Housing and Regeneration Bill

My Lords, although the House is not full, I feel that I am in the grip of an irresistible force—cometh the hour; cometh the man. The noble Lord, Lord Best, has led this charge from the front and has done so admirably. I could cut to the chase very quickly and say that I agree to the amendment but I shall take a little longer to say why I have been persuaded that this is the right way forward. There has been huge interest in this issue. In Committee, noble Lords talked about the importance of culture change, coherence, equity between tenants and sending the right signals, and all that has been absolutely consistent with what we in government understand. As the noble Lord, Lord Best, said, we have been completely committed to cross-domain regulation, and the only point of difference has been in relation to the process that we should adopt in getting there. The amendment involves taking enabling powers and introducing a necessarily wide-ranging Henry VIII clause. Noble Lords normally have serious concerns about such a power but it is clear to me that that is wanted across the House and that, under these circumstances, it is acceptable to take a power of that nature to secure a means of delivering what we all want, which is a system that works for all social tenants, no matter who their landlord happens to be. I shall not dwell on the arguments. During Committee, I discussed the virtues of a full debate on the decision in the fourth-Session Bill that we will bring forward next year. I remain convinced that that will give us the opportunity for a better debate and that regulations are a second-best option in terms of scrutiny. It has become clear that because of the weight of support across the House we should give this serious thought. We have done so and are content that we should return to the matter on Third Reading. We will table our own amendment, which will provide for an enabling power. I hope that the very wide range of interests that the noble Lord, Lord Best, has been representing and the interests inside the House will meet that with favour. I take this opportunity to clarify the approach that we will take in preparing the necessary provisions. We discussed the manner of consultation that would be appropriate to regulations of this nature. I know that from private discussions across the House, not least with the noble Lord, Lord Dixon-Smith, there might have been an opportunity for a super-affirmative procedure, but it was not as simple as we wanted it to be. It is not a relatively straightforward matter. If we were to adopt those procedures for regulations of this type, it would be an extremely unusual step because the super-affirmative route is properly reserved for cases when there is a strong reason for the use of secondary as opposed to primary legislation. I know that some noble Lords will take the view that this is such a case. To help to illustrate, it is not helpful to look at the few instances when such procedures have been modified. A modified form of the super-affirmative procedure applies to the Civil Contingency Act—emergency regulations, where regulations can be made only if it is necessary to do so in response to a major emergency. We are not aware of any case when the super-affirmative procedure has been used for a sector-specific power such as this Bill. I know that cross-domain is very important but I do not think that it equates to urgent matters of national security. I recognise, however, that having gone down this route of enabling legislation, we have to have robust consultation and scrutiny. I am happy to place on the record, therefore, that we intend that there should be a full public consultation on draft regulations at the earliest possible opportunity. We need to get about the business of considering the Cole panel’s recommendations and working up the detail necessary to prepare regulations as soon as practicable. A full public consultation of 12 weeks will allow us to reflect on the views of stakeholders before we table regulations for debate in both Houses. I know that there is a high degree of consensus on what we need to achieve, but that does not mean it is always easy to translate that into regulations that work. We are keen to engage interested parties in working up the necessary detail so that the draft on which we consult should not present any surprises. I should like those bodies represented on the Cole panel to be involved in the work leading up to publication of draft regulations. I think noble Lords would agree with that. Their continued input will be invaluable as there are some complex issues in bringing together two different systems of regulations. I hope that we have resolved this important element of the Bill to the satisfaction of all noble Lords. It may be the last time I hear the expression, ““A bird in the hand””. I would be pleased if that were the case. I do not share the anxieties of the noble Lord for the future or security of this Government, but we have reached a degree of consensus and I am very pleased to have achieved the outcome wanted by noble Lords across the House.