Leasehold and Freehold Reform Bill

Debate between Baroness Fox of Buckley and Lord Hintze

Report stage & 3rd reading
Friday 24th May 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hintze (Con)]

My Lords, given the fact I have not spoken before on this matter, I again draw attention to my registered interests. I want to add my disquiet at what I am seeing here. This is an attack on property rights. That is an issue for both sides of the House. Why? Because it attacks us—our country—as a good place to invest. There are issues that need to be talked through but, to be very clear, the bankruptcy point that the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, raised is absolutely not trivial. The legal issues around this are quite serious. I ask the Minister: have the Government looked at that in any detail?

The other thing I would like to ask Government is: why the rush? Why now? There are issues that both sides of the House want to address, whether now or in the next Parliament. I seriously think we should wait. What really makes me quite hot under the collar, if you do not mind my saying so, is: why make it retrospective? In my view, this goes against all sorts of natural justice. Unless something terrible is being done, why make it retrospective? Anyway, that is my word that I would like to share with the House.

[Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, the noble Lords, Lord Hintze and Lord Robathan, both made the point that there had not been enough scrutiny of leasehold in this Bill. They also both said, “I’m sorry I haven’t spoken on this before”. I will just point out that there has been a fair bit of scrutiny on this Bill. There has also been a whole range of debates on leasehold since I have been in the House—for only three and a half years. If they had been in previous discussions on the Bill, they would have heard in boring detail, which we do not have time for now, how many inquiries and investigations from all political parties have gone into every aspect, detail and legal and financial implication of what would happen if we got rid of leasehold—every detail of it. The criticism is that the Government are not going far enough, but the notion that you can wander in and say, “You lot have not thought about this; you’ve not considered it”, is wrong.

The other thing that I want immediately to come back on—undoubtedly the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, will think that I am being too passionate, but anyway—is that everybody is suddenly now concerned about bankruptcy. It is true that nobody wants to drive anyone into bankruptcy, but the notion that this Bill is about driving people into bankruptcy is wrong because it is actually designed as a way of dealing with the fact that many people face bankruptcy because of the service charges that they face.