I thank the noble Baroness for her remarks. I am pleased to hear that there is a register and a code of practice, but I am somewhat mystified about why there is no statutory enforcement. There are, therefore, loopholes through which tenants will fall. A large number of tenants will now be looking for accommodation in the private sector, having had their tenancies in the public sector ended under the removal of lifetime tenancies. There will be vulnerable people who have not been used to renting in the private sector who are being displaced, perhaps because their rents have been increased or their tenancies not renewed by housing associations or local authorities. They will be looking for accommodation in the private sector and need protection.
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The noble Baroness spoke about transparency—that letting agencies have to say which redress scheme they belong to and publish that in their windows. So there is transparency for letting agencies, but there is none for rogue landlords. There seems to be a discrepancy here between the Government’s aims and the requirements they are making for the various people operating in this sector. I am not convinced, I am afraid. This is a
really important issue. If it were not for the fact that the Government are trying to move large numbers of communities out of the public rented sector and into the private one, I would probably let this go. However, as this is the case, the code of conduct should be a statutory requirement. I would therefore like to test the opinion of the House.