West Midlands: Transport

Rachel Maclean Excerpts

Wednesday 8th May 2024 Westminster Hall

[Rachel Maclean (Redditch) (Con)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered Government funding for transport in the West Midlands.

It is a huge pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Henderson. I am pleased to have secured a debate on this topic and I thank the House for allowing this time. I am grateful to all those who are present in the Chamber and ready to speak. I will start by explaining to anybody watching that I will confine my comments to Redditch, my constituency, and its connections to the major conurbation of Birmingham. It is a peculiarity of Parliament that the debate title must focus on the west midlands, not simply my constituency, but of course that allows other colleagues with wider geographical reaches to speak as well.

Every time I am out and about in Redditch and the villages of Inkberrow, Cookhill, the Lenches, Hanbury and Abbots Morton, it is inevitable that transport in all its forms is raised with me. That is because transport is key to our local economy, to levelling up, and to people’s opportunity literally to get on their bikes and better themselves—something that we Conservatives believe in strongly, in line with our best traditions and values. That is why one of the key pledges I made to my constituents when I was elected for the first time in 2017 was to improve local transport. As an MP who represents rural, urban and suburban residents, I know that there is a range of transport needs, which vary widely depending on where people live.

People are often bemused when I explain that the constituency of Redditch county—that is its name, even though there is no county of Redditch, before everybody writes in—and areas in the new constituency, which will be up for election after the next boundary changes, include villages and rural and farming areas. In particular, the new constituency for which I will be the candidate at the next general election includes Wychbold, Dodderhill, Stoke Prior, Harvington and Norton. Obviously, their connections to Droitwich, Bromsgrove and Evesham are also important.

That said, we are close to Birmingham. It is the major economic centre. It is vital for people’s work, study and leisure opportunities. Before securing the debate, I asked my constituents to give me their views on the transport network in Redditch. I asked them about roads, rail, bus and traffic issues around the constituency, and I will broadly structure my remarks around the answers that they gave. If people watching have missed sending me their thoughts, they can still do so, and I will post a link on my website and my Facebook page.

I will turn first to motorists. After all, Redditch is a new town that was constructed with the car at its heart. In fact, Redditch is the proud owner of England’s only cloverleaf roundabout. Everybody is welcome to come to Redditch and experience driving round the cloverleaf roundabout and many others. Dual carriageways around the town allow for quick and easy access everywhere. Equally, my rural constituents living in more remote areas rely on cars to get around, especially where other transport options might be limited. The responses to my survey reflected the central part that cars play in my constituents’ lives. Road quality was an issue that was highlighted, with 52% of respondents expressing their dissatisfaction with the quality of roads in their area.

The roads in Redditch, under the two-tier system of government that we have in our area, are managed by Worcestershire County Council, not Redditch Borough Council, which again can cause confusion. As a local MP, I know how irritating and dangerous potholes and other obstacles, such as flooding and debris, can be on the roads, and the damage they can do to a vehicle.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I congratulate the hon. Lady on securing this debate. Was meeting net zero targets part of her questionnaire? If it was, if we have to meet net zero targets, we have to have the infrastructure in place. I think the hon. Lady is saying that if that infrastructure is not in place, we cannot meet our net zero targets. That will also mean that we cannot deliver on the buses she would like to have for the rural constituency she represents.

[Rachel Maclean]

The hon. Gentleman has raised a very important issue. That was not specifically included in my survey this time around, but net zero is, of course, something we must aspire to achieve; in fact, we have legislated for it, and we are committed to it. However, at the same time, we have to accept that a reality of people’s lives is that they need cars to drive around in, whether they are electric or petrol and diesel. We must make sure, therefore, that the infrastructure is there, whether to support the transition or the roads, which will be important, whether the cars and buses are electric or fossil fuel vehicles.

I know that the Government recognise the issue with road surfaces. We all know that some of the funding for High Speed 2 has been reallocated to improve roads locally. In Worcestershire, we have received more than £4 million—£4,000,766, to be precise—to repair and resurface roads over the next two years, which comes from the £139 million allocated to Worcestershire County Council as part of the Government’s long-term plan to improve local roads. When he sums up, I would like the Minister to advise me how quickly that can be spent on our roads in Redditch, in our borough, and in Wychavon, which I represent, and how much of that county council funding can be allocated to Redditch Borough Council, so that I can ensure the council is hitting those targets and spending it in the right places.

While I am talking about roads, I would urge anyone who spots a hazard on their road or on a road they are driving on to raise it with the county council directly. It has a good reporting system, and I know that it does get crews out to fix the roads. If anyone is struggling with that service, they should contact me, and I will raise it on their behalf. The council can and do respond to road surface issues and potholes when they are raised. It has a website for that.

Moving on, another 43% of people responded that traffic was an issue in their area. Whether it is roadworks or school pick-up times, there are a number of reasons why we have traffic around the area. I know that the road surface funding I outlined previously can help with the speed of roads, as drivers will not have to slow down to avoid potholes, but I also know that traffic can build up at pinch points and pressure points, such as on the school run, which is something I experienced many times as a parent. We often see traffic building up around school gates, which can be dangerous for the parents and children and for the people who live around those areas. That is why I work hard with all local partners, in particular in the Brockhill estate near Holyoakes Field First School, on the challenges for people getting in and out of their estate. I have had some very constructive discussions with the developers and with the school itself, and I stand ready to help any other school that experiences those problems.

Speeding drivers are not only a nuisance, but dangerous. They also create noise. I know that the Minister’s Department is looking at noise cameras. Could he update me on whether it is rolling those out, and whether we will see them in use in Worcestershire? In the Headless Cross and Oakenshaw area in particular, noise is a real menace—I am happy to brief the Minister in more detail on that.

With the current cost of living challenges people are facing, it is important that we support motorists and remove prohibitive costs associated with driving. I support what the Government are doing by maintaining fuel duty at the current levels for a further 12 months, extending the temporary 5p fuel duty cut and cancelling the planned inflation-linked increase for next year. I am contacted by constituents who make the point that running a vehicle is a big portion of their family’s budget, so I know that people will welcome these measures and that these savings do matter.

The other issue that has been the source of real debate and challenge is the 20 mph speed limits in England. I welcome the Government’s pragmatic, proportionate approach to prevent their blanket use in areas where it is not appropriate, and to amend the guidance on low traffic neighbourhoods. What a stark contrast with Labour-run Wales, where there is a blanket 20 mph speed limit, which is having a massive impact on the Welsh economy, to the detriment of local people. Of course, we also see anti-driver and anti-car policies all over Labour-run London, where Sadiq Khan is punishing and penalising hard-working people for using their cars.

Of course, while Labour insists on those top-down, anti-motorist policies, we Conservatives know that cars are a unique means for freedom for people to fulfil their potential. We must tackle issues of poor driving and speeding. I welcome all the work my newly re-elected police and crime commissioner John Campion is doing. I have been helping him, in Astwood Bank in particular, to tackle dangerous speeding and I will renew my work with him now that he has been re-elected.

[Tahir Ali (Birmingham, Hall Green) (Lab)]

I thank the hon. Member for giving way. Does she agree with me that nitrogen dioxide levels adversely affect people’s health, especially that of children? Does she not agree that air quality needs to be fixed, but, rather than taking responsibility, the Government have pushed that on to local authorities? If they are serious when they talk about anti-motorist policies, is the overabundance of motorists using cars exponentially, with the detrimental effect on health and especially that of children, something that the Government are proud of?

[Rachel Maclean]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention. I want to keep my remarks to my local area of Redditch and Birmingham. I was highlighting the shocking record of Labour-run London and Wales. I stand by those comments: they are anti-driver, anti-car and anti-growth.

While many people drive to and from work, a large number of respondents to my survey highlighted the challenges faced by those who walk, cycle or use a wheelchair to get around Redditch. People highlighted the need to increase the amount of cycling and walking space and the number of crossings and to reduce the amount of time it takes to walk across the town more generally. The accessibility of footpaths was raised by those in wheelchairs and mobility scooters, who often have difficulty with high kerbs. I discuss such issues with the local borough and county councils on a regular basis. Will the Minister advise me what more I can do to make sure those issues are addressed on a practical level across our towns so we can help people who walk or cycle to work to get there faster and safer?

Bus services are key to the pledge I made to my constituents at the last election. People around Redditch and the villages rely on bus services to connect the rural areas to the surrounding towns. Covid presented an existential challenge to local bus services, with people obviously using buses less frequently. That means that certain routes have become unviable and have to be extensively supported by central Government funding.

Unfortunately, only 11% of those who took part in my survey said that local bus services were good. I caveat that, because it is not a scientifically representative sample of the whole town. Nevertheless, I know there are challenges in running bus services. Indeed, the Government have recently stepped in to award £3.4 million to support bus services in Worcestershire, bringing the total received since 2022 to more than £6 million. Additionally, the Government put in place the cap of £2 on bus fares, which has undoubtedly improved usage and provided much needed support for people who rely on buses, especially when families see their budgets squeezed.

In addition to the challenges, we have seen some success stories. Thanks to the hard work of the Conservative-run county council and backing from the Government, the No. 51 and No. 52 routes that serve Redditch are among the most commercially successful in the entire UK. I will, however, continue to work hard with councillors and Ministers to see what more we can do to support our bus network and to ensure it is reliable and delivers for residents. I appreciate the latest thinking from the Minister about what more he can do to support buses in areas such as Redditch as we move beyond covid.

I will make the point that anyone who would like to see better bus services—better funded, nationalised or subject to any of the other ideas we hear talked about—needs to explain how they would be funded. To my knowledge, only one bus route in Redditch makes a profit and that has been the case for many years because people are using buses less and less. Services must therefore be subsidised by the taxpayer. Anyone who advocates for buses being subsidised and brought under state ownership needs to explain how they will take funds earmarked for other vital services to deliver that for residents.

I mentioned at the start of my speech how, because of Redditch’s fortunate position so close to Birmingham, it is essential we have a reliable connection so that my constituents can choose to work in or visit the city with relative ease while living in the town. Before covid, we had three trains per hour to Birmingham and for some strange reason that I am not clear on, we now have only two. We must return to the previous situation immediately; it is past time for that. The future of the train station is being discussed by the county council and the midlands rail hub and I will continue my discussions with all the relevant partners in this space. It is essential that any plans are aligned with the overall vision to level up and regenerate Redditch.

[Wendy Morton (Aldridge-Brownhills) (Con)]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for securing the debate. On that specific point about trains, railway stations and the midlands hub, she will know that the former Mayor of the West Midlands, Andy Street, had a vision for transport that involved funding for train stations, including Aldridge train station, and restoring train services for the first time in about 60 years. Does my hon. Friend agree that funding long-term transport objectives and projects such as the midlands rail hub and Aldridge train station remains imperative? It is incumbent on the new Mayor of the West Midlands to deliver these projects on time and on budget, and to publicly announce that he will back them.

[Rachel Maclean]

I thank my right hon. Friend for making that point, because the issues she has highlighted in her constituency were the fruits of a healthy collaboration between ourselves as local MPs across the west midlands and the outgoing Mayor, Andy Street, to whom we pay tribute. We also welcome to his position the new Labour Mayor, Richard Parker. I would add to my right hon. Friend’s plea that we can all work constructively together, especially on transport projects that cover a huge area. It is vital we have that collaboration for the benefit of all our residents.

[Tahir Ali]

On that point, will the hon. Lady give way?

[Rachel Maclean]

No, I am afraid I need to wind up. Despite the many challenges we face with local transport, I am pleased that the Government understand the inseparability of good transport networks and levelling up. Whether it is walking, cycling, wheeling, or using a car, train or bus, we must continue to work to improve transport locally so that we can deliver on our promise to level up towns like Redditch and the villages. I will continue working with my constituents and all the stakeholders so that we see improvements.

Finally, let me ask the Minister a few questions. What more can he do with his colleagues in Government to support local councils in tackling potholes and other hazards on our roads? Will he outline the steps the Government are taking to support motorists other than what I have already said, particularly in a time with a high cost of living? What steps is he taking with his colleagues to support bus services, so that we can ensure more routes are viable and sustainable, and move away from Government subsidies, which are ultimately only a short-term option? What steps is he taking to make active transport more of an option in towns such as Redditch, including for people with disabilities? I thank everybody for listening to my speech, I look forward to colleagues’ contributions, and I thank the Minister in advance of his concluding remarks.

[Gordon Henderson (in the Chair)]

Given the earlier Divisions, I expect that this debate will finish no later than 6.17 pm. I expect to call the Opposition spokesman at 5.54 pm. It does not take a lot of working out to realise that you do not have much time to talk. I remind hon. Members to bob—I can see you are bobbing anyway—if they want to speak.

--- Later in debate ---

[Huw Merriman]

I am happy to give a commitment not only to continue to champion the midlands rail hub but to include Aldridge station. My right hon. Friend has been an absolute champion on the issue and has made a number of interventions on me in the Chamber in support of it, and I very much hope that the new Mayor will continue that work. My right hon. Friend and Andy Street got it to this stage, and I am sure the new Mayor will take it forward. I will certainly look to talk to him about that and to pass on my right hon. Friend’s interest.

In February, the Secretary of State for Transport announced £123 million to fund and design the first phase of the midlands rail hub, and the resulting improved services are likely to run from the early 2030s. We have the plan in place; we now need to ensure that the new Mayor is on board with it. That work will also include benefits for the cross-city line from Redditch to Birmingham. Network North investment will see the cross-city line return to six trains per hour in total, including three to Redditch. My hon. Friend the Member for Redditch has pushed and asked for that, and I can give her that commitment.

[Rachel Maclean]

I welcome that, of course. I am delighted to hear that commitment to three trains from Redditch to Birmingham, which is something on which I worked closely with the outgoing Mayor and on which I hope to work with the new Mayor. When will that service be started for the benefit of my constituents?

[Huw Merriman]

I will write to my hon. Friend with the specifics of the timeline. I do not have the information with me, but I will make sure that we write to her with more guidance on that. My officials are working closely with the West Midlands Rail Executive, the joint client for the west midlands train industry partners on the entire project, to find and deliver the earliest solution.

I applaud the work that Redditch and Worcestershire councils have done to develop plans for improving Redditch station, in the heart of the Redditch railway quarter. This will help the area to compete effectively with nearby towns for economic activity and growth, while improving connectivity and opportunities for sustainable travel. I am very keen on this project, and I will be looking into it further. I thank my hon. Friend for raising it.

I am also pleased that the A38 Bromsgrove route enhancement programme, funded by my Department, is now being rolled out. I am sure that, once complete, it will be well used by Redditch residents to access Bromsgrove and Worcester.

I would like to focus on my Department’s desire to enhance rural mobility, which is important to me as an MP for a rural constituency and which was raised by the hon. Member for North Shropshire (Helen Morgan), who rightly highlighted the importance of rural mobility. We have published our “Future of Transport” rural innovation guidance to help support local authorities, and we have made up to £3 million of funding available to support rural transport innovation and tackle transport challenges in rural areas. Further, we are supporting the seven sub-national transport bodies to establish a centre of excellence on rural mobility.

I will address some points that have been made by right hon. and hon. Members. As I said, I will come back to my hon. Friend the Member for Redditch with specifics, but she asked about noise cameras. The Department has published research and analysis in the March 2024 plan for drivers on the efficiency of noise cameras. We are evaluating findings before we consider the next steps, but it is a matter we are keen to take forward. We know that it is a real blight for constituents, so we are keen to do more on that front.

The hon. Members for Birmingham, Edgbaston and for Birmingham, Erdington (Mrs Hamilton) talked about devolution and the desire for franchising. I have to say, that has been very much driven by this Government. Since 2010, we have looked to devolve more powers to the regions, because we take the view that the regions know best what their local solutions need to be and are represented in many instances by the Mayors that I work with.

The Government’s legislation on buses extended franchising to mayoral regions. Manchester has taken this on and, as was said, some time was taken for that to actually find its place. The West Yorkshire Mayor recently announced that West Yorkshire would be taking franchising forward. The point I make is that if the West Midlands Mayor decides that he wishes to take forward franchising for buses, that is a power we have devolved down, and that will be a matter for them. We will support that bid, as we have others. I want to be absolutely clear that that would not have happened had we not devolved those powers and had the Mayors not taken them on.

To the hon. Member for North Shropshire, the Command Paper on Network North made it clear that the Oswestry to Gobowen line would be reopened, with a new stop at Park Hall. Local to the area, we are looking to build a new station in Meir on the existing Crewe to Derby line and reopen the disused Barrow Hill and Stoke to Leek line. That commitment was there, and we will be bringing more detail on that forward, so I can give her that assurance.

My right hon. Friend the Member for South Staffordshire (Sir Gavin Williamson) asked about the Access for All programme. I can say that 230 stations have been given step-free access, which is really important to allow all members of the community, particularly those most vulnerable, to use their railway stations. That point was also raised by the hon. Member for North Shropshire. Looking at the next tranche, we have 300 really good bids and will be looking shortly to announce the latest that we will take forward. There was a £350 million commitment from Network North to further roll out Access for All and improve accessibility at stations. That is really important. We also want to get delivered those we have already promised. I am determined and committed on that particular front.

My right hon. Friend the Member for South Staffordshire never fails to push for more rail services. He is right on the Chase line electrification about the growth in passengers and more frequent services in rail. He has pressed me for more investment so that the weekday services Penkridge receives can be transferred to weekends and that Stone station gets its direct service to Manchester. I am taking forward the matter with those he has asked me to, and I will certainly convey his concerns on pothole funding to the roads Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Hexham (Guy Opperman). I will ensure that I write back to any other hon. Member who has raised points today with more detail.

To conclude, I am delighted that my hon. Friend the Member for Redditch has given us all the opportunity to discuss, debate and celebrate the significant investment that has been made available for transport in the west midlands, particularly in her constituency of Redditch. She always pushes for more for her constituents, and we always listen to her and will continue to do so. The Government’s Network North plan will continue investing in the journeys that matter to local people, bringing jobs, opportunities and growth to this region and beyond. I am pleased we have been able to debate the matter this afternoon.

[Rachel Maclean]

This has been an excellent debate, very well supported by colleagues from all over the wider west midlands region. I want to extend my thanks to all my colleagues across the House, including those from Northern Ireland, who have taken part, highlighting the vital importance of transport connectivity, whether it is bus, rail—of course, that is the Minister’s own portfolio—active travel such as walking and cycling or other means of transport, or the use of the car, which is the essential route to freedom for our constituents. We must continue to enable constituents to use their cars to travel around their areas. I am proud to represent my constituency and the concerns of people across Redditch and the villages. Transport affects everybody every day, whether they are going to work, going out with their friends, or going to study and improve their opportunities.

I look forward to the Minister’s response on the numerous points I have put to him. I am sure he will come back with a comprehensive response, which I will be anticipating eagerly and sharing with my constituents. Thank you, Mr Henderson, and I thank the Minister.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House has considered Government funding for transport in the West Midlands.

Safety of Rwanda (Asylum and Immigration) Bill

Rachel Maclean Excerpts

Consideration of Lords message
Wednesday 17th April 2024 Commons Chamber

[Dame Diana Johnson (Kingston upon Hull North) (Lab)]

The Government’s motion to disagree with Lords amendment 1D is a motion to disagree with the Government’s obligation in relation to the Bill to have due regard for international law and the Children Act 1989, the Human Rights Act 1998 and the Modern Slavery Act 2015. If the Government are confident that the Rwanda scheme will be fully compliant with international law and the aforementioned domestic law, I do not understand why they are rejecting this amendment again.

The motion to disagree with Lords amendment 3E would scrap the requirement inserted by the Lords that Rwanda be treated as a safe country only if and when protections contained in the treaty are judged by the independent monitoring committee to have been implemented and to remain implemented. Surely Lords amendment 3E is an entirely proper and legal amendment if the Government deem that the measure in their own treaty is necessary? Given that Members had no opportunity to debate that treaty prior to ratification, the amendment would at least provide some reassurance that the protections it contains will be put into practice.

The motion to disagree with Lords amendment 6D is a motion to deny individual grounds for legal challenge that the Republic of Rwanda is a safe country for the person in question or for a group of persons, or that there is a real risk that Rwanda will remove or send those persons to another state. The Home Affairs Committee has always been clear that there has to be the opportunity for appropriate legal challenge as a necessary part of our fair asylum system.

I listened very carefully to the Minister’s assurances about the specified category that could be used in the future, but amendment 10D sets out very clearly why such provisions should be included on the face of the Bill and our obligations to those who have helped us and our armed forces overseas. That amendment would be the right thing to add to the Bill.

[Rachel Maclean (Redditch) (Con)]

As I was watching Aston Villa smash Arsenal on Sunday, my thoughts turned to today’s debate because, as Aston Villa fans will know, the Emirates stadium is of course sponsored by the Visit Rwanda scheme, and Arsenal play with those words emblazoned on their shirts.

I strongly support the Government’s position as set out by the reasons articulated by my right hon. and learned Friend the excellent Minister for Countering Illegal Migration. More than that, though, behind all these amendments, this ping-pong, the Reasons Room, and this process, which is quite baffling to my constituents, lies a simple question: is this Parliament sovereign or not? I believe I was sent to this Parliament to make laws in the interests of my constituents in Redditch. They are a generous people—we have accepted refugees from around the world and given them a warm Redditch welcome—but in the interests of stability and security, and protecting those British values and the culture that we all care about, they also ask that we enact measures to enable our country to control our borders. This whole debate is really summed up by the question of whether or not we in the west are able to control our borders, because we all know that this is going to get much worse. Some 100 million people are on the move.

The Opposition spokesman, the hon. Member for Aberavon (Stephen Kinnock), talked about having more grown-ups in the room and talking more nicely. Perhaps the people smugglers will listen to that and stop putting people in small boats, but somehow I doubt it—it is complete and utter nonsense. We are sent to this place to make hard choices, not emote and do things that make us feel good in the moment. We have to stand on one side, with the sovereignty of this Parliament and the people of Redditch, and this Bill is the way to do so. Let us get Rwanda done. We will stop these boats and make our country safer.

[John McDonnell (Hayes and Harlington) (Lab)]

We are at that stage in the legislative process where Government obstinacy sometimes overcomes rationality. There is no way that these can be described as wrecking amendments—I wish they were, but they are not. Lords amendment 3E simply uses the Government’s own mechanism to ensure, as Conservative Members have said, that Parliament has the opportunity to change its judgment when the facts change. Anyone who has any experience of the history of this region of Africa realises that there is built-in instability, and therefore we may well need to come back to this matter, although I hope we do not.

My Northern Ireland colleague the right hon. Member for East Antrim (Sammy Wilson) asked about Lords amendment 10D, and the ministerial response was that we should not worry because the fact that a number of veterans sit in Cabinet means that the system will work for those who served in Afghanistan. I am sorry, but so far, the veterans sitting around the Cabinet table have not ensured that. Many of us have dealt with individual cases, and all Lords amendment 10D would do is ensure that we live up to our commitment that those who served alongside us, putting their lives and those of their families at risk, will be secure. The existing scheme has not worked in that way, but Lords amendment 10D would ensure that it did in the future.

My final point is that I came to this place on the basis that Parliament was all about protecting its citizens and ensuring that they have safety but also access to law. Baroness Chakrabarti’s amendment 6D simply ensures that Parliament fulfils that role—it certainly is not a wrecking amendment.

Oral Answers to Questions

Rachel Maclean Excerpts

Monday 26th February 2024 Commons Chamber

[The Minister for Countering Illegal Migration (Michael Tomlinson)]

As the right hon. Lady knows, Mr Neal’s appointment was terminated after he breached the terms of his appointment and lost the trust of the Home Secretary in relation to the reports that she mentions. As she would expect, reports and recommendations are always considered carefully by Ministers, and they will be published in due course.

[Rachel Maclean (Redditch) (Con)]

The slogan that was projected on to Big Ben last Wednesday was extreme and antisemitic. To many, it calls for the destruction of Israel and is seen as a genocidal statement. Decent people around the country—not just Jews—find that appalling. Does the Minister agree that there are criminal offences that could be used for prosecutions, and will he reiterate his calls for the police to prosecute those responsible?

[Chris Philp]

I share my hon. Friend’s view. As the former Attorney General my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Northampton North (Sir Michael Ellis) pointed out a few minutes ago, there were a number of bases on which the police could have acted to prevent that projection. Big Ben is not a canvas for political campaigning, particularly where the slogans are deeply offensive in nature, and that is a view I have made very clear to the commissioner.

Deportation of Foreign National Offenders

Rachel Maclean Excerpts

Wednesday 7th February 2024 Westminster Hall

[Rachel Maclean (Redditch) (Con)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the deportation of foreign national offenders.

It is a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Gray. Let me start with a quote:

“Never in the history of the world have there been so many migrants. And almost all of them are migrating from regions where nationality is weak or non-existent to the established nation states of the West. They are not migrating because they have discovered some previously dormant feeling of love or loyalty towards the nations in whose territory they seek a home. On the contrary, few of them identify their loyalties in national terms and almost none of them in terms of the nation where they settle.”

Roger Scruton wrote those words in 2004.

I have often spoken of the generous and welcoming nature of the people of Redditch. My constituents have opened their hearts and their homes and shown love to strangers from Syria, Ukraine and all over the world who are now our neighbours and friends. But as a Conservative, I defend my right to tell the truth to the British people about the abuse of our homes and communities that is facilitated by some in our asylum and immigration systems, and in our courts and tribunals, in the name of kindness and virtue signalling. I am choosing my words very carefully, because I know many will try to discredit my remarks. Note my use of the word “some”—it does not mean all. It might be a small number, but nevertheless the public expect us to take this seriously.

Our critics attack us. They say it is heartless and cruel—or, bizarrely, far right—to believe that the people who have lived all their lives in our country should have a say in how many more people come to it, or to aver that the people who come to our country should respect our laws, traditions and culture and that, if they do not, they should be sent back to where they come from. That is why I secured this debate.

According to the Crown Prosecution Service, the number of foreign national offenders subject to deportation action living in the community has risen year on year for the last decade and has reached nearly 12,000, a 192% increase since 2012. That is 12,000 criminals free to roam our streets while they exploit our legal system at taxpayers’ expense to stay here longer.

As that number has climbed over the last decade, the number of people we return to other countries has fallen: total enforced returns dropped from 15,134 in 2012 to 5,506 in the year ending September 2023. Meanwhile, 10,321 FNOs are on the prison estate. According to Ministry of Justice figures, in 2021-22, the average cost per prisoner per year was £31,000. Add to that the legal fees involved in getting them to prison in the first place, and the figure runs into the hundreds of millions every year.

We must raise our eyes and stop thinking that the United Kingdom is uniquely afflicted by this problem and that our own Government are the only ones battling it. Every country around the world is dealing with spiralling immigration. None has ready solutions. All face the same issues of democratic consent. Take the EU: 2.3 million immigrants entered the bloc from non-EU countries in 2021, an increase of almost 18% compared with 2020. The tiny Italian island of Lampedusa was last year overwhelmed by 7,000 migrants—more than its entire population of 6,000. The EU does not have the answers.

According to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, at the end of 2022, 108.4 million people worldwide were displaced. That represents an increase of 19 million people wanting to leave their own country compared with the end of 2021—more than the population of Ecuador, the Netherlands or Somalia. Of course, many of those aspire to come to European nations in the west, including the UK, and we have always done our part in this country. In the UK, net migration has been a major component of population over the past two decades, making up 60% of the growth from 2001 to 2020.

It is a fact of human nature that not everybody is a good person. That is something that Jesus of Nazareth—we will come to him—knew. When numbers of immigrants rise, most—the vast majority—are good people, but proportionately more bad people will be among their number. In this country, we are open hearted, generous and tolerant to those who treat us with respect and are willing to abide by our laws. But we have all seen the examples of people that we have welcomed to our homes who only wish to harm or kill us, our families and our communities. They are people who have no intention of returning the love and support that we have shown them, and they have treated our country as a dormitory, and sometimes as a cash machine, to bring their relatives in by the back door.

Our constituents are not naïve. They know that people of any nationality are capable of sinning, lying and evil, but they do not expect our country to be an offshore prison facility for criminals from all over the world. They elect us to keep people safe in their beds at night and on our streets, and to get foreign criminals out of our country and let their own societies rehabilitate them. Every sovereign nation has the right to control its borders. This is not far-right rhetoric; it is centred on common sense.

Why, despite everything that the Conservative Government have done, are the numbers going the wrong way? I served as a Minister both in the Home Office and in the Ministry of Justice. It is a true pleasure to have my right hon. Friend the Member for Witham (Priti Patel), with whom it was my privilege to serve in the Home Office, here today. She will know, as I do, just how many obstacles exist to deporting people who should not be here, despite the excellent people who work in the Home Office.

I think most people would be surprised to learn, for example, that foreigners convicted of crimes that attract sentences of less than 12 months can still be granted asylum and stay here. Why? Conservatives have done more than ever before to tackle the concerning rise in illegal migration and criminality, and to clamp down on the merry-go-round of spurious asylum claims, but a thicket of legal instruments, treaties and conventions still exists, which gives foreign national offenders grounds to escape deportation. I know it is difficult, but we must do more.

A new loophole is emerging that is ripe for exploitation, and I am genuinely worried about it. It is the fear of persecution if returned, on the grounds of religious conversion, especially from Islam to Christianity. Every single person in this Chamber, if they are truthful with themselves, can imagine the situation: you are a migrant on the Bibby Stockholm or in a British jail, about to be sent back to Somalia. A nice legal aid lawyer or non-governmental organisation appears in front of you with a script to follow and explains that a miracle can happen. Next thing, the light appears and you are a Christian.

The prime suspect in the Clapham case was given asylum on the second time of asking, despite being charged with sexual assault and indecent exposure in 2018. He claimed that he had converted to Christianity, meaning he would have been at risk of persecution if he returned to Afghanistan. The suicide bomber who attacked Liverpool Women’s Hospital, Emad al-Swealmeen, had, following a failed initial asylum claim, converted from Islam to Christianity. I tried to find figures for how many other FNOs have evaded deportation because of this issue, but I was unable to. I understand that the Home Secretary is looking at this, so I am sure that the Minister can update us.

Jesus understood compassion to foreigners and strangers, as we read in the Bible. The words “refugee” and “asylum seeker” do not appear anywhere in Holy Scripture—and who would argue in all seriousness that the world of the tribes of Israel in Egypt some four millennia ago was anything like the same as it is today? But Jesus was a student of human nature. He understood the temptation to lie. As students of human nature and intelligent people in this place, we should be brave enough to acknowledge this. Only God can look into my heart and my personal Christian faith, with all its flaws, and know whether I believe in him or not. We are asking the impossible of our clergymen. They are not God, and to pretend that they are is the ultimate mass delusion.

Do not gaslight us and say that this is not a situation ripe for abuse. Desperate people do desperate things. We should blame not the people—I emphasise that I do not blame them—but the incentives and the policy structures that allow this to take place. The British people feel, as I do, that we have allowed ourselves to become taken advantage of. We have been quite literally killing ourselves with kindness. If we continue this way, we risk eroding trust in our institutions and structures of government—the very things that we build our nation on.

I do not know about you, Mr Gray, but I was shocked to discover that the BBC has permitted a former employee to give evidence at immigration tribunals supporting 15 convicted Somalian criminals, including rapists. Some of that number have been given leave to remain in the UK after their trials and appeals based on her evidence. Do people pay their licence fee for this? What message does it send to the victims, some of them children, of these evil foreign thugs?

I come now to the most important part of my speech. It is only Conservative values, centred on our belief in a strong nation state, that have any answers to this wicked problem. We are the only ones prepared to stand up and fight for our hard-won peace. We are the only ones who are making progress, difficult though it is, over the longer term to fight to protect our democracy and our safety.

Let us look at what the Labour party is doing as we approach the next election—perhaps they have a plan. What do we see when we look deeper? Members of the current Labour Front Bench—including the right hon. and learned Member for Holborn and St Pancras (Keir Starmer) when campaigning to be the leader of the Labour party—signed a letter calling for the suspension of a flight to deport 50 offenders to Jamaica and the suspension of all future charter flights. One hundred and fifty-one Labour MPs and peers, as well as Liberal Democrats and Members of other Opposition parties, and celebrities, signed the letter calling for the flight to be scrapped. It is hardly surprising, when they are led by someone who once claimed there was a

“racist undercurrent which permeates all immigration law”.

Among those who escaped deportation that day was heroin dealer Akiva Heaven, who had already served four years in prison and went on to be jailed again in May 2021 for dealing cocaine and heroin. If that was not bad enough, one of the criminals Labour Members so generously campaigned on behalf of, Ernesto Elliott, went on to commit murder. How can we ever trust them? These people are only interested in a free ride on the virtue-signalling train with their celebrity mates. They might try to persuade the British public that they have changed, but they are, and they remain, a risk to our national security.

I know exactly what they will say—that it is the easy attack, that it is all our fault, that we have been in government for 14 years. I am afraid that that perfectly demonstrates my point. Their flat denial that this is a global, emergent and unpredictable threat—a new threat in many respects—tells the British people that they have no serious plan to tackle it. Worse, they maintain the fantasy that all can be solved by talking in a nicer way to the EU.

What we need is a cultural change. First, we must protect our homes and our families. Patriotism grows from the soil of trust. People who care about our country as their own, no matter where they have come from, will put their lives on the line to defend it. Scruton speaks of the educated derision that has been directed at our national loyalty by those whose freedom to criticise would have been extinguished years ago had the English not been prepared to die for their country.

We all know who those critics are—the celebrity on a humanitarian crusade to boost their flagging career; some institutions, including some in the Church of England, some of its leaders, some universities and some in the BBC; and that ballooning charity, legal aid and NGO racket. They can burnish their compassion credentials and bottom lines with a few clicks. I say to them: this is on you. You must take your share of responsibility. You are recklessly and dangerously tossing away our national inheritance, which has, as the German poet Goethe said, been laboriously earned by our forefathers from Christianity, imperial government and Roman law. I call on the Minister and the Home Secretary to urgently revisit the legal frameworks underpinning the exemptions on grounds of religion and faith.

I ask the following questions to the excellent Minister, who is to be commended for the vigour and effectiveness he has brought to his brief. Why does he think we have seen a downward trend in the number of FNOs being deported, and what steps are he and the Government taking to address the issue? How many have been granted asylum after being sentenced for a crime? Does he think that the current arrangements, which permit those sentenced for less than 12 months to be granted asylum, are adequate?

I thank everyone who has supported the debate. I finish by reminding us that our generation has a solemn duty to our country. Goethe, again:

“What you have inherited from your forefathers, earn it, that you might own it.”

Earning it, we will own it, and owning it, we will be at peace within our borders.

--- Later in debate ---

[Rachel Maclean]

That is not what I said.

[Alison Thewliss]

The hon. Lady said that it is the current Government’s fault. She is quite correct in saying that. The Conservatives have been in control for quite some time now, and they have failed on numerous occasions to deal with the situation.

Stephen Shaw’s review of the issue identified many areas in which the Home Office had failed to deal properly with foreign national offenders. I appreciate that time is limited, but I want particularly to pick up on the excellent point from the hon. Member for East Lothian (Kenny MacAskill) about our responsibilities to people who are more British than foreign. Stephen Shaw reflected on that in his review, saying that

“a significant proportion of those deemed FNOs had grown up in the UK, some having been born here but the majority having arrived in very early childhood. These detainees often had strong UK accents, had been to UK schools, and all of their close family and friends were based in the UK… Many had no command of the language of the country to which they were to be ‘returned’, or any remaining families ties there… The removal of these individuals raises real ethical issues.”

He also said that

“the twelve month sentence criterion for deportation in the UK Borders Act is not a very good guide to criminality”—

we can all think of sentences of 12 months or so that are not the types of sentences that some hon. Members read out earlier. He further said:

“I find the policy of removing individuals brought up here from infancy to be deeply troubling. For low-risk offenders, it seems entirely disproportionate to tear them away from their lives, families and friends in the UK, and send them to countries where they may not speak the language or have any ties.”

If we believe in rehabilitation, that means that if I were to commit a crime, I would go to prison, serve my sentence, and then be considered rehabilitated; I would not be sent to another country. We have a double standard in how we treat these people.

Stephen Shaw’s review also points out the inability of caseworkers to manage the FNOs within the system currently. It makes it clear that they are not being well managed, that casework is not being well managed and that people are not being prepared for return. He feels that all those circumstances lead to a risk that people will be brought back to a life of crime and will not be rehabilitated at all.

The independent chief inspector of borders and immigration has expressed the same concerns, saying:

“This is no way to run a government department.”

There is a lot that the UK Government could be doing better to achieve some of the aims that Government Members would put forward.

--- Later in debate ---

[Rachel Maclean]

Thank you, Mr Gray. I am extremely grateful for every single right hon. and hon. Member who contributed and made excellent points. I do not agree with them all, but they nevertheless reflected their constituents’ concerns. I am very grateful to the Minister for his full response. Although he had only a short period of time, he covered a number of points that were deeply concerning to me, my constituents in Redditch and the constituents of others. I will definitely take him up on the invitation to apply for another debate, because I think we have many more matters to discuss.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House has considered the deportation of foreign national offenders.

Leasehold and Freehold Reform Bill (Second sitting)

Rachel Maclean Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 16th January 2024 Public Bill Committees

[Ms Rimmer]

Q Is it fair to say that you are content with the provisions that the Government have put in the Bill?

Professor Hopkins: It is fair to say that what the Bill does will be of substantial benefit to leaseholders.

[Rachel Maclean (Redditch) (Con)]

Q Thank you for all your work. Can you remind the Committee how many recommendations you made in total?

Professor Hopkins: Across enfranchisement, right to manage, and commonhold, we made around 350 recommendations.

[Rachel Maclean]

Q And how many did you make on commonhold?

Professor Hopkins: I think we made around 120.

[Rachel Maclean]

Q You had to go through a long process. When did you start your deliberations on the commonhold provisions?

Professor Hopkins: We began it as a package of work that was being conducted in parallel. We began in 2017 as part of the 13th programme that we published in December of that year. We published three consultation papers on enfranchisement, right to manage, and commonhold. We ran public consultations from September 2018 to January 2019. We received around 1,800 responses across those papers, and around 1,600 responses to leasehold surveys that we undertook for enfranchisement and right to manage. Then, in 2020, on the basis of all the evidence we had, we published four reports: a report setting out options relating to valuation to reduce the price payable, and then a report on each of enfranchisement, the right to manage, and commonhold in July of that year.

[Rachel Maclean]

Q So you started your work in 2017.

Professor Hopkins: Yes.

[Rachel Maclean]

Q Without going through all the work that you have just described, what is the risk if the Government adopt policies or measures such as making commonhold the default position?

Professor Hopkins: We have to separate the two issues. Our work on commonhold was designed to provide the legal fixes needed so that commonhold can work. In our report we concluded that commonhold is the preferred alternative to leasehold. The question of whether commonhold becomes a default or whether it is mandated was not a matter on which we were asked to provide advice to the Government. You need the legal fixes to be in place, though, and then the decision must be made about what is done in order to ensure that commonhold is given a fair chance.

[Rachel Maclean]

Q Thank you for that clarification. As a follow-up, if any Government adopted a policy on commonhold such as has been talked about sometimes, but without doing the legal fixes, what would be the risk?

Professor Hopkins: The risk at the moment is that the legal regime that governs commonhold is too rigid. It does not apply effectively in larger, mixed-use developments, because they were not envisaged at the time. The risk is that you mandate a legal regime that does not work. You need a legal regime that works, which could then be mandated if that is what the Government chose to do.

[Barry Gardiner (Brent North) (Lab)]

Q First of all, let me thank you for the Law Commission’s work, which was extensive and hugely helpful. I am conscious that the recommendations on structural dependency rules have not been adopted by the Government in the drafting of the Bill. Even those leaseholders who are going to benefit from the uplift of 25% to 50% of the non-residential limit in the Bill may still be disqualified, because of the shared plant room in underground car parks and so on. Do you believe it would be preferable and helpful to introduce into the Bill at Committee stage some of the recommendations that you made on that?

Professor Hopkins: I do not think I would like to comment on whether specific amendments or recommendations could be introduced. They would have to be seen in the light of what they would do to the scheme that is in the Bill and how the provisions interrelate. That basic uplift from 25% to 50% is significant and will enable many more leaseholders to exercise their rights. There are perhaps things around the edges, but what is there is beneficial.

--- Later in debate ---

[Matthew Pennycook]

Q But it would not necessarily require primary legislation—or would it, in your view, in terms of how you would implement such a recommendation?

Matt Brewis: It does not require primary legislation for the market to do it itself, as it is seeking to do at the moment, working with us, working with the brokers and working with colleagues at DLUHC.

[Rachel Maclean]

Q Mr Brewis, thank you for coming here. Is it within your remit or do you have any helpful information for the Committee to understand a point that has been put to me and that I am seeking to test with you, which is that when some of these freeholds have been sold off in the past, the insurance obviously is then sold off—sorry, let me start again; it is very complicated. The contention is that in the past some leaseholds have been sold off or converted, so now the freeholder, which may be an insurance company or a pension scheme, does not have that income stream that it used to have, and there is a consequent risk on insurance companies or pension funds that have previously been reliant on that income stream to make the returns to the pensioners. Is that something that you recognise? Do you have any powers to update us on it? Do you have any powers to investigate it? Do you have any thoughts on it?

Matt Brewis: If I understand your question correctly, you are saying, “Is there pressure on freeholders to charge more to make increased returns to pension funds?” I cannot answer that question, I am afraid; it was not part of our review to date. Sorry, I cannot tell you—

[Rachel Maclean]

Q Okay, but do you recognise that as an issue, if I can put it that way? It is a fact that in the past some leaseholders have been able to buy out their freeholds, so the freeholder then would not have the income stream from the insurance—

Matt Brewis: I understand. What we have found in the past is that actually, for the insurance part, it is not necessarily a panacea for leaseholders to take over the freehold, because, as I was just explaining, when you have a pooled number of properties, that can reduce the cost. We have found, for leaseholders who have tried to insure their building on their own, that it has proved more costly when they have done so. That is more to do with market dynamics and trying to insure one building as opposed to a portfolio of buildings. It does not necessarily follow that it is cheaper for leaseholders who have taken over the freehold to—

[Rachel Maclean]

Q That is really helpful, although it was not quite what I was trying to get at. If you are a freeholder, you may also be an insurer. A lot of big freeholders are insurers, and pension funds and so on, that are underwriting the pensions of many people in the country—in the NHS and so on. The claim that they have made is that in the past some of the leaseholders have bought out their freeholds. I might have slightly misunderstood the situation, but it has been put to me that, now that this flow of insurance is no longer coming to the insurers—or, to put it another way, now that the service charges and so on that are paid by the leaseholder to the freeholder are no longer coming to the insurance industry—that will somehow destabilise the insurers’ balance sheets and make them unable to meet their commitments. Is that something that you recognise, from your industry perspective? I am not talking about the individual leaseholder.

Matt Brewis: I do not believe that the size of the insurance part of the market is significant enough to destabilise any firms. I have not heard that claim before, but I do not think that this part of the market, in the types of firms that we are talking about, is of a size that would cause structural issues.

[Mike Amesbury]

Q In September, Sheldon Mills, an executive director at the FCA, issued a strong statement:

“Insurance firms must now act in leaseholders’ best interests and ensure that their policies provide fair value.”

Now I will give you a live case, which happens to be in a neighbouring constituency to mine. It is called The Decks. They have a remediation day and Taylor Wimpey has accepted responsibility, yet insurance premiums are going up again—poor value and high cost, as I think was cited in the review. New year was going to be a new broom to intervene and shape the market, yet you have got insurance companies like this, and many more up and down the country, laughing at people in this room—key stakeholders such as yourselves. What are you going to do? What powers have you got to intervene? Also, we have discussed insurance. Are clauses 31 to 33 in part 3 sufficient to deal with the issue?

Matt Brewis: Our new rules around ensuring that these products are fair value came into force on 31 December last year. The cost of insurance of multiple-occupancy buildings has increased, and our report of 2022 found that this was not an area where insurers were making significant profits, or super-profits, of any form because of a number of different parts—around fire safety risks, but more to do with some of the structural issues around the quality of the buildings and how they had been constructed. Escape of water was something that was causing significant losses in these buildings.

We found some of the biggest issues around the brokerage charges, which were increasing, and the payaways—payments that insurance brokers were making to property managing agents for services that they were apparently providing for them. So our new rules require them to be very clear what value they are providing and how they are doing that as brokers, as managing agents, and for that to be made clear to the leaseholders. We are undertaking reviews of those with a number of firms. This will provide leaseholders with more information so that they can challenge their freeholders, so that they can challenge the insurers and the brokers at a tribunal if necessary.

Where this Bill goes one step further is that although, as I have explained, we are not responsible for the managing agents or the freeholders, by effectively banning those payments of any commissions, as the Bill does in the clauses that you mention, it will go significantly further than I can with the powers that the FCA has to restrict the payments to other parties and therefore to reduce the cost to leaseholders. In my view, this is in line with the recommendations that we made in that report and results in a better product—a cheaper product—for leaseholders.

--- Later in debate ---

[Barry Gardiner]

Q It is the imbalance of power.

Halima Ali: Yes.

[Rachel Maclean]

Q Harry, can I just ask you a couple of things? On the forfeiture point, is it your view that there is absolutely nothing in the Bill to prevent the forfeiture issue?

Harry Scoffin: There are not specific provisions to improve the position on forfeiture. I would love it to be abolished, but if we have to have some form of mechanism that is still going to be called “forfeiture”, at least say that if it happens, the equity is returned to the departing leaseholder when the flat is sold and it is just the debt that the freeholder gets back. The idea that he gets a windfall is obscene. That has to go. At the moment, forfeiture can kick in at £350, so what some law firms are doing is, for a breach of lease, a 350-quid charge, so forfeiture already kicks in there. So bring that up. Some people have suggested £5,000. I would go even higher—£5,000 is the figure for personal bankruptcy proceedings—and bring it up to £10,000.

There will be these freeloading freeholders that will come before you today or on Thursday and say, “Well, if these leaseholders are not paying, the whole building is going to fall to rack and ruin. It’ll be like this country in the 1970s where the bins weren’t getting collected and bodies were piling up. You’ve got to keep the lights on in a block of flats.” What you say to them is, “Sue for a money judgment.”

[Rachel Maclean]

Do not worry: I know what to say to them. That is fine.

Harry Scoffin: Yes, you know. Okay, good. The point is that we do not need forfeiture, but if you cannot abolish it, at least get rid of the windfall.

[Rachel Maclean]

Q Thank you. I will ask a second question, if I may. You mentioned the issue of the pump room. Can you explain very briefly what the issue of the pump room is? Is this for a conversion or an enfranchisement claim? Where is the pump room issue coming into play?

Harry Scoffin: It is for mixed-use buildings that would otherwise benefit from the 25% non-residential premises limit going up to 50%. Let us say that you have an underground car park, a plant room or maybe, more recently, a heat network. Basically, because you are now linked, almost like Siamese twins, with a hotel, for example, or some shops, under the current 2002 Act for right to manage and even the 1993 Act for buying your freehold, you are out. So even though the Law Commission and the Government mean well, saying, “We’re going to liberate mixed-use leaseholders,” for many of those mixed-use leaseholders, where they are completely linked with the commercial, it is game over; you will never be able to qualify. That definitely needs to be revisited because the Government will not get any political benefit from moving, rightly, from 25% up to 50% and even to mandatory leasebacks for when you buy the commercial.

The quick argument—the Law Commission understood it—is that at the moment, the plant room will normally be managed, yes, by the hotel, but the freeholder for the flats will appoint a managing agent who will also have access to the plant room. We are not changing that position. The only difference is that the managing agent that the freeholder appointed, who has access to the plant room, would now be working directly for people like my mum. So it is not disrupting—we are not going to become hoteliers. We are not going to become shop owners. If we rely on a service and are paying for it—53%, mind—we should have access to it, but the key thing is that we need the right to manage. Without right to manage, or without buying the freehold, you are, literally, perpetually in this abusive relationship with a freeholder who has your cheque book and is spending it how he likes, whether that is reasonable or not. That is a fact.

On the point about section 24, that needs to be revisited so that the manager, where a tribunal deems it appropriate, can be the accountable person. In our building, we have mobilised—ironically, it is over 50% of the leaseholders. We now face going back to them—with their cash, by the way—and saying, “We can’t now get one because of this unintended consequence of the Building Safety Act”. That is a quick bit of drafting— I have spoken to lawyers about it. It would be very easy for you guys and that would help, particularly on cladding developments, where the cladding is not getting done because the freeholders are sitting on their hands. You need an officer of the court who is going to turn around the development and be accountable.

Karolina Zoltaniecka: Can I say something about the right to manage? At the moment, the process is so complex. There are three notices that need to be served. I believe there needs to be only one, to say to the freeholder, “We are taking over the right to manage and this is the date we are going to do it on”, and that is it. There are solicitors who specialise in analysing notices to pick holes in them to prolong the process, so that leaseholders give up, and costs just go up and up. And I completely agree with the forfeiture point from Harry. It is unnecessary and a breach of lease, and especially, arrears can be taken to the county court to recover if the arrears are real.

[Mike Amesbury]

Q Is leasehold ownership home ownership?

Harry Scoffin: No, it is a tenancy scam. You do not own anything. You own the right to sell on a bit of space in a flat you occupy. You do not own, even though you may have paid a freehold price and you thought you owned it—you do not.

--- Later in debate ---

[Matthew Pennycook]

Q Thank you, ladies, for your time. Unless I have overlooked them, there are no provisions in the Bill to mandate or impose any requirements on time and fee for providing home buying and selling information. Several witnesses referred to that being a problem and to not having relevant information at the point of a sale going through. Should those clauses be added to the Bill?

Kate Faulkner: There are various issues. I heard one of the best descriptions of this recently, which was that, if I ask you to bake a cake with 20 ingredients but I only give you five of them, it is a bit difficult to do. Once you have made the offer and the legal companies have had a look at it and at the agreements, in a couple of months’ time you might get up to 10 of those ingredients. Eventually, four or five months later, you might have all 20 and you can then buy and sell that property. That is the biggest problem we have.

One of the massive opportunities with the Bill is to mandate the information required for people to understand what they are purchasing with a leasehold property. A key thing that we do not have in the property sector that other areas have—I have worked in the health, beauty, food and drink sectors—is an awful lot of natural education on how to buy things. We have nothing; there is no natural education of the public in our sector, apart from in the media, where any property story is particularly negative.

The work we are doing now has been fantastic. It has improved consumers’ education so that they really understand what they are buying into and that leasehold is very different from freehold, but they have now got the impression that leasehold is a bad thing. When leasehold works, it is not a bad thing.

From my perspective, and certainly from all the work we do with our participants on the Home Buying and Selling Group, it is essential that information be provided up front. Fantastic work has been done by the group that worked with trading standards, who now require up-front information, but it is not mandated. Although agents are supposed to understand all the property rules and regulations, from the discussion you had earlier, apparently nobody thinks that they should be qualified, and there is no regulation, so one problem is that agents have no idea about the trading standards up-front information that is coming through. A lot of good work is being done; the issue is that it is not working on the ground.

On leasehold specifically, people have to get hold of leasehold packs. There is a cost associated with them, and the time it takes can be excruciating. Anything that can be done to cap those costs would be welcome, but we need to make sure that quality is still required. The danger of the cost being too low is that we do not get quality leasehold packs, and they are essential due to the complexity of leasehold. The time it takes is also essential. Mandating up-front information specifically for leasehold would help us to reduce fall-throughs and reduce the time it takes, but most importantly, it would mean that people could get on with their lives more quickly than they currently can.

Beth Rudolf: I am the co-ordinator of the leasehold property enquiry form and the freehold management enquiry form, which are supported by TPI, RICS, the Law Society, the Conveyancing Association and right across the sector. The intention of the forms was to create a standard template for the information required. It is noticeable that, of the questions raised, only five are time-sensitive, such as failings to pay ground rent or the current budget—the kinds of things that change over time. Most of the information is standardised across the whole of that estate; nothing is going to change. Certainly, when we were looking at the regulation of property agents with Lord Best, it was clear that some of the bigger managing agents already have templated tenant portals where people can go to get that information. That needs to be put across the whole of the leasehold sector, the rent charges and the managed freehold estates, because we are seeing charges of up to £800 for the information.

We are also seeing the duplication of those charges. We will go to the landlord and they will say, “We only answer the ground rent ones, but we still want £400 to answer those. You will need to go to the managing agent to get the information about the service charges.” The managing agent says, “Right, well, we charge £400 for that, but you will need to go to the Tenants Association to get information about disputes and consents,” and so it goes on.

The timescale to getting the information having paid for it is about 57 days. For the consumer, it is an absolute nightmare. As Kate says, guidance from National Trading Standards came out on 30 November 2023 which sets out the material information—the information that would be relevant to the average consumer. It is not all the information. What we need mandated is what information and what data should be reviewed to identify what the relevant material information is, because without that how do we know if somebody has the information from the leasehold property inquiries or from the seller’s or the estate agent’s guesswork? Certainly, without the regulation of property agents, there is nothing to say, if they do just make it up, that anybody can take anything against them. We absolutely need that to be incorporated. It was promised and there was an announcement, I think, in 2018 that the leasehold property inquiry information should be made available at a cost of £200, with a refreshment fee for those time-sensitive elements of £50, and that that information should be made available within 10 working days. We have still not seen that and there is nothing in the Bill that identifies that.

[Rachel Maclean]

Q I have one question for each witness. Kate, if I can come to you first. You made the point that leasehold works for some leaseholders. We know that there are something like 4.98 million leasehold properties. How many would you say it is working for? That might be impossible, but what is your gut feeling?

Kate Faulkner: I do not think we have ever asked that question, so it is very difficult to answer. Also, the issue with property is that people change a lot. As a result, you could have a block that works brilliantly because we have a wonderful violinist or—my grandma used to own a little place at The Poplars in West Bridgford in Nottingham and, through complications, the family still owns a garage where my grandma used to live. The two guys who run that estate—the guy who does the accounts and the guy who does the overall management—are absolutely fantastic. They are a pleasure to deal with, and it is an extraordinarily well-run block. Now, if either of those were to move on, who knows whether there is anybody to replace them?

If we take another situation—I must say that this was quite a shock for me and I was a bit green in those days—I owned a flat and I thought it was safe to buy because it was owned by a housing association. Thirty per cent of those flats were owned privately. We were treated abominably by that housing association, and I would go as far as to say that they really did not like private leaseholders. I understood; they were social homes originally and they did not want us to own them. I felt we were treated as if we were an ATM machine. The original agreement that we signed up for with the housing association was a good one, but we found that they were changing that agreement over time and changing it so fast with so much paperwork that by the time the roof needed to be replaced, all the reasons we had bought that property, which we thought was safe, had been taken away from us. I know what I am doing and I asked all the right questions, but we still ended up with a situation where we had no control whatsoever over what was happening.

You have two cases there. In one, you have a wonderfully-run estate, but that could change overnight if different people take over, and in the other, you have a situation where I thought I would be safe with the housing association, only to find all the rules were changed.

To give you some idea, I think it is the complexity of this that is so scary. However good anybody is, the missing qualifications are just horrendous. That just has to be sorted. The best way I could describe it to you is that when I moved, I had a bag. Do you remember those big Asda bags? Not the ones that they do now, because they seem to have got smaller, like everything else. I had a big Asda bag, and after owning this flat with the housing association for 10 years, I had three lever-arch files full of paperwork.

When we brought the complaint against the housing association about how they had dealt with the roof renovations, it took a year to take that to a complaint situation. When I suggested that I take it to a first-tier tribunal, I was told—this is one of the good things—that if I drove my other leaseholders into taking them to a first-tier tribunal, it would cost more than £30,000. I was asked whether I wanted that responsibility on my shoulders. Taking that cost off is one of the good things, but my worry is that however good we do, until you give the leaseholders parity with the legals—the surveying and the accounting expertise of the freeholder or agent or whoever it might be—we will still never dig ourselves out of the situation we have. That parity service has to be free, or every leaseholder puts in a hundred quid a year or something to provide them with some sort of service.

[Rachel Maclean]

Q I am conscious of time, so I ask you to be brief in your answers. It is interesting and useful for all of us to hear the other side of the argument. I am not nailing my colours to the mast here. I am just making the argument that some people would argue in favour of leasehold, because it suits some people in certain situations. You have made that argument, but you have been very clear that it is obviously complicated: people can move on, and then they have no protection, and so on. Do you still think there is value in leasehold as a concept, if it can be addressed by the measures in this Bill or maybe some others? Do you still think leasehold should exist, as long as it can be reformed?

Kate Faulkner: Absolutely. That is in one of my notes. If we make sure all houses are freehold, but we keep flats as leasehold, is that a problem? Well, actually, we can make leasehold work. We spend so much time looking at how to solve the bad bit, but what we do not do in this industry—which I have always done in others—is learn how it goes right, and how we can pull everybody up to that standard. We spend so much time looking at what happens when it goes wrong.

[Rachel Maclean]

Q Yes, because there are obviously egregious cases, and it is those that reach our attention. Thank you so much for that, and I will obviously scrutinise your evidence.

Beth, it is often presented that your industry and your members are perhaps part of some of the problems we see, because conveyancing is not done to high standards. We have heard so many times that people do not know what they are buying. Surely, that should be the role of conveyancers? Is it your view that there are some poor people practising in your industry? How much of this leasehold problem would have been avoided if we had had decent conveyancing right from the beginning?

Beth Rudolf: We have to go back to the understanding that, as Kate said, if you only have a few of the ingredients up front, then you are going to give misinformation. For example, let us think that without any information going to the buyer, they have decided to buy that property. Now, their intended use and enjoyment of the property is then what the conveyancer needs to do the due diligence on, to ensure that the buyer gets the information and understands what it means to them.

The issue we have with the current conveyancing process is that because of the dematerialisation of deeds, there is no need to keep deeds packets in fireproof safes any more. Consequently, they are just returned to the property purchaser, who loses them without realising their use, or they keep them really safe and then take them with them to the next property. All of that information goes missing, which means that every time the property is sold, the information and archive of the data has to be reconstructed. If I, as a conveyancer, was selling a property back in 1990, I would just get out the deeds packet and send through the contract pack on the day that a buyer was found. Within that, I could put old local searches, planning and documentation, warranties and guarantees, and insurances.

Now, when I get instructed, I have to start from scratch. I have to go to the lease administrator and planning authority and get all the information. That takes time. The trouble is that, as a buyer’s conveyancer, I am trying to report to the client on the information as it comes in. I hopefully get in the material information that the estate agent gets when they put the property on the market, but then I have to do the transaction form that the Law Society requires, which duplicates what has already been provided, but is slightly different, so you do not get the right information there.

On top of that, I get the search results in, but I probably do not order those until I get the mortgage instructions in. But the mortgage instructions are based on a valuation done by a valuer who did not know what information was available on the lease, so I then have to go back to the valuer and say, “No, you’ve got the wrong information.” By the time I have reported to my client on each thing, I have had to change my story each and every time. So conveyancing transactions take about 20 weeks before you can even exchange contracts, because each time you are trying to recreate the information about the property.

What we need is for the property data to be digitised and stored in property log books at the end of the transaction so that it can then be used when the seller wishes to instruct an estate agent to sell their property. To advertise it, they can then pull down the property pack, get the relevant material and information out of it, and ensure that when the buyer puts their offer in, they know what they are buying, and that the valuer for their mortgage company knows the details about the valuation. Where that happens—in Norway, Denmark and Australia—we see binding offers with cooling-off periods, and the only stress is trying to work out what you are going to move and what stuff you are going to give to charity.

Kate Faulkner: You have to bear in mind that when people are moving, they are also having a baby, getting divorced or getting married—or somebody has died, or they are in debt. Maybe they are trying to get in for a school time. As much as I wear a consumer hat, they are not in the most rational mode.

One of the difficulties that the conveyancer, the agent or anybody else has is actually getting people to sit down and understand the paperwork and what they are doing. We have a huge problem: consumers do not really understand, and do not always take the time to, either, because they just need to get into the property. We have a real education issue. One of the things I would do is work with companies to help them to educate consumers. I have to say that, in all my jobs, getting them to understand from a property perspective is the toughest thing.

That is why we have to bring everything up front. If we wait until they have made an offer and had it accepted, we have lost them—they are interested in what colour the walls are and what the sofa is, and if anybody, such as a surveyor, gets in their way and says, “You shouldn’t buy this property”, they are almost cross with them. The mindset of a consumer during the buying and selling process with property is very different from any other consumer mindset I have ever worked with.

[Chloe Smith in the Chair]

[The Chair]

By way of explanation, for the next 10 minutes I am Caroline Dinenage.

Kate Faulkner: Many congratulations!

--- Later in debate ---

[The Chair]

Thank you very much. I call Rachel Maclean.

[Rachel Maclean]

Q It is nice to see you, Professor Leunig. Why do we have leasehold in this country when other countries do not have it?

Professor Leunig: I think that is a question that people often ask medics: “Why do I have this?” Who cares? The question is, “Am I going to get any better?” I have not got the faintest idea about the origin of leasehold, but I contend to you that that does not matter; all that matters is whether this is an effective system and, if it is not, what we could do either to improve or replace the current system. Those two questions I can answer, but I am afraid that I get an E grade for my answer to the question that you actually asked.

[Rachel Maclean]

Q Okay. You are very frank about that. I just thought that you might have some ideas, but let us move on to the point that you just made, which is that we do have leasehold; we are where we are.

We have a Bill in front of us. What is your view on the Bill? Does it address the problems that we have all heard and are familiar with?

Professor Leunig: It is a step forward; there is no doubt about that. I do not suppose that any person has appeared in front of you today and said, “Oh, this is a terrible step.” I do not suppose anyone has argued that we should keep leasehold for houses or that we should have 99-year leases or 49-year leases or anything like that.

[Rachel Maclean]

No.

Professor Leunig: In that sense, it is obviously a step forward. I have not been here all day, but I am guessing that you have had a consensus on that throughout your evidence sessions. I am part of that consensus. I think that it is very good that leaseholders have increased rights to information and that we are eliminating ground rent for longer leases, although I agree with the person who was sitting here before me—whose name, I think, was Beth Rudolf—that 150 years is a rather long thing before you get rid of ground rent. The case for ground rent seems to me to be extraordinarily weak. I think that it would be better to move to commonhold.

First of all, I should say that I am not a lawyer. Indeed, once, when I made a remark about the law in a meeting with one of your predecessors as Housing Minister, said Minister remarked that, as an analyst, I should know better than anyone else that the first four letters of analyst stand for, “am not a lawyer”, which, I have to say, was wittier than most Housing Ministers.

I am not a lawyer. I am an economist, but I can say that leasehold is a peculiarly economically inefficient construct, because it usually constrains a person, for whom the largest single thing they will ever invest in is a leasehold—their house—from doing all sorts of things. It constrains improvements, for example. It also holds them open to the risk of forfeiture, and the risk of forfeiture is particularly bizarre: for a very small amount of service fee, you can lose the entire value of your flat or, occasionally, your house. That is disproportionate to any sense of economic, moral or any other kind of fair play, and it acts as a disincentive to people.

In that sense, leasehold is a fundamentally economically inefficient construct, as well as having dubious morality. For sure, if you do not pay your service charge, there needs to be some way of enforcing, whether it is commonhold or leasehold, but that is why we have things like the small claims court. Ultimately, we have bailiffs if you do not pay a bill. You do not lose your entire property because you failed to pay your telly licence or something like that, and nor should you for a service charge. In that sense, I think that leasehold should be killed off.

I also think that leasehold is, on occasion, an absolute magnet for sharks and other wretched creatures who disgrace our society and the good name of capitalism. I think it was Edward du Cann who made a remark—before I was born and before at least some of you were born—about the “unacceptable face of capitalism” when companies behave very badly. We see that happening in leasehold with the companies who had doubling ground rents until a property was worthless and the companies who pursue forfeiture over tiny bills. Bluntly, if I am allowed unparliamentary language—I think I am but you are not—there are bastards out there, and your job is to construct the law to constrain those people who have bastard tendencies. Leasehold does not do that; commonhold does. That is why I think that commonhold is a much safer construct for people who are currently leaseholders. It should be the norm and the requirement for all future building, whether that is flats or houses, and we should be looking to move leaseholds to commonholds over time.

[Rachel Maclean]

Q One of the arguments against making commonhold mandatory now is that it would destabilise the existing leasehold system. There are many millions of leasehold properties, and it is argued that that would result in a lack of confidence, in a lack of investment and in even fewer properties being built. We all know that we want to build more houses, more flats and so on; part of the long-term plan for housing is to build more flats, as I think Mr Scoffin alluded to. What do you make of that argument? Secondly, what do you make of the linked argument that freeholders are providing a very good service in some ways, because that asset class is funding the pensions of NHS and care workers and policemen in the country?

Professor Leunig: The final point is factually incorrect, because of course the nurses pension scheme is unfunded, so there are no assets behind—

[Rachel Maclean]

That is probably a bad example.

Professor Leunig: It is, but people always put forward nurses and policemen when they want an “Oh, woe is us” story. Well, the NHS pension scheme is unfunded; it is underwritten by us as taxpayers and is thus completely and utterly secure.

Although I accept that there are some people who have these in their pension funds, any good pension fund is diversified. No sensible pension fund has more than a trivial amount of its money invested in this class. Of course, if you have a self-invested pension plan and you decided to put it all in this, that is a risk that you took when you decided to invest all your money in it.

Changing to commonhold will make not a jot of difference to the number of houses that are built over the next year, or the number of flats. The number of houses and flats built is determined entirely by whether the builder believes that they can make a profit. This is a for-profit sector, and that is right and proper, as is the manufacture of pens, mobile phones, bits of paper, quasi-plastic cups and everything else. It depends on whether the buyers have enough confidence to buy, on whether they think their job is secure and on whether they can get a mortgage at a rate that seems acceptable and is competitive with renting. That is what matters. It also matters whether the builder thinks the market will be radically better in the following year, in which case they will quite understandably delay building for a bit.

Frankly, the difference between the value you will get for a leasehold and what you will get for a commonhold is at best slight; in so far as it exists, it is based on confusing and bamboozling buyers. Sometimes the builders of a leasehold flat say, “Ah, but we can sell them for less, because we make some money by selling off the right to the ground rent.” If that is true, the buyer is not better off, because they have got it for less, but they have to pay ground rent. The buyer would be perfectly able to pay a little more, because their monthly or annual outgoings would be exactly the same.

The only way in which the builder is able to do better is if the buyer does not realise that they have to pay ground rent and is unable to do a net present value calculation in their head, which I grant you is more than likely—I challenge any of you to tell me on the spot what the net present value of £250 a year discounted by 3.5% a year is, over any number of years you like that is greater than five. Does anybody want to do that off the top of their head? No? I even typed into Google last night, “What is the net present value of £250 discounted at 3.5% over 10 years?” Google did not give me a number as an answer. It is not the sort of thing that we have to hand.

Yes, some people might be bamboozled into this, but a good economy never says, “Great: we can build some more houses by tricking people into being poorer later.” That is not the way to have a well-functioning market—and a well-functioning market is the best guarantee that we will get the houses we need built where we need them and when we need them.

[The Chair]

Apologies: I mis-spoke earlier and missed out Richard Fuller.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Chair]

I think we had a couple of follow-up questions, first from Rachel and then Richard.

[Rachel Maclean]

I am sorry, Dame Caroline. When you told me that there was not time, the question went out of my head. I apologise.

[The Chair]

In that case, we will go to Richard and it might pop back in again.

Professor Leunig: Oh no, he is going to test me on net present value.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Chair]

Are there any further questions?

[Rachel Maclean]

Q Dr Maxwell, I understand you have written a book—oh, your thesis was on the proportionality of state interferences with possessions under article 1 of protocol 1 to the ECHR.

Dr Maxwell: There is a book, but it is probably not on your Christmas list.

[Rachel Maclean]

You are presuming what is on my Christmas list! Anyway, are you able to express a view on whether this Bill and what we are proposing is a proportionate interference in property rights?

Dr Maxwell: That is an exceedingly broad question. There are 65 clauses in this Bill, and there is a consultation with five potential options. We do not have time to go through every single clause, but in terms of the risk register and potentially successful challenges being brought, I would focus on option 1 of the consultation, on reducing ground rent to a peppercorn.

There are various other people who have looked at this. For example, Giles Peaker, who is a very respected solicitor and has appeared before these Committees previously, has recently written that it would quite obviously, in his view, be a violation and it is important not to give people false hope. There is an undeniable risk of a violation being found in the relevant options. I suspect, but I do not know, that the prospect of a challenge being brought is very high, but again that depends on the relevant facts. It would be my understanding that it cannot be brought in a macro sense against the Bill as a whole, and it would depend on the relevant facts.

For example, the Supreme Court found a breach of the right to property in a case called Mott, which concerned limits on an individual’s right to fish on the Severn estuary. The Environment Agency’s policy of fishing as a whole—limiting fishing for the benefits to the environment—was considered okay. But for Mr Mott, it resulted in a complete loss of his income—fishing represented 95% of Mr Mott’s entire income—and it therefore did cause a breach to Mr Mott in particular. That is why I am slightly apprehensive about giving broad conclusions about consultations and clauses when we do not have the ability to analyse the impact on an individual or entity.

[Rachel Maclean]

Q But it is my understanding that doing a consultation in and of itself is essential and helps to guard against the future risk of such claims being found successful. Has that been borne out through the courts system? Have you seen that?

Dr Maxwell: Yes, so in the case I referred to earlier—The Karibu Foundation v. Norway—one of the factors that the Strasbourg Court gave a lot of weight to was that the Norwegian Parliament had sat down with the Council of Europe, because it was following a breach in the Lindheim case, and considered all the relevant options. It was properly aired and debated and they got in experts from various fields. That is clearly a consideration. It shows that the democratic institutions—Parliament—have properly considered it, rather than it being, say, a last-minute amendment without justification.

[Rachel Maclean]

Thank you.

[The Chair]

I am quite keen to wrap this up before the Minister concludes speaking in the Chamber, because otherwise we will have to keep the witness for at least an hour during votes, and I do not really want to inconvenience him that much. Can we have very quick questions and swift answers if possible, please?

Leasehold and Freehold Reform Bill (First sitting)

Rachel Maclean Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 16th January 2024 Public Bill Committees

[Barry Gardiner]

Q So you would agree that it would be a good provision to insert into the Bill.

Mr Martin Boyd: It was a very good provision, yes.

[Rachel Maclean (Redditch) (Con)]

Q Mr Boyd, it is good to see you. You have talked about commonhold. Would you mind just being quite succinct and clear on your view about commonhold? There are proposals from various groups who are active in the sector to make it mandatory to sell all new leasehold flats as commonhold. Would that be a good idea, and if not, why not?

Mr Martin Boyd: I am proud to say that it was LKP that restarted the whole commonhold project in 2014. At the time, we were told, “The market doesn’t want commonhold.” The market very clearly told us that it did want commonhold; it was just that the legislation had problems in 2002. One of our trustees, who is now unfortunately no longer with us, was part of a very big commonhold project in Milton Keynes that had to be converted back to leasehold when they found problems with the law.

I think the Government have been making it very clear for several years that they accept that leasehold’s time is really over. I do not see any reason why we cannot move to a mandatory commonhold system quite quickly. What the developers had always said to us—I think they are possibly right—is that they worry that the Government might get the legislation wrong again, and they would therefore want a bedding-in period where they could test the market to ensure that commonhold was working, and they would agree to a sunset clause. They had fundamentally opposed that in 2002, and we managed to get them in 2014 to agree that, if commonhold could be shown to work, they would agree to a sunset clause that would say, “You cannot build leasehold properties after x date in the future.” I think that that is a viable system.

[Ms Rimmer]

Q Good morning, Mr Boyd. How will the Bill impact on your work as an advisory service and the advice that you give to leaseholders?

Mr Martin Boyd: As some of you may know, I have been very critical in the past of the organisation that I now chair, because I thought that it was doing the wrong thing. The Government took what some might see as a brave decision in asking me to take on the role as chair. LEASE is going to become a much more proactive part of the system, and, as far as I see it, we now have several roles rather than one. While we are predominantly there to help advise consumers about the legislation and how to use it—and hopefully when not to use it—we will also have a role in helping to press Governments to make sure that they improve the legislation. That was not a remit that we had, but it will be very much part of our remit going forward.

--- Later in debate ---

[Matthew Pennycook]

Q I have two other brief questions. The Bill does not include provision to ban new leasehold houses. If the Government’s intention, as I think has been made clear, is to bring those provisions forward through Government amendments in Committee or on Report—at a later stage—what should they look like? In your view, should we look for those Government amendments to do or not to do particular things?

On the right to manage, only eight of the 101 Law Commission recommendations on right to manage have found their way into the Bill. We face the issue that Mr Boyd referred to—we could add in many more provisions to the Bill. Are there any specific RTM recommendations from the Law Commission that it would be really worthwhile to try to incorporate into the Bill?

Sebastian O’Kelly: In relation to leasehold houses, it is a bit of an embarrassing omission that the proposal is not there. The spreading of leasehold houses around the country simply to extract more cash from the unwitting consumers who had purchased houses from our plc house builders was a national scandal, actually, and it was frankly a try-on too far and caused a huge amount of kerfuffle. There will be times when you would have to build a leasehold house—when the builder does not actually own the land—but they are very isolated cases, and largely this scam has self-corrected through the adverse publicity.

On the right to manage, one of the most egregious issues is where groups of leaseholders have attempted to get a right to manage and have been hit for extortionate legal costs, where their petition for right to manage has been resisted by the landlord. There are certain landlords out there who always, always, unfailingly take this through the legal steps. They rack up legal costs, but of course they can get that back through the service charge. That is an issue that I urge is the worst deterrent to right to manage.

Liam Spender: The lack of right to manage for fleecehold estates—for estates subject to management schemes—is one of the most obvious omissions in the Bill. The Law Commission did an awful lot of work on how to improve the process for multi-block sites, particularly following the Supreme Court decision two years ago on Settlers Court. I think that is another missed opportunity.

[Rachel Maclean]

Q Mr O’Kelly, you are one of a large number of leaseholders who has been adversely impacted by your personal situation. If I am correct, what has happened in your case is that your freeholder has used the service charges from you and others in the block to take you to court—it is an appalling situation. You have updated the APPG and others. For the Committee’s benefit, will you say how much you are out of pocket and whether the provisions in the Bill will address the issues that you have faced and will face in the future?

Sebastian O’Kelly: This is for Liam really, because I am not a leaseholder at all; it is Liam’s court case.

[Rachel Maclean]

Sorry, I was looking at Mr Spender and I misspoke.

Liam Spender: I quite understand anyone being distracted by Mr O’Kelly. Thank you for the question. In our case to date, the freeholder has put £54,000 of its legal costs through the service charge. It did so in breach of a section 20C order, which is the current restriction that is supposed to prevent landlords from doing so. We complained and got most of that money back, but they have served something called a section 20B notice: they intend to recover the costs in the future if they prevail on appeal, by which point we could be looking at a substantial six-figure sum. This is all to do with us fighting to get back unreasonable service charges.

We are currently owed about £450,000—to give a round number—pending appeal. There is an appeal in April and I am carrying the burden of doing all that work myself. I quite understand why leaseholders without legal training give up and things will fall by the wayside. The system is very much stacked in landlords’ favour.

The cost provisions in the Bill are welcome. As you probably know, they changed the default so that the landlord has to ask for their costs. The issue is what has been created as a just and equitable jurisdiction; the tribunal can do what it thinks is fair in the circumstances. I believe—I think many people who have much more knowledge of this than I do would agree—that what that will mean in practice is probably that the tribunal will be inclined to give landlords their costs if they have won the case, so it will not change anything.

The other problem is that the first-tier tribunal considers itself a no-cost jurisdiction, and that is a generational way of thinking, so that has to be overcome and it has to get into the mindset of awarding costs to leaseholders and against landlords. Provisions could be included in the Bill that would make that that process easier—for example, prescribing a regime of fixed costs as applied to other low-value civil litigation. It is not a magic bullet, but I think that would be better than the current provisions in the Bill.

[Mike Amesbury]

Q Is there anything else you would like in the Bill that is missing at the moment?

Sebastian O’Kelly: We would like to see a commitment to mandatory commonhold for new builds, frankly. How many more times are we going to try to reform the leasehold system? How many goes have we had at this since the 1960s? If you keep having to reform leasehold, is the answer not that it does not work? Why do you want this third-party investor—now, invariably, somebody offshore—hitching a ride on the value of somebody else’s home? It is a nonsense. One Duke of Westminster we can accept—the political continuity of our country maybe allows a freehold such as that—but we will create 1,000 of them with this. It is a nonsense. Bring it to an end and bring us in touch with the rest of the world—that is my statement.

--- Later in debate ---

[Matthew Pennycook]

Q Thank you for coming to give evidence to us. I have a general question to start. Large parts of the Bill are broadly uncontroversial and uncontentious, not least because they implement Law Commission recommendations. There is lots we could add in, but let us try to keep a focus on what is in the Bill. In your view, to what extent does the Bill deliver for leaseholders in terms of transparency, fairness, enhanced consumer rights and empowerment? What areas could we look to strengthen or tighten up?

Katie Kendrick: The Bill is very much welcomed and long overdue. As we all know, the Law Commission reports were fantastic and very detailed. The Bill is lacking significantly on the detail of the Law Commission recommendations. The headline was that the Bill would ban leasehold houses, and obviously the Bill as it stands does not do that. I am confident that it will, in the end, ban leasehold houses, but currently that has not been achieved.

The Bill improves the transparency of service charges, but just being able to see the fact that leaseholders are being ripped off more does not actually fix the root cause of the problem. As we all know, the root cause of the problem is the leasehold system per se. I am concerned that the Bill sticks more plasters on a system that we all agree is immensely outdated and needs to go. There is no mention anywhere in the Bill of our long-term vision of achieving commonhold. That is our vision, and it is the elephant in the room. The Bill does not even mention commonhold and how we can move towards it.

A peppercorn ground rent would massively change the playing field and help us to move towards our vision of commonhold, so we need to get a peppercorn ground rent for existing leaseholders in there. With the Leasehold Reform (Ground Rent) Act 2022, which means new builds do not have a ground rent, we have created a two-tier system. The Bill really does need to look at existing leaseholders and what can be done to help to put them in a similar position to new leaseholders. If ground rents are wrong for the future, they were wrong in the past and we therefore need to be bold enough to go back and fix that. Peppercorn ground rent has to be the solution. This is an amazing opportunity and I hope that will be the outcome of the consultation.

Cath Williams: On peppercorn ground rent, we have noted a new definition of a long-term lease being 150 years, which we have never come across before. Many members in our group—there are over 27,000 members in the National Leasehold Campaign—have modern leases with ground rents at significantly less than 150 years, at around 99 or 125 years. That means that the provisions in the Bill do not give them the opportunity to revert to a peppercorn ground rent. If we have read it correctly—we are not legally trained—they would be excluded as having a non-qualifying lease. That is our understanding: that they would be excluded. That could be a significant number of leaseholders who will not benefit from the peppercorn ground rent opportunity in the Bill.

[Rachel Maclean]

Q You mentioned that you welcome the peppercorn ground rent. It has often been put to me by campaigners on the other side of this argument that leaseholders do not mind paying ground rents. What is your view on that proposition?

Jo Derbyshire: I had a ground rent that doubled every 10 years. It meant that my ground rent would be £9,440 after 50 years. It certainly is not a trivial issue in my experience. A ground rent is a charge for no service. That is the big thing for me. Some warped genius at some point in the mid-2000s decided to create an asset class on our homes. It is just wrong.

[Rachel Maclean]

Q Do you agree with some of the arguments that are put forward by the freeholders lobby and organisations that abolishing ground rent will destabilise the pensions industry and mean that nurses and care workers and the good people who are toiling very hard in our public services will have their pensions destroyed? What do you say to that?

Jo Derbyshire: I think that is project fear. I work in pensions. I work in administration, not investments, but I sit on a lot of pension committees where we talk about the assets that pension schemes hold. They have investment strategies and they protect themselves from over-investing in one asset class. The amount of ground rents held by pension funds in this country would pale into insignificance compared with, for example, the impact of the mini-Budget and what happened with equities shortly after that. This is deliberate scaremongering.

[Mike Amesbury]

Q I have two brief questions. Are there any risks in terms of banning new leasehold houses but not flats? Why do you think this country is an outlier in the world and is so wedded still to this day to the feudal system of leasehold?

Katie Kendrick: You cannot just ban leasehold houses and not flats—70% of leaseholders live in flats, so you are not tackling the problem. You are cherry-picking the easy things, and banning leasehold houses is easy. It is more tricky with flats, but that does not mean it is not achievable. As you have said, it has been achieved everywhere else in the world. We do not need to continue to mask that leasehold system. It is deeply flawed and it ultimately needs to be abolished.

We do understand that there is no magic wand and this is not going to happen tomorrow, but there have been a lot of campaigners, well before us, who have highlighted the issues of leasehold, and yet here we are, still, again, trying to make it a little bit fairer. It does not need to be a little bit fairer—it needs to go. That needs to be the ultimate aim. Everybody needs to work on this. There is something better out there, despite what the other lobbying groups will tell you.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mike Amesbury]

Q Can you tell the Committee about what is commonly known as “fleecehold”? Does this Bill in any way deal with aspects such as that?

Katie Kendrick: Our campaign coined the term fleecehold, and it has been used as a bit of an umbrella to describe all of the different ways that we can be ripped off through our homes. It first began because, when we were enfranchising and buying our freeholds, the freeholder was trying to retain all the same permission fees—such as permission to put on a conservatory or to paint the front door—in the transfer document. Ultimately, you could be a freeholder but still have to pay permission fees to the original freeholder.

That is where fleecehold came from, but fleecehold is now used as a much broader phrase because we have estate management charges. The new build estates all have estate management charges attached to them. They have replaced one income stream—leasehold—by creating another asset in the open green spaces. We all have lovely big open spaces and lovely parks, but it is the residents who pay for that. Again, it is a private management company that manages them. You have no transparency over what they are spending.

I can remember somebody ringing me up and saying, “Katie, I have a breakdown of my estate management charges and they are charging me such-and-such for a park, so I rang up and said, ‘You’re charging me.’ ‘Yes, Mr Such-and-Such. You have to pay for the upkeep of your park.’” And he went, “I understand that, but I haven’t got a park.” It is outrageous. It is great that they are going to give people more right to challenge the costs, which they do not currently have with their freeholders. They have fewer rights than leaseholders to challenge at tribunal. But ultimately why have we gone to a private estate model? Why are people paying double council tax? They are paying full council tax the same as anybody else is, yet they now have to pay thousands of pounds in estate management charges. It is a ticking timebomb.

The estates look very nice now, but in the future when the pavements are falling to pieces—I spoke to a police officer and things are not enforceable because they are classed as private. Speeding restrictions? You could have a boy racer running through the estate, but the police cannot enforce anything. The same with double yellow lines and things like that. It is a ticking timebomb, because new build estates are popping up all over the place with private management companies.

Jo Derbyshire: There are some things in the Bill that try to stop things. Typically on fleecehold estates there might be freehold houses, but the estate management charge is secured legally by something called a rent charge. What most people do not understand is that if they withhold their estate management fees, the property can be converted from freehold to leasehold. Again, that cannot be right.

[Rachel Maclean]

Q I just want to clarify your understanding of something that Mr Gardiner said earlier. I might need to put this to the Minister later, but Mr Gardiner said that if the new provisions on ground rent go through and ground rent goes to peppercorn or zero—I might be misquoting him.

[Barry Gardiner]

You have been spot on so far.

[Rachel Maclean]

You mentioned that in the new Bill leaseholders will have to pay to get their ground rent to zero. Can you set out what that provision is? Where is that in the Bill?

Cath Williams: I don’t think we know. That was one of our questions. There is a process in the Bill about how a leaseholder can acquire the peppercorn ground rent, but who pays for that is not clear. I think that was raised before. I do not think leaseholders should pay, because it should not have been there in the first place.

Katie Kendrick: Or there should be a prescribed cost—“apply for your peppercorn now”—with a simple process. Otherwise it will be exploited, and lawyer will charge different amounts to convert. You can see what will happen, so it needs to be streamlined. Whatever we go for, it needs to be streamlined.

Cath Williams: And we need an online system that cuts out everybody in the middle, so that there is no confusion or discussion about what it should cost.

[Rachel Maclean]

Thank you so much for clarifying that.

[Alistair Strathern (Mid Bedfordshire) (Lab)]

Q I could not agree more about the challenges you set out around people finding new ways to extort homeowners and the moves towards charging for the maintenance of public space. In my constituency of Mid Bedfordshire, many estates suffer from this issue. Mr Fuller will have similar ones on his estates in North East Bedfordshire. I completely agree that it feels shocking for lots of people that they are essentially paying twice for services: once for council tax and once for a charge that they have little control over and where there is often little guarantee of good services.

There are many estates in my patch where you can literally see where it becomes private because the condition of the road is shocking compared to 2 feet away, or the condition of the public space completely deteriorates. What measures would you like to see added to the Bill to help address that? Would you agree that ultimately we need mechanisms to ensure that a stated object can happen in a way that everyone can have confidence in?

Katie Kendrick: In an ideal world, the local authorities would be adopting these areas. I do not think there should be a private management at all. Local authorities used to, and they can charge the builders more for the land at the start.

Cath Williams: I agree.

Katie Kendrick: Adopt the lot.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Chair]

We have just three minutes left, as we are bound by the programme motion. We will hear questions from Rachel Maclean and then Barry Gardiner, and we will finish by 11.25, as per the programme motion.

[Rachel Maclean]

Q Have you ever acted for freeholders against leaseholders? Have you ever found that the leaseholders have been egregious, rather than the other way round?

Amanda Gourlay: I believe I have acted for freeholders against leaseholders on occasion.

[Barry Gardiner]

Q You referenced the damages under proposed new section 25A of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1985, which “may not exceed £5,000”. The tribunal does not have to award £5,000; it is a ceiling, rather than a floor. Often a single leaseholder will go to the tribunal and get an award, but they are representative of problems that all the other leaseholders have. Rather than saying that damages under the proposed new section may not exceed £5,000, would it make sense to say that damages to each leaseholder may not exceed £5,000?

Amanda Gourlay: That would make sense, but damages are not an appropriate remedy in this particular situation. It is very rare that a leaseholder will suffer financial loss. It is more about encouraging good behaviour.

Legal Migration

Rachel Maclean Excerpts

Monday 4th December 2023 Commons Chamber

[James Cleverly]

There we go again. As I have said, while the shadow Home Secretary says that immigration numbers are too high, each and every one of her Back Benchers disagrees with any action to deal with it. We have got to bring these numbers down, we have committed to do so, and we have put forward a thoughtful plan, which takes into consideration the needs of the health and social care sectors.

[Rachel Maclean (Redditch) (Con)]

I think the howls of outrage from the Opposition Benches highlight the inconsistency in Labour’s position, given that it was the party that wanted to overturn the referendum and introduce unlimited free movement of labour. Does the Home Secretary agree that pressure from migration puts pressure on local families and young people who want to buy or rent their own house, and will he consider that every time he grants more visas for people to come to this country?

[James Cleverly]

This is an incredibly important point, and it is why control of immigration is so important. We are a generous country. We have demonstrated that generosity time and time again, whether it be towards the Ugandan Asians, people from west Africa, people from Hong Kong or people from Ukraine. We are rightly proud, but it is also important that we prove that we are thoughtful about the implications for those who live here, whether they have lived here for decades, for years, or for generations. That is why it is right that we have put forward these proposals, which are carefully calibrated to support our economy and our health and social care needs, but also to bring down those figures.

Violence against Women and Girls: Plymouth

Rachel Maclean Excerpts

Wednesday 25th January 2023 Westminster Hall

[Rachel Maclean (Redditch) (Con)]

It is a great honour to follow the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon).

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for South West Devon (Sir Gary Streeter) for securing the debate, which allows me to give my very strong opinions on this topic on behalf of my constituents in Redditch, as well—of course—to express my sympathy for the victims of the horrendous events in Plymouth. I served as a Minister in the Home Office shortly afterwards and it impacted many of us deeply to see the situation unfolding in Plymouth.

However, what is a real credit to the spirit of Plymouth is the way the city has come together and responded through the practical measures of the commission that my hon. Friend mentioned. Those practical measures are extremely encouraging and a great example for the rest of us across the rest of the country to follow to tackle this pervasive, absolutely pernicious and—sadly—endemic issue.

I would just like to ask the Home Office Minister who is in the Chamber today to respond to a few points. The Home Office has done an extremely good job in responding to the strategy to end violence against women and girls, but I think that we would all be interested to learn a bit more about some of the ongoing work, including how she is pushing it forward and how we can see the measures rolled out to protect more women and girls.

The first issue that I want to highlight is the importance of prevention. Of course we all know the emotional and psychological impacts of crimes of violence against women and girls on the victims. However, there is also the economic impact. Home Office statistics have set out that the costs of violence against women and girls are in the region of £66 billion for the whole economy, although those are quite old figures. I am sure that the Minister knows of more recent ones. It is absolutely vital that we tackle the issue for the sake of our entire economy.

Will the Minister update us on the work that she is leading on prevention? Specifically, I mean the domestic abuse prevention orders and the domestic abuse prevention notices; the electronic tagging, the provisions for which were introduced in the Domestic Abuse Act 2021; the ongoing work on the register of perpetrators to ensure that we monitor and track perpetrators and keep women and girls safe; and any work that she is doing on the mixed picture on stalking prevention orders. We know that some areas are fantastic at rolling these orders out; others are not so good. Many stalkers are being missed and are slipping through the cracks, so we really need to ramp up this work and use these powers to keep these people monitored and keep their victims safe.

Secondly, there is the incel phenomenon. May I bring the House’s attention to the very good work of Laura Bates, who has sone extensive research on that topic? It is a relatively new subject—I say “new”, but I mean in terms of our understanding it and making policy about it. What should the policy response be? Is it right to look at it through the terrorism lens? Should we have a bespoke response? Of course, we know that it is proliferating online. The Online Safety Bill introduces a number of measures to strengthen the response of the online platforms, but is the Minister concerned about the phenomenon and, if she is, what more can she do from a policy perspective so that we really understand why these young men are being radicalised in this way and committing such horrendous acts?

Thirdly, we have done a fantastic job in the Home Office of kicking off the Enough public information campaign, which I know is having an impact across the country. Will the Minister update us on it? Does she plan to roll it out more widely? Does she plan to repeat it? Does she plan to roll out the campaign across the transport network, because we know a lot of crimes of violence against women and girls occur on buses and trains? Can she update us on the Home Office’s work on prevention and what works? We all want to prevent these crimes taking place.

We need to understand the psychology of perpetrators, who are mostly men, although some women commit such crimes. We know there are interventions that work and, thankfully, prevent lives being lost and trauma inflicted on women and girls. We need to understand that. If the interventions work, we need to roll them out widely, so that every area knows what to introduce and what is right for their area.

My hon. Friend the Member for South West Devon set out some good interventions that are clearly working in his area, but we need to gather that data so that every single local authority has no excuse but to come to the Home Office and ask for funding if needed. That funding should be available so that local authorities can roll it out and know that it will make a difference.

Finally, will the Minister update us on the strategic policing requirement, which was a commitment that we in the Home Office made on the back of the Policing, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022? A lot of work has gone on in the Home Office, and it is important to bring together strategic law enforcement at a national level, so that police forces are working and know what to do, so that we can tackle this and keep more women and girls safe.

Unaccompanied Asylum-seeking Children

Rachel Maclean Excerpts

Tuesday 24th January 2023 Commons Chamber

[Rachel Maclean (Redditch) (Con)]

The Minister is demonstrating a great deal of seriousness and compassion in gripping this very concerning situation, but does he agree that the best way in which to safeguard these children is to prevent them from crossing in the first place? Does he also agree that it is both concerning and shameful that Opposition Members are standing up to speak having failed to back legislation that will do that, and will, furthermore, enable us to test the age of these children? Does he agree that it is vital for us to know that they are in fact children, and not dangerous criminals? Does he, like me, hope that the next time he introduces legislation, we will strengthen our sovereign borders, as we as a country have a right to do?

[Robert Jenrick]

My hon. Friend is entirely right. This is a serious issue, but it is also a symptom of the problem of people smugglers bringing very large numbers of people across the channel, and we must tackle that with the most robust response possible. However, the Opposition continually oppose any effort by us to strengthen our borders.

We will be introducing further legislation, and, as my hon. Friend knows, we are reviewing whether we can adopt a more scientific approach to the verification of ages, as is being done by a number of our European counterparts. It is right for us to do that, because any adult who poses as a child coming into this country poses a serious risk to the young people alongside whom they then live, whether in these hotels or in any other setting.

Police Conduct and David Carrick

Rachel Maclean Excerpts

Tuesday 17th January 2023 Commons Chamber

[Suella Braverman]

The inspectorate reported late last year on that issue, looking at the performance of forces all over the country on vetting and the monitoring of disciplinary matters in policing. The inspectorate made 43 recommendations, largely focused on chief constables around England and Wales, the College of Policing and the National Police Chiefs Council. They have all been accepted. There are deadlines for spring this year, and later this year, and we are closely monitoring the implementation and delivery of those recommendations.

[Rachel Maclean (Redditch) (Con)]

We hear reported on the BBC that this monster, David Carrick, perpetrated a campaign of terror against his “girlfriends”. He put drugs in the car, he restrained people with police handcuffs, and he said “Who would anyone believe? You or me? I’m an important person. I guard the Prime Minister. I am a police officer.” That highlights the lengths to which that monster would go, and the challenge for those victims to come forward. Does the Home Secretary agree that, as well as the welcome measures that she has set out, all of which I support, one positive thing we can do is bring forward the victims Bill, to strengthen the support of the criminal justice system for those women, provide better support, and beef up the role of independent sexual violence advisers? I know that is not in her Department’s remit, but will she work with me and her colleague the Justice Secretary, to see whether we can get parliamentary time for that Bill as quickly as possible?

[Suella Braverman]

I pay tribute to my hon. Friend for the groundbreaking work she did when she was in government to support women and girls and their safety. She is absolutely right, and that is why my right hon. Friend the Lord Chancellor and Deputy Prime Minister is committed to introducing the victims Bill. I am particularly supportive of increasing the number of independent sexual violence advisers and independent domestic violence advisers as they have made a huge difference to the experience of victims going through the criminal justice system. They can make the difference between a victim withdrawing and a victim persisting and reaching a conviction. I therefore think that, yes, putting through more resources and introducing important legislation is vital.