I fully accept the noble Lord’s point that the unscrupulous—we are talking about a relatively small number of very small landlords—could seek exemption by getting quotes from friends and all that sort of thing. We all have our views about certain aspects of the building trade and so on, but I do not think it is worth me going any further at this stage. I give him an assurance that we will do what we can to keep an eye on this issue—to monitor it, as he puts it—and if it turns out that too many exemptions are being sought for the sort of reasons that he mentions, I think my right honourable friend would be the first to say, “This is not working as we intended so we’ve got to try something else”.
The noble Lord, Lord Grantchester, made two other points. The first was about houses in multiple occupation. They will be covered if they are legally required to have an EPC and if they are let on a qualifying tenancy. Some HMOs are not required to have an EPC at this time, but that is something that the department is keeping under review. If we think it is necessary that we act, we will do so.