Lord Banner (Con)

My Lords, as this debate has progressed, there has been increased heat and perhaps a commensurate decrease in focus on some of the issues that were raised. I hope noble Lords will appreciate that I chose my own words extremely carefully when I outlined my legal views on the consequence of these amendments. I reiterate that one of the key issues of the status quo is the uncertainty due to the fact that currently, there are no bright lines as to whether a change from hotel use to asylum accommodation or an asylum HMO is or is not always a material change of use. There is an advantage in having certainty one way or the other, and I am very deliberately not expressing a view on which way or the other it should be. It is simply that the ambiguity is deeply unsatisfactory. I stress that the extent of that ambiguity has increased in recent years, months and days. The case law—not just in the Epping case, but in earlier judgments by Mr Justice Holgate, which were earlier in the High Court concerning Great Yarmouth and other locations—has developed in such a way that the uncertainty has got greater, which has exacerbated the problem. Very respectfully, I invite any remaining speakers to deal with that point objectively and in a focused and unheated manner.