My Lords, I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, on his use of De Mauley Street. I think it was clear what he was saying. It seems to me that if you have a property to let, as landlord you should buy the insurance. It might not just be the bog standard property and contents insurance that you buy: you will probably also buy owners’ liability insurance, public liability insurance and any other commercial insurance that you might buy as a landlord. That is one reason why they are excluded from Flood Re, because we are not talking like for like. The owner occupier in No. 2 De Mauley Street, for instance, will buy their own bog standard property and contents insurance. As a landlord you buy other things as well, which makes it a commercial risk.
I too read somewhere that to qualify for Flood Re, you had to live in the property. Therefore, I come to the amendment spoken to by the noble Lord, Lord Cameron, regarding which he said that 78% have one property, which they let. If the occupier has to buy the
insurance, why does not the landlord get the occupier to buy the property and contents insurance, which would qualify it for Flood Re? If the landlord then wanted to buy his public liability or owners’ liability insurance, he could buy it as a separate policy. That might be one way in which a number of these cases can get into Flood Re.