Leasehold Reform (Ground Rent) Bill [Lords]

Debate between Catherine West and Lucy Powell

2nd reading
Monday 29th November 2021 Commons Chamber

[Lucy Powell]

My good and hon. Friend makes an extremely well-made point. The practice of new homes being built as leasehold, and sold as leasehold—buyers often do not even know that at first—has got out of all kilter lately, especially in north Wales and north-west England, where it has been a particularly egregious practice. I welcome this Bill, albeit that it is a bit too little, too late, but it does nothing to protect those trapped in the injustice of leasehold. It does not do anything for those facing excessive ground rent increases today or yesterday, nor does it put an end to some of the most egregious practices, such as selling new houses as leasehold.

The ground rent scandal typifies everything that has gone wrong with our housing market. Housing has become a commodity to be traded, packed up in financial products and thrown into an unregulated market. Large-scale developers and investors have been given free rein to create ever more complex financial products, in order to squeeze money out of homeowners. Many people do not even realise when they buy their house that they will not own the land underneath it, as my right hon. Friend has just made clear. Even worse, the leases often contain clauses that double the ground rent—in some cases, every 10 years, which means that a homeowner in a property worth a modest £200,000 might pay £10,000 a year in ground rents after they have owned the property for 50 years or so.

[Catherine West]

Does my hon. Friend share my concern that this has got so out of hand? The amounts being charged are rising in excess of the retail prices index, which we would expect to be a basic marker. People feel trapped, in that they cannot sell on.

[Lucy Powell]

Absolutely. My hon. Friend makes a really good point. People are trapped in this situation, because we all know that when we look to buy a home, we look at the overheads, and the ongoing service charges, ground rents and other costs. In recent years, those things have rightly been added to the affordability criteria, so people often cannot get a mortgage for these homes. That leaves the people living in them trapped in that situation with an unsellable home.

Schools White Paper

Debate between Catherine West and Lucy Powell

Wednesday 13th April 2016 Commons Chamber

[Lucy Powell]

My hon. Friend echoes the concerns raised by the NAHT union in a memo it sent this morning to all MPs.

The Tory obsession with school structures has completely missed the point. Just as there are some excellent academies, there are some excellent community schools. There are also some poor academies and some poor community schools. No type of school has a monopoly on excellence. We need to build an education system that provides an excellent education for all children, rather than pitting one type of school against another. Nearly a month has passed since the Chancellor made the announcement, but we have yet to hear any answers to the question “Why?” When schools that want to become academies can already do so, as my hon. Friend the Member for Denton and Reddish (Andrew Gwynne) has said, and when schools that the Government deem to be failing or coasting can already be put into an academy chain, why force all others? This is not about school improvement, nor is it about autonomy and freedoms. The multi-academy trust model is in its infancy, and real questions are emerging about accountability, probity, capacity and, for some, standards.

[Catherine West (Hornsey and Wood Green) (Lab)]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

[Lucy Powell]

I will make some progress, because a lot of people want to speak. I will take interventions shortly.

Let us look at each of the Government’s arguments in turn. First, the Government say that this is about school improvement. Let us look at the evidence. The vast majority of schools that will be affected by the policy will be primary schools, of which more than 17% are already academies. Of those that are not, more than 80% are already rated good or outstanding. In secondary, where more than two thirds of schools are already academies, there are more failing academies than non-academies. In places such as Doncaster, Bexley and north-east Lincolnshire, where school improvement remains a real concern, all the secondary schools are already academies.