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Housing and Regeneration Bill

I am particularly grateful for my noble friend’s tone and for the offer she has made to give thought to the kernel of these issues. I respect the fact that she has treated them seriously rather than using tangential arguments to dismiss them. I shall be delighted to work with her on that, if she so wishes. Not for the first time and not for the last time, I am sure, I find that I agree very strongly with the noble Viscount, Lord Eccles. I think he signalled that he agreed with me. The only sensible thing I can say is that I invite him to join my party rapidly. Clearly, we need him. In a sense, he says from the basis of being a regulator and having deep experience, that you must have mechanisms to change the system. If you do not, ultimately, you will leave tenants disempowered, as they are now. This debate is deeply imbued with paternalism and welfare-ism. Having been a landlord for more years than I care to remember, do we really believe that some consumers should have as many rights as others? As we are talking of the poor, do we really think that they cannot be trusted to do this? One little joke before I move on: like the noble Viscount, Lord Eccles, I have been involved on boards of collective leaseholders working together and I have found quite as many of the mad, the bad and the sad there as I used to when managing very large scale council provision and seeking to give tenants the choice over major investment decisions on their estates. We are wrong if we think that there is a monopoly of wisdom with the traditions of the middle class. Some of the arguments I heard against the need for this, which relied on mechanisms of detailed practice, felt like the traditional views of landlords and providers, rather than as though we were starting from the point of view of the noble Viscount, Lord Eccles—how would we empower tenants to have choice?—which, in time, would have the benefit of giving them a better service. Clearly issues such as protecting the asset and the debt are fundamental. That is why the amendment proposes a system that is proposed by the regulator, because it would have to be copper-bottomed and enshrined in law such that no one could give power to anyone who did not have a prime duty. I do not give too much attention to the argument that this could not be done because the staff might be affected, because we must put the interests of consumers above those of the producers. I am very grateful to all noble Lords who have spoken in the debate. I am particularly grateful to my noble friend and I look forward perhaps to having the opportunity to explore this further. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment. Amendment, by leave, withdrawn. [Amendments Nos. 103C to 104AZA not moved.] Clause 88 agreed to.