Housing and Regeneration Bill

The noble Earl, Lord Onslow, reminds me of my days on the Joint Committee on Human Rights, when right from the beginning we had to grapple with this awkward area of bodies which carry out public functions, but which are not inherently public. The courts’ piecemeal judgments have not helped. Perhaps my noble friend can answer the two questions in these amendments. The first refers to RSLs and the Human Rights Act and the other is about the regulator. I hope that I understand them, but it seems to me that Amendments Nos. 99A and 100 would make the landlords public bodies, which is obviously a huge issue. The other three—Amendments Nos. 103, 104 and 110—are about the conduct of the regulator. The regulator is absolutely a public body and must comply with the Human Rights Act. Perhaps the duties could be made more explicit as the latter three amendments suggest. I am not sure whether they are necessary but there would be no objection in principle to what they seek although they may not be correctly worded. Would the objectives of all the amendments be fulfilled by the regulator setting Human Rights Act compliance standards? If the RSLs’ conduct fell short of the standard the regulator could deal with it. That would be much faster than the tenant going to court saying, ““My human rights have been breached””. The question is whether this important area of tenants having the fullest human rights protection would not be satisfied by making it clear either in legislation, or even by the remarks of my noble friend, that the conduct of the regulator must comply with the Human Rights Act.