Leasehold: Building and Fire Safety

Baroness Pinnock Excerpts

Thursday 16th September 2021 Lords Chamber

[The Lord Speaker (Lord McFall of Alcluith)]

The noble Baroness, Lady Neville-Rolfe, is not present, so I call the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock.

[Baroness Pinnock (LD)]

My Lords, the Minister has just said that he is considering a further levy on developers to enable leaseholders not to have to pay huge bills. One leaseholder I know has a bill of £200,000 landing on their doormat to pay now. Why are the Government so willing to protect developers’ profits while throwing leaseholders to the wolves?

[Lord Greenhalgh (Con)]

My Lords, I do not recognise that as a sensible position to hold. Admittedly, this is a situation that has built up over many decades and leaseholders face those eye-watering costs, but we need to recognise that in the 18 months since I have been a Minister, the amount of money put up by the Government, recognising that we needed to step up and in many cases support the leaseholders, has increased from £0.6 billion to £5.1 billion. That is a staggering sum of money. You could always do more, of course, and that is why we are trying to bring forward measures in the Building Safety Bill to make sure that this failure of regulation and of construction quality never happens again. That is what this Government are trying to do.