My Lords, I will want to go back and read what the Minister had to say about protected characteristics, so I will not spend time on that. I am not surprised that he does not agree with my Amendment 159—that is self-evident.
I would not for a moment accuse the Government of not being transparent on this. It is no secret at all that his party, in the last Government, did not want to have a pilot but to roll the scheme out right across the country immediately. We have information which has
been the basis of the argument against rolling it out further. The points made by the noble Lord, Lord Deben, are unanswerable.
10.15 pm
The noble Lord, Lord Best, said that there were big, articulate meetings—I am sure they were—but nevertheless a number of us have been briefed by people who attended those meetings saying that they support our amendments and asking us to resist further rollout and, indeed, criminalisation.
The Home Office itself acknowledges that this was a very short pilot. The sample was not big or representative, and included a lot of students, who, as the Minister says, are in a very different position. Most of the tenants were white and most of them did not move, so were not able to contribute their experience. The Minister referred to social tenancies by way of comparison, but I would have thought that was a very different market, where speed was not an issue in agreeing a tenancy. I find it quite difficult to compare them in that way.
I accept that agents charge fees, but the Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants seems to have found not only the old practice of charging tenants fees but that they have used this as a basis for charging further fees.
Finally, no one wants to help rogue landlords, but the resources should be put into tackling the rogue landlords, not through a scheme such as this, and the penalties should be for exploitation.
We will undoubtedly come back to this at the next stage, but of course for the moment I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.