Profile: The Baroness who championed compulsory Client Money Protection

The news that the government is to introduce compulsory Client Money Protection (CMP) for agents made the national newspaper headlines recently. But the strenuous attempts to have it introduced have been in full swing now for over three years. And it’s 68-year-old Diane Hayter (pictured, right), or to use her Lords title Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town, who has been instrumental in persuading the current government to bring in CMP. So how did it all happen? After a distinguished career in the Labour Party, her unexpected involvement began when she chaired the now-defunct Property Standards Board, which was set up in 2009 by the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors with several other industry organisations including the NAEA and ARLA. It tried to bring in initiatives including proper regulation of agents but was disbanded a year later when it was clear the government was reluctant to get involved in regulating the industry. How times have changed. David Cox (pictured, left), Chief Executive of the Association of Residential Letting Agents, says he first came across Baroness Hayter at a lobbying meeting during the 2014 Labour Party conference in Manchester. “We were sat around on plastic chairs and I began my spiel on…