Residential Leasehold for Flats

Lord Goddard of Stockport Excerpts

Thursday 30th November 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Penn (Con)]

My Lords, I have tried to learn not to be surprised by any amendments tabled to government Bills by your Lordships’ House, but I would like to reassure my noble friend that this Bill is focused on helping leaseholders now by making existing leases fairer and more affordable. We have focused on legislating where we can make a genuine improvement to leaseholders’ daily lives right away. For example, we are making it cheaper and easier for leaseholders to purchase the freehold of their building or a 999-year lease on their property and take control of their building’s management from the freeholder. When it comes to reforms to commonhold, we continue to consider the Law Commission’s report in detail to find the best way forward and we are committed to taking forward that additional work.

[Lord Goddard of Stockport (LD)]

My Lords, one of the most expensive consequences of being a leaseholder, especially in flats, is the service charges that freeholders can level against you. They are completely unregulated and can be totally exorbitant. Does the Minister agree that we need to abolish service charges, especially for flats, and replace them with a commonhold system, which would be much fairer for leaseholders and would stop unscrupulous freeholders from ripping off hard-working families?

[Baroness Penn (Con)]

I can reassure the noble Lord that the Bill does contain provisions to bring greater transparency around how service charges are brought for leaseholders, so that there is greater accountability for what those charges go to and leaseholders have a greater ability to challenge them if they think they are unfair.

Buildings: Cladding

Lord Goddard of Stockport Excerpts

Thursday 28th October 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Greenhalgh (Con)]

The Government are looking carefully at the prevalence of buildings that require substantial remediation of cladding which causes the spread of fire, but the £5.1 billion is not the only measure that the Government are taking. It should be noted that the Building Safety Bill introduces new measures that will legally require building owners to prove that they have tried all routes to cover costs. If this does not happen, leaseholders will be able to challenge these costs in the courts. We are also extending the Defective Premises Act from six years to 15 years retrospectively. These are all measures designed to help protect leaseholders.

[Lord Goddard of Stockport (LD)]

Minister, the £5 billion is welcome, to rectify this terrible problem, but the actual bill is £15 billion. I think that, when Ministers announce money, they should announce the full picture. The Minister states that the Building Safety Bill will address the protection of leaseholders from paying costs to make their buildings safe, but the Bill fails to do that—it does not say that that will happen. In the light of the Budget yesterday, is the Minister in favour of another museum in Liverpool for The Beatles, is he in favour of cheaper champagne for all, or is he in favour of safer homes for everybody? I think I know which side of the argument this side of the House sits on.

[Lord Greenhalgh (Con)]

I thank the noble Lord for his colourful question. Of course we want to do all we can to support leaseholders. That is why we are taking the measures that I have already outlined.

Private Landlords: Tenants with Pets

Lord Goddard of Stockport Excerpts

Tuesday 15th June 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Greenhalgh (Con)]

My Lords, I am aware that measures are in place to facilitate wider pet ownership in the private rented sector, and I encourage landlords to work with tenants to ensure that there is a solution that works for both parties.

[Lord Goddard of Stockport (LD)]

I draw Members’ attention to my interests as set out in the register. The Government recognised the importance of pets and made changes to the model tenancy agreement. However, not all landlords use that model agreement and it is voluntary, so some landlords can still say no to pets. Animal welfare charities, including Cats Protection, have helped tenants find lots of properties and use a cat’s CV—a template that outlines details about pets and shows responsibility of ownership. Will the Government encourage wider use of pet CVs to allow more responsible pet owners to keep their pets in rented accommodation?

[Lord Greenhalgh (Con)]

My Lords, we are happy to look at any ideas that encourage wider pet ownership, and I will certainly take that back to the department to consider.

Social Housing

Lord Goddard of Stockport Excerpts

Monday 24th May 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Greenhalgh (Con)]

My Lords, I was very clear in my original reply that this programme will deliver approximately double the number of social rented homes, but there are also ways to provide subsidised housing that gives a discount on the market price, which is the definition of affordable rent.

[Lord Goddard of Stockport (LD)]

Following on from the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, by centrally imposing an assumption that around 50% of the programme will be used for home-ownership schemes, the Government are preventing local authorities and social housing providers delivering what is most needed: social housing for rent, including accessible and adaptable homes. Will the Minister consider the case for expanding the social rent element of the programme to reflect the ability of families to pay their rent, especially those with disabled members, who are much more likely to live in relative income poverty than those without?

[Lord Greenhalgh (Con)]

My Lords, I have already explained that the current programme looks to deliver far more socially rented homes. That definition of affordability takes into account relative county earnings so that these homes are genuinely affordable.

Barnsley, Doncaster, Rotherham and Sheffield Combined Authority (Functions and Amendment) Order 2020

Lord Goddard of Stockport Excerpts

Friday 24th July 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Goddard of Stockport (LD) [V]]

I do not profess to be an expert on anything in your Lordships’ House, but I know a little about combined authorities, having been one of the leaders of the first combined authority, Greater Manchester. The trail-blazing deal that we negotiated with the Government has made real changes, especially in health and social care. Sometimes when we talk about local authorities, combined authorities and city regions, we seem to forget the real changes we can make to real people’s lives. I know that in Greater Manchester people’s health and social care is better because of the combined authority.

The noble Lord, Lord McConnell, is quite right that there has been a bit of a tour de force today ranging from HS2 to women having their head chopped off a few centuries ago. The noble Lord, Lord Shutt, is right that one Yorkshire would be the preferred option, but sometimes in life you do not get your preferred option, so I welcome this order, with guarded support for Sheffield.

Noble Lords need to understand some of the difficulties that we found and I find with combined authorities. That is the price of them. The price of devolution is elected mayors. That can be a real issue. I understand the principle of elected mayors: they are there to take the rap and to make the tough decisions. They are accountable to the people and can be thrown out. In theory, this is an excellent strategy, but in practice, it does not work because many combined authorities of whatever political make-up are one-party states, so the elected mayor does not have autonomy or the ability to override the eight or 10 Conservative or Labour leaders because he knows that he may not get support to be mayor again. Have the Government given any thought to making the price of devolution—an elected mayor—non-political? If you were to take the politics out of the elected mayor, it would alleviate a lot of Members’ concerns expressed today that this is just another tier of government and another tier of bureaucracy. An elected mayor who is not politically connected could make real differences to real people’s lives. I hope someone gives some thought to that.

Homelessness

Lord Goddard of Stockport Excerpts

Monday 13th July 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Greenhalgh]

I agree with the noble Lord that the mission should be to ensure that those whom we have taken off the streets and placed in emergency accommodation, of whom there are some 15,000, are moved into settled accommodation as soon as possible and do not return to the streets. That is the mission of the task force led by Dame Louise Casey and, as a Government, we will strain every sinew to achieve that.

[Lord Goddard of Stockport (LD) [V]]

I know that the Minister is fully supportive of local authorities. When Andy Burnham was made Mayor of Greater Manchester, his first pledge was to end homelessness there. What consideration has been given to providing an in-year increase in funding for the Government’s rough sleepers initiative? This would support our local authorities to boost outreach and get people more quickly into safer accommodation. Time and resources are needed to get this multiagency approach right for people with complex needs and to prevent homeless people being back on our streets.

[Lord Greenhalgh]

The noble Lord is right to highlight the importance of multiagency working to tackle homelessness. However, I point to the fact that we have made several announcements in the last two months, including £105 million to support the ending of rough sleeping and, in the previous month, £433 million to provide thousands of additional long-term homes for vulnerable rough sleepers. This money can be used for that endeavour.

Covid-19: Local Government Finance

Lord Goddard of Stockport Excerpts

Tuesday 7th July 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Greenhalgh]

The commitment to the local voluntary sector has been covered by the large grant that has been made available by the DCMS. We recognise the important part that local government plays in providing funding to the third sector. That will continue to be made possible because of the support that we are providing both in income support and to meet demand pressures. The third pillar, which is the loss in tax revenue, has been covered in part as well.

[Lord Goddard of Stockport (LD) [V]]

First, I thank the Minister personally for the support that has been given to Greater Manchester during the pandemic. The 10,000 laptops and devices that have been distributed across the region will make a real difference to disadvantaged children who need this help in these difficult times. However, the broader issue of local government funding needs to be addressed. Will the Minister commit today to do all he can to ensure that the Greater Manchester deficit, which is running at £378 million and growing, will be clawed back?

[Lord Greenhalgh]

We are aware of the specific problems with regard to Greater Manchester. These are being exacerbated by the loss of the dividends that it normally gets from the airport, which is clearly having an effect on local authority incomes. I can commit that the department will continue to work closely with Greater Manchester councils to ensure that if a bespoke package is needed, that will provided for them.

Greater Manchester Combined Authority (Fire and Rescue Functions) (Amendment) Order 2020

Lord Goddard of Stockport Excerpts

Tuesday 5th May 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Goddard of Stockport (LD)]

My Lords, I first congratulate the Minister on an excellent virtual maiden speech. I did not realise that it was the first ever such maiden speech in the House of Lords—perhaps not the one he would have wished to make but one that people will recognise in these difficult times.

We may be from different parties, but I believe we have one or two similarities. He became leader of his local authority in 2016; I became leader of mine in 2017. He was deputy mayor for policing and crime in London; I was a vice-chair of the Greater Manchester Police Authority for a number of years. We have a saying up north: “Do they get it?” It is usually about people down south. I think that, with the noble Lord’s background in local government, he gets it. His history and knowledge tell me that. He might just be one of the good guys whom we can work with in government.

The first combined authority was set up in 2011 in Manchester. I was one of the 10 leaders who signed up for it. At the time, that local authority was made up of five Labour members, three Liberal Democrats and two Conservatives. Sir Howard Bernstein, chief executive of Manchester City Council, used to call me one of the “awkward squad”. Another member of the awkward squad was Susan Williams, now the noble Baroness, Lady Williams, and a Minister in the Government. It goes to show how far you can get if you probe, question, check, harry and stick to your principles. The noble Lord has an able ally in her for sure.

I broadly support the order, which I have examined in the Lords Scrutiny Committee, on which I also sit. There are questions around democracy but I believe my noble friend Lord Stunell will raise them, so my thoughts will be around the budget implications.

Noble Lords may be aware that, following the Grenfell fire and The Cube fire in Bolton, the Greater Manchester Fire and Rescue Service had to pause its programme for change and review the high-risk buildings programme and turntable ladders. No capital grants are now available for the fire authority, and the capital programme will now need to be funded from underspends and borrowings. Should further borrowing proposals come from the Mayor of Greater Manchester, Andy Burnham, can the Minister therefore give me an assurance that he and the Government will support that borrowing?

Perhaps I should declare an extinct interest, as I was a member of the Greater Manchester Fire Authority for about eight or nine years, and old habits die hard. We live in desperate times, and we will overcome them. The fire service has had desperate times: Grenfell, the 2017 Manchester bombing, and the IRA bombing in Manchester. The photograph that sticks in my mind is of that blast in Manchester, when everyone was running away from the fire and the explosion, while the firemen were running towards it. That is the essence of the fire authorities. They need our support, I hope the Minister will support them, and there will undoubtedly be budget pressures on them, so he can give support with that.

The combined authorities go from strength to strength. This is one of the final pieces of the jigsaw. I hope that when the jigsaw is complete and we get fully devolved government to Greater Manchester, we will see the benefits, so I support the order.

Neighbourhood Services: Government Support

Lord Goddard of Stockport Excerpts

Thursday 24th October 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Goddard of Stockport (LD)]

My Lords, far be it from me to interrupt the private arrangements of the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, but I too am grateful to my noble friend Lord Greaves for securing this timely debate. I hope I will not tread on his toes with my comments, but I want to build on what the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, said about more collaborative working, as well as on the words of the noble Baroness, Lady Redfern, about the need for libraries.

I begin with the position of local councillors, because they are at the other end of the spectrum. To give a brief example, in a previous life, as a young councillor in Stockport, I collected the diaries of Tony Benn. They are an interesting insight into being in government, in opposition and—as at the unfortunate time when I got the book—in what are called the wilderness years; the term is quite apt at the moment. I got my copy and went up to Manchester to get him to sign the book for me. He found out that I was a councillor and said, “I really feel sorry for you, because local councillors have the worst of all worlds. You’re not MPs and you’re not Ministers. You get all the money from government and you have no power. If something goes right, the Government claim it. if something goes wrong, you get blamed for it locally”. It was a position he would not have wanted to be in. I left with my shoulders down, thinking that my career was starting on a pessimistic note. Having said that, we carried on and we petitioned the Government. All Members here who have been in local government have probably made the trek on the train, with the chief officers, to meet a Minister for a nice drink of tea and a biscuit. They will have received the warm words and been sent back on the train—another day of your life gone when nothing happened. That was the never-increasing circle of how local authorities used to work.

Fast forward another 15 or 20 years, and I became leader of Stockport Council, albeit in a different political party—I was in the Liberal Democrats by then. I was determined to change the perception of local councillors and to try to affect the funding formula, because it was the funding formula that was always the problem. As fate would have it, devolution was coming to Greater Manchester. There was an appetite and a belief that we could do things differently and more collaboratively to get more bang for our buck. That was thanks to Howard Bernstein, Richard Leese and one or two others. We 10 councils stuck together and decided to pool our wits and, more importantly, our money, and we got the first ever city deal, the first ever combined authority and the first ever LEP in the country.

We are seeing the benefits of that now: Greater Manchester gets a £7 billion health budget in one lump sum. Those 10 leaders distribute that on the basis of need, instead of it being salami-sliced, with every council not getting enough. The ability to do that is really what I want to talk about. It can filter down even to a local council such as Pendle, and to small authorities and district councils. If there is a will to work together, we can get better bang for our buck, but there needs to be more trust and we need more faith in each other: we need to believe that this is for the greater good.

Today, LGA surveys paint a different picture of councillors. When asked, “Who do you trust to deliver local services?”, 75% answered local councillors, 12% MPs and 12% government. I will not read the percentage for government Ministers for fear of embarrassment, but be assured that it was a single digit. The irony is that local councillors now get less funding, have more public trust and have to deliver worse services. Quite frankly, I am glad I do not have to be involved in that.

I make the following observations on this timely debate. Government funding comes in strategic and non-strategic forms. We know what strategic funding is for: services for older people and children’s services—the essentials. But non-strategic funding is just as important, for libraries, heritage and sport. These are the services that take the brunt now because other services have to be protected. But more people a week now go to libraries than to Premier League football matches. They are no longer dusty old places where pensioners go for a drink of tea. They are learning hubs and fantastic assets to local authorities, and they should be protected.

There are other things local councils can be involved in. The creative industries are worth £84 billion a year and include museums and places that can attract people who spend the money that creates the jobs in your economy. The tourism industry is worth £127 billion. These are big numbers and local authorities should be getting their slice. If you are a bit more imaginative about partnership working, you can begin to get some of that money back. It is not all doom and gloom, but the Government are not going to change the funding regime overnight—it is not going to happen. We have to be smarter and cleverer about how we stretch that money.

I want to talk about the housing plan of the noble Lord, Lord Adonis. I am not saying that in Stockport we have a silver bullet, because we do not, but over 20 years ago we sat down with five local social housing providers and we offered them land for free—we gave it up. They built the houses and we put the tenants in. We built thousands of houses that way in Stockport, to such an extent that, when it was finished, they came back and said, “We’ve actually have a surplus, so we can either reduce the rent or build some more”. We said, “Build some more!”. That model worked, even then, and I see no reason why it should not work now. We now have Stockport Homes, an arm’s-length company. It has enormous headquarters with a board, and is building homes in Stockport town centre, where you need to build homes and can really connect communities. It is not building flats but one-bedroom, two-bedroom, three-bedroom and four-bedroom houses, in town centres where people come to work and thrive. When you do that, you begin to get an economy, and it is the dividends from that economy that bring things forward.

My two thoughts, for what they are worth, are these. Government is almost like Newton’s theory: for every action, there is a reaction. As you cut and make things more difficult—fewer police, less youth provision, fewer parks and recreation facilities—the people affected by that will do something else. In my opinion, that something else will cost more. If we can turn that egg-timer over and get it going back the other way, toward investment, that is how we can have more social cohesion, fewer gangs, less theft and less lack of respect for property and people. It can be done.

It does not happen automatically for local councils. But my noble friend is right that, for somewhere such as Pendle or a small district council in the south, you can make a difference if you work together with other people. You have to understand that, sometimes, you have to put tribal loyalties aside—perhaps I will get into trouble with my Whips for saying that. We are here for one thing: to serve the people. We have to deliver services for local people as best we can. There is no money tree, but if we work together correctly across political parties, as we have done in Stockport for years, we can move forward.

Finally, on sport, Bury Football Club is going out of business, and the effect that will have on the economy in Bury will be critical. Stockport was in a similar position. The Liberal Democrat group supported Stockport County and the Labour group now running Stockport do the same. We secured the Stockport County ground. Stockport County’s average gate at home is about 3,000 to 4,000, plus away people, so every other week the economy of Stockport and Edgeley gets 4,000 people in the cafes, bars and food places. People need to understand that. They say, “Football clubs—nothing to do with us”, but clubs in small towns are just as important as factories. I make a plea to people. When they say, “Oh, Bury Football Club—too bad. How sad”, that is not the answer. You need to give it support. I understand that there are upwards of 20 football clubs on the edge, and if 20 more go, we really will see a decline in town centres and in living standards. We should resist that.