Lease Extension Policies for Residential Properties

Debate between Baroness Taylor of Stevenage and Lord Young of Cookham

Tuesday 30th July 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

I thank my noble friend for his championing of Crown leaseholders and the Scilly Isles, and for this offer to visit. You do not have to be a Foreign Office Minister to go to beautiful and exotic places. The undertaking confirms that the Crown will act by analogy, but it is well established that Acts of Parliament for England and Wales do not bind the Crown unless the Act expressly states that this is the case or does so by necessary implication. Instructing the Duke of Cornwall is probably a bit beyond my ministerial powers. The undertaking for the Act delivers similar improvements to those that leaseholders would have if the Leasehold and Reform Act 2024 were to bind the Crown directly. The difference is therefore largely a matter of delivery. Binding the Crown to the Act’s provisions is therefore felt to be unnecessary.

[Lord Young of Cookham (Con)]

But does the Minister remember the debate on an amendment to the then leasehold Bill in my name on this very subject? Although as she said, in a nutshell, the Crown Estate is not bound by the law on enfranchisement, it voluntarily agreed 30 years ago, when I was the responsible Minister, to abide by its provisions. It has broadly done so in respect of freeholds that it originally owned, but it is not doing so in respect of freeholds that it acquires by an obscure process known as escheat. I believe this is contrary to the agreement that I reached with it 30 years ago, so will the Minister agree to support my amendment to the Crown Estates Bill to close this loophole?

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

My Lords, as the noble Lord says, when property becomes ownerless, the land and buildings escheat to the Crown. That includes the Crown Estate and the royal duchies of Lancaster and Cornwall. If a purchaser is interested, the Crown can sell it so it goes back into private ownership, or the leaseholders are able to collectively purchase the freehold from the Crown. The Government recognise very much that when a freehold becomes ownerless it causes significant problems for leaseholders, but ownerless goods and escheat are complex areas of law, as I have discovered since I heard the noble Lord’s original discussion on this, and need to be considered very carefully. The Law Commission has flagged ownerless land as a possible project for inclusion in its 14th programme of law reform; I think we will be very interested to see what comes out of that review.

Building Homes

Debate between Baroness Taylor of Stevenage and Lord Young of Cookham

Tuesday 30th July 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Young of Cookham (Con)]

My Lords, there is a lot to welcome in what the noble Baroness has said. I welcome the reintroduction of housing targets, unwisely abandoned by my party 18 months ago. I welcome the flexibility on RTB; receipts for streamlined planning application; cost recovery on planning application; and the long-term housing strategy, on which I hope the Minister will consult widely, particularly with the recent Church document.

On neutrality, what the Minister sounds as if she wants to do is very much like what she voted down last September. Labour said in its manifesto that it would

“implement solutions to unlock the building of homes affected by nutrient neutrality”.

We await that, but the key question, and the missing element in this, is resources. We all want to do what the Minister has said, but her department is unprotected. The forecast is for a 1.6% to a 2.9% reduction every year for the next three years. What she has announced is going to cost a lot of money. I welcome a reinvigorated council house programme. She wants more affordable houses and fewer houses for sale, and within affordable housing she wants more social houses on social rents. That is going to cost. How confident is she that she has the resources? When she goes to the Chancellor, might not she say what she said yesterday? She said that

“if we cannot afford it, we cannot do it”.—[Official Report, Commons, 29/7/24; col. 1036.]

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

I thank the noble Lord for his comments and question. The point is that, without growing the economy, as we need to do, we will not be able to afford any of the public services that we need. That is the first priority of this Government. But we have an immediate housing crisis, so we will do what we can to solve it now, and develop things further as we begin to create the economic growth we need to solve it. But it is not just a problem of government funding; we need to create that affordable housing. The noble Lord will be as aware as I am that it has been more and more difficult to deliver the social and affordable housing that we need through things like Section 106 agreements and other forms of planning gain, so we will need to assist with that as well. But it is a priority that we tackle the homelessness crisis now and we start on the journey of improving the housing supply, because that is the only long-term way to solve the housing crisis in this country. It will take some time to develop the economic background to do that fully, but we can make a start right now.

Spending Commitments to Local Councils

Debate between Baroness Taylor of Stevenage and Lord Young of Cookham

Monday 22nd July 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

My Lords, neither I nor this Government are under any illusion about the scale of the pressures that local authorities are facing. Successive years of underfunding and increasing demand for services have left councils experiencing significant budget pressures and vulnerable to shocks, impacting the services that they provide to local people—these are key services, as the noble Lord set out. These will all have to be considered as part of the next spending review and I am sure that key adult care and children’s services will be very high on the list. I will look at the report with great interest.

[Lord Young of Cookham (Con)]

My Lords, I welcome the noble Baroness to her post. Further to the question about spending commitments, can she confirm that the firm commitment in the Labour manifesto,

“Labour will not increase taxes on working people”,


applies to council tax?

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

I thank the noble Lord for his question. Council tax increases, of course, are ultimately decided by local authorities, but the Government are committed to keeping taxes on working people and households as low as possible. We will carefully consider the impact on councils and taxpayers before making any decisions on taxes. Decisions on referendum principles will be part of the next spending review process and of course we will seek the views of local government before we take any decisions on those.