My Lords, I hate having to rise to criticise my Ministers on the Front Bench, particularly the noble Baroness who is to reply to this debate. She has a well-deserved reputation for being extremely knowledgeable, not least about local government, and for dealing very well with matters. However, she has not been at her best in handling this business.
My noble friend the Minister started very eloquently this time on the way that information had been given to the fire authorities and how apparently they have rushed round the country telling tenants what they should and should not do. In the last debate in Grand Committee, I took my brief from the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee and asked a number of very specific questions about the points that that committee made. The Minister did not answer one of those questions. Indeed, she did not even refer to the fact that I had made a speech at all. I had become a sort of non-person. I would gently say to her that it is usually a mistake when one of your colleagues makes a speech not to at least acknowledge he has done so, even if you are unable to give convincing answers to the questions. I was reminded earlier this evening that Lord Whitelaw always used to brief new Ministers and say, “Even if you haven’t a clue what the answer is, refer to the speech they made and then most Members will be reasonably satisfied”.
Slightly by chance later in the proceedings, partly as the result of questions from the noble Lord, Lord Beecham, on the other Benches and someone else, we were told:
“We have decided to issue new guidance in the form of explanatory booklets, one for local authorities and one for landlords. We also want to update How to Rent”.—[Official Report, 7/9/15; col. GC 177.]
How to Rent was the first of four documents referred to by the Secondary Legislation Committee, all of which it said needed revision. The situation when we met last Monday on these regulations, which launched in March and which the department had the whole summer to deal with, was that the department was going to revise and issue guidance and all these things. We are now told that it has been informing the fire
brigade, which has been rushing round telling everyone, although my noble friend Lord Marlesford suggested that that was less than entirely accurate. It does not seem that we are getting on quite as we should or that this is the way to proceed. In the course of my speech, when I was told that key stakeholders had been informed, my noble friend the Minister said:
“A key stakeholder is someone who has a stake or interest in the regulation or legislation at hand”.—[Official Report, 7/9/15; col. GC 176.]
I am not sure that that took us much further forward.
I came into the House earlier today and picked up a document I had not read before. I am not sure whether it was on the table in the Grand Committee when I came in last Monday. It is the second report of the 2015-16 Session of the Joint Committee on Statutory Instruments. In her very brief introductory speech last time, my noble friend made a reference to one of the reports of that important committee. She said that the Government would follow the recommendation that a review clause should be added to the policy. A commitment was given that a review clause would be introduced in due course. However, that was only one of five committee reports outlined in paragraphs 6.1 to 6.11 of the Joint Committee document, covering nearly three pages, which identified,
“doubtful vires, defective drafting and unexpectedly limited use of powers”.
None of those points has been dealt with at all by the Government. We come here this evening and that very important Joint Committee has not even been mentioned by the Government, except on one point. That does not seem an acceptable way to do business.
8.15 pm
My noble friend in her previous speech talked several times in terms of rogue and unscrupulous landlords, implying that anyone who did not have the right equipment in their flats and properties fitted that category. In the many years before I became a Cabinet Minister, I was a managing director of Lloyd’s insurance-broking firm, so I take a certain amount of interest in risk management. I have taken a good deal of care in the placing in three homes of the fire and other alarms in places that I think appropriate in the circumstances of those buildings. I know from having created smoke situations accidentally on at least two occasions that they work rather well. However, I have a feeling that none of them would meet the requirements of these regulations, which are very specific. Because you have not got things exactly right, that does not mean you are a rogue landlord. Rather, we are talking about someone who had not been necessarily informed of the regulations being introduced at very short notice.
My noble friend said today that the timetable was the earliest Parliament could have dealt with the matter. I cannot help observing that when the regulations were first tabled in March, no one knew that the House of Lords would be sitting in September. It is an unusual circumstance—I am glad to say, seeing the Chief Whip in his place. We do not normally sit in September; it is only because this is the beginning of a new Session and the Government want to get on with their urgent new business that we are.
Presumably what the Government would have done if we had not sat in September is to have brought forward these regulations when the House came back—probably about 11 October—and amended them to come into effect towards the end of the year. That is what they should do now in the face of a quite indefensible failure of administration by the department. It is not any good simply to say that the fire brigade has been telling everyone, when we now know that the promises given by the Government to Select Committees —important committees—have not been met or dealt with at all.
This is not the way to govern properly. I was eight years in Margaret Thatcher’s Cabinet and I can just imagine what she would have said had I been responsible in such a situation. She would have summoned me, and I can imagine the words that would have been uttered. It is no good saying that the Minister may have been badly briefed or that officials should have done this. Ministers are responsible for what goes on in their departments. It is the Government who are responsible if inadequate or inappropriate action is taken in bringing forward legislation.
I am well aware that—at this hour of the night and with a small House—if we divide, the very efficient and competent Chief Whip will summon from their offices and desks an army of Ministers and supporters of the Government. There are not many outside supporters of the Government left in the House, but they will be summoned to see the Government’s business through and therefore we will be defeated. If that is the way they get their business, they should not be satisfied in getting it that way. They should take this away and do what they would have had to do if we had not had a September sitting—bring the whole thing back and handle it properly in the autumn.