Housing: Private Rented Sector

Lord Naseby Excerpts

Tuesday 23rd June 2015 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

In all sincerity, I did not. There is a term, “to welch on an agreement”. I meant it as no insult. I simply meant to not meet one’s obligations.

[Lord Naseby (Con)]

Is my noble friend aware that those of us who were in local government in the 1960s lived through the Rachman and De Lusignan eras, and that at that time local authorities such as the London Borough of Islington, where I was chairman of the housing committee, had to have a register of all rented accommodation? If there is a real problem at the moment, surely that is something Her Majesty’s Government should look at, and they should authorise local authorities to compile such a register. However, this has absolutely nothing to do with the sale of housing association properties to their tenants. The same scare was put up when we proposed selling council houses.

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

I agree with the noble Lord that this has nothing to do with the sale of housing association homes. I think there will have been more council ownership of houses back in the 1960s. There are now a number of ways to guard against substandard accommodation, and tenants have more rights through various mechanisms than ever before.

I say to noble Lords opposite that I did not realise that, in using the term “welch”, I was insulting anybody. I do apologise if any bad feeling was caused through the use of that term.