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London Local Authorities Bill [Lords] (By Order)

I am surprised that my hon. Friend is lauding a national regulatory quango while arguing against regulation. That seems slightly contradictory. Personally, I have no faith in the FSA. In my time as the leader of a large council that had many food outlets in the borough, I had no knowledge of what the FSA did in the borough, of any prosecutions that it brought to bear or of how it improved food standards. London councils, environmental health officers and practitioners on the ground say that we need a system that provides information to consumers so that they can have consumer protection if we are to have a local, light-touch regulatory regime and if we are not to have environmental health officers knocking on doors every week, which clearly is not going to happen. Let me address clauses 11 to 20 on houses in multiple occupation. The measures give councils the power to issue management notices on the owners of defective HMOs. There are various amendments, one of which is rather minor, regarding the method of doing so—by post as opposed to registered post. One area that my hon. Friends will be pleased about is the simplification of regulation. Currently, if a housing team believe that an HMO operator is operating unsafe premises, they have to go through a fairly convoluted matrix of assessing the risk, the implications, what needs to be done to be put it right and the relevant time scale. That is very resource-intensive, and is particularly onerous if the issue is simply a damaged stair or a wonky banister. The measures allow councils to simplify that process. Normally, that would involve a 24-hour notice period, but the proposal would allow local councils to waive or avoid that 24-hour notice period if a tenant's health or safety were at risk.