My Lords, first, I thank all noble Lords who spoke in our debate on these amendments. It has certainly given me considerable food for thought. I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Young of Cookham, who went through all the promises that have been made but have not yet been dealt with one by one.
I believe that the exclusions are down to the funding assumptions that the Government have made from inception. I go back to something called the consolidated advice note, which, as noble Lords may recall, rather put the cat among the pigeons in terms of how extensive the problem was. Then there was a subsequent attempt to row back, as it were, on the worst effect of that by virtue of the independent expert statement, which itself came 11 months after a disastrous fire concerning Richmond House in the London Borough of Merton. I think we can all see that a process of risk management and managing political exposure is involved here. Unfortunately, that does not cut the mustard for a lot of people will still be stuck, for what seems to me to be an indefinite period, with the problems that they have.
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The noble Lord, Lord Young of Cookham, referred to a two-tier market. He actually means a three-tier market: those who are protected, those who are partially protected and those who are unqualified and unprotected. All three may be in the same block. This seems crazy to me.
The noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, pointed fairly to the more radical solution that I have been trying to take forward and the less radical one proposed by other amendments in this group, in what might be a step-by-step process. For all too many leaseholders, there are too few steps and they are too hesitant in what they achieve. Whether the matter is more acceptable to Government or not, I expect a rising tide of dissent will be created here. As we approach what is expected to be an election year, I can say only that there will be a lot of things said.
The noble Baroness, Lady Taylor, referred to how current progress would largely be halted if my amendment were agreed. I note what she has said, but I was at pains to discuss this matter with those who have been advising me, including some acknowledged experts, who did not feel that this was the case. I agree with the noble Baroness that there is an overriding need to move forward urgently.
I am very grateful to the Minister for his comments, but he does not give me much cause for hope. He refers to the 96% of high-rises with ACM that either has been remediated or is in the course of remediation. I wonder how many of those are complete because, as far as I am aware, 1.7% of non-ACM remediation has
been processed so far. One does not need to be a mathematician to know, at that rate, how long this will take and what the ill effects will be in the meantime.
The Minister also referred to how my amendments are “a recipe for chaos”. I thought that we had already arrived at chaos. He referred to the subsections on developers not signing up to the responsible actors scheme; where does that leave leaseholders in affected blocks? I am still not clear that the promises of expanding the list and progressively rolling out the package of measures to which the Minister referred will take us very far.
I was interested in the point that the amendments from the noble Lord, Lord Young, are “legally complex”. I think that the whole remediation scheme, as it is at the moment under the Building Safety Act 2022, is complexity without comparison. That is certainly what practitioners are encountering.
I have the impression that noble Lords are in no mood to accompany me into the Lobby on a matter as radical as my amendments. I accept the reality of that, but the situation does not end here, because pressure for change will only increase. As no noble Lord has suggested that I should take up the House’s time by dividing it, I will live to fight another day on this matter. In the meantime, I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.