Housing Bill
2:30 pm
Baroness Maddock (Shadow Minister, Office of the Deputy Prime Minister Local Government & the Regions; Liberal Democrat)
The Minister has, as usual, been very full and explicit in his explanations, and we are very grateful to him for that. My noble friend Lady Hamwee, sitting beside me, was wondering whether people trying to listen to this debate were wondering what on earth we were all talking about.
I challenge the Minister again with my main point: those people who are going to try to make this happen on the ground—by and large, environmental health officers—are still concerned that when enforcement action is taken, and if somebody challenges it, the legal and technical arguments in court or tribunals could be quite complicated. They are worried about the system getting bogged down. Can the Minister say what his department thinks of this proposition? That was the one thing he did not touch on.