Lord Black of Brentwood (Con)

My Lords, I will speak also to my Amendments 192 to 196 and 198, which are also signed by my noble friend Lord Lexden and, with the exception of Amendments 193 and 198, by my noble friend Lady Coffey. I am very grateful to them. Given the hour, and as we are discussing animals, it is right to acknowledge that they are clearly night owls. The purpose of the amendments is to insert a new clause to extend pre-tenancy discrimination protections to pet owners. In an earlier debate on this Bill in Committee, I set out why this legislation is so important and why pet owners need certainty and clarity about its application. These amendments build on that debate on a further, very specific issue. Although the current version of the Bill provides protections after tenancy begins for pet owners, requiring landlords to consider pet requests reasonably, I am concerned that these are rendered ineffective if pet owners are excluded before tenancy agreements are even offered. As I have made clear before, I am delighted that the Bill rightly seeks to prevent pre-tenancy discrimination against tenants with children and those who are benefit claimants, but I believe these welcome provisions should also be extended to tenants who already own pets and are seeking a new place to rent. Currently, they are unprotected. Without such a measure, there is a real risk that landlords will automatically disadvantage or reject applicants simply based on the issue of pet ownership. The truth is that pet ownership is, regrettably, already currently treated as a de facto disqualifier by many landlords. Applicants can be dismissed outright on the sole basis of owning a pet, with no requirement to justify the decision. This renders any post-tenancy pet consent rights in the Bill practically inaccessible for existing pet owners who are moving home, who are barred from progressing past the application stage in the first place. As the Minister rightly highlighted during our debate last week, the pet provisions in the Bill are fundamentally based on the principle of reasonableness, and that is absolutely right. However, as it stands, a landlord is not technically required to consider in any form a pet-owning applicant and can reject them outright without appropriate safeguards in place. This creates a gap. Although existing tenants may benefit from protection, prospective tenants looking to move may not have the legal support to make a reasonable request to keep a pet at the point of applying for a tenancy. I fear this will continue to result in pet owners facing the heartbreaking decision of having to choose between a home and their pet, as many thousands of homes will remain closed to them. The proposed clause, with consequential amendments, offers a balanced solution. It does not require landlords to accept pets unconditionally. Instead, it prevents landlords automatically rejecting applications on the grounds of pet ownership while retaining their ability to refuse consent on reasonable grounds after an application has been successful. That seems to me to be the right way to deal with this matter.