Local Authorities (Changes to Years of Ordinary Elections) (England) Order 2025

Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb Excerpts

Monday 24th March 2025 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb]

That a Humble Address be presented to His Majesty praying that the Local Authorities (Changes to Years of Ordinary Elections) (England) Order 2025, laid before the House on 11 February, be annulled, as it damages the democratic accountability of local authorities to local residents, and has not been subject to full and proper consultation (SI 2025/137).

Relevant document: 18th Report from the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee (special attention drawn to the instrument)

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

I was going to pause for a moment to see how many people flooded out; how nice it is to have your Lordships all here.

I thank the Minister for taking the time to discuss and explain the Government’s thinking on this decision to postpone some elections for at least a year. The promise to reorganise local government was in the Labour Party’s manifesto, but the method to be used was not, so this statutory instrument is not delivering a manifesto promise and therefore this House is well within its rights to vote against the proposition.

It is always a bad idea to cancel elections at the best of times, and this is clearly not the best of times; in fact, one could say it is the worst of times. We have more cuts to services at the moment than we have had for some time; they are already on their knees. We have council taxes going up again as people pay more for less. Local government is in a bit of a state, so I do not see the common sense in delaying elections and then starting them up or running them a year later with a plan to allow the current councils to devise the next move towards reorganisation. People have a right to vote—that is what being in a democracy means—and the timetable is set out and understood by the general public, so changing that seems a little unprincipled.

It is hard to think of anything less democratic than cancelling elections ahead of a significant change in local democracy; it is straight out of an authoritarian playbook. Creating a devolved mayoralty by cancelling county council elections just seems odd—in fact, nonsensical—and again is undemocratic at the very least. This rushed decision means that voters will not have the chance to have their say on new councillors for at least a year. That means that the councils that have delayed elections do not actually have a mandate to do the reorganisation that the Government are asking them to do. Voters should be able to decide which councillors will have the opportunity to plan for the new structure. Local political parties ought to put such plans into their manifestos for voters to see and vote for or against.

A lot of people who could potentially vote in May in the postponed elections will now be denied the chance to protest, complain and elect people who have a different vision of how their area should be run. I am told by a councillor in East Devon District Council that the council has already begun acting in line with the proposed reorganisation, despite no public consultation taking place due to an alleged lack of time, which is something that we have heard from the Government as well. Decisions have therefore been delegated to unelected officers and executives, raising clear concerns about democratic accountability and statutory obligations under the Localism Act 2011. In addition, the councillor admitted that neither councillors nor the electorate have a clear understanding of how this organisation will work or even what it will be, yet actions are being taken regardless. It seems that local authorities are already acting under the influence of centralised restructuring before it has even been democratically validated.

Is it really for the Secretary of State to select which elections can go ahead and which cannot? Does it not set a dangerous precedent to allow a Secretary of State to make these decisions? It is not a national emergency like Covid, when we understood why elections were postponed and which justified that decision. Do we accept that, for whatever good reason the Government think, the Secretary of State can disrupt the election cycle and delay elections to a convenient time? That is more than authoritarian, it is almost Trumpian—and I have to ask, is it legal? Earlier I consulted a member of the Bar, who is not in his seat. He said, “Oh, it depends”, which is probably what I should have expected. This fatal Motion would green-light the postponed elections to go ahead. But Labour have tabled this vote at the last possible moment on the last possible day so that the Government can now say to us, “It’s too late to go ahead”.

We are going to have mayoral elections next year, in 2026; I understand that the delayed elections will all be held then. Can the Minister reassure me that all delayed elections will be run next year? Then, in 2027, the new shadow principal authority will be elected. Again, this is quite fast. I understand that the Government promised this and therefore they need to move fast, but I am very concerned about the democratic processes here. Can the Minister confirm that this means that some councils and some councillors could be in post for three years beyond their original mandate?

There is also the problem of this being not about devolution at all but about making it easier for the Government to liaise with fewer stakeholders—that is, mayors. This is sucking power upwards and is not devolution at all. It is about the Government making life easier for themselves and giving local people less say in what happens in their local area.

Strategic planning decisions will be taken out of the hands of people who know the area and given to the mayor, who could take decisions against the interests of local residents. This is a reason not to rush into postponing elections. I am concerned about whether there has been an assessment of whether this arrangement will save money. Will it improve efficiency and support social cohesion? Will it give local people more access to knowledge and decision-making? If there is a report or an assessment, I am curious about who wrote it and when. I look forward to hearing the Minister’s answers, but clearly what is happening is not democratic. On that principle alone, I beg to move.

[Baroness Pinnock (LD)]

My Lords, I have relevant but not direct interests as a councillor and as a vice-president of the Local Government Association.

Elections are the bedrock of our democracy and should not—indeed, must not—be cancelled. Some 5.6 million people are being denied the right to vote this May in elections to seven county councils and two unitary councils. The critical question is, why have the Government agreed to such an anti-democratic measure? The Secretary of State’s justification is that the Government have what they are choosing to describe as an

“ambitious programme of local government reorganisation”

and devolution that will eventually see the demise of councils based on historic counties and the abolition of district councils. In their place will be unitary councils with a population of 500,000, making them much larger than any of the London boroughs. Some yet-to-be-agreed combination of councils will then elect a single person, a mayor, with considerable powers on, for instance, strategic planning—as we heard from the noble Baroness, Lady Jones—where the mayor will be able to allocate land for development without the agreement of residents.

The nine councils with cancelled elections were assessed by the Secretary of State to be more prepared than most in their reorganisation plans, and that therefore it

“would be an expensive and irresponsible waste of taxpayers’ money”

to hold elections

“to bodies that will not exist, and where we do not know what will replace them”.—[Official Report, Commons, 5/2/25; col. 767.]

However, in a meeting with the Minister it became clear that the reason for elections being cancelled is that the first step in consulting residents and interested parties had begun in February and would continue until April during the election period. This, rightly, was not acceptable. The option that does not seem to have been considered was to delay the elections until June. That has occurred in the recent past, on more than two occasions, and would both accommodate the need to consult and enable a new mandate to be given to decision-makers.

Furthermore, the cancelled elections will apparently take place in 2026, when it is expected that there will be elections for a new mayor and councillors to the county councils, which will still exist, and district councils. That is the advice we have been given. County councils and district councils will then make decisions on the geography of new unitary authorities. A new mandate from the electorate is therefore absolutely essential before those decisions are made, and not after—which is what will happen if these elections are cancelled.

Had we had elections, it would have had the benefit of alerting residents to the major changes being proposed, and getting their views direct to councillors. They would have been able to elect those they agree with and not elect those they do not agree with. That wide discussion is obviously not seen to be desirable by the existing council leadership—who called for the cancellation of the elections—and the Government.

It is on this particular aspect—the discussion element of this decision—that the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee has raised concerns and drawn them to the attention of the House. The first of these concerns is about the extent and depth of the opposition to the cancellation of elections. The committee is highly critical of the Government for having failed to provide a response to the issues raised. Can the Minister provide a response—which should have been given to the concerns raised by the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee—to the House before this vote is taken?

Surrey County Council is the exception to the situation I have described, because the reason for the cancellation of its elections is due to the dire financial state of some of its councils—one in particular has debts of more than £1 billion. The Government are enabling the county council, which is also in debt, to push through a reorganisation against the will of the districts. This is a democratic disgrace.

The Motion in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb, is deficient in its statement, in that it fails to mention the substantial purpose, which is the reorganisation and devolution plans of the Government. It is most unfortunate that the noble Baroness was unable to agree to a single Motion to Annul that had been the subject of a tentative agreement last week. If the noble Baroness puts her Motion to a vote, we on these Benches will abstain, in favour of voting for the stronger and more comprehensive Motion in my name.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

I hear the noble Baroness’s view, but the councils that have come forward feel that they need that reorganisation to enter properly into the devolution process. If we are going to get powers and funding out of this bit of Westminster and out to the areas, that elected representation at local level is key.

The Motions put forward by the noble Baronesses would be an unprecedented step by the House of Lords, with serious constitutional and practical consequences. The Motions undermine the convention of the primacy of the Commons and the principle of delegated powers, which have been given in primary legislation granted here and have been previously used in this way. All appropriate steps were taken, and both process and precedent carefully followed.

A vote to agree with these Motions for Annulment at this stage, the evening before the last day by which elections must be called, would throw areas into chaos, damaging the safe running of those elections and confusing the live consultations that are under way, in which we are receiving significant public interest, with, as I said, over 13,000 responses already. The people engaged believe, as we do, that the order is in the interests of the people we all serve. The Motions would slow down the delivery of the benefits of mayoral devolution and strong unitary local government to those areas. It is these Motions, not the order they object to, that are damaging to local democracy. I urge you in the strongest terms to deny them.

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

My Lords, I forgot to mention that I am also a vice-president of the Local Government Association.

I thank all noble Lords who have spoken in this debate. A lot of issues were raised and the Minister has given a very full answer, which I am sure I will read with great interest in Hansard tomorrow. Clearly, she and the Government will be held to account on that.

It seems a little mean to accuse us of bringing this so late to your Lordships’ House when actually it is the Government’s timetable that we are operating to. We had no choice. The fact that it is 7 pm on the night before is not our choice; it is the Government’s choice to do it, so the Government have made it too late to do this.

There is also the fact that Labour has completely changed the meaning of devolution. What is happening is not devolution; it is actually sucking power upwards. My Motion is not about devolution but about the way it is being done. I think that is deeply undemocratic, despite what the noble Lord, Lord Kerr, had to say about it. I am quite disappointed that the Conservatives, His Majesty’s Opposition, could not vote for a fatal Motion. I did use their wording in my fatal Motion to encourage them, but clearly that did not work. If the Government are wrong—on this side of the Chamber we all agree that they are wrong—surely we want to draw that mistake to their attention. They are making a terrible mistake, and if we are not going to draw their attention to something like this now, when are we going to do it?

I also regret that the Liberal Democrats did not reach out before tabling their Motion. That is a real shame. I am not known for my powers of compromise, but I am, I think—I hope—known for my principles, and I would have done my best to come to some agreement. The Liberal Democrats did not attempt that, so to me what they are doing now looks like game playing, not a principled move. Surely a fatal Motion is a fatal Motion, and whether you vote for mine or for theirs, it does the same thing: it draws attention to the fact that many of us are not happy about what is happening. We care about local democracy, not game playing.

Affected councillors and residents do not have a vote here, but we do, and there are times when we really ought to use that vote for the common good. I feel that is not happening this evening. I hate to waste the time of your Lordships’ House, despite the fact that it is only 7 pm—it is not even my bedtime yet, and I go to bed very early.

[Lord Kerr of Kinlochard (CB)]

Too much information!

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

Who said that?

I do not play games and I vote on my principles, so I am going to withdraw my Motion. I will vote for the Lib Dems’ Motion, but I am appalled at their behaviour this evening and I think it will come back to haunt them.

Motion withdrawn.

Solar Panels

Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb Excerpts

Wednesday 12th February 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

We have had issues around energy efficiency improvements to heritage and listed buildings. It is important to get the balance here right, though. Of course, we want to drive energy efficiency and we will be working with all the conservation associations, including Historic England, to look at what more we can do to drive energy efficiency as effectively as possible while still preserving the very important heritage aspects of the buildings in this country.

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

My Lords, could the Government consider making it a legal requirement? Even the terrible Government of the past 14 years tried to encourage people. But that does not work. You need to make it a legal requirement. And it is popular. I do not understand why this Government do not go for a popular policy for a change.

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

We have a whole range of popular policies, which, I suggest, is why we are here and the other side are not. We are considering measures. We put extra measures into the national planning policy framework and we will continue to do what we can. I like to encourage people where possible. If that does not work, we may have to look again. It is very important that we do everything we can to sell the benefits of having solar panels and other energy-efficient methods of generating heat and other forms of energy and we will continue to do that.

Renters’ Rights Bill

Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb Excerpts

Tuesday 4th February 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

My Lords, I, too, declare my interest as a vice-president of the Local Government Association. I offer a very warm welcome to the noble Baroness, Lady Brown of Silvertown, and the noble Lord, Lord Wilson of wherever it was—

[Noble Lords]

Sedgefield.

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

Sedgefield—unforgettable, obviously.

I want to point out to the noble Earl, Lord Leicester, that he is not going to beat me in a competition between who has more in common with the noble Lord, Lord Wilson, because my grandfather was a miner in south Wales. In fact, he was killed in a mining disaster, the largest there has ever been in Britain. I also grew up on a council estate until I was 18 years of age and left home for college.

I love so much about this Bill. It ends no fault evictions, it helps to protect tenants from damp and mould and it makes it easier for renters to keep pets. I support those things 100%. Of course, the Government have responded well to suggested amendments, such as stopping excessive demands for rent up front. I am even hopeful that the Minister might give me a positive response to an amendment which I will table later, tabled by my colleague Carla Denyer MP in the other place, which talks about the needs of people with disabilities, both visible and invisible. It would be absolutely wonderful to get something in the Bill to improve the situation for disabled renters in the private rented sector, and to send a message to those landlords who lock them out of the sector that it is not acceptable that so many people struggle to get permission for the most basic of adaptations, or face discrimination in renting in the first place.

The Bill is not perfect, but it is the kind of legislation I was hoping this Government might put forward, and I would like to suggest some big ideas about what the Government should do next. The big things that are missing, and the main reasons why many young people are choosing to vote Green instead of red these days are rent controls and an end to the right to buy. We need a living rent to match the living wage. This would be similar to the living wage scheme that we Greens proposed and got the Mayor of London, Ken Livingstone, to agree to 24 years ago.

There would be a national commission to decide the living rent with input from local authorities and mayors. It would examine factors like local income in different areas, the size of properties and local market conditions, plus the condition of the properties themselves. We should not have a situation where an estimated one in 10 tenants is spending 60% of their income on rent.

With rents going up rapidly year by year, this is not just an issue of a few hotspots; rents went up by over three times the rate of inflation last year. The question is: why? How does that happen? I have heard all the arguments about it being due to population growth and shortage of supply, but, when you look at the actual figures for the last few decades, you find that housing supply is not just keeping pace with but increasingly outstripping household formation. The houses have been built, but they have ended up in fewer hands; that is the root of the problem with our housing market.

Rents have gone from being 10% of income to an average of around one-third of income. One clear reason why the brakes have come off rents in the private sector is right to buy and the decline in social housing. Rents have risen rapidly, along with the country’s benefits bill. If the Government want to increase the supply of housing, why do Ministers not take up the challenge: invest in social housing and “build, baby, build”. Why do Ministers not invest in a future of good-quality social housing that cannot be sold off, thereby creating decent homes for the younger generations, who are increasingly worried that they may never have the security and quality of life that their parents’ generation had?

The long-term solutions to rising rents are: ending the chokehold on supply from greedy developers who are land-banking, and dealing with the property speculators who buy ghost flats in London and leave them empty all year. While the Government are thinking through what steps they can take to deal with these rich property developers, who restrict the housing market to get even richer, Ministers can and should act to reform the rental market with sensible and locally sensitive limits on what people can charge.

The inequality of housing has become a huge generation divide, as other noble Lords have said. Some 11 million people are renting. We have one generation—going on two generations—who, unless decisive action is taken by this Government, will never be able to earn enough to have a mortgage and are straining to afford their rent. That is not to mention the sharp rise in the number of families with children staying in temporary accommodation for more than five years.

This Bill will definitely help—there is no doubt about that—but, equally, it does not touch the roots of the problem. I would like to hear from the Minister whether social housing is a high priority. I have asked questions on the issue of housing, and in response Ministers talk about affordable housing. I am not talking about just affordable housing; I care very much about social housing. That is where I grew up for my first 18 years and I think other people deserve that as well. So I urge Ministers to consider the steps needed to fix our housing crisis, just as we would all expect from a concerned Labour Government.

Council Tax

Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb Excerpts

Monday 3rd February 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

My Lords, we are more than aware of the issues in tackling adult social care funding; however, the best way to resolve them in the long term is make sure that we do the job properly by looking at what is needed. We recognise the important role that councils have in delivering those services. That is why we announced in the provisional settlement a further £200 million for adult and children’s social care, bringing the total additional funding to £3.7 billion.

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

My Lords, does the Minister think that this Government are generally finding it quite difficult to be progressive?

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

Absolutely not. The range of legislation we have brought forward has shown just how progressive this Government are being in both fiscal and social policy.

Housebuilding: Regional Mayors

Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb Excerpts

Thursday 5th December 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

I thank the noble Lord but will resist the temptation to explain why we have not delivered the number of homes we wanted to this year, as I think he knows the answer. On skills, the Government have committed to working with regional mayors and industry to ensure that we have high-quality training opportunities across the country and that we build a diverse workforce, fit for the future. The Minister for Housing and Planning held a round table in November and we welcomed the announcement then of £140 million of industry-funded investment in new construction training opportunities.

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

My Lords, it sounded from one of the Minister’s earlier answers that the Government are introducing particular measures to make it easier for councils to buy vacant properties and perhaps to build new social housing. There are such long waiting lists for council homes. Did I understand her correctly?

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

The noble Baroness is quite correct: we want to do that. Despite the very difficult Budget round this time, the Secretary of State for my department was able to achieve further funding for affordable homes of £500 million. That brings the total for affordable housing up to £3.1 billion.

Renters (Reform) Bill

Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb Excerpts

2nd reading
Wednesday 15th May 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

My Lords, I think I have received more briefings on this Bill than on any other Bill in the nearly 11 years I have been here. It is clearly a very important issue. It hits a vast number of people, but often especially the poorest in society. It is a human right to have shelter, and we are apparently failing on that.

It would be wrong of me to pick out a particular briefing—but I will. The briefing from the Renters’ Reform Coalition was excellent and starts by saying:

“The private rented sector in England is characterised by poor standards, a lack of affordability, discrimination and insecurity”.


That is a very fair summary, but it is obviously very worrying. In the 2019 Conservative Party manifesto, there was a promise to make a “better deal” for renters, but this Bill probably does not solve the problems.

I grew up in a council house on an amazing estate in the days when working-class communities took pride in their environment and neighbourhoods, and the NHS took care of us and kept us healthy. We felt incredibly lucky. We did not own our own house, we did not have a car—when I was very young, we did not have a phone or a fridge—but we had a huge garden and a relatively car-free street to play in. It was a good life. My parents just thought they had won the lottery—which did not exist at the time.

However, then Thatcher happened along, with deindustrialisation and the right to buy. All the well-built and desirable council housing was sold and resold. In my home town of Brighton, 86% of the right-to-buy social housing is now relet by private landlords. That means that most of our £23 billion housing benefit bill goes straight into private hands: a big subsidy payment going from taxpayers straight to those who can afford to own and sometimes rent out multiple homes.

I completely understand why my old neighbours bought their homes at bargain discounts and resold them to get themselves a retirement plan, but the scandal is that Thatcher effectively stopped councils recycling and reusing the funds to build more homes. Some noble Lords have agreed that supply is the problem, although we might have different ideas about how to solve that problem. The Thatcherites hated social housing, and that legacy has resulted in a largely privatised housing market. Since 2020, rents have risen by 28%. Over 200,000 people have been served no-fault eviction notices in that same period, as landlord businesses aim to squeeze more money from their properties, and 1.2 million people are on local authority waiting lists. What many people feel, at the mercy of private landlords, is failure and frustration. So, what are the solutions?

The Renters (Reform) Bill is the smallest of steps; it must be tougher in order to be fairer. We need rent controls, first of all. The Mayor of London has asked for these powers and Greens at all levels of government will fight to give him them. Local mayors and local authorities know their areas and understand the local housing market. This Government should give them the power to make that choice.

Secondly, we Greens would lengthen the notice periods for rent increases and stop landlords using spurious grounds to evict people.

Thirdly, we will support all the amendments that aim to make life easier for student renters. I declare an interest here, as I now have grandchildren who are starting out in the world as students, so they clearly have a vested interest in this.

Above all, we would end the right to buy council properties and start to rebuild social housing. Our dream is to return to the days when we were spending as much taxpayer money building homes as we currently do on housing benefit. Because the more social homes we have, the less we will be filling the pockets of landlord businesses with taxpayers’ money. This includes buying back the supply, with local, regional and national schemes to bring properties back under the ownership of local government. It is estimated that in many coastal towns, up to a fifth of the housing is empty. We must bring those communities back to life.

The cross-party London Assembly Housing Committee, when chaired by the Green Party’s Siân Berry, assessed that there are around 6,000 to 8,000 affordable homes in London that could be immediately added to the social housing mix. These do not have to be built from scratch, because they are empty homes that already exist. There are a lot of empty properties all over the country sitting in investment portfolios—so-called ghost flats—that should be actual homes for actual people. We can amend the Renters (Reform) Bill to turn it into legislation that will really help people, but it is a small step compared to the building of new social housing, buying back the supply, and rent controls. Those are the policies that will have the biggest impact on the housing market and reduce rents in the private sector. I really hope that the Government will accept some of the amendments that will be coming forward.

Leasehold and Freehold Reform Bill

Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb Excerpts

Committee stage
Monday 29th April 2024 Lords Chamber

[The Earl of Lytton (CB)]

I will be very brief. Some of the costs that have arisen are as a result of Fire Safety Act and Building Safety Act provisions set up by the Government. Some time ago, I asked the people I work with to set up an online resource, which I commend to noble Lords. It is www.buildingsafetyscheme.org. I hope that it will help a number of people to unpick what is a very complex situation.

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

My Lords, the number of amendments discussed today highlights just how many issues there are with the exploitation of leaseholders. The noble Baroness, Lady Taylor, mentioned the option of some pre-scrutiny with people who have expertise in this area—although I am not suggesting that I am one of them. That might have benefited this legislation.

Normally, with leasehold properties, people think that they are buying a house or a flat, but then they are laden with decades of financial obligations to a landlord who can charge a ridiculously long list of things to the leaseholders. That does not seem to be a very fair system. There are far more problems than your Lordships’ Committee will be able to resolve, so there is clearly a need for further legislation when a new Government come to power. I hope that the new Government will consider the issues raised in Committee, including my Amendment 78B, which shines a light on the growing trend of public assets being funded by leaseholders. For example, green spaces, play areas and roads are often being charged to leaseholders, even when they are freely accessed by the wider community.

These leaseholders are facing a double taxation: they are paying their council tax, which is used to fund play areas and roads provided by the local authority, and they are also being charged by their landlord for play areas and roads that are within the estate. There seems to a case for these publicly available assets to be brought into local authority management, ownership and funding. I would appreciate it if the Minister, and any budding future Ministers, could give their thoughts on the issue and perhaps undertake to look at it further.

[Lord Bailey of Paddington (Con)]

My Lords, my main focus so far has been boosting leaseholder control over service charges by removing barriers to the right to manage. However, we must dramatically reform the law for leaseholders who cannot gain this control and who wish to stand up to their freeholder on service charges. It is positive that the Government are enforcing service charge transparency and disclosure with the new right-to-inform scheme in Part 4, Clause 55, which makes changes to the Landlord and Tenant Act 1985, but I believe we need to go further and make it easier for leaseholders to challenge rip-off freeholders with their service charge.

Tribunals are very stressful: they take a long time and often do not have the power to enforce their decisions. This leaves leaseholders in a very strong predicament. Leaseholders normally have to file another application with the county court to get their money back for any overcharging, at least as they see it. My Amendment 78A is all about enforcement and giving teeth to tribunals’ decisions, where it has been determined that the service charges that the leaseholders have paid were not payable or were unreasonably incurred.

Various rules in Parliament have been passed in an attempt to regulate this behaviour of freeholders; again, I mean poor freeholders—the whole market is not like this. Often, these work only when leaseholders have the time, money and energy to enforce them at tribunal, which then is not always guaranteed when residents are up against armies of layers. Freeholders often hold many freeholds and have a big financial backing behind them and can just tire out leaseholders—they can work them into the ground and threaten them with forfeiture, for instance, should something go wrong. The Secretary of State was right to say that we need to put the squeeze on freeholders, but that means making freeholders actually fear leaseholders bringing cases against them at tribunal.

In my Second Reading speech, I mentioned that research from Hamptons has shown that leaseholders paid £7.6 billion in service charges. Many of those service charges were overcharge, and we want to create a situation where leaseholders can fight back. The annual service charge for flats in England and Wales has increased by 8.4% since the beginning quarter of 2023. Around 270,000 leaseholders are now paying more than £5,000 a year in service charges, which could quickly become a second mortgage for many leaseholders.

My Amendment 78A seeks to amend the Landlord and Tenant Act 1985 regime for service charge disputes to try to make service charge tribunals against freeholders more serious by taking three important steps. One is by providing an opt-out. At the moment, leaseholders have to sign up for a case to benefit. Even if the tribunal determines that they have been overcharged, unless they have signed up their neighbour may receive a payment but they will not because they did not sign up. That is unfair in modern life: you could be elderly; you could have children; you could just be away when all these things are going on. Your neighbour would receive benefit and you would not, even though you would also have overpaid. That is why we need an opt-out, not an opt-in, to make it more serious.

Secondly, after a successful Section 27A challenge by any leaseholder in a block, the freeholder would be under a duty to account to all leaseholders within a two-month period of the decision being handed down. This means that any money overpaid would have to be paid back within two months, because leaseholders—many of them owning a place for the first time, many of them young people, many of them elderly people on fixed incomes—have paid out this money which they often could not afford. They should get it back in a speedy fashion.

Thirdly, there should be interest after a two-month period if the freeholder has not paid back money owed to the leaseholders. This is to give the sanction some bite and to make sure that a freeholder does not just wait out hapless leaseholders because they have all the power and the financial power.

I would like to see some more action in this Bill to deter and punish bad behaviour by freeholders and ensure that leaseholders can swiftly get their money back where overcharging has been determined by a tribunal. My Amendment 78A gets us closer to that position.

Leasehold and Freehold Reform Bill

Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb Excerpts

Committee stage
Monday 22nd April 2024 Lords Chamber

In conclusion, what is not complicated is that owners of flats are a safer bet for maintaining and managing their own homes than those developers and freeholders who have given their own profession a bad name. It is why this scandal is being discussed in the first place. I suggest that we simply say that in five years’ time this will be put to bed and finished with, and then no one can accuse whichever Government are in power of breaking promises again.

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

My Lords, I do not have an amendment in this group, but it is almost therapeutic when your Lordships’ House is asked to consider a rare Bill such as this, where, instead of the Government seeking to do something really quite nasty, they are merely failing to do the best possible thing that they could.

The amendments in this group reveal that the Government have failed to bring in any proposals to replace leasehold ownership of residential property with commonhold ownership. It is obvious that there is a political consensus—at least on this side of the Chamber and partly on the other side—that commonhold should be the main model of ownership for multi-unit residential properties. However, 20 years since commonhold was first introduced, and four years since the Law Commission published legislative proposals to enable more widespread adoption of commonhold, it looks as though this Government have chosen to leave this issue to the next Government to sort out. That might be the best thing—I do not know—but, quite honestly, this Government have had the option, even in this Bill, to do the right thing.

Housing is part of survival: it is a human right and you have to get it right. It is time to end the commodification of housing by international finance and to end the feudal model of land ownership, which facilitates developers extracting as much money as possible from home owners while providing little or no value in return. Forgive me, I should have declared an interest as a leaseholder.

I would like to ask the Minister some questions; others have probably asked these questions before, but I just want to be specific and get clear answers. When do the Government expect the Commonhold Council to complete its work on the implementation of commonhold for new housing supply? When do they expect the completion of the work on conversion to commonhold? Why is it taking so long?

[Lord Young of Cookham (Con)]

My Lords, I will make a brief intervention to support the thinking behind Amendment 14, in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Fox. We all understand the disappointment that it has not been possible to make progress with commonhold in this Parliament. We all understand that it would be impossible to try to retrofit commonhold into the existing legislation. One thing we have learned over the last two parliamentary Sessions is that the capacity of the department to produce legislation that does not need wholesale amendment as it goes through is limited. We all bear the scars of the levelling-up Bill.

We have also seen the number of government amendments that have already been tabled to this Bill. What ought to happen, and I wonder whether my noble friend would smile on this, is that at the beginning of the next Session, a draft Bill should be published on commonhold. That would enable us to iron out all the wrinkles and expedite the passage of an eventual commonhold Bill when it came forward. There is all-party agreement that we need to make progress with commonhold, so urgent work now on producing a draft Bill is time that would not be wasted. It would mean that early in the next Session of Parliament we could produce a draft Bill—we have the Law Commission’s work, which we could build on—and iron out all the wrinkles. Then, when the actual Bill came forward, we would be spared, I hope, the raft of government amendments. I exempt my noble friend on the Front Bench from responsibility for this; it would be a faster destination.

By way of comment, what has happened to draft Bills? When did we last see a draft Bill? If you look at the Cabinet Office’s recommendation, I think in 2022 it said that they should be part of a normal legislative programme; there should be a number of Bills produced in draft, which we can get our teeth into. All my experience as chairman of the Parliamentary Business and Legislation Committee is that when you have a draft Bill, the actual Bill goes through much more quickly. Again, my noble friend has no responsibility for the legislative programme, but I think we need to spend more time as a Parliament looking at draft Bills rather than at Bills that have been drafted in haste, and then having to cope with a whole range of government amendments.

Green Spaces

Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb Excerpts

Thursday 1st February 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Penn (Con)]

My Lords, I do not believe it should be an either/or. The green belt is rightly protected, and the Government’s approach to that is set out clearly. For urban green space, that is also reflected in the National Planning Policy Framework. It is clear that access to high-quality open spaces and opportunities for sport and physical activity are important to the health and well-being of communities. Planning policies and decisions should enable the retention and development of accessible open spaces. That is what local plans should seek to do.

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

My Lords, the environmental improvement plan is an example of this rubbish Government actually coming up with some good ideas. But, despite the fact that this plan is good particularly for deprived communities, children and biodiversity, there is a problem. Is it perhaps the fact that this Government have slashed funding to councils that has made progress so slow?

[Baroness Penn (Con)]

My Lords, I have set out a number of different ways that we are supporting this commitment. On local government funding, the provisional local government finance settlement for next year announced a substantial funding package for councils, worth more than £64.1 billion—£4 billion more than last year. But, having listened to councils, a further £600 million was announced at the end of January. So we are providing the funding to councils to help support their important role in delivering this.

Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill

Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb Excerpts

Report stage
Wednesday 13th September 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Deben (Con)]

My Lords, we ought to remember that we are discussing the amendments that the Government have put before us, rather than a committee report that we have not got and which will, no doubt, be of great interest.

We have to recognise that there may well be an issue here that needs properly to be addressed. My concern is that this is not the way to address it. The noble Lord, Lord Moylan, suggested that when we deal with the environment, we should consider it very carefully, go out to consultation and make sure that what we are doing is right. None of that has happened here. The Government have put down a whole series of amendments to this Christmas tree of a Bill and some of us are suggesting that we should not do this—although, were they to come forward with something that met the particular problems in a way that was not so manifestly bad, I am sure we would be supportive.

I rather object to the fact that the newspapers say that I am a Conservative rebel. It is the Government who are the rebel here, because they are not being conservative over this. First, they are asking local authorities—I can hardly believe it—to disregard the facts. This is the kind of attitude that we see in the Republican Party in the United States, the people who do not believe in climate change, the anti-vaxxers, who say “Don’t look at the facts”. The second thing that local authorities are being asked to do is encourage ignorance: not only “Don’t look at the facts” but “Don’t look at any evidence or find any evidence—just do what the Government say should be done”.

The argument the Government have put forward is that we need this to build more houses. I was the Secretary of State responsible for that. I had a long history of dealing with the housebuilders, who tell us that this will increase the number of houses. The number of houses built has nothing to do with this at all—it is about whether the housebuilders think that that number will keep the price up at the level at which they have it. The housebuilders are not building the houses they have already got planning permission for in areas which are not in any way affected by this. We know that perfectly well. It is a canard, if I may use a foreign word, to suggest that this will have any effect on the number of houses. The number of houses in this country is not reaching 300,000 because the housebuilders have bought the land at a price which means that they can sell only at a level which is too elevated for the present time, with mortgages as they are. Let us not kid ourselves that, by voting against this, we will in some way reduce the number of houses, because we will not.

I find it extremely difficult when I am told that the housebuilders should not pay for the damage they do. Three arguments are used. First is the housemaid’s argument: it is only a very little bit—“It is only a very little baby”—and therefore we do not have to take it into account. As a former chairman of the Climate Change Committee, I have to say that that is the argument everybody uses every time you want to do anything—“It isn’t me”; “They are bigger than we are”; “Don’t do it in Britain because of China”; “Don’t do it because of the farmers”; “Don’t do it for anyone, but don’t ask me to pay for my pollution”.

Secondly, I thought that the Conservative Party was in favour of the polluter pays. Were my noble friend the Minister canvassing in the Mid Bedfordshire by-election at this moment, would she turn to an elector and say, “In future, housebuilders building in the Wye Valley or near the Monnow will not have to contribute for the cost and the damage they do, but you will through your taxes. You, the Mid Bedfordshire voter in the by-election, will now be asked to subsidise the housebuilders”? That is what these amendments are about—the subsidising of the housebuilders.

In the end, we could go even further. Why do we not have a Bill to say that housebuilders can ignore health and safety arrangements because then more housing would be built? Why do we not say that local authorities must not know what the health and safety laws are and must not investigate what they might be so that houses might be built?

This is one of the worst pieces of legislation I have ever seen, and I have been around a long time. It is entirely unconservative. If all this was so obvious so long ago, why was it not included in the Bill in the first place, or in some other Bill? As we have, in my view, some pretty peculiar legislation on ex-EU laws, why have the Government not used their powers therein?

I sat through debate after debate on how we were going to protect the British people instead of the court in Brussels and on how we would have proper protection against government mishandling of the environment. We were assured that Glenys Stacey and her department would be treated with all the respect that one would have expected. We were told that she would have all the powers necessary for the Government to take her seriously. What have they done? Two pathetic letters, and no statement—this is a judgment that you should make and we will change things because that is why you are there. That means that the British people are now less protected from government mistakes than any country in the rest of Europe. I make no comment about Brexit, but that is where this House and the other place have left the people of Britain.

I do not believe that the Government can do these things and not expect future generations to say, “If they could do that on this issue, what about other things?” They could say that local authorities can ignore this, that and the other and do not need the facts. Indeed, we do not have the facts here—there is no proof about these houses or any of this; it is an assertion by the Secretary of State.

I am not a Conservative rebel—I am a Conservative. Therefore, I am voting for the principle of the polluter pays, for facts and for knowledge, and I am not voting for ignorance and the disregard of facts.

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

The noble Lord, Lord Deben, is not an easy act to follow, but I shall try.

We were lied to in this House. Our Government promised us repeatedly that there would be no lessening of environmental protection at any time. They promised us that and they lied. As a result of Brexit, we are now almost unprotected. Loads of us knew at the time that they were lying.

[Lord Evans of Rainow (Con)]

My Lords, the noble Baroness knows full well that parliamentary rules do not allow her to use those words, so we would be grateful to her if she could withdraw them.

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

Deputy Speaker, is that right?

[Lord Evans of Rainow (Con)]

The noble Baroness knows full well the words that she has just used, and we would be most grateful to her if she could withdraw those words.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

I genuinely did not know that I could not say that in this House. I know that in the other place we cannot say it. It is very difficult for me to withdraw words that I know are the truth, but I will withdraw them.

[Lord Evans of Rainow (Con)]

If the noble Baroness looks at the Companion, she will see that it is very clear on parliamentary language. So, I respectfully point to the Companion—and if she could read that and withdraw those words.

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

I withdraw them.

We were told repeatedly during the passage of the Environment Bill that there would be no lowering of environmental standards in the post-Brexit legislation. That clearly has happened; environmental standards are down. I suppose that it was obvious, because the Government promised, but they refused to put it in that Bill; they absolutely refused, when we kept asking them. This is the same package of obfuscation as their refusal to guarantee post-Brexit workers’ rights or food standards—it is all part of the same thing.