Property Agents: Regulation
Debate between Lord Blunkett and Baroness Swinburne(1 week, 3 days ago)
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Baroness Swinburne (Con)
Estate agents are regulated under the Estate Agents Act 1979, which is currently enforced by the National Trading Standards estate and letting agency team—the abbreviation or acronym is too complicated for me to work out, so I have given the full title. It has powers to issue warnings and banning orders, and estate agents are required to belong to an approved redress scheme. These things can all be improved on. When we bring forward the home buyers and sellers reform strategy over the coming months, I hope to come back to the House and give details on further actions.
Lord Blunkett (Lab)
My Lords, the bad apples are giving legitimate, professional agents a very bad name, recently highlighted in my own city of Sheffield, where instances of adding charges that never existed to ground rents and refusing to answer correspondence and communication were taken up by the honourable Member for Sheffield South East, Clive Betts. We have just ascertained, including from the Minister, that we have unanimity across the House. Could we not just agree in the legislation coming forward very shortly to pass the necessary measures to put this right?
Baroness Swinburne (Con)
I can confirm that in the Leasehold and Freehold Reform Bill we are introducing measures to empower leaseholders to take action in the event of unreasonable behaviour. The Bill will make it easier for leaseholders to scrutinise costs and challenge the services provided by both landlords and property managing agents and ultimately for them to take on the management of their building themselves or directly appoint or replace agents. Alongside existing protections and work undertaken by the industry, these measures will seek to make property managing agents more accountable to leaseholders who pay for their services. It is coming.
Capital Projects: Spending
Debate between Lord Blunkett and Baroness Swinburne
Baroness Swinburne (Con)
I thank my noble friend for her question. However, as no doubt she will have expected me to say, I cannot pre-empt what is in the King’s Speech. What I can say is that, as described by my noble friend the Minister during the nutrient neutrality debates, the reforms were placed there to unblock stalled housing delivery and were intended to benefit communities and the environment. However, the necessary amendments to the Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill did not receive sufficient support in this House, as she will know. Nutrient neutrality, and the delays it is causing to housing delivery and the wider need to restore our waterways, remains a government priority. The Government will make a further announcement about next steps in due course.
Lord Blunkett (Lab)
My Lords, I congratulate the noble Baroness on making a reasonable fist of an incredibly bad job. Is it not true that, when you have to rely on Treasury sign-off for every single capital programme, there will inevitably be built-in underspends? Is it not true that this clawback is the intention of the Treasury, as it has been doing with the apprenticeship levy and much else around skills?
Baroness Swinburne (Con)
I can specifically say that the new delegation approach has had very little impact on the usual course of departmental business. Most spend needs to be subject to HMT approval. The department has worked closely with the Treasury to ensure value for money and continues to do so.