My Lords, I, too, tabled Amendment 22 —the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, beat me to getting her name on it. As the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, said, this amendment is supported by a very wide range of organisations. That includes the Local Government Association, so I declare my interest as a vice-president of the LGA.
We have just heard a very well-informed and powerful speech from the noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours. I am sure he is extremely grateful to his researcher—his son, as he says—who gave him that information. Indeed, he makes a powerful case. The noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, spoke fully and very well on the information supplied, particularly by Electrical Safety First. I have the same information but will not repeat it.
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I think the case is fairly overwhelming now. An increasing number of people are living in the private rented sector, many not by choice but because they have no choice. Quite a high proportion of private rented properties are old; indeed, many of them are pre-1919. Electrical standards were not good to start with, and are not necessarily as good as they should be now. The noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, cited figures that I think came from the London Fire Brigade. They bear repeating: they say that there has been no reduction in fires in the private rented sector since 2010, which is contrary to experience elsewhere. The noble Lord also said, and I shall say again, that of those investigated—and not all are investigated—748 fires in London had an electrical source.
A large and increasing number of people are living in private rented accommodation, much of which is quite old, and not necessarily in good condition. According to the London Fire Brigade—and we have no reason to think that things are significantly different elsewhere—very many fires are caused by electrical faults. One wonders, therefore, why the Government have rightly acted on gas safety and carbon monoxide but not on electrical safety. That is puzzling. As someone said to me recently, it leads one to believe that electricity just does not make a big enough bang. That is a slightly sick joke, but I wonder whether it is the real reason why the Government are so reluctant to act.
The noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours, referred not only to the quality and nature of electrical safety checks, but to their cost. The amendment calls for such checks to be done once every five years, and I am told that an electrical safety check costs in the region of £150. That amount every five years is hardly a high cost or a great burden for landlords.
In view of the time I shall not continue to press the case, which has been well made, but will now turn to our Second Reading debate. I opened my speech on this subject, and received the following reply from the Minister in her summing up:
“The Government are committed to protecting tenants and have agreed to carry out the necessary research to understand what, if any, legislative changes regarding electrical safety checks should be introduced”.—[Official Report, 26/1/16; col. 1270.]
May we ask the Minister, when she replies in a few minutes, to tell us a little more about the nature of this research, and how it is being carried out? Will the findings be published? Perhaps most importantly of all, when will it lead to the Government deciding whether further legislative changes are needed? As other noble Lords have said, the obvious legislative vehicle for introducing any such changes is this Bill, which is currently before Parliament. Will those decisions—I am sure the Minister will not pre-empt them—be made in time to be included in the Bill if the Government feel that they are necessary?
The noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, said that the Opposition would provide an opportunity if the Government do not provide their own. So will the Liberal Democrats. We believe that this is a critically important subject. It has not exactly been neglected, because it has had some attention, but for far too long it has not been acted upon.
I end by expressing the concern that we have had, and will continue to have, throughout the Bill: what about the tenants? Many tenants moving into a property now often stay for only a year—the average tenancy in the private rented sector, I am told, is about three years—so, given that they will be moving in and out, frequently changing houses and often living in older properties, what reassurance do they have that their landlord has carried out an accredited electrical safety check?
It is clearly time to act. The Bill gives us an opportunity to act and I hope the Minister will tell us that the Government are moving firmly forward with the intention of acting.