That is why we thought it should go in the Bill rather than waiting for regulations. I think that we share the desire that this should work, but it will work only if landlords and tenants can have confidence. As I say, just because a person running a business from a rented place happens to live there, I assume it is not the intention that they should therefore lose the security that they get under the 1954 Act. This will also open up to quite big businesses, and I wonder what thought has been given to the planning issues that arise from this. Local government certainly needs to think about how big a business would be before there were planning implications.
The Minister said that there were 2.9 million home businesses; she did not of course say how many of those were in rented accommodation as opposed to owner-occupied. Maybe she would be able to write to me about the figures—or she may be getting them at this moment—for how many of those 2.9 million are in rented accommodation. I worry that this is so vague that it will not give certainty and there will have to be test cases in court. Without some guidance from Parliament about what we had in mind for what is probably a welcome and well intentioned measure, the fear is that there will not be enough certainty. We know that landlords are pretty risk averse, for understandable reasons. There will be so much uncertainty that the measure will not be implemented.