Housing and Regeneration Bill

moved Amendment No. 90B: 90B: Clause 35, page 17, line 16, at end insert— ““( ) Events referred to in subsection (1) and the principles in subsection (8) must be— (a) published in draft form; (b) made available for consultation for at least three months before they are determined; and (c) published at least one month before they come into effect.”” The noble Lord said: We are still on Clause 35. We are talking about funding that has been made available under Clause 22—grants, loans, guarantees and so on—and Clause 35, as the Minister has explained, is about reductions or restrictions of that assistance, suspensions, cancellations, directions and repayments. Clause 35(1) states that the HCA may exercise its powers in such events—an interesting phrase—as it may determine and Clause 35(8) states that the HCA may determine the principles in accordance with which it must exercise its powers. The amendment seeks to establish whether there will be a process of consultation and whether the events and principles, as established, will be published and suggests a procedure under which that would happen. This is really a probing amendment to find out from the Government how the clause will work in the interests of everything being as open as possible and the right of the people who will be affected by these events and principles to have a right to have their say on how they should work before the HCA makes its decisions. Amendments Nos. 94A and 94B refer to Clause 36, which relates to the rules the HCA will make about charging interest on any payments or repayments that have to be made. Amendment No. 94B seeks to establish exactly the same principles for consultation on and publication of decisions as appear in Amendment No. 90B in relation to Clause 35. Amendment No. 94A concerns Clause 36(7). This subsection is curious because it states that the matters referred to in a direction under the procedure for the payment interest are to be, "““(a) such as the HCA, acting in accordance with such principles as it may determine, may specify as being appropriate””—" so that is the general principle that will apply— "““or … such as the HCA may determine to be appropriate in the particular case””." I do not understand how that would work. If you are going to have general principles which apply to working-out these matters, they should surely apply to everyone in all circumstances. You cannot ignore the principles and do something completely different which is thought to be appropriate in a particular case. The amendment seeks to bring subsection (7)(b) into line with subsection (7)(a) so that it should not be seen as an alternative. That seems to me to be the principle of how things should happen. I beg to move.