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Housing (Tenancy Deposit Schemes) Order 2007

As my noble friend said, this is something that I have taken an interest in for a very long time—since the days when I was a councillor in Southampton, over 20 years ago. I welcome the measure, having taken part as a Front-Bencher in the passage of the Housing Act 2004, but I have one or two comments to make. Since I gave up being on the Front Bench, I now sit on the Merits of Statutory Instruments Committee. Having been involved with primary legislation for most of my parliamentary career, it has been very interesting to follow secondary legislation in a detailed way, which I have never had the opportunity to do before—and never been forced to do, I suppose. I hope that one or two comments that I make will be helpful in that regard. I know that this measure has taken a long time to be introduced—and having been involved with the Bill, having listened to the Minister today and having been in the Merits Committee, I recognise the huge amount of consultation that has gone on. The fact that the department has listened to that consultation and has acted is part of the reason why it has taken a long time. However, the department gets involved in a lot of this type of legislation and does a lot of consultation, and the way in which secondary legislation comes through the department is not always timely. Is that because it is not appreciated within the department how time-consuming the type of legislation that the department deals with is? Is there a need to look at whether the department has enough staff and the right staff to do this? It is clear that all sorts of things happen—and sometimes things happen because people are pressed for time, and mistakes are made. Then we find that we need to consider another statutory instrument in the committee to put right the mistake that has been made. I say that in a helpful way, based on my experience. In addition, my noble friend asked about reviewing and monitoring how the process works. Another thing that I have discovered from looking at secondary legislation is that that is not always done. It is time-consuming—and probably one reason why the department finds it so difficult to deal with. One problem is that on the issue of housing and local government we do not very often get the opportunity to have primary legislation. The slots are rare. That means that huge Bills come through—and the 2004 parent Act was enormous. For the Minister responsible for the Bill—not the noble Baroness, Lady Andrews, who is responding today, but the noble Lord, Lord Rooker—it was a huge task to get through it, and a huge task to get through the secondary legislation. I can see that for a Minister in that department, just as it was for me when I was on the Front Bench, there is no time to check whether the measures are all coming along at the right pace. Things could be improved, despite the good consultation, by an examination of how the department looks at secondary legislation, and whether there are enough people to do what I recognise is an enormous task.