Leasehold Reform (Ground Rent) Bill [HL]

Lord Berkeley Excerpts

Monday 24th May 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Berkeley (Lab)]

My Lords, I very much welcome this Bill. I am no property expert but I have explained my interest in the Bill—I hope, as other noble Lords have said, that there will be at least one more. I welcome the Government’s statement, I think from 11 January this year, accepting the recommendations to introduce legislation to allow residential leaseholders to extend their leases at zero ground rents for 999 years or to buy it out. This is welcome. Although this Bill does not cover that, it sets some useful pointers—I hope—on government thinking. I declare an interest as living in Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly.

To some extent, it seems that this Bill just covers the easy bits. I hope I am wrong about that, because the noble Lords who have already spoken raised some interesting issues that are way beyond my competence. My understanding—I am sure the Minister will correct me if I am wrong—is that this applies to new build, but does it cover conversions from shops or houses cut into several smaller bits? I suspect many people will wish for some element of retrospectivity in this, but that is probably impossible.

I will concentrate my remarks on Clause 23, which concerns the Crown lands of the Duchies of Lancaster and Cornwall. I am pleased to see that no exemptions are mentioned here. That is really good. However, there is potential for some people who might seek to delay or wriggle out of the spirit and letter of this Bill, which applies not only to this Bill but—hopefully—to the next one as well. I have been seeking assurances from the Duchies of Cornwall and Lancaster and the Crown Estate, for when it comes to the next piece of legislation, about the statements in paragraph 7.150 of the Law Commission report that

“the Crown has given an undertaking to Parliament that, in most cases, it will act ‘by analogy’ with the legislation to give its leaseholders the same rights that they would enjoy if their landlord were not the Crown.”

It goes on to suggest that the commitment is disapplied when the property is in or near

“historic Royal Parks and Palaces”

or has some

“long historic or particular association with the Crown.”

I have been writing to all these groups for comment. I noted that the Law Commission report states that many consultees had negative experiences in negotiating with the Duchy of Cornwall, compared to no problems with the others. I am sad to have to agree with them. I wrote to the Duchy in January asking for its views on this report and whether it intended to follow the examples of the Crown Estate and the Duchy of Lancaster. Four months later, I have not yet had a reply, in spite of several reminders. This leads me on to the situation that the Duchy claims to be in the private sector. My first question, then, is why it should be treated any differently to other private sector organisations.

But then we have the issue, which noble Lords know well, that Ministers have to seek the consent of the Prince of Wales and the Queen. From the Prince of Wales’s point of view, it is odd that the Duchy of Cornwall should have to give consent to a Bill in which it presumably has a commercial interest. Have the Government applied for consent in this case from the Duchy of Cornwall and the Crown? If so, what changes were made to the draft document as a result of either of these questions? This situation seems to be of such concern to some Ministers, and certainly to the Crown, that they do not like even to put this in writing; they have to do it by phone so that there is no record of it. Frankly, I find this pretty non-transparent.

But the Duchy is in a different position from that of the Crown Estates or the Duchy of Lancaster. As I have said, it claims to be in the private sector. But it has all these special privileges—such as Crown immunity, special tax status and free legal advice from the Treasury Solicitor—which other private estates do not enjoy. I think that the lawyers will be rubbing their hands in glee after some of the discussions in this debate today. But this is not the point. This Bill—and, I hope, the subsequent one—provides an opportunity to ensure that the Duchy behaves in the same way as the Crown Estates and the Duchy of Lancaster. All communications should be transparent, and it should not seek special privileges for its property in a manner which is out of line.

To conclude, I will give one example. Somebody I know very well lives in a Duchy-leased house in St Mary’s on the Isles of Scilly. There is nothing special about his house; it happens to be next door to a castle built by the military 200 or 300 years ago. I do not think the Duchy has any title to that at all, and it will not even discuss with him the idea that he could buy the freehold. His house is not historical; it is nothing very special. It is probably a 1960s building. This example is so that all these organisations can agree with what the Law Commission suggests in its report and have the minimum exemptions.

My final question to the Minister is: when do we expect the next Bill? He would expect me to ask that. I am sure he will not give me an answer, but it would be nice to know. I hope to explore some of these issues in Committee.

Queen’s Speech

Lord Berkeley Excerpts

Monday 17th May 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Berkeley (Lab) [V]]

There is very little new on transport in the Queen’s Speech, apart from promising a Bill for HS2 from Crewe to Manchester. As my noble friend Lady Jones of Whitchurch said, there was a distinct lack of ambition for the transport sector in the Queen’s Speech. So, at the start of this new Session, it is time to review the purpose, benefits and likely outcome for HS2, and to ask again whether it is needed at all.

According to cost engineer Michael Byng, to whom I pay tribute for his professionalism and work in checking the cost of HS2, the latest cost estimate is £158 billion. Many would think that some of that could be better spent on improving the regional lines in the Midlands and the north, which need about £100 billion more to meet their levelling-up needs. HS2 costs have risen tenfold over 10 years, and it is time to bring to account those who have promoted it and withheld information from Parliament and the public since 2015-16.

I welcome the very powerful maiden speech by the noble Lord, Lord Morse. The National Audit Office has of course regularly investigated HS2’s costs and programme overruns. Quotes about its reports include:

“Ministers have no idea how much HS2 will end up costing”


and:

“The high-speed rail project is running wildly over budget and will not deliver good value for money”.


My worry, which I am sure the noble Lord will share, is why the Government ignore such advice and comments.

So I suggest that we go back 10 years, when there was a comprehensive campaign of cover-up to Parliament of the true costs and delays. At a Commons Select Committee hearing on phase 1, the DfT’s Permanent Secretary, Bernadette Kelly, when asked why her department had not given the Select Committee the latest and highest estimate, said that if they had done so, Parliament would probably have cancelled the project.

In January 2017 the noble Lord, Lord Ahmad, who was then Transport Minister, arranged a meeting for Michael Byng and me with an official from HS2, a man called John Stretch, and an official at the Department for Transport called Mike Hurn, to discuss the budget for phase 1. The noble Lord, Lord Ahmad, expressed surprised that Mr Stretch declined to provide a detailed, measured estimate in support of the costs that he was tabling. Later, during a meeting at the Oakervee review, of which I was deputy chair for a bit, HS2 directors admitted that they had no budget for measuring the work, despite having spent £11.4 million on cost consultants.

It was very odd that during 2018-19 Nus Ghani MP, the Minister of Transport, and Mark Thurston, chief executive of HS2, both stuck to the £55.7 billion figure when all the evidence led to new chairman Allan Cook’s stock-take of £88 billion, which of course left out quite a few elements of HS2 that would have taken it up to £100 billion. More recently I have received documents alleging that the Said Business School’s Professor Bent Flyvbjerg confirmed his earlier advice, given in 2015-16 to the then Leader of the Conservative Party, who of course is now Prime Minister. The forecast cost is supported by a presentation given in January 2018 by Jeremy Harrison, then director of risk and assurance at HS2, in which he stated that the total value of contracts for the entire project—without risk allowance—exceeded £80 billion. So the Prime Minister and other Ministers knew of this £80 billion figure in 2015-16. One has to ask why the Minister, Nus Ghani, and the chief executive, Mark Thurston, said three years later that the budget was still £55 billion.

The latest cost increase will be at Old Oak Common at the London end, where Michael Byng has finally costed the station at £7.1 billion, compared to a cost estimate from the noble Baroness, Lady Vere, of £1.67 billion. This is only a fourfold increase in costs—I suppose that is all right for HS2—but it does not include the cost of passenger disruption for trains using Paddington station, which will have its train and seat capacity halved for four years during the building. It is very clear that many DfT and HS2 officials and Ministers, with the honourable exception of the noble Lord, Lord Ahmad, have misled Parliament over years.

The NAO has stated that lessons need to be learned—

[Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)]

I remind the noble Lord of the five-minute advisory speaking time.

[Lord Berkeley (Lab)]

I am grateful for the reminder, but a Bishop was recently allowed to carry on for six minutes and 40 seconds, so may I finish?

Doug Oakervee has stated that pressure from the construction industry persuaded him to recommend that HS2 went ahead. This need could have been met equally well by regional upgrades in the Midlands and the north, so I suggest that HS2 be stopped now and the relevant officials and Ministers held to account for misleading Parliament.

[The Deputy Speaker (The Earl of Kinnoull) (CB)]

My Lords, the noble Earl, Lord Lytton, has withdrawn, so I call the noble Lord, Lord Haselhurst.

Tower Blocks: Cladding

Lord Berkeley Excerpts

Wednesday 12th May 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Greenhalgh (Con)]

My Lords, all I can say is that we are making great progress in dispensing our funding. We continue to recognise the urgency of removing the unsafe cladding, and we have made a commitment whereby costs will not be a factor in removing it from high-rises.

[Lord Berkeley (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, does the Minister agree that it is the basic duty of government to protect its citizens from harm? That includes having building and other regulations and having the necessary means of enforcing them to deliver this; these are all within the Government’s control. This debate on blame will go on for years, but now it is surely time for the Government to commit to funding all the works to replace all substandard and non-compliant materials, and ensure that the owners, tenants and leaseholders are not asked to contribute.

[Lord Greenhalgh (Con)]

My Lords, we recognise the duty of government to do something about the regulatory system failure that we saw, but also the very poor practices that we have seen from construction companies, through the Grenfell inquiry. That is why we are bringing forward the building safety Bill to bring about a revolution in how we regulate high-risk buildings and establishing the building safety regulator in statute. We have made very clear our commitment, by putting forward an unprecedented sum to ensure that remediation of unsafe cladding can be carried out.

Leaseholders and Property Management Companies

Lord Berkeley Excerpts

Thursday 29th April 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Greenhalgh (Con)]

My Lords, the Government are considering under what circumstances fees and charges for leaseholders and for people in sheltered housing are justified and whether they should be capped or banned. That will form part of our response to the review by the noble Lord, Lord Best.

[Lord Berkeley (Lab)]

My Lords, can the Minister give the House any indication of progress on the leasehold reform issue? The recent White Paper was welcomed by many people, including my friends on the Isles of Scilly who feel that they are very badly treated. How many of the recommendations in that White Paper might appear in legislation soon?

North of England: Investment

Lord Berkeley Excerpts

Tuesday 23rd February 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Greenhalgh (Con)]

My Lords, I recognise the importance of transport in driving progress and investment in the north of England. That is why there has been £13 billion of investment—the largest of any Government in history—between 2015-16 and 2020-21, and there is now also a five-year intra-city transport settlement to ensure the north gets the transport infrastructure it needs.

[Lord Berkeley (Lab) [V]]

Following on from the question of the noble Lord, Lord Beith, on transport, can the Minister explain some of the figures in his response and why the Government have delayed investment in the trans-Pennine railway line while at the same time spending £760 million on the east-west rail link between Oxford and Bedford, which is certainly not even in the Midlands nor the north? How is this levelling-up the economy?

[Lord Greenhalgh (Con)]

I am not exactly in the right department when it comes to individual transport projects, but there is a huge commitment to increasing investment in transport infrastructure. The organisation Transport for the North has received funding to develop the strategy so that we can get the right investment into the north.

Fire Safety Bill

Lord Berkeley Excerpts

Committee stage & Committee: 1st sitting (Hansard) & Committee: 1st sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Thursday 29th October 2020 Lords Chamber

The National Fire Chiefs Council has reported that people are 22% less likely to require hospital treatment if they are in a fire in a building that is controlled by a sprinkler system. As was said in the previous debate, in Wales, since 2011 many new-build properties have had to have fire sprinklers installed. I think the case for those is made, and I look forward to the Minister responding at the end of the debate.

[Lord Berkeley (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend for introducing this group of amendments. I have listened carefully to the debate so far; some excellent arguments have been made in favour of going even faster than the Bill does. I support it, but, as I shall try to outline, there is an argument for going faster.

My interest in the Bill is in fire detection and suppression. I worked on the Channel Tunnel, and after the Notre Dame fire we had some interesting debates in your Lordships’ House about how to detect fires in the roofs of old buildings and how to extinguish them. I was disappointed to be told, “Well, we’re putting fire detectors in the roof, but there’s no access to extinguish a fire.” I still worry about that because, as we all know, the biggest risk to old buildings from fire is when the contractors are in.

The Bill is about the domestic environment; I welcome it. My amendment is a probing amendment about including sprinklers and mists in the definition of firefighting equipment. Mists are very effective and useful, and would be a comparatively low-cost installation for anything between the Houses of Parliament and the buildings that the Bill covers.

I am impressed by mists, even compared with sprinklers. I am aware that many experts on old buildings say that they should not have sprinklers in them because they destroy the contents of the building. That is true—but at least they enable the building to survive. Mists do not destroy the contents, but preserve them to a much greater degree. They are good with electrical fires—which is what we are talking about here—and also with fuel and chip pan fires. I am told that one nozzle, with a small pipe, will cover 16 square metres of building.

I look at a building, whether it is a big one or someone’s property, and I think, “If you can put in a water mist system using a small pipe, it is not that different from installing a ring main for electricity.” Perhaps we should look at making water mist installations a requirement in all habitable buildings in the same way as we require electricity to be put in them—most of the time, anyway.

I know that there is a downside and that it will not happen through this Bill or indeed for many years, but the costs are low and the damage caused is much less than that caused by a fire or by sprinklers. In his response, I would like the Minister at least to say that he will look at this, particularly for domestic rented, leased and privately owned properties, as well as considering the options for new build along with existing ones. I think that we should start the process now because, as we heard at the beginning of this debate, some 14,000 electrical fires are started every year. Many of them could have been and could be avoided if a water mist system were installed.

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord Faulkner of Worcester) (Lab)]

I call the noble Lord, Lord Stunell. He is not responding, so we will come back to him. I call the noble Lord, Lord Whitty.

Mobile Homes (Requirement for Manager of Site to be Fit and Proper Person) (England) Regulations 2020

Lord Berkeley Excerpts

Thursday 3rd September 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Berkeley (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, I am very grateful to be able to take part in this debate. It is the first time I have spoken in a debate with the Minister and I congratulate him. These are very strong and tough regulations, which are clearly necessary. I commend the noble Lords, Lord Best and Lord Kirkhope, on the work that they have put in over the years in bringing all this to the Government’s attention, and I commend the Government on bringing these regulations before the House.

From the Explanatory Memorandum, it is clear that there is a great deal of work for local authorities to do—and rightly so. It starts off with considering applications, in paragraph 7.8, and goes on to maintaining a register, in paragraph 7.10, and the monitoring that goes with it. Paragraph 7.13 talks about the ability to reject applications and, of course, requesting further information. I can see that local authorities will have a lot of work to do to get the information from the kind of people who may be covered by this regulation.

Of course, lots more information is needed. There is the ability to appeal to a First-tier Tribunal and there are three criminal offences. This is really good and important, but can the Minister give any idea of how much each application might cost if opposed? He said that local authorities would be able to charge to cover their costs, but is there going to be a limit to how much they can charge? I am really concerned about local authorities’ ability to deal with this along with all the other work that they have been given at the moment. How much extra money, if any, has been given to them for this? I am sure that the Minister will say that the Government have given enormous amounts of funds to local authorities this year, but they have also given them a lot of extra work to do.

Finally, can the Minister give me some indication as to how many applications around the country are likely to be received in the first year or two and try to give us as much comfort as possible that local authorities will have the ability and resources to deal with them? These are important regulations, and I look forward to listening to some of the comments from the experts who are following me.

Business and Planning Bill

Lord Berkeley Excerpts

Committee stage & Committee: 1st sitting (Hansard) & Committee: 1st sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Monday 13th July 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con) [V]]

I will speak to Amendment 44 on digital age verification and thank my noble friend Lord Clement-Jones for his support. I raised this at Second Reading and thank my noble friend the Deputy Leader for his courteous and timely letter. I am especially grateful to him and the Minister for Crime and Policing at the Home Office for publishing on GOV.UK the government response to the call for evidence on violence and abuse toward shop staff. That certainly helps to put discussions today into perspective. I am glad to hear that the Minister for Crime will work with business, the police and other partners to tackle this serious issue, including underreporting. I know the British Retail Consortium is disappointed about some aspects of the government response, but that is for another day.

Today is about emergency measures to deal with life under Covid-19, and they are all most welcome. As my noble friend Lord Holmes said, we need to get the economy motoring again. That includes measures that encourage business to revive and grow, as his amendments have proposed. In that context, I remain concerned about the absence of digital age estimation and verification for sale of alcohol. Our amendment enables the use of such verification, provided that the licensed seller in a shop or pub takes reasonable precautions and applies due diligence to ensure the purchaser is over 18.

The obvious example is the Yoti app used in a number of European countries, such as Estonia— a real digital leader—and some parts of the UK. It means there is no need to show paper ID and wash your hands or resanitise—or perhaps not—or to remove a mask to engage in a physical conversation and a physical check of the customer’s ID. It works brilliantly at automatic checkouts, as their videos show, and would help to speed up queues in pubs and elsewhere. Other apps will no doubt be developed, making the technology more widely available. Interestingly, I see from the Yoti website that NHS England and NHS Improvement have begun deploying a secure digital ID card from Yoti to put employees’ NHS ID cards on to their phones. The killer argument for this Business and Planning Bill is that this system is already in use in shops to verify sales of knives—arguably much more dangerous than drink—and other age-restricted products such as tobacco, lottery tickets and fireworks.

It has been argued that we cannot introduce a digital system for alcohol outside the Proof of Age Standards Scheme—PASS—which is being developed for card issuers. However, that has got bogged down and delayed by Covid and is not producing the solution required when it is so desperately needed. It is of great significance that the British Retail Consortium, which set up PASS, no longer has faith in it. It rightly believes that no scheme should be skewed to a particular interest group.

Ours is an open amendment that overnight would improve things hugely and allow more enforcement of the drinking rules than I believe is taking place at present. A sunset clause can be included allowing the opportunity to simply trial these new app-based methods, at the same time avoiding the need for young people to carry passes—and lose them, as they often do. I hope my noble friend the Minister will look favourably at this amendment and be open to agreeing a simple enabling provision before Report.

[Lord Berkeley (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, I will speak to Amendments 36, 39, 40 and 43, to which I have added my name. I fully support what the noble Lord, Lord Holmes, said in his introduction and will not preface what my noble friend Lord Kennedy of Southwark may say when he introduces his amendment later. While supporting and fully agreeing with the view of the noble Lord, Lord Balfe, that we should all get back to work in the Chamber, I do not really agree that the increased number of outlets will improve the environment of Cambridge. You could then argue that we had better get back to prohibition days, and I do not think anybody wants that.

My amendments are intended to increase the choice of products and balance the smaller number that can be inside a pub or restaurant with more space outside. I commend the Government on allowing many outlets to put more space on the pavements or even roads and increase the space for cycling at the expense of polluting cars. The amendments would also allow a greater choice of suppliers, which I think is important.

My interest is encouraging small brewers and limiting the bullying tactics we have seen over the years from the pubcos, which are very much to the detriment of the small landlord. As the noble Lord, Lord Holmes, said, small brewers have lost a large proportion of their trade during the Covid lockdown, and 65% of breweries have apparently been mothballed because they could not sell their product direct to the public. Some of the smaller breweries do not have premises licensing and without these amendments cannot offer takeaways or deliver direct to the public. I believe that small breweries have really reinvigorated the hospitality sector in recent years. Allowing off-sales on a fair, proportionate and reasonable temporary basis, subject to the various conditions put in these amendments and the existing legislation, is surely a good thing.

I certainly believe that the amendment is not a licence for street raves. It is just a means of providing similar spaces outside due to the shortages inside because of the lack of social distancing space, combined with adding the possibility of much more competition within the brewing industry generally.

[Lord Clement-Jones (LD) [V]]

My Lords, I speak in support of Amendment 44, so well introduced by the noble Baroness, Lady Neville-Rolfe. As she emphasised, it is a deregulatory amendment that entirely fits within the context of this Bill. Given her experience running the Better Regulation Unit and on the board of a major retailer, she should know.

This amendment is designed to give retailers the option of carrying out contactless age verification at a distance and automatically. It is supported not only by those representing and directly providing digital solutions, such as techUK, NCR and digital identity providers such as Yoti, but by the leaders of the key organisations involved in the retail trade, the British Retail Consortium and the Scottish Grocers Federation. It has the twin benefits of keeping retail staff and customers safe by assisting compliance with coronavirus guidelines and social distancing, and preventing the sales of age-restricted goods to minors, upholding the principles of Challenge 25—the retailing strategy that encourages anyone who is over 18 but looks under 25 to carry acceptable ID if they wish to buy alcohol.

The relaxation of coronavirus lockdown measures will now see an increase in in-store footfall, a potential rise in abuse and social distancing challenges with queues. Queues in supermarkets in particular create a point of potential congestion that can put staff at risk. Retailers have noted that almost 24% of baskets contain an age-restricted item. As a result of current rules, many customers wait longer than necessary. It can typically take 63 seconds to alert a staff member and carry out an age check when a basket includes an age-restricted good.

Age verification has a British standard, BSI PAS 1296 —Online Age Checking: Provision and Use of Online Age Check Services—which has been approved for use for all products apart from alcohol and has received assured advice from the Association of Convenience Stores. The standard has been worked on by age-verification experts and covers all the aspects important for designing and building a robust age-verification system—namely data protection, security, transparency and effective operation. Such a contactless method would take pressure off store staff, at a time when they are busy and pressured, and when wrong decisions can be made and there is temptation not to ask for ID.

The current conditions of customers wearing face coverings and social distancing make checking physical ID documents for age-restricted goods, in a retail context, much harder for staff. Staff have enough problems with aggressive customers without asking them to remove a mask or face covering that they are wearing under government guidance. As a result, there is a heightened risk of increased verbal, physical and racial abuse, increased coronavirus transmission risk when physically examining Challenge 25 approved ID documents, and the difficulty of matching documents to a customer wearing a face covering.

I have, for some time, been a supporter of age verification through digital identity systems, first legislated for in the Digital Economy Act 2017. It is clear that highly accurate digital age-proofing and identity-checking solutions are available off the shelf in the UK today that can significantly help alleviate issues facing retail staff. They are trusted for right to remain without a formal standard for 3 million-plus people and approved by the Joint Money Laundering Steering Group for financial services in the UK. In-store use of these technologies has been successful in the US and Europe—integrated into self-checkout and automated dispensing machines—but not in the UK, purely due to the current inconsistent regulatory requirements. We are behind other nations as a result, which is ironic given that the UK is playing a leading role in this technology.

In summary, the amendment would protect customers’ health, help with the development of a leading UK technology, reduce cost to retail because it reduces time taken at checkout and self-service, and reduce regulatory burden significantly because it removes the need for a second paper check of ID after the digital check. What can the Government conceivably object to in this amendment?

Housing for the Homeless

Lord Berkeley Excerpts

Thursday 14th May 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Berkeley (Lab)]

My Lords, I spoke about the problem of homeless people, particularly in London, on 29 April. In his reply, the Minister, the noble Lord, Lord True, said that

“the Government believe that we have reached some 90% of those we wish to.”—[Official Report, 29/4/20; col. 266.]

That does not quite tally with what was in the Guardian today, which says that only 1,000 homeless people have been offered hotel rooms, which is better than nothing, out of 8,555 rough sleepers. I suggest that the noble Lord, Lord True, needs to change his wish or try a bit harder.

The noble Lord, Lord Bird, spoke about progress, but that is surely made best by local authorities, which are starved of cash, despite the Prime Minister saying that he will do whatever it takes. He is not doing it. Where is the money? This is a massive failure of central government. The National Health Service gets a lot, but the Government are still starving local authorities of the cash to deal with rough sleepers and longer-term needs. I hope the Minister will give us some comfort when he replies.