Indeed. I would hate ever to be churlish in the Chamber, and I raise these matters only to rejoice at lost sheep who have been found. They have spoken so well today.
I do not wish in any way to delay the passage of this Bill today, but I want to make one serious point. Paragraph 32 of the explanatory notes states:
“The Bill will not entail additional public expenditure, local authorities already have strong enforcement powers to tackle poor property. The aim of this bill is to enable tenants to pursue their landlord without recourse to their local authority.”
Many people have made the point that local authorities now lack the resources to do that, and that is part of the reason why we need to enable tenants themselves to do this, but these are often complex matters, legally and procedurally, to pursue. I ask the Minister to address that point specifically when she comes to speak.
In only two or three months’ time, we are due to have the long-awaited review of the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012, and I hope that part of it will look at whether legal aid can be extended to cover the provisions of this Bill. Indeed, I hope that we can go further than that, because, as has been established in review after review—in the Bach commission and the Low commission, and in what the Law Society, Shelter and Citizens Advice have said—the cuts in housing legal aid have been some of the most damaging. That applies to disrepair cases, where only “serious” disrepair is now eligible for legal aid. In fact, because the cuts are so substantial we often now have legal aid deserts as far as housing is concerned, and it simply is not possible, given how little is in scope, for private practitioners or law centres to offer the same degree of advice. That has to be looked at, and as part of that process we need to bring in the provisions of this Bill.
I always watch the Conservative party conference with great enthusiasm, so I noted that the Secretary of State said in his speech there that he was thinking of
introducing a housing court as part of a simplification of the process for resolving housing issues. I do not know whether the Minister has any more to say about that, but we need a simple and straightforward process.