My Lords, that is not the correct definition, with respect to the Minister, unless being banned by a First-tier Tribunal is a conviction. Perhaps it is—it is certainly a status—but it is clear that people banned by the First-tier Tribunal will be on the banned list. One assumes that they are therefore rogue landlords under the definition in the Bill, so they would not have to be convicted in a higher court of law. Yes, the Minister is nodding her head.
I will be brief. I am no friend of bad landlords—far from it. In the part of Colne that I represent, parts of those streets have been wrecked by bad landlords, and I agree that it is a clear phrase in the public mind. However, we are not talking about the public mind but about phrases that will have to be interpreted at some stage by the courts of the country. We are talking about words written into the law of the land. The use of such colloquial expressions, which are perfectly okay on breakfast-time television as the people who are denounced there deserve everything they get, will get us into trouble if we put them into the law.
If the Government are really determined to put this rather unusual and extraordinary expression into the law of the land, it ought to appear in the list of definitions at the end of Part 2 so that we have a clear definition of it, because when the Minister was asked just now she did not quite give an accurate one. At the very least, I ask that it appears in the list of definitions because words mean what they say. This is not Humpty-Dumpty land. Words actually have a meaning and, when it comes to the law, words have more of a meaning
than they do in chat in the pub or on breakfast-time television. Having said that, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment