My Lords, very briefly, in my 26 years as legal eagle on the “Jimmy Young Show” on Radio 2, there was no issue more sensitive and more repeatedly brought up than neighbour disputes relating to the extension of premises. It causes immense angst among our fellow citizens. People have mentioned rights of view and rights of light; there is no right of view, of course, and rights of light are notoriously difficult to judge and adjudicate on. I am entirely in favour of my noble friend the Minister trying to ensure that what comes out in the wash—I am thinking particularly of the subsidiary legislation—leaves minimum room for aggravation and disagreement.
For example, can anything be done about defining,
“the curtilage of a dwelling house”,
and the boundary of this? Those sorts of details may not seem important to us here because, I suspect, most of us live in rather spacious houses with gardens, but in terraced accommodation par excellence these issues are of huge importance. I am delighted to hear that the notice period is going to be 28 days but, to be honest, it needs to be 56 because these things can move very slowly and it takes less sophisticated mortals a long time to find out how to deal with some of these matters.