Leasehold Reform

Debate between Alex Norris and Alistair Strathern

Tuesday 3rd June 2025 Westminster Hall

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government (Alex Norris)]

It is a pleasure to serve with you in the Chair, Dr Allin-Khan. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Brentford and Isleworth (Ruth Cadbury) on securing this debate, on the case that she made and on the passion with which she spoke. This degree of turnout is uncommon for a half-hour debate, which shows the strength of feeling on this matter across the UK. Anybody writing legal letters to my hon. Friend with the idea that it might stop her using her platform to advocate for her constituents is likely to be deeply disappointed. Nevertheless, the debate has reinforced the case for major reform of the leasehold system. My hon. Friend highlighted the broad range of issues faced by leaseholders every day. We are committed as a Government to honouring the commitments made in our manifesto and to doing what is necessary to bring the feudal leasehold system to an end.

I will cover the legislation as it is, how we are going to commence those provisions, legislation that we committed to in the King’s Speech and, hopefully, some other elements at the end. We heard from my hon. Friend and other colleagues that there are unfair and unreasonable practices that require urgent relief. As my hon. Friend said, the Leasehold and Freehold Reform Act 2024, with the cross-party support that it garnered, provides scope for some of that relief. In November, the Minister for Housing and Planning, my hon. Friend the Member for Greenwich and Woolwich (Matthew Pennycook), made a statement on the next steps for leasehold and commonhold reform that set out our intended sequencing for bringing those provisions of the Act into force, including an extensive programme of secondary legislation and consultation.

The parts of the Act that can be implemented quickly have been implemented. A number of provisions relating to rent charge arrears, building safety legal costs and the work of professional insolvency practitioners came into force in July 2024. In October, we commenced further building safety measures. In January, we commenced provisions to remove the two-year qualifying rule in relation to enfranchisement and leasehold extensions. In March, we switched on the right-to-manage provisions, which allow for expanding access, reforming costs and voting rights. Some things in the Act require secondary legislation, and we have been able to turn them on.

[Alistair Strathern (Hitchin) (Lab)]

I welcome the early pace that the Government have shown on this, but given the urgency of the issues that the leasehold scandal is causing for my constituents and those of many hon. Members, does the Minister agree that we need to bring forward further, more substantive solutions at pace, including answers for existing leaseholders, to ensure that we are doing justice to the urgency of this moment?

[Alex Norris]

I do. I appreciate that there is frustration about consultation, but some of the challenges within the Act show why it is important that we get this right, and that we have a process that delivers the relief that people are so desperately waiting for. One such consultation that has now concluded is around insurance commissions, which relates to service charges. We are consulting on how to replace that with a fairer and more transparent permitted insurance fee.

This year, we will also start the consultation on relevant measures related to service charges and litigation costs more generally. On new consumer protection provisions, as my hon. Friend the Member for Swindon North (Will Stone) mentioned, for the up to 1.75 million homes on private and mixed-tenure housing estates that are subject to estate charges, we will bring the measures into force as soon as possible once we have the correct model.

Building Safety and Resilience

Debate between Alex Norris and Alistair Strathern

Wednesday 11th September 2024 Commons Chamber

[Alex Norris]

An enviable choice of hon. Friends wish to intervene. I give way first to my hon. Friend the Member for Hitchin (Alistair Strathern).

[Alistair Strathern (Hitchin) (Lab)]

I thank my hon. Friend for giving way; he is clearly very popular. I want to follow up on the compelling point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Brent West (Barry Gardiner), who said that a lot of the issues we have talked about today are exacerbated by the fact that the owners of the buildings—the freeholders, in these cases—are not always willing to fulfil their obligations to do right by their tenants. This Government are committed to enacting legislation to bring in the important reforms needed to truly bring an end to the problematic nature of leasehold relationships. Will the Minister be working closely with others in his Department to ensure building safety is at the heart of those regulations, so we have a joined-up approach to tackling the issue at its root?

[Alex Norris]

I will come back to what we are going to do about leasehold in more detail in a second, but the principles are exactly as he says. We will be holding those principles in our heads as we consider our response to the report, to ensure our actions, legislative or otherwise, meet the moment.

Police Grant Report

Debate between Alex Norris and Alistair Strathern

Wednesday 7th February 2024 Commons Chamber

[Alex Norris]

I am grateful for that intervention. I do not think that it is revelatory—indeed, we will decades if not a century and a half’s worth of precedent—that central Government fund policing in this country. What I am saying is that, year on year, the share provided by the local ratepayer is increasing, and this is a continuation of that. It is legitimate to ask whether that is the best funding model. I will get to the funding formula shortly, but, as I say, that differential impact is not a serious way to bring down crime rates across the country.

To add insult to injury, the Minister says in his written statement:

“When setting their budgets, PCCs should be mindful of the cost of living pressures that householders are facing.”

Are the Government for real? Given the Minister’s role in the previous Government, and given the Government’s indifference to the challenges that people across the UK face, that is front beyond imagination. Telling our PCCs that they should be mindful? I say, “Physician, heal thyself.” The public will not be taken for fools by the Government, though. Just as, when they open their mortgage statements, they know what has happened, when they open their council tax bill, it will tell them all they need to know.

I turn now to the funding formula, which other colleagues have raised. Countless Ministers, including this Minister, have stood at the Dispatch Box or answered written questions over the years, pledging to do something about a system that is badly overdue for renewal. Members across the House have been raising this for many years with the Government. In December, the Treasury informed the Public Accounts Committee that a new formula would be introduced as soon as possible. In January, the Minister said, in response to a question from my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Bedfordshire (Alistair Strathern), that he would update the House on work to update the formula

“as soon as I can.”—[Official Report, 15 January 2024; Vol. 743, c. 569.]

Yet, two weeks ago, we saw in the press that the can is to be kicked down the road again, because No. 10 is worried about police funding cuts in a general election year.

[Alistair Strathern (Mid Bedfordshire) (Lab)]

I start by expressing my thanks for the fantastic work undertaken by local police officers right across Bedfordshire. However, with the Conservatives’ own police and crime commissioner agreeing that the current unfair funding formula leaves no meat on the bone at all for local police, does my hon. Friend agree that it is police officers and local residents who are being let down by inaction on this issue, and that Ministers owe it to them to live up to their previous commitment to ensure that a fair formula is delivered within this Parliament?

[Alex Norris]

I am grateful for that contribution from my hon. Friend. Yes, I think the public would expect not only that the formulas reflect the need across the country, but that when promises are made repeatedly over multiple years, those promises are kept; even if the upshot was difficult political questions, the Government ought to rise above that. Instead, it just looks as though they are trying to dodge responsibility. I hope the Minister will be clear in his summing-up about the status of that formula. Has No. 10 Downing Street told him to put it on hold? If not, when will it be announced? The public deserve to know.