Renters (Reform) Bill

Debate between Matthew Pennycook and Baroness Winterton of Doncaster

Report stage
Wednesday 24th April 2024 Commons Chamber

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

Before I call the shadow Minister, I remind colleagues that if they wish to intervene on a speech, it is important that they have been in the Chamber since the beginning of the speech, just in case the important point they wish to raise has already been addressed. It is also important that they stay for the duration of the speech, in case other colleagues then refer to the important point that they have raised. I clarify that because we may have a longer speech from the shadow Minister, and people may wish to intervene, so I thought it would be helpful to remind colleagues of those rules.

[Matthew Pennycook (Greenwich and Woolwich) (Lab)]

I rise on behalf of the Opposition to speak to the new clauses and amendments that stand in my name.

It is a pleasure to finally be back in the Chamber to conclude the remaining stages of this important piece of legislation. I say “finally” because as you will know, Madam Deputy Speaker, the Bill left Committee on 28 November last year—almost five months ago. Indeed, such has been the delay in bringing it back to the House that in the intervening 147 days, the Department even managed to complete all the Commons stages of another piece of housing legislation—albeit a distinctly limited and unambitious one—in the form of the Leasehold and Freehold Reform Bill.

The reason for the delay is, of course, an open secret, with the ongoing resistance to the legislation from scores of Government Members—including many with relevant interests, as private renters across the country have certainly noted—and the undignified wrangling between them and Ministers splashed across the papers for months. The damage caused by the discord on the Government Benches has been significant: not only have thousands of additional private renters been put at risk of homelessness as a result of being served a section 21 notice in the months for which the Bill’s remaining stages have been delayed; the sector as a whole has been left in limbo, not knowing whether the Bill will proceed at all and, if it does, what form it will take.

Leasehold and Freehold Reform Bill

Debate between Matthew Pennycook and Baroness Winterton of Doncaster

Report stage
Tuesday 27th February 2024 Commons Chamber

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

Order. Colleagues will see that a lot of right hon. and hon. Members wish to contribute to this debate, which has to finish at 6 pm. I will want to bring the Minister back for a short time. Another Deputy Speaker is taking over in a moment, but let me advise that those speaking from the Back Benches should be prepared to speak for between six and seven minutes, in order for us to get everybody in. I am afraid that that is because of the pressure on time. I call the shadow Minister.

[Matthew Pennycook (Greenwich and Woolwich) (Lab)]

I start by declaring an interest: my wife is the joint chief executive of the Law Commission, whose work in this area I intend to reference in my remarks.

I rise to speak to the amendments and new clauses that stand in my name. Before doing so, I would like to put on record my thanks to all those hon. Members who served on the Public Bill Committee for so ably scrutinising the many technical and complex provisions that the Bill contains. There were, as one would expect, differences of opinion and emphasis, but it was also evident that there is a shared recognition that the Bill can and should be improved further, and an unusual degree of cross-party agreement as to some of the ways that might be achieved.

Despite reams of Government amendments tabled in Committee and for our consideration today, this Bill remains a distinctly unambitious piece of legislation. That is a matter of deep regret to those on the Labour Benches, not only because the Government’s paucity of ambition will see exploited leaseholders wait even longer for the current iniquitous leasehold system to be ended, but because it is also manifestly clear that there is widespread support across the House to go much further than this limited Bill does. Responsibility for the fact that the Bill does not contain so many of the commitments that successive Conservative Secretaries of State have made over recent years, not least in relation to the promised widespread introduction of the commonhold tenure, ultimately lies with Ministers. They had the opportunity to bring forward bold leasehold and commonhold reform legislation, and they made a political decision not to do so.

Although the Opposition appreciate the understandable desire of many leaseholders to see this Bill completely revamped so that it lives up to the many weighty promises made by the Government since 2017, we made clear at the outset in Committee that we did not intend to try to persuade Ministers to radically overhaul it by means of the many hundreds of amendments that would be required to implement all the Law Commission’s recommendations on enfranchisement, right to manage and commonhold. That remains our position. Whether this Bill receives Royal Assent or not before this Parliament is dissolved, a Labour Government will have to finish the job of finally bringing the leasehold system to an end by overhauling it to the lasting benefit of leaseholders and reinvigorating commonhold to such an extent that it will ultimately become the default and render leasehold obsolete. I reassure leaseholders across the country that we are absolutely determined to do so.

We recognise, however, that this limited Bill will provide a degree of relief to leasehold and freehold homeowners in England and Wales by giving them some greater rights, powers and protections over their homes. For that reason, we are extremely pleased it will complete its passage today, but we are determined to send to the other place the most robust piece of legislation that we can. That means rectifying the Bill’s remaining flaws and incorporating into it a select number of measures to further empower leaseholders and improve their rights. With that objective in mind, we have tabled a series of amendments and new clauses for consideration today. That they are almost identical to a number of those we discussed at length in Committee is a deliberate choice that reflects not only the importance we place on the changes they seek to secure, but the distinct lack of convincing responses from the Minister in Committee as to why the Government felt they needed to resist them.

Part 1 of the Bill concerns leasehold enfranchisement and extension. In seeking to implement the small subset of reasonable and proportionate Law Commission recommendations, it is almost entirely uncontentious. However, we believe that several provisions in this part are defective. We sought to remedy their deficiencies in Committee and we have tabled a number of amendments in an attempt to do so again.

Amendments 4 and 5 concern arguably the most significant provisions in this part when it comes to ensuring that the process of extending a lease or acquiring a freehold is as cheap as possible for existing leaseholders—namely the proposed new valuation process as provided for in clauses 9 to 11 and schedules 2 and 3. The current valuation method has a number of manifest flaws, and we fully support the new method as proposed in the Bill. However, with the applicable deferment rate becoming the primary driver of price to be paid in enfranchisement or extension claims under the new method, as a result of the abolition of marriage and hope value and the peppercorning of ground rents in the valuation calculation, we believe it is essential that it is set in a way that is fair to leaseholders. While the Government ostensibly agree, there is nothing on the face of the Bill to ensure that that will be the case and we therefore remain convinced that this Government, or a future one, could be lobbied by vested interests to set a deferment rate that will be punitive to leaseholders.

In resisting our efforts to amend the Bill in Committee to guard against such an outcome, the Minister argued that the Secretary of State must have flexibility to make decisions on the rate or rates. We agree; we are not suggesting that we bind the hands of Ministers by prescribing the rate or rates on the face of the Bill, but we do believe that the legislation should be amended to place a clear obligation on the Secretary of State to set a rate or rates with the overriding objective of encouraging leaseholders to acquire their freehold at the lowest possible cost.

Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill

Debate between Matthew Pennycook and Baroness Winterton of Doncaster

Consideration of Lords amendments
Tuesday 17th October 2023 Commons Chamber

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

I call shadow Minister.

[Matthew Pennycook (Greenwich and Woolwich) (Lab)]

Well, what can one say about that last 20 minutes, apart from that it must have felt far more persuasive when the Minister practised it in the mirror this morning, but I do congratulate her on the birth of her grandson.

I will start by thanking their lordships for the extensive and forensic scrutiny to which they have subjected this complex and demanding piece of legislation. I put on record the appreciation felt on these Benches for the tireless work of our noble Friends, Baroness Hayman of Ullock and Lady Taylor of Stevenage, ably assisted as ever by Ben Wood and the whole Labour Lords team.

This Bill has been with us for some time now. First published in May 2022, it has progressed slowly against the backdrop of significant political and economic turbulence, the responsibility for which lies squarely with the Conservatives. It has survived an unprecedented degree of ministerial churn: three Prime Ministers; four Secretaries of State, albeit one a retread; four Housing and Planning Ministers; and four Levelling Up Ministers. With so many minds on the Government Benches having grappled thoughtfully with the implications of each of the Bill’s many provisions, one might have hoped that it would have been significantly improved and that its worst features would have been substantially mitigated, if not removed altogether. Sadly, despite the addition of scores of new clauses and a large number of new schedules to the extensive number it already contained, the Bill remains not only eclectic but deeply muddled. It is a rag-tag mix of measures—some sensible, but many more ill-considered or downright damaging—that attempt but fail to render coherent a Tory levelling up, devolution and planning agenda that is anything but.

In the eight months that the Bill was considered in the other place, the Government were forced to give way on a variety of fronts. I am glad that, in a range of areas, the arguments that my hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham North (Alex Norris) and I made in Committee last year have been partially accepted.

However, although the Government’s concessions have rendered the Bill slightly more palatable, they have not resolved the fact that it still contains a range of measures, from the new infrastructure levy to community land auction arrangements, that are riven with flaws. We regret the fact that Ministers did not reconsider their inclusion entirely. It will now fall to a future Labour Government to halt, review or rescind each of them.

We do not have an opportunity today to attempt, again, to address many of the more problematic parts of the Bill but, as a result of the prodigious efforts of noble Lords in the other place, we have a chance to make a number of important changes that would modestly improve the Bill and, in so doing, enhance outcomes for local communities across the country. It is with that objective in mind that I turn to a selection of the unusually large number of amendments that the other place has sent to us for consideration.

Lords amendments 1 and 10 relate to the levelling-up mission set out in part 1 of the Bill and the distinct, but related, third round of the levelling-up fund. They seek respectively to ensure that the missions and the fund application process are properly integrated and that round 3 of the fund takes place not only in a timely manner but on the basis of a reformed application process. We support both.

The Opposition’s views on the Government’s levelling-up missions are well known, but, if we are to give statutory force to a statement setting such missions for a period of no less than five years, it is right not only that it comes into effect soon after the Bill receives Royal Assent but that it is accompanied by a statement detailing the application process for round 3 of the levelling-up fund, including transparent criteria so that the two can be fully aligned.

Similarly, our criticisms of the levelling-up funding process are a matter of public record, but, if the fund is to be the primary means of delivering priority local infrastructure projects for the foreseeable future, it is right that steps are taken prior to the opening of round 3 to simplify the application process and to reduce the onerous requirements and resources it presently involves.

We recognise that, by tabling an amendment in lieu of Lords amendment 10, the Government have sought to enshrine in the Bill an assurance in respect of round 3 of the levelling-up fund. However, not only is the content of the proposed statement left completely undefined, but the proposed amendment in lieu fails to achieve one of the central objectives sought by their noble Lords, namely that such a statement be published within the same timescale as a statement on the levelling-up missions so that the two processes, which are clearly connected, fully complement each other. For those reasons, we cannot support the Government amendment in lieu and we will support Lords amendment 10, along with Lords amendment 1.

The question of whether the Government’s proposed levelling-up missions are comprehensive enough to reduce inequalities between and within regions has arisen since the White Paper was first published in February 2022. Lords amendments 2 and 4 seek to augment the 12 missions set out in that document by requiring the addition of separate missions relating to child poverty and health disparities. We welcome the Government’s acceptance that addressing the impact of economic and social disparities warrants a greater focus in respect of levelling-up missions and that they have tabled amendments in lieu of Lords amendments 2 and 4 to that end. However, in our view, the requirement that Ministers “must have regard” to these disparities in the preparation and review of all the missions falls some way short of the implications that establishing dedicated new missions on child poverty and health disparities would have for life chances across the country. For that reason, we cannot support the Government amendment in lieu and will support Lords amendments 2 and 4.

We also support Lords amendment 22. We remain firmly of the view that there are circumstances in which virtual or hybrid meetings are necessary or useful, and that their use could help to reduce barriers to public engagement, particularly in relation to the planning process. As we argued in Committee last year, a number of organisations, including the Planning Inspectorate, already enjoy the freedom to offer such meetings as they deem necessary, and there is widespread support for putting local authority remote meeting arrangements on a permanent footing, including from the Local Government Association, Lawyers in Local Government and the Association of Democratic Services Officers. The Government have offered no compelling reason why this amendment should not be incorporated into the Bill, and we therefore urge the House to support it.

As the Minister will know, the establishment of a new tier of national planning policy in the form of national development management policies, and their precise relationship and standing in respect of local development plans, has been a point of contention throughout the Bill’s passage. The Opposition feel strongly that it cannot be right that national policies that will have a far greater impact on local communities than any existing national policy statement and that have significant implications for the status and remit of local planning can be developed without an obligatory and defined public consultation and parliamentary approval process. Lords amendment 44 stipulates such a process, including minimum public consultation requirements and a mechanism for facilitating parliamentary scrutiny based on that which currently applies to designating a national policy statement.

--- Later in debate ---

[Matthew Pennycook]

I thank my hon. Friend for her intervention, and I thank her again, as I did at the time, for the many months of work that she did on the Bill Committee. She is right to raise the point about healthy homes; we fully support the principles of that campaign. We disagree with the Government’s suggestion that the issue is already well addressed, and I gently encourage the Minister to continue the conversations that I believe the Government are having with Lord Crisp and the other proposers of that amendment in the other place.

To conclude, while we welcome a small number of the concessions that the Government have felt able to make to the Bill, we believe that most do not go far enough. This unwieldy and confused piece of legislation is flawed on many levels. We have an opportunity today to make modest but important improvements to it. On that basis, we urge the House to support the many reasonable amendments that the other place has sent to us.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

I call the Father of the House.

Building Safety and Social Housing

Debate between Matthew Pennycook and Baroness Winterton of Doncaster

Thursday 6th July 2023 Commons Chamber

[Matthew Pennycook]

ACM should not be on any building in England six years after the fire, and it is shameful that it is, but my hon. Friend is right. The Government should use their authority and the experience they have gleaned over the past six years to make the case worldwide, because this material should not be on any building. It is dangerous, and it should never have been put up in the first place.

While all trapped leaseholders are feeling the strain, in relative terms some are better off than others, because the Government made the political choice to provide some with legal protection from the costs of historic non-cladding defects, while leaving others exposed to bills that will not only lead to financial ruin in many instances, but will have a material impact on the progress of remediation in buildings where such non-qualifying leaseholders are large in number. Even at this late stage, I urge the Secretary of State to reconsider the arbitrary division of blameless leaseholders into those who qualify for protection under the law and those who do not, as well as beseeching him to ensure that the Government finally grip and drive from the centre an accelerated programme of remediation across the country.

To conclude, six years on from the horror of Grenfell, things have changed, but they have not changed anywhere near enough. If we are to ensure that everyone has a secure, decent, affordable and safe home in which to live, far more still needs to be done, and done quickly. If it is not, we will be back here again next year, marking the seventh anniversary of the fire, still bemoaning the fact that too many social tenants are being let down and too many buildings are not being made safe, with the lives of too many blameless leaseholders destroyed. We owe it to the survivors, the bereaved, the wider Grenfell community and the legacy they want to see established to ensure that that is not the case.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

I call the SNP spokesperson.

New Housing Supply

Debate between Matthew Pennycook and Baroness Winterton of Doncaster

Monday 5th June 2023 Commons Chamber

[Matthew Pennycook]

I will not give way.

But we will insist that the planning system is once again geared toward meeting housing need in full. To that end, if they are enacted as expected, a Labour Government will reverse the damaging changes the Government propose to make to the NPPF in relation to planning for housing. However, although reversing those damaging changes to national planning policy will be an essential first step, more far-reaching reform will be required if we are to overcome the limitations of a speculative house building model, a broken land market, and a planning system that is at once both too permissive and too restrictive. That will mean, among many other things, overhauling England’s dysfunctional planning structures so that the system more effectively facilitates strategic housing growth across those sub-regional areas with significant unmet need. That might be by way of extensions to existing urban settlements or entirely new settlements—I would argue that we need both in good measure. It will mean more proactive public sector involvement in housing delivery on large sites across the country, so that quality place making and long-term value creation become more than just the rare exception.

Let me make it clear, Madam Deputy Speaker, that Labour’s approach will not be premised on a drive for units at any cost. We appreciate that many local communities resist development because it entails poor-quality housing in inappropriate and often entirely car-dependent locations, without the necessary physical and social infrastructure for communities to thrive, or sufficient levels of affordable housing to meet local need. We would argue that that outcome is a direct consequence of the Government’s over-reliance on private house builders building homes for market sale to meet overall housing need. Yet when it comes to house building, there need not be an inherent trade-off between quantity and quality. A Labour Government will be determined to see increased rates of house building, but equally determined that much more supply comes via a long-term stewardship approach so that, if not removed entirely, public opposition to significant development in contested areas should at least be much reduced.

Similarly, we reject the notion that building more homes must come at the expense of wider national policy objectives. In addition to increasing housing supply in a way that prioritises quality of build and quality of place, we will act to ensure that the housing and planning systems play their full part in addressing other pressing national challenges such as the drive towards net zero, the need for urgent nature restoration and the need to improve public health.

To conclude, it is not the only way of solving England’s housing problems and it certainly will not be a panacea for them, but building more homes remains the most effective way that we have of tackling almost all of the housing-related problems with which our country is contending. The Government needed to build more homes before the so-called planning concern group extracted its damaging concessions late last year. As a result of the Government’s appeasement of that group, we now face the very real prospect that house building rates will plummet over the next 12 to 18 months.

We desperately need a change of approach, but it is a change that the present Government and the Ministers on the Front Bench are incapable of delivering. It is high time that we had a general election, so that they can make way for a Government who are serious about ensuring that we build to meet housing need in full and boost economic growth.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

Before I call the Minister to speak, I have to say that I am extremely disappointed that some colleagues were not present to hear the winding-up speech from the Opposition. It is as important to be here for the Opposition’s wind-up as it is to be here for the Minister’s wind-up. It is extremely discourteous not to be here.

Leasehold Reform

Debate between Matthew Pennycook and Baroness Winterton of Doncaster

Tuesday 23rd May 2023 Commons Chamber

[Matthew Pennycook (Greenwich and Woolwich) (Lab)]

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. It is a pleasure to close for the Opposition. I start by declaring an interest: my wife is the joint chief executive of the Law Commission, whose work I intend to cite in my remarks.

This has been an excellent debate, featuring a great many thoughtful and informed contributions, and I thank all those hon. Members who have taken part in it. In particular, I commend the remarks made by my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield South East (Mr Betts), my right hon. Friend the Member for North Durham (Mr Jones), and my hon. Friends the Members for City of Chester (Samantha Dixon), for Dulwich and West Norwood (Helen Hayes), for West Lancashire (Ashley Dalton), for Weaver Vale (Mike Amesbury), for Brentford and Isleworth (Ruth Cadbury), for Blackburn (Kate Hollern), for St Helens South and Whiston (Ms Rimmer), for Ellesmere Port and Neston (Justin Madders), for Warwick and Leamington (Matt Western) and for Ealing North (James Murray). Together, they brought to life the plight of leaseholders across the country and powerfully reinforced the case for bold and urgent reform.

The sense of satisfaction, pride and security that is felt when someone completes the purchase of their first home and the keys are finally handed over is something that millions of homeowners across the country will recognise and remember with fondness. Given a free choice, an overwhelming majority of families would prefer to own their own home, and home ownership remains indelibly associated in the minds of many with security, control, freedom and hope.

Yet, as we have heard, for far too many leaseholders, the reality of home ownership has fallen woefully short of the dream, their lives marked by an intermittent, if not constant, struggle with punitive and escalating ground rents, unjustified permissions and administration fees, with unreasonable or extortionate charges, and with onerous conditions imposed with little or no consultation. For all those leaseholders also affected by the building safety crisis, particularly all those non-qualifying leaseholders who the Government have chosen to exclude from protections in the Building Safety Act 2022, that dream has not just fallen short; it has become a living nightmare.

This is not what home ownership should entail. Under successive Conservative-led Governments, the dream of owning their own home has slipped away for far too many families. Labour is committed to addressing that failure and reviving the dream of home ownership for current and future generations, but we are equally determined to reform the leasehold system fundamentally and comprehensively, by addressing the historical inequity on which it rests and making sure it works in the interests of leaseholders.

The Government ostensibly agree with us on the need to overhaul the entire leasehold system. In 2017 they asked the Law Commission to suggest improvements to both the leasehold and commonhold systems and, once the recommendations were published in July 2020, they made it clear that they were considering how to implement all of them. In 2021 they established the Commonhold Council to prepare the ground for widespread take-up of a collective form of home ownership that is the norm in many other parts of the world.

In 2022 the Government passed, with our support, the Leasehold Reform (Ground Rent) Act, which set ground rents on newly created leases to zero. Ministers assured us, as my hon. Friend the Member for Weaver Vale pointed out, that that legislation was merely the first part of a two-part seminal programme to implement reform in this Parliament. In January this year, in an interview with The Sunday Times, the present Secretary of State went further and unambiguously announced his intention to abolish the leasehold system in its entirety—raising expectations, as my right hon. Friend the Member for North Durham pointed out, among leaseholders across the country.

Yet not only are leaseholders still waiting for the publication of the leasehold reform (part 2) Bill, but, according to recent reports, the Government’s commitment to legislate for fundamental and comprehensive leasehold reform through that Bill looks set to be abandoned after the Secretary of State was overruled by Downing Street. If the substance of those reports is true, it will represent the latest broken promise in 13 years of Conservative failure. The media reports in question indicated that we will see a second leasehold reform Bill in the King’s Speech later this year, but they suggested that No. 10 will only allow the Secretary of State a limited one.

We are told that the Bill in question might include a cap on ground rents, more powers for tenants to choose their own property management company and a ban on building owners’ forcing leaseholders to pay to the other side any legal costs incurred as part of a dispute. However, it is still not clear whether that is the sum total of the measures leaseholders can now expect, or whether Downing Street might give the Secretary of State permission for a little more.

When the Minister closes the debate, will she therefore tell the House, and all the leaseholders across the country who are listening very carefully to what is being said here today, not just what the Government are committed to implementing at some point in the future, but what the major provisions in that forthcoming leasehold reform Bill will now be? Will they be limited to the three measures I just mentioned, or can leaseholders expect more—perhaps a prescribed formula for valuation in standard cases, or, as I believe the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, the hon. Member for North East Derbyshire (Lee Rowley), implied but did not explicitly confirm, improvements to freehold service charge protection?

If the Minister is not prepared to tell leaseholders what all the major provisions in that forthcoming Bill are likely to be, or if the Government have still not made up their mind after all this time, she owes it to leaseholders at least to clarify whether the Government remain committed to that Bill’s containing all those specific measures relating to enfranchisement, valuation and lease extensions that the right hon. Member for Newark (Robert Jenrick) committed to implementing when he was Secretary of State.

As set out in a written ministerial statement of 11 January 2021, those specific commitments included the abolition of marriage value, capping the treatment of ground rents on all existing residential leases at 0.1% of freehold value and prescribing rates for the calculations at market value, a right for those with existing long leases to buy out the ground rent without the need to extend their term of lease, and the right for all leaseholders to extend their lease as often as they wish, at zero ground rent, for a term of 990 years. The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State earlier mentioned several of those commitments, but again he was less than explicit that they would definitely be in the legislation. Will the Minister of State tell the House whether the forthcoming Bill will include them all?

But whether it ultimately includes merely a handful of worthy measures or all those explicitly committed to by the right hon. Member for Newark during the period he led the Department, what now looks certain is that the scaled-back leasehold reform Bill that the Government are finalising will be a far cry from what successive Ministers—and, in particular, the present Secretary of State—have led leaseholders across the country to believe would be enacted by this Government in this Parliament. When she closes the debate, the least the Minister can do is to be honest with leaseholders about what they should no longer expect from this Government in the way of leasehold reform, and make it clear, if that is indeed the case, that Ministers do not now intend in this Parliament to enact all the recommendations on enfranchisement, commonhold and the right to manage made in the Law Commission’s three reports of 2020.

As well as that honest admission, leaseholders deserve an explanation as to why the Government are seemingly not now prepared to implement those sensible and proportionate recommendations in full. Finding adequate parliamentary time cannot be the reason, given that the Law Commission parliamentary procedure would reduce the time any such legislation would spend on the Floor of the House and enable the Government to complete the process before a general election. The House, as well as all those organisations that have been campaigning for so long on behalf of exploited leaseholders, deserve a clear answer today about the real reason leaseholders look set to be fobbed off with just a limited Bill.

To conclude, nearly 5 million households in England are trapped in an archaic system of home ownership that has its roots in 11th-century English property law. This House has legislated to give leaseholders more rights in the past, but none of those previous efforts fundamentally disturbed the historic inequity on which the system rests, and as a result, leaseholders remain at the mercy of arcane and discriminatory practices, to their detriment and to the benefit of freeholders.

I end by saying this directly to any leaseholders watching our proceedings today. Labour recognises that you have waited long enough for this House of Commons to truly deliver for you. We are determined to fundamentally and comprehensively reform the current system, overhauling leasehold to your lasting benefit and reinvigorating commonhold to such an extent that it will become the default and render leasehold obsolete. If the Government abide by the spirit of the motion tabled today and honour their commitments to you in full, we will work with them constructively to improve your lives, but rest assured that if they do not, a Labour Government will finish the job.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

Now that we are all back, I want to reiterate once again how important it is for those who have contributed to the debate to get back to hear not only the Opposition’s but the Minister’s winding-up speeches. One way to ensure that that happens is to actually stay in the debate and hear what other people have to say—a novel idea, I know, but it can be well worth it.

Social Housing (Regulation) Bill [Lords]

Debate between Matthew Pennycook and Baroness Winterton of Doncaster

Report stage
Wednesday 1st March 2023 Commons Chamber

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

I call the shadow Minister.

[Matthew Pennycook (Greenwich and Woolwich) (Lab)]

I rise to speak to the new clauses and amendments in my name. I join the Minister in welcoming Grenfell United, Shelter and others to the Public Gallery.

There is a shared recognition across the House that the lives of far too many social housing tenants are blighted by poor conditions and that, although there are good social landlords, too many still routinely fail their tenants. That shared understanding has underpinned the consensus across both sides of the House that the Bill is both necessary and urgently required.

Since the moment the Bill was finally published in October 2022, the Opposition have been clear that we support it and that we wish to work constructively with the Government to see it make rapid progress. Yet at every stage, we have been at pains to convey our strong feeling that the Bill could be strengthened in a number of areas, and to urge Ministers to approach our suggested improvements with an open mind and in the constructive spirit in which they were offered. That was how we approached Committee, and it is why we worked with the Minister to secure the Bill’s speedy passage out of Committee.

We pressed a range of amendments in Committee, including on three key objectives: the need to expedite the professionalisation of the sector; the need to ensure that the Bill provides, in practice, for the Ofsted-style inspections regime to which the Government are ostensibly committed to introducing; and the need to further empower social tenants. I shall take each in turn.

On professionalisation, we welcome the concession made by the Government in the other place regarding professional training and qualifications, and the resulting addition of clause 21 to the Bill, but we pressed in Committee for that clause to be strengthened so that it not only provides the regulator with the ability to set standards on the competence and conduct of individuals involved in the management of social housing, but includes requirements to ensure social housing managers have appropriate objective qualifications and expertise. Our reasoning was simple: as a result of the progressive residualisation of social housing over the past 40 years, it is now overwhelmingly let to those most in need and often least able to challenge poor conditions, not least because the chronic shortage of social housing in England leaves most with few, if any, options to move if they receive an unprofessional service from their landlord.

The circumstances leading up to the fire at Grenfell Tower in June 2017 and those surrounding the death of Awaab Ishak in December 2020, as well as countless other instances of negligence and neglect that will have gone unreported, make perfectly clear what can happen when staff do not listen to their tenants, do not treat them with respect, do not respond to their concerns with empathy and understanding, do not deal appropriately with their complaints, and in some instances actively discriminate against them. In our view, it is therefore essential that those managing the homes of social tenants are properly qualified to do so; that they have undergone the necessary training to ensure that they are treating tenants fairly and providing them with the necessary support; and that they undergo continuous professional development—just as we expect those in other key frontline services to do.

In Committee, the Minister stressed the Government’s concern that giving the Secretary of State the power to stipulate mandatory qualifications for social housing managers through regulation could risk the Office for National Statistics reclassifying housing associations to the public sector. We never dismissed such a risk out of hand, but neither were we convinced it was an impediment to strengthening clause 21, not least because we have never seen any evidence that suggests that mandating qualifications would automatically trigger a reclassification. To underscore how strongly we felt about using the Bill to expedite the professionalisation of the sector, we tabled new clause 5. However, true to the commitment that the Minister gave in Committee to explore in good faith whether there was scope to go further without risking reclassification, the Government tabled amendment 47 and others just before the deadline on Friday afternoon.

The Minister mentioned frontline social housing managers, unless I am mistaken. While we would welcome an assurance from the Minister that the definition of “relevant manager” in that amendment and others encompasses all those in frontline roles involving extensive resident engagement, such as neighbourhood housing, customer service and antisocial behaviour managers, and also a commitment that the Government will set out a timeline for implementation in the not too distant future and that the new burdens doctrine will apply in relation to local authorities, we are satisfied that amendment 47 and others address the concerns we raised in Committee. On that basis, we are happy to support them. I take the opportunity to once again praise Grenfell United and Shelter for helping to convince the Government to make the concession.

Turning to the issue of inspections, we welcomed the concession made by the Government in the other place to impose a duty on the regulator to publish, and take appropriate steps to implement, a plan for regular inspections. I once again commend the efforts of Lord Best and Grenfell United in achieving that outcome. However, while recognising the need for the regulator to have a significant degree of discretion in formulating that inspections plan, we pressed in Committee for clause 29—which was then clause 28—to be made more prescriptive in two important respects. First, we believe it is essential that the Bill makes it clear that all registered providers, large or small, will be subject to inspections by the regulator. Secondly, we believe it is essential that the Bill ensures that every registered provider will be subject to routine inspections.

In resisting our amendment in Committee, the Minister made two principal arguments: first, that it would be unreasonable to bind the regulator’s hands by specifying that the inspections plan must include those two minimum requirements; and, secondly, that basing the system of inspections on a provider risk profile determined principally by size will ensure those landlords at greatest risk of failing tenants are accorded greater oversight. In our view, both those arguments are flawed.

On the argument that we should not bind the regulator’s hands, the Minister must surely appreciate that the Government cannot on the one hand commit to introducing an Ofsted-style inspections regime, and then resist specifying any minimum expectations as to how that regime should operate, however reasonable they might be. If the Government’s intention were to give the regulator unlimited operational flexibility in relation to the inspections plan, they should have been clear about that fact, rather than promising tenants that they would introduce an Ofsted-style regime, with the obvious connotations that that has in terms of universal coverage and a defined regularity of inspection.

On the argument that a risk profile based on a size threshold will best ensure tenants are protected, the Government have not provided any evidence as to why they believe that landlords with a stock of 1,000 homes or more are at the greatest risk of failing in terms of standards. We appreciate entirely the case for prioritising larger landlords with a stock of over 1,000 units, given that that will cover the vast majority of social homes in England, but there is no evidence to suggest that landlords with fewer than 1,000 homes are less likely to fail their tenants; indeed there are cases listed right now on gov.uk of such smaller landlords having been served regulatory notices for breaches. Nor can we understand, given that these smaller landlords are responsible for just 4% of England’s social housing stock, what the Government believe are the benefits of allowing them to escape regular inspection, given that doing so is unlikely to significantly reduce the burden on the regulator and carries the obvious risk that one or more smaller providers will fail their tenants as a result of the lack of oversight.

Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill

Debate between Matthew Pennycook and Baroness Winterton of Doncaster

Report stage
Tuesday 13th December 2022 Commons Chamber

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

I think it may be useful to colleagues if I explain how we intend to conduct the debate. Many Members wish to speak, and there have been and will be quite lengthy Front-Bench speeches. The debate has to finish at 6 o’clock. I want to give priority to those who have amendments tabled in their names—by and large, not everybody. I will have to put on a time limit of six minutes or five minutes. If we do not do that, we will not have a chance of getting anywhere near everyone in, or even everyone who has tabled amendments. That is just a warning—the time limit will come in after the shadow Minister.

[Matthew Pennycook (Greenwich and Woolwich) (Lab)]

I rise to speak to the new clauses and amendments in my name and those of my hon. Friends. It is two weeks and two significant concessions to large groups of disgruntled Government Back Benchers later, but it is a pleasure to finally be back in the Chamber to conclude the Report stage of this Bill. As my hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham North (Alex Norris) made clear on day one of Report, in 27 sittings over a four-month period, the Bill was subject to exhaustive line-by-line consideration. Such was the appetite to participate in the Committee’s proceedings that not only was it formally adjourned to allow new members to take part, but we enjoyed appearances from seven different Ministers, some of whom even had more than a passing familiarity with the contents of the legislation.

I thank my hon. Friends the Members for York Central (Rachael Maskell), for South Shields (Mrs Lewell-Buck) and for Coventry North East (Colleen Fletcher) and the hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale (Tim Farron) for so ably scrutinising in Committee the many technical and complex provisions that the Bill contains. The new clauses and amendments that we have tabled for consideration today are almost identical to a number of those we discussed at length in Committee. That deliberate choice reflects not only the importance we place on the matters that they relate to, but the lack of anything resembling robust and convincing reassurances from Ministers in Committee in respect of the concerns that they seek to address. Indeed, if anything, the debates that took place and the responses provided by successive Ministers served only to harden our view that a number of the measures in the Bill relating to planning and the environment would almost certainly have adverse impacts.

Our hope, perhaps a forlorn one, Madam Deputy Speaker, is that the new ministerial team may have used the almost 50 days since their appointment to further interrogate the potential risks posed by those measures in the Bill that are controversial and to reflect on the wisdom of proceeding with them.

Part 3 of the Bill deals with a wide range of issues relating to both national planning policy and local and neighbourhood planning. Many of the clauses that this eclectic part contains are unproblematic, but others are contentious, and we raised detailed concerns in Committee about several of them. Amendments 78 and 79 seek to address arguably the most disquieting, namely clauses 83 and 84, concerning the future relationship between local development plans and national planning policy given statutory weight in the form of national development management policies. We welcome the fact that new section 38(5B) of the Planning and Compulsory Purchase Act 2004 in clause 83 provides communities with greater confidence that finalised local plans will be adhered to and any safeguards they contain respected. However, we believe that new subsection 5C in clause 83, in providing that anything covered by an NDMP will not only have legal status but will take precedence over local development plans in any instance where there is found to be a conflict between the two, represents a radical centralisation of planning decision-making that will fundamentally alter the status and remit of local planning in a way that could have a number of potentially damaging consequences.

I must make it clear that our concern in relation to the effect of this subsection would exist even if the Government had published the national planning policy framework prospectus and provided hon. Members with an overview about what NDMPs are likely to cover. The fact that they have not and that we therefore still have no idea precisely what these new statutory national policies will eventually contain—coupled with the fact that clause 84 of the Bill makes it clear that NDMPs can cover any policy area relating to development or use of land in England and can be modified or revoked without any form of consultation if that is the wish of the Secretary of State of the day—merely heightens our concerns.

We know that there is significant anxiety across the House about the future implications of NDMPs, and rightly so, because legislating to ensure that they overrule local plans in the event of any conflict does represent a radical departure from the status quo. As we argued in Committee, what is proposed is a wholly different proposition from the current application of the NPPF, and our fear is that it will lead to the erosion of local control in a way that threatens to transform what is currently a local plan-led system into a national policy-led system.

Building Safety Bill

Debate between Matthew Pennycook and Baroness Winterton of Doncaster

Consideration of Lords amendments
Wednesday 20th April 2022 Commons Chamber

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

I call shadow Minister Matthew Pennycook.

[Matthew Pennycook (Greenwich and Woolwich) (Lab)]

This Bill has been a long time in gestation. First published in July 2020, it was subject to extensive pre-legislative scrutiny and was examined in exhaustive detail over five long weeks in Committee in the autumn of last year. Then, in January this year, the Government accepted that the approach they had taken to the building safety crisis over a period of more than four years following the Grenfell fire had not worked, and they announced that it would change. We raised a series of questions and concerns about what that change of approach would mean in practice, but we welcomed the fact that it had finally happened. It is of course right that we seek to ensure that those who profited from the sale of unsafe buildings and construction products pay their fair share when it comes to putting things right, that every developer and freeholder who can shoulders the financial burden of fixing their own buildings, that we restore common sense and proportionality to the assessment of building safety in general, and that leaseholders are properly protected from the costs of remediating all historical cladding and non-cladding defects. Labour has urged the Government to act on all these fronts, and more, for years, and we are pleased that we are now finally making progress toward some semblance of a comprehensive solution to the building safety crisis.

However, the manner and the pace at which this already complex and technical Bill has been overhauled to reflect the Government’s belated change of heart has been deeply problematic. Large sections of the Bill have been completely rewritten on the basis of hundreds of Government amendments tabled in the other place that the noble Lords had relatively little time to consider carefully or properly scrutinise. We welcome many of those amendments, particularly the removal of the building safety charge and the abolition of building safety managers, and we also welcome the important concessions the Government made in the other place in response to Labour amendments—for example, to exempt social housing providers from the levy. But that does not detract from the fact that this is no way to make good law, and I want to put on record the Opposition’s serious misgivings about the way the Government have gone about revising the Bill. As a result of the way it has been modified, it is now, by all accounts, something of a mess, and the five pages of complex Government amendments tabled yesterday afternoon, which again provided hon. and right hon. Members in all parts of the House with little time to properly consider them, do little to remedy that fact.

Nevertheless, the Opposition have always maintained that we want to see a version of the Bill on the statute book as soon as possible. As such, our focus is now on ensuring that its most glaring remaining defects are addressed so that it can be passed in what remains of this Session. To that end, there are five specific issues to be considered today: the duties placed on the Building Safety Regulator with regard to reviewing safety and standards, protection for leaseholders in buildings below 11 metres in height, protection for leaseholders in enfranchised buildings, the issue of buildings held in trust, and the proposed leaseholder cap.

The first can be dealt with very quickly. As well as having the resource and capacity to perform all the complex tasks assigned to it, it is critically important that the new Building Safety Regulator within the Health and Safety Executive be clearly tasked in the early years of its operation with assessing the benefits and costs of a range of measures in relation to safety and standards. Lords amendment 6 specified four—fire suppression systems, the safety of stairways and ramps, the certification of electrical equipment, and provision for people with disabilities—and we supported it. Having maintained in the other place that the amendment was entirely unnecessary, the Government yesterday tabled an amendment in lieu of Lords amendment 6 that almost entirely mirrors its provisions. On that basis, we will support that Government amendment.

The second issue is protection for leaseholders in buildings below 11 metres in height. As I argued on Report on 19 January, 18 metres was always a crude and arbitrary threshold that not only failed to adequately reflect the complexity of fire risk but was an entirely unsound basis for determining which blameless leaseholders were and were not protected by the state from the costs of remediation. The same argument applies to the 11-metre threshold. The blameless leaseholders who are trapped living in unsafe smaller buildings deserve the same protection as those in mid and high-rise unsafe buildings. As the Earl of Lytton argued in the other place:

“There seems no good reason for height exclusion on any moral, economic, safety or practical ground.”—[Official Report, House of Lords, 29 March 2022; Vol. 820, c. 1508.]

The Government maintain—the Minister said as much again in his remarks—that there are no systemic building safety issues with buildings under 11 metres, yet we know from the devastating incident at Richmond House in Worcester Park in 2019 just how dangerous to life defective buildings under this height threshold can be. The Government further maintain that buildings under 11 metres in height that are dangerous are few in number. I suspect that is almost certainly the case, but all the more reason, then, to provide financial support to those blameless leaseholders who find themselves living in them rather than leaving them without protection. I noted what the Minister said when he gave a commitment that the Government would review such buildings on a case-by-case basis, but it begs the question: why will the Government not act by amending the Bill to cater for the exceptional circumstances that he spoke about?