Energy Bill [HL]

My Lords, I shall speak also to Amendments 20S to 20X. What I am trying to do here is to hurry up local authorities’ action since they are best placed to understand the state of the rented sector in their own areas. These amendments are designed to give local authorities a bit more certainty and a better timetable for action. As the Bill stands, local authorities are merely given access to the energy performance certificate database. They will also be allowed to continue to use their existing powers under the housing health and safety rating system. This legislation will not give landlords long-term certainty in advance about what their legal duty is or when they will be required to act. Further, they do not know now whether local authorities will be given a duty to act post-2015. Equally, after 2015 they will have no prior warning of when local authorities are likely to make a request of them or what that request might be. This means that although a small minority of landlords might react by taking their properties out of bands F or G in advance, I think that the vast majority will be encouraged to wait and see. This will considerably delay any action. Local authorities will also have to take two actions, the first of which is a request and the second is to monitor actions taken and enforce compliance. It would be perfectly legal for landlords to let out bands F and G-rated properties until local authorities get around to issuing them with a request. In the absence of a clear timetable for local authorities, this could be as late as 2020 or beyond, and a landlord would not be committing an offence by letting out a band F or G-rated property until he had been issued with a request by the local authority and had then failed to take action by not claiming an exemption for the property, which he could do by going through a court or tribunal process. I believe that the measures should be brought forward to 2012 and used to give local authorities an effective tool to make progress on improving the worst of the local private rented sector housing stock at a pace that is appropriate to local circumstances. This is important because local authorities know best what the local circumstances are, so it would be good if we could encourage them and landlords to start taking action sooner. There is no guarantee, as the Bill is written, that properties will be brought out of bands F or G on the request of local authorities. Indeed, given that the Secretary may determine in regulations what level of energy efficiency was deemed to be too low and therefore requiring improvement, there is no guarantee that, despite the intention as set out in the impact assessment, properties other than those with a G rating will be required to improve. The Bill also does not allow local authorities to carry out works by default, whereby local authorities can carry out general improvement works in other areas and charge the landlord. That would be useful in this area as well; indeed, it is rather more useful than issuing a fine, because the work would actually get done. This flexibility is important to ensure that as many properties as possible are improved rather than simply issuing penalties to landlords, and is something that I know has been called for by the Local Government Association. I have already declared that I am a vice-president of the LGA, and I know that it is keen to act in this area. The amendments grouped with Amendment 20R try to address some of these problems. Amendment 20R and 20T would bring forward the date of the introduction of local authority improvement notices to 1 April 2012, and would ensure that where a local authority issues a notice to a landlord requesting relevant energy efficiency improvements, those improvements would ensure that the property is brought up to a minimum level of energy efficiency. Amendment 20U would give the Secretary of State the power to establish a local or national register of private rented properties, "““for the purpose of distributing information relevant to this Act””," to landlords and tenants. This touches on a point made by my noble friend Lady Noakes, who was concerned about information for landlords and tenants. The register could also be used for other purposes designed to help increase the energy efficiency of private rented properties. Amendment 20V would define energy performance certificate band E as the minimum level of energy efficiency that private rented properties must meet if landlords have been issued with a notice to make relevant energy efficiency improvements by a local authority. It also allows the minimum level to be raised in accordance with the timetable as proposed under Amendment 20W. That will ensure that the minimum energy efficiency level is increased from band E at least once between 2016 and 2020. I hope that I have demonstrated that there is a big role for local authorities. If we are careful about how we set out their duties in this Bill, we could get things shifting a little earlier, which I think is the will of many in the Committee and many of the people in the wider country. In particular, local authorities have for years been trying to deal with problems of poor private rented sector properties. I have not been a councillor for a few years, but many years ago I was a city councillor in Southampton. We used to struggle to bring the private sector properties up. This is a real opportunity and, given that landlords can see what may happen later, let us for goodness’ sake put something in this Bill to get them acting sooner rather than later. I beg to move.