish the intentions of this Bill all the good luck and success in the world. But short of a pilot, or something like it, I do not believe that we are headed down a sensible path. For those reasons, I would support this set of amendments.
    10 p.m.
    Lord Rooker: As I have said before, if we are not confident that it will work, if we are not geared up and the industry is not geared up and we have not got the staff trained, it will not be brought in. I have made that clear. But we cannot get to that point if we do not pursue the legislative route. It has to be, as I have said before, the compulsory route. It is not worth doing voluntarily, simply because of the number of properties that are in chains in this country. It would simply not work on a voluntary basis. So our starting point for debating this amendment, and others with the same aim, has got to be clear from our point of view: acknowledgment of the deficiencies of the present home buying and selling process.
    There is misery caused. When I went to address the AGM of the National Association of Estate Agents about 18 months ago—I think I have said this before—I dumped the speech. I did not use it. About a week beforehand, because I had been writing letters as housing minister every day to Members of Parliament who had got letters and surgery cases from their constituents about the buying and selling process, I said "Give me 20 of the last letters we have had in". And I used them as my speech. It did not go down very well, because they did not like taking it. I simply quoted from these ordinary people's letters the fingerprints of ordinary citizen's experience in buying and selling properties. It was disastrous. True, they
    1014
    were the complainants, but that was the point. There is a really serious problem here, and they did not like it. I said I probably would come back the following year with some more, but by then I was not the housing minister.
    There is a real problem of deficiencies in the system. The Government start from that position. The process is slow by international standards. I know I am going to be asked for this, and I have not got the figure for it, but we are just about the slowest in Europe. Whether that is little Europe or big Europe, I do not know. I do not know how slow we are, but we are incredibly slow, there is no question about that. Anyone who has been in the process knows. We think it is very inefficient, and takes place in a disjointed fashion. Professional people—solicitors and others—spend most of their time sitting around waiting for someone else to do something, but nothing happens. That is the reality and people understand that. It is absolutely appalling. It is wasteful and prone to delays.
    Lord Phillips of Sudbury: I am terribly sorry, and most grateful to the Minister for giving way, but that was the provocation to cap all provocations: to make a generalised statement that solicitors sit around waiting for something to happen. Just sit inside any solicitor's office for a day, and you will know that their reputation in conveyancing matters depends upon them pulling their finger out and getting on with it. That is because, as the Minister has implied all along, speed is of the essence.
    I know that the Minister is being semi-jovial at this time of night, but I hope that he will withdraw the remark.
    Lord Rooker: They are not doing nothing, they are obviously doing something for client B while they wait for replies for client A. They are still clocking up on the clockometer for the money. I am not saying that they are twiddling their fingers. They have made inquiries, sent out various forms and contacted local authorities. They have started the searches and have tried to contact the solicitors for the other party. But the system is a problem and an incredible waste of professional people's time.
    We think that around 30 per cent of transactions fail after the offer has been accepted, which in itself is a problem. Indeed, Members of the Committee can go and ask people in the street about their experiences. They think they have a deal and then, all of a sudden, it evaporates. Although the figure has been queried, we estimate the cost of failures to be around £350 million. Around £1 million a day is wasted. That is not money down the drain because it goes into someone's pocket, but it is not part of buying houses because nothing has happened. The deal has fallen apart. However, someone has been paid because people have paid out their money.
    Nine out of 10 consumers are not satisfied with the present process. When asked, 90 per cent of consumers are not satisfied with the present procedure. We ought to focus on that statistic. The results of our research carried out by independent consultants were presented

    1015
    in a consultation paper, together with options for reform. The responses revealed a clear consensus on the way forward. Home buyers and sellers need more information and they need it up-front, at the start of the process.
    It is true that only a minority of people have surveys carried out. The percentage is worryingly small when you think about what they are actually buying. As I have said, because of the chain system, home information packs need to be compulsory so that everyone can benefit from them. We cannot have someone wrecking the whole process, which we do not doubt would happen if they were voluntary. Voluntary arrangements would not work.
    The Law Society's transaction protocol provides some evidence. For years the protocol sought to encourage sellers, through their solicitors, to make all the legal documentation available at the start of the transaction process. That has been only partially successful. Despite the best efforts of the Law Society, the voluntary protocol has not been able to deliver the improvements we seek, so we have taken the mandatory route to deliver these universal benefits.
    The effect of the main amendment and those tabled with it would be to introduce a voluntary home information pack system and essentially continue what is now a very unsatisfactory process; indeed, it would be almost the status quo. Sellers would be allowed to avoid the duties by ensuring that the marketing material made it clear that the property was being sold without a pack. That would probably be the worst of all worlds. Given the choice, some sellers—perhaps a sizable proportion—would choose to market their property without a home information pack. That might be to avoid costs or in the hope of avoiding disclosure of information. That is key here—the avoidance of the disclosure of information about problems with the property that sellers are aware of, but do not want to disclose. We think that that is very unfair to buyers who would have had to provide a pack for their own sale, given that most people are part of a chain.
    More harmful than that, the result of these amendments would be an unsatisfactory two-track process where sales without packs would slow down sales with packs in a chain, cancelling out the benefits to those who had provided the packs. Having people freeloading in the system just would not work and we would be back to where we started.
    A small number of forward-looking estate agents—those who really care about the people they are working for—are already marketing properties with home information packs and reaping the benefits, not least in lower transaction failure rates. While I accept that such agents represent only a small proportion, numbers are increasing. However, the increase is taking place far too slowly for us to say that the market will ultimately provide. I am afraid the phrase used by the late Ian Gow when he was Minister for housing—"the magic of the market"—does not apply here because we would have to wait until kingdom come
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    before the system became universal. Only by introducing the requirement for the packs can we deliver the benefits.
    We listened to the concerns expressed during the debates on the Homes Bill before the general election. We have come forward with a different system now. It is not based on criminal sanctions at all. But we need to beware of relaxing the duties if we are to succeed. A case can be made for a voluntary basis, but it would not improve the buying and selling of homes. We cannot make such a case at the same time as saying that we are going to improve the system.
    There are markets all over the country. House prices vary regionally: there are expensive houses alongside inexpensive ones. While I pay enormous tribute to the sincere concern the noble Earl, Lord Caithness, has raised in his amendments, behind which there is goodwill and experience, the section of the market in which he operates is unusual to say the least—I do not think that it is mirrored anywhere else in the country.
    I hope that on reflection the Committee will recognise that a mandatory system is the only one that will work. It would not be worth having this part in the Bill if we were not doing that. That is why we went back to get a manifesto commitment to introduce a compulsory home information pack system. There would be no need for legislation for a voluntary basis; we would not be doing what we are doing.
    I know that that is a bucket of cold water, but the voluntary system will not work and we are not going down that route; if we were we would not need the Bill. It would be a false prospectus to say to people that we can improve the system on a voluntary basis. We cannot make such a case: it will not work because the bulk of properties are involved in a chain. People will say that we said that there would be a different system and that we would improve it; that they trusted us and we did not tell them the truth.
    The noble Baroness, Lady Carnegy, quoted us the latest report from the Commissioner for Standards in Public Life about the fact that the general public think that Ministers and MPs are telling fibs. I think that the report said "lying". We are not lying on this matter. We would be telling fibs if we said that we could do this on a voluntary basis and improve the home buying and selling process. We genuinely do not believe that we could make that stick. It would not be telling the public the truth. It is not a happy story. It is incredibly complicated.
    I accept that and I have given enough forewarnings: every week another 40,000 dwellings are being marketed. We step on that and get it wrong at our peril as Government. We understand that, which is why the provision will not be introduced unless we have it geared up, we have had a good dry run, people are adequately trained and all the bits are ironed out that are not straight at the present time. The only way to do it is through a compulsory system.
    The Earl of Caithness: I must take up the Minister on some of his points. He blames the chain system for the delays. I contend that he is totally wrong to do so:

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    other countries have chain systems and are quicker than us. The chain system can hold something up but it is not the only cause. The Bill is not going to help the chain system. We are slow by international standards but we are becoming much quicker. We are also cheap by international standards. We are speeding up hugely because of e-conveyancing; the solicitors have become much quicker; the agents have improved over the past six years.
    If the Minister carried out a survey now compared to the evidence of the 1990s he would find that transactions are going through more quickly. I was surprised when he said that nine out of 10 people were not satisfied with the present system. If I carried out a survey now I could get 10 out of 10 for him, because it is a matter only of the question one asks. I could get one out of 10 if I asked another question. That is not a terribly good statistic.
    The Minister said that forward-looking estate agents are selling with packs now. The Minister in another place, Keith Hill, called Maria Coleman, who was part of the Bristol project, "saintly" in Committee. At that stage Maria Coleman, besides being an agent, was very involved with a company that produced the packs. No wonder she was for the packs. It was a conflict of interest which I hope she declared to the Government before she took it on. I would be grateful if the Minister could confirm that.
    I have used packs in the past and it helps when solicitors provide information to agents. It can work on a voluntary basis. I disagree fundamentally with the Minister on that.
    10.15 p.m.
    Baroness Hanham: I thank all noble Lords who have contributed to this very important part of the Bill.
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    One of the assumptions made by the Government in regard to home information packs is that buyers will accept the home condition report. I am not sure that that will happen. I do not know of any buyer who will say to the seller, "Okay, the report that you have given about the condition of your property is correct". We may very well find that the situation is not much different from that which exists now; people will simply go and get a second survey of their own which they feel they can trust.
    We have not yet touched on the cost of these packs. The current estimate is £1,000 for each pack for each seller. We shall come later to how often the packs will have to be produced. Thanks to the activities of the Bank of England, the property market is slowing; we are not in the same heated market that we have been in for a number of years. It will be interesting to see whether that slowing will benefit from home information packs. I doubt that it will. I think the whole mechanism is beginning to calm down; there is more for buyers to seek, to look at and to go around. E-conveyancing and e-transactions are already beginning to speed up the whole process.
    The Government are seeking to impose an extremely bureaucratic system. It is not a system that we like. We think that there are benefits in putting this on a voluntary basis if people wish to put all the information together, have it available and risk having a home condition report that buyers will accept, but it should not be on a wholesale compulsory basis.
    With that, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment for the time being.
    Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
    Lord Bassam of Brighton: I beg to move that the House do now resume.
    Moved accordingly, and, on Question, Motion agreed to.
    House resumed.
    House adjourned at eighteen minutes past ten o'clock.