My Lords, in supporting Amendment 25 I will simply make two very brief points about what I hope the evaluation of the pilot will include. The helpful note from the Minister prior to today made clear that it will look at the impact on tenants, including the impact on vulnerable groups. I ask that children should be included among those vulnerable groups, given the fears about the implications for children’s rights under the UNCRC and about possible homelessness that have been voiced by the Joint Committee on Human Rights and others. There is also a possible knock-on effect on local authorities if, as feared, there is an increase in homelessness among families with children.
The second point refers to lodgers. I am not quite sure whether it was covered by the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Best, who mentioned landlords not having to check people who then move in. Will this include the tenants of landlords, or social tenants who take a lodger? Certainly in Committee it was said that they will be included. If they are included, it is very important that any pilot or any evaluation includes the impact on them. This could be a group of very vulnerable people, some of them affected by the bedroom tax, who take in a lodger in order to try to make up the shortfall from the bedroom tax. They probably do not think of themselves as landlords at all, and would then have to grapple with a long code of practice and act as mini-immigration officers. I fear that that may not work very well. Therefore, I hope that the evaluation will include that group.
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