Lord Empey (UUP)

My Lords, I declare an interest on the register in regard to this matter. The Government cannot take this legislation in isolation. As a country, we are taking policy actions that diminish supply and increase demand. Our population is increasing—and that is a deliberate decision. The net effect of that, of course, is that, with local authorities not building properties in the manner and at the rate that they used to, we are creating circumstances where we have a perfect storm of increased demand and reduced supply. The supply is reducing, and the Bill will have the perverse effect of reducing it even further. We have to take a holistic view. It is not simply a question of dealing with tenancies in isolation; we have to look at the big picture. As we have heard from the noble Baroness, Lady Scott, in her proposal, the vast majority of these people are small-business people. Most people in the sector have these properties as part of what they deem to be their pensions. But equally, we all want to see fairness. We know that “landlord” is almost a dirty word. Historically, we have had Rachman and suchlike tainting the whole sector. There has been a steady drip of measures over the years mitigating against provision in the rented sector, such as interest no longer being offset against tax for people who are doing buy-to-lets and so on. Regulation has increased—some of it very necessary for health and safety, but the burden is going up. Clearly, in places such as London, there is massive demand that is basically impossible to meet. Unlike countries such as Germany, where the rented sector is totally different—in many cases it is the norm that people rent properties and do not own them—we are in a different place. We concentrate on private ownership of our own properties, so rental is different. Reference was made to assessment. I ask the Minister: has an assessment been made of the impact on the supply of properties? The number of properties will, I expect, continue to diminish, and that puts extra pressure on local authorities. The LGA has been explicit about that. This is increasing homelessness, and we have the pressures there and the pressures from immigration and from asylum seekers. Yet we are taking measures—whether in this sort of legislation or others—that mitigate against people taking on a private property to rent. Unless somebody can make a profit out of renting, why would they bother? Then you have all the hassle of going through the courts, not getting paid, et cetera. On the other side of the coin, there are properties that are in a very poor state. We have seen examples of landlords who do not maintain them properly. Nobody wants that, and the Government clearly have a mandate to make change. However, I am far from convinced that the fairness that we all want to see, and which the Government have a right to insist upon, is necessarily achieved by the measures in this Bill. While the proposal from the noble Baroness, Lady Scott, and the noble Lord, Lord Jackson, may or may not be to the Government’s liking, at least one can see where they are coming from and why they are doing it. If the Government are not prepared to adopt that, let the Minister come forward with a coherent mechanism that a landlord can use if they happen to have a tenant who is not abiding by the rules. It does not have to be Amendment 8; it could be something else, but let us see it, get it on the table and discuss it, so that the consensus whereby we all wish to see improvements can be achieved. There is no point having a Bill the perverse effect of which will be to reduce supply. Nobody will gain from that. I ask the Minister kindly to address that in her summing up.