My Lords, I thank the noble Lord for his amendment. It would replace the discretionary power of the Secretary of State to make regulations on specifying circumstances in which housing is not treated as being vacant for the purposes of this part of the Bill by replacing “may” with “must”. The amendments in this group would also require these regulations to be made as affirmative.
As many noble Lords will recall, and as many have made reference to, the DPRRC considered the powers that we proposed to take through this Bill. I am happy to report that it did not seek to change the proposal for this power to be made through a negative resolution. It accepted our arguments that it is appropriate to use the negative procedure for these regulations, as this approach will provide flexibility to ensure that if circumstances change over time or if a need for further exclusions is identified in the future, this can be easily addressed by adding, amending or removing exclusions.
Given my earlier concession on making the regulations setting out the definition of “higher value” through affirmative resolution, and given that the DPRRC agreed with our proposal, I urge the noble Lord to withdraw his amendment.