Autumn Budget 2024

Lord Young of Cookham Excerpts

Monday 11th November 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Young of Cookham (Con)]

My Lords, my comments will be more nuanced than some of those from this side of the Chamber. It may not be for me to say this, but I am not sure it assists our debate for noble Lords to trade accusations of dishonesty across the Chamber.

I agree with the noble Lord, Lord O’Neill, that it was sensible to change the fiscal rules to allow for more productive investment. Within that, I welcome the extra £500 million for more affordable housing. On the revenue side, I welcome the extra £200 million for homelessness and rough sleeping support as well as the extension of the Household Support Fund.

However, we should judge this Budget by the criteria that the Minister himself chose at the beginning of our debate when he said it was about growth and reform. In the debate on the King’s Speech, the Prime Minister said his plan for government would

“take the brakes off Britain”.—[Official Report, Commons, 17/7/24; col. 59.]

That is not a verdict that we have seen widely reported in the press.

The OBR’s comment on the Budget has been referred to before: it will

“leave GDP largely unchanged in five years”.

The Minister sought to downplay that by saying that the OBR had not taken into account all the planning reforms and the rest, but the point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Moyo, is crucial: institutional investors, both in this country and overseas, will have read that the independent forecaster, the OBR, has said GDP is going to remain unchanged for five years, and one cannot downplay the impact of that verdict.

On reform, I was struck by what the rather thoughtful Cabinet Minister Pat McFadden said recently in the Times. He said that

“with extra money comes reform. We cannot keep spending taxpayers’ cash on the same problems without changing the way we tackle them”.

However, the record so far is not good. The train drivers’ dispute was settled with none of the productivity improvements that the employers wanted, and the employers now include the Government; likewise the junior doctors’ dispute, while the extra £22 billion for the NHS was accompanied by no proposals for reform until next spring. I note in passing that that £22 billion dwarfs the extra £600 million for social care next year; again, as my noble friend Lord Forsyth said, problems due for reform have been ducked. Much of that £600 million will be absorbed by the national insurance contributions that providers of care homes and of domiciliary care will have to pay. You cannot fix the NHS without fixing social care.

While I understand the Government’s wish to block IHT loopholes, I agree with the noble Earl, Lord Devon, and others that they have pitched the exemption for farmers far too low. Let me respond to the challenge from the Government to say how I would find the extra money—here, I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Burns; this may upset some of my colleagues. The £3 billion cost of the freeze on fuel duty was wholly misguided, a point made by the noble Lord. The Resolution Foundation estimates that the tax cost of driving has gone down by 38% in real terms since 2010, while cars have become more efficient. Further, petrol now costs 60p per gallon less than it did two years ago, so freezing the fuel duty was quite unnecessary and sits uneasily with the Government’s ambition to promote purchase of electric vehicles and to hit their carbon reduction target. It is perverse to freeze fuel duty while increasing rail fares by 4.6% next year and lifting the cap to £3 on bus fares.

The £600 million for social care is not going to be enough. I think it is absurd that council tax has not been revalued for over 30 years. The highest band in Westminster pays £1,828, whereas the same band in Liverpool pays £4,615. That is absurd. If we are not going to revalue, we should at least introduce two higher bands and put the extra money into social care.

I will end with a sentence from the Budget speech:

“When it comes to choices on tax, this Government choose to protect working people every … time”.—[Official Report, Commons, 30/10/24; col. 821.]


One tax it is indisputable that working people will pay is council tax, so will they be protected from an increase in council tax next April when the bills go out, or will local government get blamed for the breach of a government pledge?

Crown Estate Bill [HL]

Lord Young of Cookham Excerpts

Report stage
Tuesday 5th November 2024 Lords Chamber

We need transparency and consistency, and a proper definition. If the Duchy is in the private sector, let us have evidence showing that it pays tax like a normal private sector organisation. Alternatively, as I have said, the business could be removed from the Duchy and Prince William could carry on doing good works, without having to bother about the money. That would modernise the Duchy of Cornwall and would, I hope, avoid many of the issues set out in the Sunday Times, which must have been hurtful for them and for many people. We could do without seeing that, but we need to bring about change.

[Lord Young of Cookham (Con)]

My Lords, I shall speak briefly to Amendment 15 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, which deals with lease extensions from the Crown Estate. I may do so with less republican overtones than we have just heard.

Those who have been following the proceedings of the Bill will know that I have raised the question of what happens to freeholds when they end up in the hands of the Crown Estate under an obscure process known as escheat. When a freeholder of a block of flats disappears or goes bankrupt, by default the freehold goes to the Crown Estate, whose policy is then to dispose of it, getting the best value, as is required by the 1963 Act. I raised the issue as to whether that obligation was trumped by a subsequent undertaking given by the Crown Estate to dispose of freeholds or extend leases in accordance with Acts relating to leasehold reform, when they would get less than market value.

In September I got a letter from the Minister saying that, against this backdrop, the Crown Estate

“does not believe the 1992 parliamentary undertaking applies to escheat”.

That crystallised the problem. On the one hand, clear undertakings had been given to Parliament by the Crown Estate that it would respect the Leasehold Reform, Housing and Urban Development Act 1993, which I happened to put on the statute book, but on the other hand, it would not respect it when disposing of freeholds back to leaseholders.

We then had a meeting with the Minister and the Crown Estate. I am most grateful to the Minister for his role in initiating it. At that meeting it became clear that, contrary to what the letter said, the Crown Estate would abide by the leasehold reform Act. This undertaking is now reproduced in the draft framework agreement, which says that the Crown Estate should comply with

“all public undertakings given on its behalf by ministers in Parliament to follow the law ‘by analogy’ where Crown bodies are not bound by the specific legislation in question”.

While issues remain in the specific case that I raised with the Minister, which I will pursue with him offline, I regard the principle as satisfactorily resolved and am grateful to him for the role he played in securing that agreement.

I end with one final suggestion. The process of escheat brings windfall gains to the Crown Estate. When a freeholder disappears or goes bankrupt, the Crown Estate acquires the freehold but, crucially, under the process of escheat, it does so free of any obligations that may have accrued to the previous freeholder. It then disposes of it, with a fee paid by the purchaser. This income is different from the rest of the income of the Crown Estate and should be shown separately in its accounts. I had a look to see whether this was the case, but could not find it. One could argue that these windfall proceeds are rather like unclaimed bank accounts and should go to charity via the Reclaim Fund, but that is a matter for another day. Does the Minister agree with the accounting change I have proposed?

[Lord Lansley (Con)]

My Lords, I agree with my noble friend on the Front Bench about the desirability of there being some form of prior parliamentary scrutiny over the appointment of a chair of the Crown Estate. My entry in the register of interests shows that I am chair of the Cambridgeshire Development Forum, of which the Crown Estate is a member. Sir Robin Budenberg has done a very good job but is retiring, so a question will rapidly arise. As we consider the Bill and think that it has been 63 years since the Crown Estate Act 1961, there is a good case for the public interest to be examined through that scrutiny when somebody is appointed whose principal purpose will probably be to represent the public interest in relation to the continuing functions of the Crown Estate.

However, I do not agree with my noble friend about Amendment 14. It probes the question—I hope the Minister will see it in that light—of how the disposal of assets by the Crown Estate is properly scrutinised. Noble Lords will recall that in Committee I referred to the duties of the Crown Estate commissioners under the 1961 Act, which the Minister just referred to. I also referred to their duty under Section 3 of that Act not to dispose of assets other than on

“best consideration in money or money’s worth”.

Given that we are trying to maintain the Crown Estate’s commercial operations, with prudential limits in relation to those assets, the duties in the 1961 Act should suffice.

I hope my noble friend will not press Amendment 14. Given the role of the Crown Estate as a major developer of potentially significant interest in the science parks to the north of Cambridge, for example, its disposals as a major developer may easily and rapidly reach £10 million in the course of a year. The bureaucracy and intervention that would be required thereafter by this amendment would be unreasonable, and I do not want us to impose those kinds of onerous obligations on the Crown Estate commissioners. If they fail to meet their duties, we can see that there are means by which the Treasury can intervene in order to establish that those duties are being met.

Crown Estate Bill [HL]

Lord Young of Cookham Excerpts

Committee stage
Monday 14th October 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Young of Cookham (Con)]

My Lords, Amendment 13 in my name is a follow-up to an issue I raised at Second Reading, where I spoke about a case where the Crown Estates were not honouring an undertaking that they gave to your Lordships’ House earlier this year: that they would adhere to the terms of the various Leasehold Reform Acts on the statute book. By appointing a commissioner, as my noble friend has just mentioned, with the specific responsibility of ensuring that such undertakings are honoured, we could reduce the risk of this happening.

To recap, briefly, Parliament has given certain rights to leaseholders. Included in those rights is the right to buy out the freehold or to extend the lease on specified terms. The Crown is, as a general rule, exempt from legislation but it agrees to abide by its terms. The relevant undertaking to so abide was given by me in 1983, when I took what is now the Leasehold Reform, Housing and Urban Development Act through the other place. The undertaking was repeated by my noble friend Lady Anelay, then the Government Chief Whip, on 24 May this year as the then Leasehold Reform Bill got its Third Reading; it can be found in Hansard for that day and says that

“The Crown … agrees to the enfranchisement or extension of … leases”—[Official Report, 24/5/24; col. 1368.]


as set out in the various Acts.

How does the Crown acquire new freeholds? When a freeholder disappears or goes bankrupt, the Crown Estate takes possession under a process known as escheat. At that point, leaseholders appear to lose the rights that Parliament has given them. In the case that I cited, leaseholders applied to buy the freehold but were told by agents acting for the Crown Estate that it was not obliged to dispose of the freehold under the relevant formula in the legislation, but offered to sell it at a far higher price—over four times as high.

Solicitors acting for the Crown Estate conceded that, until this issue is resolved:

“Where a block of flats is subject to escheat lessees will generally be unable to sell”,


and that is indeed the case. We have a stalemate, as described at Second Reading, with longer-terms risks to the fabric of a building. I referred then to the framework document, which sets out the terms of agreement between the Treasury and the Crown Estate, in particular the sentence which says the Treasury shall

“inform The Crown Estate of relevant government policy in a timely manner”.

I suggested that the Minister told the Crown Estate that policy on enfranchisement has been clear for many years and that the Crown Estate should respect it.

--- Later in debate ---

I hope that I have been able to provide the appropriate reassurances to noble Lords—

[Lord Young of Cookham (Con)]

Before the Minister sits down, I am grateful for what he said. Can he confirm that he has not ruled out amending the draft memorandum of understanding in the way that I proposed?

[Lord Livermore (Lab)]

I would like to be helpful to the noble Lord. I am told that the memorandum of understanding deals exclusively with borrowing powers, so it may not be the most appropriate vehicle to insert that into.

Crown Estate Bill [HL]

Lord Young of Cookham Excerpts

2nd reading
Monday 2nd September 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Young of Cookham (Con)]

My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for his clear explanation of the Bill and for the time that he spent last week talking to those who have an interest in it. I welcome its provisions, which enable us to make the best use of our natural resources—in this case, offshore wind—in turn helping us to meet our environmental targets. I know that others will speak on those targets, particularly the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, as chair of Peers for the Planet, of which I am a very small satellite.

As the Minister said, the Bill amends the Crown Estate Act 1961. Its Second Reading in your Lordships’ House that year was over in under half an hour, with only two speeches, the response from the Labour Front Bench being made by the Earl of Lucan, father of the one who disappeared. Today the Bill may get greater analysis. I will leave others to address the specific issue of the seabed and turn my attention to the broader issue of the governance of the Crown Estate.

The Bill’s Explanatory Notes say that it makes amendments to Schedule 1 to the Crown Estate Act 1961 which are

“intended to bring The Crown Estate’s constitution in line with best practice for modern corporate governance”.

In 1961, the Crown Estate was the fairly passive holder of land owned by the Crown, at a time when issues of transparency and accountability were very different. Now, if we look through the impressive 173 pages of the Crown Estate’s annual report, we see that it is a totally different organisation. The briefing notes to the King’s Speech said:

“The Crown Estate plays a critical role in maintaining and improving public infrastructure of England, Wales and Northern Ireland and generates a financial return for the Government worth over £3 billion in the last decade. This money helps fund vital public services”.


I applaud its many achievements, which the Minister touched on. However, it has no shareholders. It is independent of the Government and the monarchy and is run by 12 commissioners. It floats in a public space on its own, with an umbilical cord to the Treasury in a framework agreement, on which more in a moment.

This raises the question of whether the governance structure is still appropriate, 60 years after the legislation introducing it was passed, with very minor amendments touched on by the Minister today. Is the modest addition of an extra commissioner, as proposed by the Bill, adequate? Does it really bring the Crown Estate in line with best practice for modern corporate governance? How is it held to account? The noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, who will speak later, may address this issue in more abrasive terms than those that I plan to use.

To make my point, I turn to the issue of undertakings given to Parliament by the Crown in return for not being covered by legislation, a privilege not accorded to any other organisation and which underlines the need for proper accountability. The undertaking that I want to refer to was given on the last day of the last Parliament, 24 May. I quote the relevant passage:

“The Crown as landlord, will, subject to the conditions described below, agree to the enfranchisement or extension of residential long leases or to the grant of new residential long leases under the same qualifications and terms which will apply by virtue of the Leasehold Reform Act 1967 and the Leasehold Reform, Housing and Urban Development Act 1993, to lessees who hold from other landlords”.—[Official Report, 24/5/24; col. 1368.]


The 1993 Act was one that I put on the statute book as a Housing Minister in the other place. The Crown gave me a similar undertaking to the one that I have just read out, which I relayed to the other place at the time. However, there is evidence that the Crown Estate is not abiding by that undertaking in respect of freeholds for which it now has a responsibility under a process known as escheat. I will summarise as briefly as I can the reason for that assertion.

The freeholder of a block of flats in Southampton could not be traced, and initially an encouraging dialogue was opened on behalf of the leaseholders with the bona vacantia division of the Treasury. It confirmed that it would be happy to sell the freehold to them as qualifying tenants and pointed them to the so-called BVC4 formula on the government website, which details the procedure compliant with the relevant legislation. That formula calculated the cost of buying the freehold, as a multiple of the ground rent and the leases that remain, as £17,850.

However, this encouraging dialogue with the Treasury Solicitor was abruptly terminated, as it was stated that the liquidator had disclaimed the asset and it was now vested in the Crown Estate. The Crown Estate in turn appointed Burges Salmon, which responded to the leaseholders by saying that it did all the Crown Estate work regarding enfranchisement and collective freehold purchases and that:

“We consider that a disposal of the Property might be possible in this instance”.


There was no reference to the undertaking I gave a moment ago. Burges Salmon would do nothing before £750 was paid to open a file. It further advised that the government BVC4 formula did not apply to the Crown Estate, saying that:

“It is not obliged to follow guidance from the Bona Vacantia Division as that is a separate entity and we have dealt with this matter in this way for many years”.


That was again in defiance of the undertaking.

In addition to its fees, Carter Jonas would be instructed to provide the price at which the Crown Estate would sell, with all fees to be paid in full by the tenants. The total cost would be over £60,000, over four times the figure produced by the BVC4 formula in the legislation, which requires no valuation, and a contribution of only some £600 would have been made to the costs of the solicitor at the Treasury. I do not think that can be reconciled with the undertaking given to Parliament. Nor can it be right that leaseholders had certain rights under their original freeholder but lose those rights when the freehold defaults to the Crown Estate. The Crown Estate might argue it has a duty to secure best value, but that cannot override the clear undertaking I have given. There is now deadlock, causing problems for leaseholders who need to sell. As Burges Salmon conceded in a letter:

“Where a block of flats is subject to escheat lessees will generally be unable to sell”.


I note that when the Crown Estate gave evidence to a Treasury Select Committee in 2017, the then chief executive said on escheat:

“The Crown Estate’s role in respect of escheat properties is pretty narrow; it is limited to helping to respond to an owner who comes along and basically getting them back into private hands”.


She went on to concede that

“I do not think we are best placed to deal with properties that are subject to escheat”.

That issue is not confined to the one I have just quoted from. A letter from the Crown Estate says:

“The sheer volume of properties which become subject to Escheat each year means that we outsource this work to Burges Salmon and Carter Jonas”.


Further, following the Grenfell tragedy and the Building Safety Act, which places responsibility for remediation on freeholders, many freeholders are likely to go bankrupt, in turn putting more properties into escheat.

So what should be done? I mentioned earlier that the Treasury is the sponsor department, and the relationship with the Treasury is set out in Framework Document: The Crown Estate of June 2023. This refers in paragraph 2.1 to the need for “good management”, and later to

“strong collaborative relationships with customers”

by the Crown Estate. Crucially, it also says that the Treasury shall

“inform The Crown Estate of relevant government policy in a timely manner”.

Government policy on enfranchisement has been clear for many years. It is not being delivered, and I hope the Minister will use his powers to put right the injustice I have referred to.

Road Pricing

Lord Young of Cookham Excerpts

Monday 29th April 2024 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Young of Cookham]

To ask His Majesty’s Government what consideration they have given to replacing excise duty on fuel with road pricing.

[The Parliamentary Secretary, HM Treasury (Baroness Vere of Norbiton) (Con)]

My Lords, the Government have no plans to consider road pricing. As set out in the letter to the Transport Select Committee in January 2023, the Government are focusing on delivering their core priorities.

[Lord Young of Cookham (Con)]

My Lords, road pricing clearly touches a raw nerve in the body politic. The OBR has recently said of the Government’s policy on electric vehicles that it is

“rapidly eroding the £39 billion”

a year

“revenues from petrol and diesel”

taxes. That will leave a large hole in the Budget. The Transport Select Committee in the other place, with a government majority, said that work on road pricing should start straightaway. When I was Transport Secretary 30 years ago, I floated the idea, which is now much more feasible because of technological progress. If taxes made through the fuel duty are not replaced with something else, public transport will become much more expensive, undermining a sustainable transport policy. Should the Treasury be quite so hostile?

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)]

The Treasury sees that there are many options going forward for the fuel duty and many broader motoring taxes—and indeed for all taxes. As we transition to net zero, the Government will need to ensure that the tax system encourages more EV uptake and that revenue from motoring taxes keeps pace while remaining affordable.

Spring Budget 2024

Lord Young of Cookham Excerpts

Monday 18th March 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Young of Cookham (Con)]

My Lords, I welcome two announcements in the Budget, one of which was touched on by the noble Baroness, Lady Lister.

Last month, along with other noble Lords, I called for an extension of the household support fund, which was otherwise due to expire at the end of this month. This is money from the DWP to local authorities to help households struggling with food and energy costs. Some £2.5 billion has been invested in this scheme since October 2022. It is the largest investment in the capacity of local authorities to deliver crisis support following the abolition of the Social Fund. Local authorities, the budgets of which are under pressure, would not have been able to find the £900 million to carry on with the scheme, so top marks to the Chancellor for listening to those requests and for extending it.

However, it is now due to expire at the end of September, just before a general election and during the Labour Party conference. I am surprised that none of the spads in the Treasury spotted this elephant trap. I hope that, between now and then, the Government will either bring the support into line with other local government funding and run it through to the end of the year or work up some alternative scheme to replace it, such as what was mentioned by the noble Baroness, Lady Lister; otherwise, it will become a very hot political issue.

I welcome the introduction of a British ISA, which has not been mentioned so far in our debate, and notwithstanding some of the negative comments in the press. The Times said:

“Why backing British comes at a cost”.


The Sunday Times money section said:

“Jeremy Hunt’s new Isa is a nonsense”.


That appeared a few pages after the business news the very same day had a share tip that said:

“Clean up with this firm”,


backing a UK firm making cleaning products.

There is a good pedigree for this initiative—the business expansion scheme, the enterprise investment scheme and venture capital trusts. All these are aimed at encouraging investment in UK companies. The British ISA extends the principle to smaller investors and UK-quoted companies. I take the point about definition, on which the Government are consulting, but can my noble friend tell the House whether the scheme will be up and running before the general election?

I want to raise a point about stamp duty and the abolition of multiple dwellings relief, on which I have written to the Minister. I take the point about abuse, which was mentioned in the Budget debate, but there is an unforeseen consequence. In our housing debate last Thursday, I made the point that we need to get long-term institutional finance into the private rented sector to replace the private landlord who is now exiting. Such institutions often buy large numbers of properties before converting them into purpose-built flats. Those hoping to invest in student accommodation could be affected. Can my noble friend have a look at this and see whether the collateral damage might be avoided?

I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Macpherson, that it was right to cut national insurance, although when he, a former civil servant, described a Government’s decision as “courageous”, it took me back to several episodes of “Yes Minister”. On the ambition to abolish national insurance, I think a more achievable goal would be to merge it with income tax. The two are now sufficiently similar that merging is a plausible option, bringing increased transparency and reduced administrative and compliance costs—though there are some potential obstacles, such as the contributory principle.

My concern about the Budget is about not this year but the future. Real per capita day-to-day spending for unprotected departments is set to fall by 13% over the next five years—nearly as much as in the so-called years of austerity. Those are justice, with the problems with the prisons and courts; local government, with growing pressure on adult services and many local authorities at risk of going bankrupt; and pressure on the Home Office and policing. I ask myself whether those reductions are really achievable, and how the public might react were they to happen.

Finally, over the weekend I was rereading the Ministerial Code and came across paragraph 9.1:

“When Parliament is in session, the most important announcements of Government policy should be made in the first instance, in Parliament”.


No one doubts that the Budget Statement is such a policy, so is the country not fortunate to have such perceptive economic correspondents in all our newspapers and media that, independently, they all came to the same conclusion that the only logical thing for the Chancellor to do was to cut national insurance by 2%, and that they then persuaded their editors to back their hunch with a splash and a lead story? I leave the alternative explanation hanging in the air.

Financial Stability: Private Equity Firms

Lord Young of Cookham Excerpts

Wednesday 13th December 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)]

I do not agree with the noble Lord. As he will have seen in the Autumn Statement, the Chancellor set out significant tax cuts to encourage growth. That is where we are focusing our firepower at the moment.

[Lord Young of Cookham (Con)]

My Lords, further to the original Question about high interest rates, at the last general election the Green Party was committed to borrowing an extra £95 billion to pay for its commitments. What would this have done to interest rates?

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)]

I would not wish to speculate; however, I am not sure it would have been good things.

Cross-Government Cost Cutting

Lord Young of Cookham Excerpts

Tuesday 6th December 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Penn (Con)]

No, I would not agree with the noble Lord at all. Efficiency savings are something that Governments of all colours have striven to deliver, including in previous comprehensive spending reviews under the Labour Government. It is absolutely right that, when we look at departmental spending, we build in an assumption of improved efficiency and value for money, but also that, at this time of increased inflationary pressures, we put even more work into looking at where we can achieve efficiencies and release savings to be reinvested into those budgets.

[Lord Young of Cookham (Con)]

My noble friend said that the Government were ambitious in their search for cost-cutting savings. May I suggest that ambition be extended to the number of Ministers in the Government? In 1979 there were two Ministers in the Department of Transport; there are now five. In 1979 there were five Ministers in the DHSS. That department has since been split into two and there are six Ministers in each. Is this not an area worthy of some exploration?

[Baroness Penn (Con)]

I take my noble friend’s point. The scope of government and what it is attempting to deliver has changed somewhat over that time, but whether the growth in Ministers has matched that scale of delivery is another question.

Financial Inclusion in England

Lord Young of Cookham Excerpts

Wednesday 30th November 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Penn (Con)]

The Government are conscious of the poverty premium. We have used the Financial Inclusion Policy Forum as somewhere that we can bring together different actors on this. I will give some examples of action that we have taken in this area. The FCA, the regulator, has taken action on motor and home insurance to stop customers who are renewing being charged more than new customers. We have also seen the age agreement put in place for older customers to be able to access travel and motor insurance, and some work has been done with the Association of British Insurers looking at the poverty premium, specifically in the rented sector, and it has provided some recommendations to the Government that we are considering how best to take forward.

[Lord Young of Cookham (Con)]

My Lords, I applaud my noble friend Lord Holmes’s campaign to ensure that physical currency is available and valid, but what are the Government doing to ensure that the currency is fit for purpose? Many noble Lords may recall the farthing. The farthing was withdrawn in 1960 because it was redundant. The 1960 farthing is worth 2.8p today, but the halfpenny was withdrawn in 1984 for the same reason. So what is the life expectancy for the 1p coin languishing in saucers up and down the country?

[Baroness Penn (Con)]

I am afraid to say to my noble friend that I do not recall the farthing myself. The Government had a consultation on cash and digital payments in 2018 and the responses strongly supported not changing the denominational mix of coinage at that time. However, as with all areas of policy, we keep this under review.

Financial Markets: Stability

Lord Young of Cookham Excerpts

Thursday 3rd November 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Young of Cookham (Con)]

My Lords, I very much welcome this timely debate, introduced by the noble Lord, Lord Sharkey. While the economy has been centre stage for the last two months, we have not debated it since the summer—apart from the 40-minute Statement on 19 October. I join others in welcoming my noble friend Lady Penn back to the Front Bench, this time as a fully-fledged member of the Treasury team.

I want to focus on the final element identified in the noble Lord’s Motion—the rental market and, in particular, the private rented sector. I suspect the noble Lord, Lord Best, will also do this. There is a vicious circle operating here. Rising interest rates with earnings lagging inflation are making home ownership less affordable. This adds to demand for private renting, pushing rents up. This is reinforced by cost pressures on landlords, as buy-to-let mortgage rates increase, with less advantageous tax arrangements and higher environmental standards. This in turn leads to landlords leaving the market, leading to a further imbalance between supply and demand and yet higher rents. Too many renters already pay more than 50% of their income in rent, making home ownership less attainable. The ONS notes:

“Given the excess of demand over supply, rental prices are expected to rise further.”


In September this year, Rightmove reported annual growth in rents of 12.3%.

One in five households now lives in private rented accommodation—a doubling in two decades—and nearly all are on six-month assured tenancies. The theme of the noble Lord’s debate is stability. I believe we need a fundamental review of the private rental market to put it on a more stable and sustainable basis. In a nutshell, we need to move from a market dominated by the small private landlord, buffeted by tax changes and interest rate movements, where tenants have limited security of tenure and where it is not their tenure of choice, to a market more like that of France, Germany or Switzerland. There, a higher proportion of the population see private renting as the “normal” tenure choice and financial institutions invest in the sector for the long term, ensuring that properties are professionally managed and in good condition and, crucially, have long leases to provide stability for the tenant.

This is not to say there is no role for the private landlord, but the sector as a whole needs to be put on a more stable long-term basis. There are signs that this transition is taking place here. Institutions such as Legal & General have started building thousands of flats for rent, targeted at students, professionals living in cities, and those who need mobility for their career. But we need to accelerate the transition and broaden its base. Build to rent is only 5% of the rented market. This would be a good investment for pension funds. Historically, they have invested in equities, gilts, commercial property and fixed interest loans, but they have had little direct exposure to the residential property market. This is perverse, as it has consistently outperformed equities.

To make the transition happen smoothly, we need to understand the motives of private landlords. They invested in buy to let for two main reasons: capital appreciation and a buoyant income. In many cases, they preferred this over a pension. But the disadvantage is that their capital is illiquid and owning property brings with it management problems and the prospect of a tougher regulatory regime.

To facilitate this transition, what is needed is a quoted housing investment trust to whom landlords could sell their property not for cash but for shares in the trust. So the investor would retain his investment in residential bricks and mortar—the trust’s only asset—with an income stream linked to rental values and capital values rising over the long term, but without the hassle of management and with easy access to capital. The property could be sold to the trust without giving notice to the tenant as it would be held as an investment.

The process could start with blocks and properties in a specified area, with management undertaken by registered social landlords such as housing associations, giving further reassurance to tenants. There would be a role for the Treasury to play in helping the transition to get off the ground. Normally, when a private landlord sells, capital gains tax is payable, and this could be a deterrent. However, under the scenario I have outlined, if capital gains tax was deferred until the shares were sold, that would act as an incentive.

I put this proposition forward to provide stability to a sector that is the least stable form of tenure in the housing market. I do not ask for immediate adoption today, but it would be good if the Minister could give it a nudge by encouraging the Department for Levelling Up, with its new Secretary of State, to explore further the potential of the idea I have just floated.