Lord Jamieson (Con)

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Best, for opening this group. The question of what data is recorded on the database is an important one and the Government need to give the sector greater clarity on their plans. Noble Lords need only look at some of the briefings provided by lettings agencies to landlords over the past few months to grasp the level of uncertainty around this Bill. For the benefit of both renters and landlords, we need greater clarity as soon as possible. As my noble friend Lady Scott of Bybrook said earlier from these Benches, we believe the Government should be more ambitious. We are broadly content with the direction of travel on greater transparency, but taking this forward through regulations is leaving landlords and tenants in the dark. We support the challenge from the noble Lord, Lord Best, to the Government on the inclusion of gas and electrical safety checks within the PRS database. Amendments 221, 224 and 227, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Best, all touch on this issue. The database makes use of official UPRNs and covers the full end-to-end process of property compliance, including the urgent need to mandate digital property safety certificates. This will certainly increase transparency for landlords and tenants. Including gas safety certificates and electrical installation reports would assist tenants who wish to confirm that their property is safe. That said, we have some concerns about Amendment 227, which appears to place the burden of registering digital gas and electricity certificates on the certificate provider rather than the landlord. We do not think that responsibility should be placed on the providers without a proper impact assessment and a fuller understanding of how this would work in practical terms. Perhaps the Minister can commit to considering this proposal from the noble Lord between now and Report. Amendment 222, tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Thornhill, proposes expanding the types of information or documents that are required for registration on the PRS database. I commend the noble Baroness on her thoughtful drafting. This amendment highlights further the uncertainty and lack of clarity that have arisen from the Government’s decision to place broadly drafted regulation-making powers rather than detailed provisions in the Bill to enable their plans. Finally, on Amendments 229 and 230, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Best, it has already been noted that UPRNs are a universal means of identifying properties. They will be central to this system. The database should be as easy as possible to use for both renters and landlords. We accept that the noble Lord’s amendments are well intentioned and we will listen very carefully to the Minister’s response to them. We have a separate concern. The Government do not have a strong track record on delivering large-scale IT projects. I make no political comment here. We share the concerns that have been raised by the noble Earl, Lord Lytton, and the noble Baroness, Lady Freeman, earlier, on the time that it will take to roll out this database. Can the Minister assure us that this project will be delivered—and delivered on time? I hope that the Minister will give serious consideration to these well-intentioned and constructive amendments.