Leasehold Reform

Debate between Stephen Doughty and Rachel Maclean

Tuesday 23rd May 2023 Commons Chamber

[The Minister of State, Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (Rachel Maclean)]

It is a pleasure to wind up this wide-ranging and impassioned debate on behalf of the Government. We have heard from Members across the House of the challenges inherent in the leasehold system—challenges that we are determined to tackle through further reforms in this Parliament. I am grateful to hon. Members on both sides of the House who have given powerful examples from their constituencies of leaseholders who have been hit with unfair and unreasonable costs. I pay tribute to the Father of the House, my hon. Friend the Member for Worthing West (Sir Peter Bottomley), who set out how he believes life can be made better for people in their homes. I thank him for his considerable and extensive work alongside the Leasehold Knowledge Partnership and as co-chair of the APPG on leasehold and commonhold reform. I also thank my right hon. Friend the Member for Aldridge-Brownhills (Wendy Morton) and my hon. Friend the Member for Leigh (James Grundy) for their contributions.

The examples set out by Members across the House only underscore the importance of our work to reform the leasehold sector for good and move towards a simpler, fairer, more equitable commonhold system for flats—a system that, as my hon. Friend the Minister for Local Government and Building Safety rightly asserted in opening the debate, is common around much of the rest of the world.

[Stephen Doughty]

Will the Minister give way?

[Rachel Maclean]

I do not have much time, and I have a lot to get through, so I hope the hon. Gentleman will allow me to answer the questions asked by him and his colleagues.

The first point to address is one of timing. In a sense, this debate hinges somewhat on a false premise. It hinges on media speculation—

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[Rachel Maclean]

It is a commitment that I have made from this Dispatch Box, and the hon. Gentleman has heard me say it clearly. He is an extremely experienced Member of Parliament, and he knows that it is not possible for any Minister to commit to the details of what will be in a future Bill or King’s Speech, but I am making commitments about the measures that we intend to enact.

For buyers of new flats—[Interruption.] Perhaps hon. Members would like to hear some further commitments. For buyers of new flats, we will also bring forward much-needed reforms to the commonhold system, so that flat owners and developers will finally have access to a viable alternative to leasehold. It was this Conservative Government that set up the Commonhold Council, and it has met regularly and we are working closely with it.

Several hon. Members spoke about recent reports from the Law Commission, and it is worth saying that we have been working in lockstep with the commission to ensure that our reforms are workable and deliver the outcomes we all want to see. Indeed, I take this opportunity to thank the commission for all its work in this area. It has made more than 300 recommendations for improving the leaseholder system across enfranchisement, including how valuation operates, commonhold, and the right to manage. I have no doubt that hon. Members appreciate the complexity of the reforms in this fiendishly complicated area, and it is absolutely right that we take the necessary time to ensure that they are done properly. We are unapologetic about saying that, for the sake of the owners of 5 million leasehold homes, we have to get this right, and that is what we are committed to do.

[Stephen Doughty]

I thank the Minister for giving way; she is being generous. I asked a specific question about Wales, and it is the preference of the Welsh Government that reform is brought forward on an England and Wales basis. Will she commit to doing that? Her predecessor, the right hon. and learned Member for South East Cambridgeshire (Lucy Frazer), promised that change would be coming “soon”, so why are the Government dragging their heels?

[Rachel Maclean]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his question. He will know that we work closely with all the devolved Administrations when we bring forward legislation, and that is the right thing to do.

As hon. Members will know, it is not only leaseholders who are too often subject to unfair or outrageous practices. We should not forget the plight of freehold homeowners who pay towards shared services, such as unadopted roads, but have few rights. The Government remain committed to making estate management companies more accountable to the homeowners for whom they provide services. When parliamentary time allows, we intend to legislate to deliver these commitments, including measures that will allow homeowners the right to challenge the reasonableness of costs they have to pay. We will give them the ability to apply to the first-tier tribunal to appoint a manager to manage the provision of services.

In all aspects of this ambitious programme of reform, the Government are committed to rebalancing what has historically been a largely one-sided relationship between homeowner and landowner. We are affording peace of mind to those who have realised the dream of home ownership—something we on the Government Benches strongly support—giving them much greater control of the place where they and their loved ones sleep at night. Crucially, we are pursuing this agenda in the right way, working hand in hand with the Law Commission, the CMA and our partners across the housing sector.