Baroness Grender (LD)

My Lords, I welcome Amendments 39B and 39C in particular—on my behalf and on behalf of our most able leader on this Bill team, my noble friend Lady Thornhill. We are absolutely delighted that military housing is going to be held to the same legal standard as the private rentals in the Bill. Putting this on a statutory footing fulfils the wishes of this Government and the campaigning work by some of my colleagues, particularly in the Commons: MPs Gideon Amos and Helen Morgan, to name but two. I thank Adam Bull in our Whips’ Office, who has been working very hard on this over the recess. I thank the Minister, the noble Baroness, Lady Taylor of Stevenage, for her time and patience in discussing this issue and us getting to this very happy mutual agreement. I also thank Minister Pennycook for the time he spared, and the noble Lord, Lord Coaker, who has spent time on this. The noble Lord, Lord Best, and the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Stirrup, have provided wisdom, backing and advice, and I am grateful to them both as well. At the heart of this issue are those in the military who give the ultimate sacrifice and the families who live with them and stand by them. Let us hope, as a result of this change, that the appalling conditions they have endured so far will change and will be a thing of the past. We are enormously grateful for this change and are looking forward to seeing it introduced. With regard to the Motion in the name of the noble Lord, Lord de Clifford, we have consistently not supported this. We recognise the eloquence of his arguments in this area, but we continue to argue that this will place undue financial pressure on tenants and could be exploited by rogue landlords to impose excessive deposit charges. We believe that tenants, owner-occupiers and social tenants should be viewed on a much more equal footing. This speaks to some of the speeches that both I and my noble friend Lady Thornhill have made. Therefore, we feel we cannot support it, but we are absolutely delighted with the government amendment, and we look forward to its implementation.