Energy Bill [HL]

I did try to get in rather earlier, but I am now able to say that I would be very unhappy if the Minister were to go down the route of putting in another pause. We have had enough pauses in this over the past 20 years, so really we have now got to get on with it. I also have a slight difficulty believing that there is a connection between green bias and green ideologues. I hope that one is not a green ideologue, but I hope that there is a green bias. If there is not, the world will be in some difficulty. The concept that the opposite of that is a person who is somehow independent and not of that kind worries me very much. I hope, therefore, that the Minister will not go down this route. My problem with the first part of the clause is that I fear the Minister will be in real difficulties. Under subsection (1)(b)(ii), he has to consider that the regulations, "““will not decrease the number of properties available for rent””." Let us consider this in imaginary terms. When you think of some of the landlords we have, I can see a number of them saying, ““I don’t want to spend anything and I don’t want to have anything to do with it. If there are regulations, I will take my property off the market””. In those circumstances, how on earth will the Minister be able to say that he does not consider that there will be a decrease in the number of properties available for rent? He could say that someone is off their head or make any number of comments, but the wording of this sub-paragraph could mean that he might be under judicial review if it could be adduced that any landlord had taken this view. I am closely following the noble Baroness, Lady Smith, here. The problem is that this is one of those rare occasions where the actual wording is dangerously total. It is does not say ““significant”” or perhaps that there is ““good reason to believe”” that the number of available properties would decrease in more than a marginal way. There is nothing about whether the situation might change over time. It is a dangerous sentence and I hope that the Minister will agree at least to think about it again. I think that it is wrong. The second reason why I am a supporter of the amendment proposed by the noble Baroness, Lady Maddock, is that I think that, although it is reasonable to say that regulations should not be made until the report has been published, it is perfectly reasonable to say that, once the report has been published—notwithstanding the worries of the noble Baroness, Lady Noakes—it should then be for the Minister to make his decisions in the context of the report. Picking out two things in the way that subsection (b) does will limit his ability. After all, this is a Government who do not believe in and do not like regulation; they turn to regulation only when necessary. My fear is that regulation may be necessary simply because the people in this business—or a very large number of them, as the noble Baroness opposite said—are not an easy lot to get to do things in a rational and sensible way. However, we are going to do our best. No one can possibly imagine that this Government will not go as far as it can to help people to do their best. Having been responsible for the housing policy of the United Kingdom for some years, I have to say that private landlords—even the good ones—are not the easiest group of people to corral. There are some—rather fewer than some people think—who are certainly not good and who are impossible to corral. Given that that is what we know now, this may be an area where—however hard we may wish to bear down on regulation—we may need to do something. If we come to that conclusion, surely we ought to leave it in the hands of the Minster, who will, after all, have to argue his case for doing something that he has said that he does not want to do. He will have to argue his case against the general view of the coalition parties in both Houses of Parliament, and he will have to lay the regulations. Therefore, there are quite a number of hurdles in his way anyway in addition to any psychological dislike of regulation. I would much prefer the Secretary of State to be faced with the simple statement of the report. The report will say to him these things, and he will have to make up his mind about it. That is what I would prefer. I would be happy to accept subsection (1)(a) of Clause 37—although, as no such amendment has been put down, I would be prepared to go for not having subsection (1) at all—but it seems to me that the Minister has undermined his position in a way I would have preferred him not to have done. Therefore, I would like him to accept this amendment. Certainly, I think that he would be well advised, if I may say so, to look at subsection (1)(b)(ii), because whatever bits of notes he gets handed to him from behind, I suspect that he will rue the day that he included that provision, because somebody will make mischief over it—even if it is somebody who just wants to push this off because they do not really believe in it.