Product Security and Telecommunications Infrastructure Bill — House of Lords, 2022-06-29
Topic: Housing
John Lytton (Crossbench, Unknown): My Lords, I thank the Minister for that detailed reply. I will obviously not try to cover everything he said, but just touch on one or two points. The Minister referred to the RICS, and it is true that the RICS produced a guidance note in relation to code changes. It was of course produced in the light of those changes, rather than in an attempt to influence them, and it points out the strong likelihood of very low rents resulting from those changes. Of course, being a guidance note, it does not predict or advise on what the market outcomes are likely to be in practice. I have not had a moment to check, but it is my belief that the manual of valuation and appraisal—otherwise known as the Red Book—produced by the RICS and Institute of Revenues, Rating and Valuation, has made the valuation of mast sites an exception to the market value criteria within the Red Book. It is, if you like, a derogation from that market value principle I go back to the point that I made: you cannot have market value in the terms that I described it and the internationally recognised specification and then say that you disregard it and the matter gets to court. So what does that mean? You go to court because you can get it disregarded. Is that the way that the world functions? I am sorry, but I just do not get it—this is an oxymoron of a principle That apart, there still remains the fact that reducing rents to around about £750 or so per annum—if that is indeed what will happen, because all these things are hemmed in by confidentiality clauses so that the information does not get out, thus preventing any sort of transparency that would give rise to a market in those terms—calls into question the existence of willing participants, regardless of the valuation assumptions to the contrary. You can make all the assumptions you like, but the market will tell you what it is going to do. If you have people who are disengaged, then that is it The Minister is in denial that the market is moving towards, or is effectively at, a point at which it is bust. I hope that he will be able to produce some statistics to back what he says. While he says that, on one hand, the comments from organisations such as the CAAV may be regarded as apocryphal, I have difficulty in understanding that what he says his department is receiving is of any better or worse quality than that. We are in a land of the unknown, with people saying one thing and meaning another. We are effectively relying on a lack of evidence. That really is not good enough If we are getting to a stage where the market is not functioning, what then? How long will the Government wait before they decide that something needs to be done? And what will they do—more compulsion, more work for the law courts and legal profession, more time spent getting these masts in place and rolled out? I do not see it. I would really love to know what the greater vision is. The Minister referred to "greater collaboration"; I am sorry, but I do not see it. I see anything other than greater collaboration coming out of this. It takes two to tango—the old business about taking a horse to water may well apply I will not press these amendments and will withdraw them at this juncture; they can be resisted, but the real world outside will continue notwithstanding. It does not matter what sort of bubble you live in and what sort of vision you create—whether the commercial vision of code operators or the vision of what is happening from the point of view of the department that wishes to defend the policy that it has had in place since 2017—the situation on the ground will work out the way that it will work out. There is no changing that any more than one can change the basic DNA of transactional analysis in property markets. I beg leave to withdraw Amendment 20.