Again, I note what the noble Lord says; I imagine landlords up and down the country will be listening to his words. We had to make a decision based on a number of factors, but also on the viability of the whole sector. We did not want to see the whole sector being adversely affected on the basis of further modelling of the costs and benefits of the £3,500 cap. The noble Lord, Lord Grantchester, also asked why it had taken so long—four years, as he said—to lay this SI. It took time to build consensus among the wider stakeholder base and to consult properly, which on this occasion was welcomed by the noble Lord, Lord Fox.
The noble Lord, Lord Fox, then confused me by referring to the 2016 debate, implying—I am sure he did not intend to—that that was the debate on these regulations. That debate was to postpone the launch of the exemptions register by six months. It did not relate to this amendment to include a landlord contribution. All this does is to seek that the landlord should make a contribution. These regulations were debated in another place on 14 January this year. They were introduced by my right honourable friend Claire Perry, and it is open to the noble Lord to look at the First Delegated Legislation Committee from that date in Hansard. What happened in between? The 2015 regulations were made on 26 March 2015 and the provisions we propose to amend came into effect in April 2018.
The noble Lord then asked if the register will be made public. Yes, the register opened in 2017, and information registered on it is publicly available and searchable. The noble Lord, Lord Fox, regretted the inclusion of that in the £3,500 cap. We acknowledge that that has an impact on the scale of the improvements that can be delivered, but we nevertheless believe that that is offset by the increase from £2,500 to £3,500. The noble Lord, Lord Grantchester—being more severe than me—would like to take that yet further. Again, these are questions of balance and I believe we got it right with £3,500, even though the £3,500 includes that.
The noble Lord, Lord Fox, asked if the amending regulations are asking landlords to provide three installer quotes and whether that was making it too onerous and complicated. The requirement to provide three quotes applies only where the landlord is looking to avoid making any improvements and to register an exemption on the basis that even the cheapest improvement would exceed the value of the cap. Our analysis showed that virtually all properties can receive at least one measure costing less that £3,500, so we expect this exception to be invoked very rarely. The noble Lord will know that it is plain common sense to get more than one quote. If they are using it to seek an exemption, it is quite right that there should be three.