The Minister will not be surprised to know that the lady is not reassured. I thank the noble Lords who have spoken for their support, not only the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, but also the noble Lord, Lord Sharkey, the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton and the noble Lord, Lord Deben, whose ministerial experience I am very grateful for, as well as the noble Baronesses, Lady Gardner and Lady Howe.
The problem with the voluntary scheme is that only the good agents belong. They are the members of the Association of Residential Letting Agents, which does not just get you in there—it educates you, awards certificates and does training. Very interestingly, ARLA also gets feedback from the ombudsman scheme to know what is going wrong and help them maintain their standards. The problem with the idea of using unfair contract terms is first that the consumer—whether it is a landlord or a tenant—simply does not know to go to them. Secondly, if an individual trading officer deals with something they will probably just deal with that one letting agent and there will be no feedback or ongoing case. I do not agree that this cost is disproportionate. The noble Baroness, Lady Gardner of Parkes, gave the figure of £150 to belong to a scheme: this is not going to put any letting agents out of business. The Minister also seemed to suggest that if any letting agents did go out of business—and they will only go out if they are bad and run off with clients’ money—this would somehow lead to less property. It will not: they will just go to a decent agency. It does not affect the number of properties on offer to tenants.
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I will make just two other points. The noble Lord, Lord Sharkey, mentioned that, on the whole, slightly more vulnerable people tended to rent. The figures from the ombudsman schemes are that the rent of 70% of the people they see—because some people voluntarily belong to the schemes—is less than £1,200 a month. That is for the vast majority of the people they see, so we are not talking about the top end of the market.
The Federation of Private Residents’ Associations has written to me saying that many of its member associations, which are obviously private residents’ groups, experience huge issues with unregulated letting and managing agents. There is a problem out there, as people have said. This is about consumer rights. I hope that the Minister will think more carefully about this before we bring it back.
On the question of managing agents, I do not think that I need to declare an interest any more because it is so long ago, but I worked very closely with ARMA—the Association of Residential Managing Agents—when my Labour Government refused to regulate them, to set up a voluntary system. It will be launched on 23 February. It is working with the managing agents to try to get a system of regulation that is separate from representation so that there will be at least something there. It will be run by an independent person. The chair is a former Member of Parliament for Streatham, Keith Hill. He is completely independent of the managing agents.
Although this is only voluntary, which I regret, at least there is some movement on managing agents set up by the agents themselves. The good agents want this, because it is the rogues who are harming. I am grateful for the support of all noble Lords. They have given me, if I needed it, encouragement to bring this back on Report. At the moment, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.