The following amendments have been selected: amendments 1, 3 and 4 in the name of Rhun ap Iorwerth, and amendment 2 in the name of Jane Hutt.

The next item on our agenda is the UKIP debate and I call on Gareth Bennett to move the motion.

Motion NDM6181 Neil Hamilton, Gareth Bennett

To propose that the National Assembly for Wales:

1. Notes proposals from the UK Government to abolish fees charged by letting agents to tenants in England.

2. Regrets that, on average, tenants are charged £233 in letting fees.

3. Calls on the Welsh Government to:

(a) take action to consider the impact of the abolition of these fees which has already taken place in Scotland;

(b) bring forward legislation in this Assembly to ban renters fees, ensuring that costs cannot be passed on to:

(i) tenants, by way of artificially higher rents; and

(ii) private landlords, noting that they form a valuable part of helping renters on to the property ladder.

Motion moved.

Diolch, Lywydd. Thanks for the opportunity of bringing this debate today. As many of us know, moving from one rented property to another can sometimes be difficult. I do understand this, as I have never had a residential mortgage, and hence have never been an owner-occupier. So, I have spent a lot of time in my life living in the private rented sector. Oddly, though, I do also have a buy-to-let mortgage, so I have also been a landlord. Hence I have also dealt with tenants from the other viewpoint. So, I do need to declare an interest when I deal with housing issues. But I also, hopefully, have a slight theoretical advantage in that I have been able to view the whole issue of property ownership and renting from both sides of the fence.

To go back to what I was saying at the start, moving is usually a difficult and sometimes traumatic time. This this can apply to private renters, some of whom, of course, are entire families, as much as it does to owner-occupiers moving up or down the property ladder. Increasingly, in a UK facing a housing shortage, there can be problems with finding the right property and then securing it before it gets snapped up. Allied to this difficulty is the expense involved. Some of the expense incurred in moving is largely unavoidable. However, there are also added expenses that are not only questionable, but often downright unfathomable. These are letting agency fees.

In England and Wales, this is a largely unregulated area. In the 1980s, when property prices began to become an exciting topic of conversation for more and more so-called upwardly mobile people throughout the UK, it was often sniffily remarked that, while solicitors and accountants required some kind of examination process to become qualified, there was no such requirement for estate agents and letting agents.

Although, since 1981, we have had the trade association called the Association of Residential Letting Agents, or ARLA, that situation of non-regulation remains largely the case today. ARLA attempts to set a required code of conduct for letting agents, but the crucial difference here is that one does not have to become a member of ARLA to practise as a letting agent. It isn’t like the Bar Council or the British Medical Association. To quote a report from the House of Commons library from March 2015,

‘There is no overarching statutory regulation of private sector letting or managing agents in England or any legal requirement for them to belong to a trade association, although many letting and managing agents submit to voluntary regulation.’

The situation here in Wales is slightly different, in that we have already passed the Housing (Wales) Act 2014. This introduced a compulsory registration scheme covering both private landlords and letting and management agents, overseen by the new public body called Rent Smart Wales. This licensing system provides a useful starting point for the subject that we are looking at today, since we now already have the regulatory framework in Wales to deliver further standards regarding the precise issue of letting agency fees. Why is this now such a burning issue? Well, with a dearth of available council housing and social housing, more people are having to go into the private rented sector to find suitable property to move into. This brings more and more people into the world of the letting agent. So, perhaps it is time to consider some kind of regulation for this sector, regulation that might perhaps complement some of the aforementioned measures that the Assembly introduced during the fourth Assembly term to regulate private landlords.

Of course, there is no point bringing in regulation if there is nothing wrong with the sector. Unfortunately, the experience of a significant number of renters in Wales is that there are many charges involved in moving, in renting, even in renewing a tenancy, which add to the cost and which they often simply do not understand. Shelter Cymru, in a recent report, found that one in three tenants using letting agencies paid more than £200 in agency fees to begin a tenancy. Taken with the advance rent and bond, this means that the cost of moving into an average three-bed home in Cardiff is pushed up to more than £1,600. These are significant costs. Of what do these fees consist? Well, often they are covered simply by the catch-all term of ‘administration charges’. Before moving in, prospective tenants would expect to have to submit to various checks on referees and personal credit. However, many of these checks are not particularly costly to carry out, hardly justifying the sometimes exorbitant fees that are in some cases levied upon the prospective tenants.

A report on the situation in England by the House of Commons Communities and Local Government Committee revealed many sharp practices that are probably equally prevalent in Wales. One of those cited in the report was drip pricing, a sales technique whereby charges are only revealed gradually to the prospective buyer, or, in this case, the prospective tenant. ‘Fees may apply’ is the operative phrase here. There can sometimes be double charging, where both landlord and tenant are charged by the agency for carrying out the same checks. In some cases, the landlord doesn’t know that the agency is charging the prospective tenant. In cases where there are multiple applications for the same property, the agents can make money from a number of prospective tenants, most of whom don’t actually move in. And prospective tenants looking for a new home can find themselves forking out for credit checks and other administration fees several times over before being able to finally, hopefully, move into a property. Perhaps the most pernicious types of these fees are repeat charges for sitting tenants who are simply renewing their existing tenancy. In this case, credit checks and personal references should no longer be required, but the more unscrupulous kind of letting agent will still apply a highly mysterious charge. Of course, letting agents do face costs, but their staple source of income is supposed to come from their percentage commission on the monthly rent on a property, which they rightly take from the landlord. So, excessive administration fees are simply a healthy bonus payment for them.

In November 2015, the Consumer Rights Act 2015 came into law, a piece of Westminster legislation that also applied to Wales. This was supposed to force letting agents to be transparent when displaying their charges, so that consumers— in this case, prospective tenants—could make an informed choice as to which agent they wanted to use. Unfortunately, when Shelter Cymru investigated how well this was operating in the early months of 2016, they discovered a widespread flouting of the law. They carried out a mystery shop of 85 letting agents across Wales to see how they displayed their charges and whether or not these charges remained consistent. The law requires agents to show a full list of fees in the office and on the website. More than half—52 per cent—of agents did not display an actual fee or indeed any way in which the fee could be calculated. More than half the agents stated a different fee when contacted by telephone to what was stated on their website.

So, what needs to be done now? Well, I am sometimes slightly dismayed by the extent to which we seem to follow Scotland’s path here in the Assembly. On this occasion, though, if we do look north, then we find that there is a legislative course that we could perhaps follow. In November 2012, the Scottish Parliament voted to approve new legislation that outlawed all tenancy charges, apart from rent and a refundable deposit. This move then impacted on England. In July 2013, the Commons’ select committee on communities and local government compiled a report on the private rented sector. Following Scotland’s lead on letting agency fees was considered at that point, but the committee sensibly decided to wait for more evidence to emerge from Scotland as to what effect the Scottish legislative changes had had on the Scottish private rented sector.

In March 2015, the same Commons committee published a report in which they gathered together the evidence from Scotland and had another look at the situation. A major worry was that if letting agents were no longer able to charge tenants for various check, then they might charge the landlords instead, and the landlords would simply pass the fees onto the tenants in the form of rent increases. However, the Commons investigation found no clear evidence that rents had risen as a result of the abolition of letting agency fees. The committee’s recommendation was that there should be a comprehensive impact assessment of the effects of introducing a similar ban in England. Since then, in the recent autumn statement, the Chancellor stated that Ministers will bring in a ban as soon as possible.

Is a blanket ban on fees what we want, though? Will such a ban be enforceable? And, if such a ban does come in, will it simply push up rents? In terms of enforcement, we need to go back to the example of Scotland. There, it was actually illegal to charge premiums—that is, fees charged at the start of a tenancy—after the housing Act (Scotland), passed by the Westminster Parliament back in 1984. However, the 2012 law passed by the Holyrood Parliament clarified this and led to enforcement action finally being taken. This near 30-year gap does demonstrate the danger of passing poorly drafted and subsequently unenforceable legislation, of which of course we have to beware.

What about the issue of charges being passed on to tenants as increased rents? Well, Generation Rent, the campaigning group, looked at Scotland before and after the ban and concluded that abolishing fees did not necessarily drive up rents. However, the evidential problem was that rents did go up in the period under review and Generation Rent was unable to separate the agency fees issue from other factors in the housing market. So to be frank, they simply didn’t know. The Commons select committee also concluded that the evidence was inconclusive, and that more research needed to be done on this while the National Landlords Association believed that, in Scotland,

‘the letting fee still exists but has been transferred into the rent; tenants are now paying a higher rent.’

PricedOut, another pressure group, opined that even if some of the fees were passed on in the form of higher rent, this would mean that the charges were spread across a tenancy, which was preferable to tenants being hit with a huge lump sum when they wanted to move to a new place. ARLA, the Association of Residential Letting Agents, has been critical of the proposed ban in England. They claim that the average charge is actually £202 per tenant and that this is broadly a fair fee to cover agents’ costs. The Residential Landlords Association says that it would have been better to improve the transparency of fees charged by agents by forcing them to publicise their charges and what the charges actually cover rather than have a blanket ban. The problem with this is that the consumer Act legislation already did this, covering England and Wales, and Shelter Cymru’s evidence seemed to conclusively reveal that it had had little effect on the commercial behaviour of many letting agents.

So, if you want to deal with this problem, you have probably got two options. You could call for complete transparency. This would mean agents having to publish a full breakdown of fees alongside any property advert. It would also forbid double charging and would force letting agents to reveal all of the tenancy charges to the landlords they were working for. But this is already provided for in the consumer rights Act and, in actuality, probably doesn’t really function very well in the housing sector. The other option is to have a blanket ban and to make all fees and charges, other than rents and deposits, unlawful when charged to the prospective tenant. There could be a case for either option. But, as earlier legislation has failed, it seems to me that we may now need to address this as a legislative issue, targeted purely at the letting agents. Hence the debate that UKIP Wales has brought here today.

I have selected the four amendments to the motion. I call on Sian Gwenllian to move amendments 1, 3 and 4 tabled in the name of Rhun ap Iorwerth.

Amendment 1—Rhun ap Iorwerth

Add as new point 3 and renumber accordingly:

Regrets that in the previous Assembly, the Welsh Government failed to take the opportunity to ban excessive letting agents’ fees.

Amendment 3—Rhun ap Iorwerth

Add as new sub-point at end of point 3:

Further consider ways of tackling excessive and unfair service charges, or unjustified rises in service charges, that are levied on to leaseholders.

Amendment 4—Rhun ap Iorwerth

Add as new point at end of motion:

Believes that, if the Welsh Government has produced legal advice suggesting a Bill on banning excessive agents’ fees would be outside of the legislative competency of the Assembly, this advice should be published.

Amendments 1, 3 and 4 moved.

Thank you very much, Llywydd. I move the amendments. I also declare an interest as the mother of four young people who have paid a huge amount in letting fees over the years.

Plaid Cymru is pleased to support this motion to abolish fees charged by letting agents. As you know, we introduced amendments to that end during the debate on the renting homes Bill. At that time, we were supported by the Liberal Democrats and the Conservatives during that debate. It’s clear from the motion before us today that UKIP too would have supported those very amendments, which means that the only party that hasn’t yet publicly committed to abolish letting agents’ fees is the Labour Party. But, the Government amendments do provide some hope, and I very much hope that, by the end of today, they too will be supporting abolishing these problematic fees. I look forward to seeing that happen this afternoon.

Amendment 1, therefore, regrets that the previous Assembly didn’t take the opportunity to ban these fees at an earlier stage The aim of our second amendment is to add to the motion and to call for consideration to be given to how extreme and unfair service charges could be abolished, or increases in services charges paid by the leaseholder. Therefore, the second amendment expands this field. These service charges are often similar to extreme letting fees in the sense that the client is already tied in to a long-term agreement without the ability to shop around, and will often have to pay a high price for a service, which, quite often, simply isn’t provided. Large increases in fees can also create difficulties in selling a flat or another property, which can mean that an individual cannot move as they would perhaps wish.

The final amendment relates to a story covered in the media a few weeks ago, where it was claimed that the Government had told its backbenchers that the reason they weren’t voting in favour of the Plaid Cymru amendment to ban letting agent fees was because there were legal questions surrounding competency. That’s not the case put forward publicly by the Government at the time, and one would need to ask the question as to why they didn’t make that case at that time. It was part of a more general pattern by the Government to oppose amendments and legislation and use technical arguments that many Members of the Assembly weren’t in the position to scrutinise or to question properly. We’re of the view, therefore, that if the Government wants to use legal arguments against any amendment or proposed Bill, rather than to make the case on a matter of principle, then that legal advice should be published beforehand. That would give adequate time for people who don’t necessarily agree with that view to actually bring together their case and to seek independent advice where necessary.

To be clear, Plaid Cymru is of the view that banning these fees is something that this Chamber can and should legislate on. I do hope that the Government now realises that they have made a major mistake in this area in the past. It is interesting to see that UKIP is turning to Scotland as an example of good practice. It does demonstrate, of course, that devolved Governments can be far more enlightened than the central state.

I call on the Cabinet Secretary for Communities and Children to move formally amendment 2 tabled in the name of Jane Hutt.

Amendment 2—Jane Hutt

In point 3, delete sub-points (a) and (b) and replace with:

(a) Consider how legislation on this subject might work in light of the evidence on the impact of abolition in Scotland and the responses to the consultation in England.

(b) Consult with other parties in the Assembly and stakeholders on the best way forward for Wales.

Amendment 2 moved.

Formally.

I would endorse my friend Gareth Bennett’s comments on the difficulties created for tenants by letting fees and charges. The issue of tenancy and letting agent fees is not confined to fees for credit checks and referencing before or at the start of the tenancy, though. There are frequently schedules of pre-agreed fixed costs for breakages, repairs et cetera, and other charges imposed during the tenancy, which provide unscrupulous letting agents—and, for that matter, landlords—with the opportunity to exploit and overcharge tenants.

Welsh Tenants, an organisation that acts as a voice for tenants in Wales, provides an example of a letting agent’s schedule of fees and charges on its website. It contains some, shall we say, interesting charges such as: change of utilities—£25; replacement of tenant—25 per cent of the monthly rent; and contract renewals, as mentioned by Gareth Bennett—£50. Quite what these charges actually cover in terms of work or services provided by the letting agent or how they’re justified by the agency itself is questionable. Perhaps the most illustrative of the fees in the example provided by Welsh Tenants is a £25 fee for the return of overpaid rent. So, if the tenant overpays rent, they are charged £25 for the privilege of having their money given back to them. It seems very odd to me. This example schedule probably represents one of the worst schedules of fees and charges imposed by letting agents, at least I hope so, and I’m sure there are many agents who aren’t as keen to levy charges as in that schedule.

However, the fact that letting agencies can impose such charges and get away with it says a lot about the state of the private rented sector and the dire need to address additional costs to tenants that hamper or prevent their moving to more suitable accommodation. It has been argued, particularly by trade organisations representing letting agents and letting agents themselves, that rents will rise if these letting fees are banned. That doesn’t appear to be borne out by what is happening in Scotland. I would refer Members to Shelter’s report, ‘Ending Letting Fees’, in 2013, which concluded that landlords in Scotland, after the ban was enforced there, were no more likely to increase rents than those elsewhere in the UK.

Even if banning these fees leads to an increase in rents, I would suggest that, firstly, at least the tenant will end up paying the fees in a more manageable way. The fees will be divided over months as opposed to having to pay hundreds of pounds upfront in addition to the bond and the rent. Secondly, landlords are in a better position to negotiate sensible fees and charges with letting agents than their tenants are, which will keep down increases in rents in the first place.

An indication of how lucrative these fees and charges are for letting agents can be found in the way the share prices of the letting agent Foxtons crashed in the hours following the announcement of a ban on fees in England. It suggests that, quite apart from being legitimate costs that are merely being passed on to tenants, these fees and charges are a source of profit for letting agents. Looking at some of the fees and charges in the schedule of fees and charges I referred to earlier, there is a good percentage of profit to be creamed off those fixed costs for an unscrupulous letting agent. For instance, a fixed charge of £400 for a washing machine that may only cost the landlord or letting agent £250 to replace would see a fair bit of profit.

Rent Smart is likely to place more private rental properties in the hands of letting agents, so the proportion of tenants in Wales affected by these fees and charges is not going to reduce any time soon. Close scrutiny of the operation of letting agents in Wales will therefore be necessary. I have no objection to commercial enterprises making as much profit as they like out of people who have sufficient bargaining power to protect themselves from being overcharged and exploited. However, that isn’t the position that the majority of tenants find themselves in. Most tenants have only two options: pay the charges and stand a chance of getting the home they want, or refuse to pay and stay where they are—if they have already a place to live, that is. The only assistance for tenants in Wales is to be found in this Chamber, and I would urge Members to support the motion. Thank you.

The people who suffer most from these letting agency charges are those who would, in the past, have been housed in council or housing association properties. It’s the shortage of social housing as a result of the right-to-buy legislation and the failure to replace those homes with new homes that has driven people eligible for employment support allowance into the private rented sector. There are many vulnerable people in poor health, living on benefits, being forced to move every year, even if they are model tenants. The letting agency fee has to be paid out of their employment and support allowance—the money that’s supposed to be used for food, heating and other essential items like clothing. So, there can be no justification for continuing with this fee, which, in any case, the letting agencies are charging both the tenants and the landlords for the same piece of work. What’s more, they are outrageously overcharging the tenants for things that don’t actually cost that much. So, it’s merely because there is such a sellers’ market that they are able to do this. So, the solution has to be to abolish letting agency fees and ensure that any fees that need to be charged are imposed on the landlord. Just as it happens with estate agents who are buying and selling properties, it is the seller who pays the fee. So, I hope that we will be able to resolve this matter. Obviously, I’m hoping that good luck will shine on me when the ballot for individual Members’ Bills comes up in January, and that I might be chosen so that I can introduce such a Bill. But I hope that whoever is lucky on that day will also consider this very important matter.

Can I welcome this UKIP debate and also commend the opening speech by Gareth Bennett, which analysed very effectively and thoroughly the current situation and, I thought, made a very persuasive case? So, we do give a general welcome to this policy shift. I think it’s very important to reflect the change in society. We now have generation rent. It will take us a long time to build the quantity of houses we need to really have an effect on supply and therefore reduce the average cost of housing, which would definitely be in the public interest, however that is achieved—through private or social, or a combination of both types of housebuilding. So, I very much welcome the fact the Chancellor identified this subject as worthy of attention and has suggested a ban on letting agency fees.

I’m not sure it’s been mentioned so far, but in the last 10 or 15 years, there has been a general increase in the charges that have been made by letting agents. There’s also very little consistency in their approach, and a couple of Members have mentioned this. They seem sometimes to be just a random attempt to get an extra charge, at a time when a potential tenant has little power, really, to object. In any case, for the operation of the market, it would better if these costs were met by the landlord—or landlady, indeed—who can seek the most efficient type of service and is in a position to bargain effectively. We’ve heard that there is already experience of how the reform might operate in Scotland, where they have banned the fees. And whilst there’s been a general increase in rentals in the last—well, even since the financial crash, rents have gone up, but I don’t think there is evidence that Scottish rents have gone up more than the UK average. So, that would suggest to me that banning the letting agency fees has not been borne directly by tenants. It seems to have been largely absorbed.

Can I just say that we will abstain on the actual motion just to trigger the amendments? We’ll support all of the amendments apart from the final amendment, because I’m not quite sure where we are in terms of the privilege that Governments have for legal advice, and they do need legal advice sometimes. That would be the case for the UK Government as well as the Government here, so we will probably abstain on amendment 4, but then we will support the motion, however it is amended. We do this because I think the Welsh Government is right to seek to consult with the various stakeholders about the way forward. But I think the general presumption now has to be that these fees should be abolished. Thank you.

I call on the Cabinet Secretary for Communities and Children, Carl Sargeant.

Thank you, Presiding Officer. I thank comrades for their contributions. Jenny Rathbone has been a champion of this proposal for many months, and she continues to be so. I’m very grateful for the opportunity to have some conversations with her regarding this very issue.

The Welsh Government has consistently demonstrated its commitment to a fair deal for private sector tenants, most recently introducing the Renting Homes (Wales) Act 2016 and the introduction, indeed, of Rent Smart Wales.

Llywydd, we are cracking down on rogue agents and landlords and are working to raise standards in the sector. This debate is not about who cares about the interests of tenants more. It’s about one particular proposal, the effectiveness of which has yet to be proved. The First Minister has already given his assurance that we are actively considering a ban on letting fees to tenants and this issue, and I’m happy to confirm that today.

Just before I continue, it is worth noting Sian Gwenllian’s contribution today, which perhaps needed some more meat on the bone around the detail there. I’m very keen to acknowledge that Members across all parties are in this space of considering this proposal, but the Member would be wrong to think that the Conservatives in any way supported the renting homes Bill. In fact, they actively sought to derail it. They’ve suddenly seen the light about letting agent fees; actually, they voted against the legislation that we introduced here in this Chamber. The other point of fact that the Member may wish to consider is that I think she suggested that we had shared legal advice with Labour backbenchers. That wasn’t ever said, and is not true either. If the Member didn’t suggest that, I apologise, but from her wording, that is what I took from her contribution. But if that’s the case, then I acknowledge that, too.

In terms of the proposals I believe we all share about some of the practices of letting agents, Rent Smart Wales will improve the way they’re run, their businesses, with sanctions if they fail to do so. Legislation brought in via the Consumer Protection Act 1987 means agents have to publish their fees upfront, but I am also conscious of the Shelter survey that went on, and we have to look at this more carefully in terms of what the legislation says.

The motion refers, quite rightly, to concerns about the impact that agent fees can have on tenants and proposes further legislation. I understand the thinking behind the motion, but there are two fundamental flaws that you must think through before we legislate. Firstly, it appears to suggest we consider the impact and then move directly and very rapidly to that legislation without further consideration. What is needed right now is a very detailed and careful consideration of experience elsewhere—Scotland, for example—and the policy objectives of the legislation solution that has been put forward. Similarly, we need to look very closely at what is being proposed for England and the evidence base that underpins that also.

Secondly, the motion suggests that costs must not be passed on to tenants via rent increases. There is a separate discussion to be had about the desirability of comprehensive rent controls, but this goes way beyond the question of banning agents’ fees to tenants. So, again, it’s a complex point that you raise within the same debate, which I think, actually, may have been better discussed on a separate occasion. But it is something that we are considering as a whole, as the motion suggests. The proposal to prevent agents from increasing their fees to landlords would require a system of Government-determined limits on agents’ fees, and the letting agents are businesses. Together they employ thousands of people in communities throughout Wales, but we must make sure, with legislation, that we control that properly.

For these reasons, I can’t support the motion today. The flaws in the UKIP proposals demonstrate the need for full consideration of the evidence and consultation before we move to legislation. Similarly, I’m unable to support the first of Plaid Cymru’s amendments, which suggests we should have acted without evidence or full consideration. I would be surprised if the Member, and the party, really considered that to be their position. We are always prepared to reflect on what’s in place and take further action where the evidence shows that there is more that can be done. Evidence is now emerging from Scotland, and this is the time to determine what we should do here, in Wales. Our approach is set out in this Government amendment. We need to look very carefully at the evidence presented. Scotland first introduced legislation banning agents’ fees in 1984. They reinforced that in 2012, and whilst the evidence from the Shelter research suggests there has been little impact on rental levels, other anecdotal evidence suggests that rents have gone up, and there are even greater stories of agents who are still charging tenants. We must look through that to see if there’s a solution for us here in Wales. But I’m happy to move our amendment today.

I call on Neil Hamilton to reply to the debate.

Diolch yn fawr iawn, Lywydd. Well, this has been one of those agreeable occasions where everybody is broadly in agreement, although I have known many such occasions in the past where everybody has been wrong. But I don’t think that this is likely to be one of them. I’m grateful for the support that has been offered by the Conservative Party and by Plaid Cymru. I can say that we, for our part, accept Plaid Cymru’s amendments to our motion.

It was interesting to hear Sian Gwenllian’s point about how, sometimes, devolved parliaments perhaps can be more enlightened than the parliaments from which they emerged. The opposite can also be true, but I’m in favour of competition, generally speaking, and therefore if we can gain from the experience of other devolved parliaments, it’s a very good thing. So, it’s one of the advantages of devolution, which I’m happy to accept.

Both Jenny Rathbone and my colleague Michelle Brown made reference to the fact that it’s a sellers’ market. This is where the bulk of the problem arises from, of course, because the letting agents and the landlords effectively have the whip hand and the tenant does have an inequality of bargaining power, which enables the letting agents to get away with these fees. I hope that Jenny Rathbone is fortunate in the private Member’s Bill ballot as well. As I know she has been a staunch advocate of these proposed changes for many years, it would certainly be welcome if she had the opportunity to introduce such a measure.

In the course of the debate, some of the more unscrupulous charges have been set out in some detail, and it’s quite clear that they are wholly indefensible. Michelle Brown made a very valuable contribution, I think, to the debate in that respect. So, there does seem to be a widespread agreement on the general principle. I can understand the attitude of the Government wanting to look at the experience of such legislation elsewhere, obviously, and the proposals as they are going to be brought in in England. There is a legal obligation to consult, clearly, before such measures are introduced, but we want to emphasise our belief that this is an urgent matter that needs to be dealt with.

So, if we vote against the Labour amendment today, it doesn’t mean that we think that the Government is unreasonable in proposing what it does, but merely because we want to underline the necessity of getting on with the job as quickly as possible. I hope that we will be able to solve this festering sore, which does affect the most vulnerable in society. We should be careful, of course, of causing the housing market to seize up, and therefore shouldn’t, I think, go down the general route of rent control, but I do believe that unscrupulous fees of this kind ought to be made illegal as soon as possible.

The proposal is to agree the motion without amendment. Does any Member object? [Objection.] I will defer voting under this item until voting time.

Voting deferred until voting time.