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Housing (Tenancy Deposit Schemes) Order 2007

I am grateful to noble Lords for that warm reception. I particularly pay tribute to the role of the noble Baroness, Lady Maddock, throughout the process. It is amazing that, however long one speaks, there is always something to ask and holes discovered in the process. I shall do my best to answer those questions. Publicity is important. We have done our best to use all the technologies at our disposal, which can be updated. We have a full range of leaflets, all downloadable from the website. Of course, we can keep them updated and people can order them as they wish. We have a telephone line to order leaflets, and I have talked about the radio. After the scheme commencement, all three service providers have a budget for ongoing publicity and marketing, and each has a dedicated call centre. We have spent over £1 million on publicity, within the budget allocated for setting up the schemes. There are a number of different bits of information on, for example, www.direct.gov.uk/tenancydeposit. The noble Baroness is quite right about the statutory declaration. It must be taken before a court or solicitor. The scheme administrators will be supplying the necessary guidance and documentation to assist anyone who wants to make a declaration. We are intent on it being an honest declaration, so we must watch that process as closely as possible. On the contactable but unwilling landlord, the scheme requires reasonable efforts to contact the landlord. There is obviously a limit to what we can do—we find this in many parts of legislation requiring this sort of thing—such as writing to them at the last known address, or the address registered with the scheme, and supplementing that by e-mail and telephone contact. One idea is that the scheme will encourage landlords and tenants to stay in contact with each other, ensuring that they know where each other is. Indeed, if the landlord is not contactable for any reason, the scheme should also know for what periods the landlord might not be contactable, and the tenant can provide that. If the landlord is uncontactable in the insurance-based scheme, then I am afraid that the tenant will have to go to court. That is one reason we have the single-claim arrangement so explicitly worked out. In the custodial scheme, the tenant can also get the deposit back through the single-claims process. The noble Baroness, Lady Hanham, raised the question of moving deposits. The custodial scheme is, of course, the catch-all scheme. If one insurance scheme becomes unwilling to offer protection, and the other is likely to decline under those circumstances, the landlord would have to lodge the deposit in the custodial scheme. If he fails to do so, the penalties I have described kick in. The tenant will have to apply to the court, and the deposit then paid will be three times the size of the original deposit; there is an incentive for the landlord simply to use the custodial scheme. On monitoring, the schemes have obviously been set up to be governed by robust contractual arrangements, setting out key performance indicators to deal with the number, quality and so on of the arrangements. That is the most effective thing we can do on monitoring. Through those contractual arrangements, we will have a tight reign on the scheme providers and be able to follow exactly what is being achieved on a regular basis. That will be a very close working relationship where we can check what they are doing against delivery and performance targets, and there are penalties for those who fall below the standards. I think that I have answered all the points. I take the point about the seriousness of consultation and the need for resources and capacity to deal with it. The department is aware of the technical administration of legislation and we do our best, although we do not always have resources to put into the things that we would like to. On Question, Motion agreed to.