Baroness Coffey (Con)

My Lords, I was intrigued by the amendments from the noble Lord, Lord Shipley, today and it is interesting to hear that they have come from Citizens Advice. I am conscious that things have evolved over time, and he mentioned relationship breakdown. As somebody who used to rent with other people, I know there was always a certain risk when you took on a tenancy that somebody could walk out and you would be left liable. I guess I am trying to understand—perhaps I was not listening quite closely enough—whether we will get to a point where, instead of people coming together, this will drive more accommodation into houses of multiple occupation. I will give your Lordships my personal experience. I was working for a very large company when I moved to another city, which reflected the job situation that I needed. There is no doubt that I deliberately sought out situations that were not exactly HMOs but where individual contracts and tenancies were allowed with the landlord, so that it would not fall on my shoulders to think about these issues. I suppose I am trying to understand how this amendment would address the situation of making sure that there are enough tenancies and enough accommodation available, without putting more risk on to the landlord. We are already seeing quite a substantial change. I understand why the Government set this out in their manifesto and similar. I appreciate that there may be some differences on some of the impact but, perhaps when the noble Lord, Lord Shipley, follows up—I am happy to discuss this outside—it would be useful to discuss how much of a genuine, as opposed to theoretical, problem this really is.