Property: Shared Ownership
Debate between Viscount Younger of Leckie and Baroness Maddock
Viscount Younger of Leckie
Shared-ownership leases prohibit subletting by the leaseholder, as mentioned earlier, to protect public funds and to ensure that applicants are not entering shared ownership for commercial gain. Landlords can make an exception in exceptional circumstances and they have to consider such requests on a case-by-case basis.
Baroness Maddock (LD)
My Lords, can the Minister tell us what proportion of homes in Great Britain today are under shared ownership? I wonder if the Government are doing any research to find out how successful this sector is. I know, for example, that when you want to move it is no simple matter. The legal attitudes to this are really quite difficult. Can the Minister inform us what research the Government are doing into this?
Viscount Younger of Leckie
Yes, indeed. I will have to write to the noble Baroness with the actual statistics but we are looking at this as one of several serious options for ensuring that young people get a hand on the housing ladder. The noble Baroness may know that a shared owner can come in and purchase a share of between 25% and 75%. We are following up on the current statistics but this is a future policy that we are working on.
Small Businesses: Late Payments
Debate between Viscount Younger of Leckie and Baroness Maddock
Viscount Younger of Leckie
My Lords, we need no lessons from the former Government opposite on how this matter is handled. The fact is that tackling late payment requires a change in business culture and that the Government alone cannot solve the problem without interfering in the freedom of businesses to contract with each other. However, the noble Lord makes an important point about a kitemark and, in effect, an accreditation system. The Prime Minister decided to consult on this issue and on 7 December we published a discussion paper on building a responsible payment culture in the UK. We are working with business organisations to ensure that we get views from a wide range of businesses, and we will decide what further legislative or non-legislative action to take based on responses to this paper.
Baroness Maddock (LD)
My Lords, I welcome the Government’s consultation, but I am sure that the Minister is aware that huge quantities of money are held up through retentions and that many small businesses never get complete payments at the end of their contract. As I understand it—I would be grateful if he could confirm this, and, if it is the case, do something about it—neither of these issues is part of the consultation that the Government have put forward. I hope he can assure me that they will be included.
Viscount Younger of Leckie
I cannot reassure my noble friend on that particular point, but I can reassure her that the discussion paper, Building a Responsible Payment Culture—from my department, BIS—seeks views on changing the business culture by increasing accountability and transparency, on encouraging small businesses to make better use of the statutory rights that they already have, on whether there is a case to enhance those rights and on how we can empower small businesses to help themselves reduce the risk of late payment.