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Mr. Wiggin: It certainly is.
Amendment agreed to.
Clause 106, as amended, ordered to stand part of the Bill.
New clause 16
Duty to encourage water conservation
'(1) The relevant authority must, where appropriate, take steps to encourage the conservation of water.
(2) The relevant authority is—
(a) the Secretary of State, in relation to England,
(b) the Assembly, in relation to Wales.
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(3) After the period of three years beginning with the date on which this section comes into force, and after each succeeding period of three years, the Secretary of State must prepare a report about the steps taken by him under this section, and about any such steps which he proposes to take.
(4) The Assembly may make an order requiring the preparation by it of corresponding reports, and such an order may make provision about when, or in relation to what periods, they are to be prepared.
(5) Each such report must—
(a) if prepared by the Secretary of State, be laid before Parliament,
(b) if prepared by the Assembly, be laid before, and published by, the Assembly.'.—[Mr. Morley.]
Brought up, read the First and Second time, and added to the Bill.
New clause 11
Liability of owners for charges
'(1) In section 144 of the WIA (relating to the liability of occupiers for charges), in subsection (1), after ''of this section'', there is inserted ''and of section 144AA below''.
(2) After section 144 of the WIA there is inserted—
''144AA Liability of owners etc. for charges in prescribed cases
(1) In respect of any premises of a class prescribed for the purposes of this section, section 144 above shall take effect as if for the references throughout that section to the occupier or the occupation of premises there were substituted references to the owner or ownership of such premises.
(2) Regulations made for the purposes of subsection (1) above may also modify or extend the application of that subsection in one or more of the following respects by providing that—
(a) in relation to any specified types of premises within the class of premises prescribed for the purposes of subsection (1) above, for the references to the owners and ownership of such specified premises, there shall be substituted references to such other categories of persons and to such rights as may be prescribed by the regulations;
(b) specified classes of persons who are—
(i) owners of classes of premises prescribed for the purposes of subsection (1) above, or
(ii) within those categories of persons prescribed for the purposes of subsection (2)(a) above,
shall be excluded from the application of the regulations;
(c) the owner or occupier of any premises of a class prescribed for the purposes of subsection (1) above which are provided with any service by a relevant undertaker in the course of carrying out its functions shall, when requested in writing to do so by the undertaker, provide the undertaker with such information as may be prescribed concerning the ownership or occupation of those premises;
(d) such statutory undertakers or public bodies as may be prescribed shall, when requested in writing to do so by a relevant undertaker, provide the undertaker with such information as may be prescribed concerning the current or former ownership or occupation of any premises of a class prescribed for the purposes of subsection (1) above which are or have been provided with any service by the undertaker in the course of carrying out its functions.''.'.—[Mr. Wiggin.]
Brought up, and read the First time.
Mr. Wiggin: I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.
The Chairman: With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:
New clause 12—Liability of owners for charges (No. 2)—
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'(1) In section 144 of the WIA (relating to the liability of occupiers for charges), in subsection (1), after ''Subject to'' insert ''section 144AA below and''.
(2) After section 144 of the WIA insert—
''144AA Liability of owners for charges
(1) Subject to the following provisions of this section, where—
(a) any premises are occupied by any person by virtue of any tenancy, licence, contract, enactment or implication of law for any period or term of less than one year, and
(b) those premises are provided with any services by a relevant undertaker in the course of carrying out its functions,
the undertaker may provide in any charges scheme which it makes under section 143 above for the owner of those premises (instead of the occupier) to be liable for the payment of the charges for the provision of those services and to be treated for the purposes of section 144 above as if he were the occupier of those premises.
(2) Subsection (1) above shall not apply to any owner which is a local authority, Government agency or publicly funded body which is prescribed by the Secretary of State for the purposes of this subsection.
(3) The owner or occupier of any premises which are provided with any services by a relevant undertaker in the course of carrying out its functions shall, when requested in writing to do so by the undertaker, provide the undertaker with all such information as the undertaker may reasonably require for determining whether this section applied to those premises.
(4) Subsection (3) shall be enforceable by the County Court.
(5) In this section, 'premises' shall include 'mobile home' as defined by section 9 of the Mobile Homes Act 1975.''.'.
New clause 15—Liability of owners, etc., to provide information—
After section 144 of the W1A there is inserted—
''144AA. Liability of owners etc to provide information
(1) The owner or occupier of any premises of a class prescribed for the purposes of this section which are provided with any service by a relevant undertaker in the course of carrying out its functions shall, when requested in writing to do so by the undertaker, provide the undertaker with such information as may be prescribed concerning the ownership or occupation of those premises.
(2) Such statutory undertakers or public bodies as may be prescribed shall, when requested in writing to do so by a relevant undertaker, provide the undertaker with such information as may be prescribed concerning the current or former ownership or occupation of any premises of a class prescribed for the purposes of this section which are or have been provided with any service by the undertaker in the course of carrying out its functions.
(3) Information which is required to be provided under either subsection (1) or (2) above shall be provided in such manner and within such time as may be prescribed.
(4) The Secretary of State shall by regulations make provisions for the purposes of subsection (1) to (3) above.''.'.
Mr. Wiggin: New clauses 11 and 12 are a fairly technical pair of amendments and seek to clarify the role of the owner. New clause 11 relates to the liability of owners for charges in prescribed cases. It is a long and complicated group of measures with similar aims. We would like to insert the wording of the new clause into section 144 of the Water Industry Act 1991, which relates to the liability of occupiers for charges, and proposed new subsection (2)(d) seeks to clarify that liability.
Mr. Morley: New clauses 11 and 12 propose that owners, rather than occupiers, can be made responsible for water and sewerage charges. I understand the reasoning behind them, particularly if people skip off without paying their bills. However, it would have the effect of leaving the owner liable for
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the bill. That is a bit on the hard side. It would mean that the occupier would have far less reason to limit water use if he knew that he could simply disappear and leave the owner with all the debts.
Mr. Wiggin: The Minister has put his finger on the problem. The reason that this approach is popular with the water companies is that there is a problem with multiple occupancy, particularly in blocks of flats, where people jump ship just as the Minister described. One way of dealing with that in an unmetered block is to allow the water charges to be part of the rent. That does not seem to be the way that people do things at the moment, but it would get over the problem. The purpose here is to try to find a way to stop the continuing bad debts that are mounting up in the water industry and to enable a landlord rather than an occupier to be pursued. That would put the pressure on the landlord to include the water bill in the rent, and the rest of us, who do pay our water bills, would no longer have to pay for that bad debt.
Mr. Morley: The new clause might have that effect, but if one accepts the argument for water, why not apply it to other utility bills? Why not put the liability for everything, including satellite TV, on to the owner rather than the occupier? I understand the reasoning behind the new clause. Indeed we have discussed the problem of deliberate non-payment before, but I am not sure that this is the best way to deal with it. It would greatly alter the balance against the owner.
New clause 15 also proposes that property owners and occupiers be required to give water companies information concerning the ownership or occupation of the premises. It would also require statutory undertakers and prescribed statutory bodies to provide such information. However, it does not propose that owners take any responsibility for their tenants' bills—just for information on their tenants. I appreciate that there are some real issues here. Companies often have to keep track of customers who live in shared occupancy households or who rent on short leases, but I can see a few problems with this.
Placing such a burden on the landlord would seem to me to be asking landlords to take responsibility for something that is not their duty, and it would, in any case, go against the principles of data protection. It is not for landlords to take such a role in facilitating payment to utility companies, and I would be uncomfortable with such a move, not least because one is back to the same problem that if one applies it to water, there are other services to which it could equally be applied. I understand what the hon. Member for Lewes is trying to do and I am not unsympathetic to his approach, but I am not convinced that this would work. It throws out the balance between the landlord and the tenant.
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