Renters' Rights Bill (Seventh sitting)

Clive Betts Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 5th November 2024 Public Bill Committees

[Matthew Pennycook]

I will happily try to do so: I will take away the point and try to get the hon. Member some reassurance in short order. I reassure him that we have drafted the clauses carefully, following extensive dialogue with local authorities and local authority stakeholders. We do not take the power lightly. If I understand him correctly, he is putting to me the reasonable point that such a power would never be necessary. If, in the course of our ongoing exchanges, I can give him an example in which it might be necessary, perhaps he will be reassured.

Question put and agreed to.

Clause 111 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clauses 112 to 133 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 134

Interpretation

Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.

[Chair]

With this it will be convenient to consider clauses 135 to 141 stand part.

Oral Answers to Questions

Clive Betts Excerpts

Monday 28th October 2024 Commons Chamber

[The Minister for Local Government and English Devolution (Jim McMahon)]

This Government are acutely aware of the impact of the cost of living crisis on working people, and that is firmly in our sights as we approach the spending review this week, but we will have to repair a fair amount of the system, not just the finances. The early warning audit has been left shattered following 14 years of mismanagement, and single-year settlements have left councils not knowing from one year to the next how much money they have to spend, so we will have to introduce multi-year settlements. There is a great deal of work to do, and we cannot repair 14 years of damage in three months, but we are well on the way to it.

[Mr Clive Betts (Sheffield South East) (Lab)]

Let me first draw attention to my declared interest as a trustee of Fields in Trust.

In the last Parliament, the Housing, Communities and Local Government Committee received a large amount of evidence concerning the importance of well-designed open spaces for children and young people, but the national planning policy framework mentions them once and mentions bats twice. Is it not about time we got our priorities right, and did more to improve the design of—

[Mr Speaker]

Order. Just a minute, please! One of us will have to give way.

The hon. Gentleman is one of the most senior Members of Parliament. He should be looking at me when he is asking a question, not at the Minister. Come on, Clive: I am better-looking.

[Mr Betts]

I will agree with you on the latter point, Mr Speaker.

Will the Minister tell us whether he will change the guidance in future to place more emphasis on the importance to children and young people of properly designed open space?

[Mr Speaker]

But not in this instance! [Laughter.]

Building Safety and Resilience

Clive Betts Excerpts

Wednesday 11th September 2024 Commons Chamber

[Rushanara Ali]

I will make a bit more progress. We will ensure that dangerous buildings are found and dealt with. The money is there. The speed must increase. We are not leaving this task just to regulators; the Government must do more, and this Government will do so.

[Mr Clive Betts (Sheffield South East) (Lab)]

I congratulate the Minister on her appointment. It is absolutely right that the Government should be providing support, including financial support, for those buildings that need work done urgently. Of course, the problem is that the building safety fund has different rules and criteria for buildings in the social housing sector and those in the private sector. When the Prime Minister spoke about Grenfell, he spoke about the discrimination and poor treatment of social housing tenants. Will the Government rectify that by making social housing providers equally eligible for help from the building safety fund?

[Rushanara Ali]

I thank my hon. Friend for his work on this matter. I served on the Communities and Local Government Committee under his chairmanship many years ago and learned a great deal from his work. The Government have committed up to £400 million in grant funding for the removal of Grenfell-style cladding in the social sector, and social housing landlords can apply for the grant schemes in particular circumstances, but we are working with regulators and the sector to ensure that social landlords assess the progress of remediation work. There is much to do, and I look forward to working closely with him on that and the wider agenda.

Since 2017, some progress has been made, including the Building Safety Act 2022, which Labour supported. But what is clear is that the speed of work to fix unsafe cladding is not fast enough. The recent fires in Dagenham and Slough underlined the vulnerabilities that persist in our built environment. Since coming into office, we have met regulators and other industry partners to press for action to make buildings safe. We are contacting all metro mayors in England to ask for their support in driving forward local remediation acceleration plans, working in partnership with regulators.

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[David Simmonds (Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner) (Con)]

I would like to open by sharing the commitment of His Majesty’s official Opposition to supporting the Government in ensuring that, in particular, the legislation brought forward in the previous Parliament, broadly with cross-party support, to address the issues that the Under-Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, the hon. Member for Bethnal Green and Stepney (Rushanara Ali) and colleagues have outlined following the Grenfell fire, takes full effect through regulation and implementation across the sector. It is absolutely clear, as was stated by the Leader of the Opposition during the Prime Minister’s statement last week, that we share the Government’s determination to ensure that everybody in our country is able to feel safe in their home, and that risks, whether they are known or might emerge from the continuing research into this field, are properly addressed. We will do our very best to work with her and colleagues in a constructive manner to ensure that that happens.

Today’s debate is also an opportunity to consider many of the broader issues around building safety that will come into play as we consider the Government’s plans to reform our planning system, increase our housing supply, bring in new forms of building into the United Kingdom and reform building regulations. A great deal of the report from Sir Martin into the Grenfell incident focuses on the role played by building regulations and their operation in the market for materials and design in the terrible disaster that took the lives of 72 people.

However, we should not waste an opportunity to consider more broadly how other parts of our housing system and our planning system can ensure that risks that might emerge in the future are dealt with effectively. For example, we are aware when a planning application comes forward that the safety and resilience of a building is not simply down to its construction and materials; it is also affected by its location, its proximity to other sources of risk and its design from its very inception. They all have a part to play. We know from points that have been made in the past by Members from across the House about the role that housing plays in the context of public health that, in the capital, for example, air quality is often worse indoors than it is outdoors as a result of buildings designed with poor ventilation and poor mechanical systems. That creates a long-term health and safety burden for residents which can be alleviated by giving due consideration to better design and resilience at the initial stages.

I encourage the Government to consider, as they embark on this process, how to manage some of the very complex interactions when seeking to improve the safety of buildings where there are freeholders, leaseholders and tenants all occupying some of the same space. I am aware, from experience in a local authority, that Hillingdon council had to go to court on 16 occasions to gain access to council properties to undertake basic maintenance and servicing work to installations against the will of the occupier, even though that work was being carried out at no cost to the tenant. That demonstrates some of the practical difficulties that that complex relationship can create in ensuring that local authorities and others are able to fulfil the duties that this House and the legislation place upon them.

It is also clear, from both the Grenfell report and other research, that the drive towards building efficiency, in particular energy efficiency, has created a risk of a loss of focus on safety. We know that this has been part of a global move to recognise the need to address climate change through better quality insulation and the more efficient construction of buildings. Increasingly, we see buildings being brought forward with modular construction of different types. Hotels arrive in a shipping crate: pre-constructed rooms are simply stacked up and then given a brick skin. Frame-constructed homes are a significant part of the delivery of the housing market. These provide an opportunity to make the available funds go further and create more homes more quickly. That is extremely welcome, but we need to ensure that the risks that might be associated with some of those forms of construction, especially where they take place at scale, are properly considered. I would like to hear a little more from the Government in due course about how the broader context of building safety and resilience will take those matters into account.

[Mr Betts]

Would the shadow Minister like to reflect on the fact that around four years ago the previous Government set up a committee to look at modern methods of construction, but the last investigation showed that it had not actually met? It is important that we get this right. We can see the problems with timber-framed homes and all the difficulties they caused in the 1980s. It is important we get the techniques and construction right, but there was a bit of a gap in the previous Government’s approach, was there not?

[David Simmonds]

Of course, it is embarrassing to hear that. Again, from experience of local government, I know that a great deal of work has been put in to ensure that modern methods of construction are put forward for Government consideration. Often there are exemplars around the country of how new estates and new homes have been delivered. There is certainly no lack of evidence on the opportunities available.

We also have an opportunity to reflect on the many challenges in our current housing stock, and in other types of buildings such as schools and hospitals. Once upon a time, aerated concrete and asbestos were regarded as wonder materials, and house builders and Governments would have been considered inefficient if they had not ensured their use. We now know that they have created problems and risks that require significant levels of expenditure to remediate.

That brings me to another important point: building resilience is not just about homes. The BBC recently did an excellent piece of work commemorating the original Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974, which was implemented by Government following a number of quite appalling incidents, mainly in factories, where significant loss of life occurred because the design of buildings meant that, in the event of a fire, for example, it was difficult or impossible for people to get away.

We know that school buildings have been destroyed and that thus far not a single school has been fitted with sprinklers where fire has resulted in total loss of the building. The cost of installing that equipment at the design and construction stage is relatively modest compared with the impact of retrofitting it, so there is an opportunity for the Government to reflect on how, as we take forward their strategy on investment in new schools, we ensure that that resilience is, as far as possible, built in and that the full cost to the taxpayer that occurs when a hospital or a school is lost is considered. We must reflect also on how we ensure that office buildings and factories under construction meet the highest possible standards, especially as they often face many of the same challenges around new materials and new forms of design that are intended to make them more efficient but potentially bring in risks that it is our duty to foresee and prevent as far as we possibly can.

We will shortly consider the Renters’ Rights Bill. That will have a wider impact, especially on the build-to-rent sector. We have seen new forms of developer coming into the market with the specific intention of constructing, from the outset, long-term rental homes.

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[Mr Clive Betts (Sheffield South East) (Lab)]

I welcome the Under-Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, my hon. Friend the Member for Bethnal Green and Stepney (Rushanara Ali), to her position. As my hon. Friend the Member for Hackney South and Shoreditch (Dame Meg Hillier) said in an intervention a few moments ago, it is probably one of the most challenging and difficult jobs in Government. We all saw the struggles faced by Conservative Ministers who had to deal with these issues over many years; indeed, we are still struggling because we have not got to the position that we would all like to be in.

I want to comment on the many reports produced by the Levelling Up, Housing and Communities Committee in the last Parliament and the one before, when I was privileged to chair the Committee. We produced two reports after Grenfell, following Dame Judith Hackitt’s initial report on the issues to the Government. We also did pre-legislative scrutiny of the Building Safety Bill, followed up with a report, did quite a lot of work on things like construction products, and had correspondence with Ministers on those subjects. Every one of our reports was agreed unanimously by that cross-party Committee, and I am pleased that the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner (David Simmonds), has indicated the Opposition’s support for the general approach to these matters; we all want to see building safety carried out on all the buildings in our constituencies in a timely and proper manner.

As I was looking back at Dame Judith’s report and deciding what I should say today, as well as picking out one or two bits of the Select Committee’s work, something struck me. She said that it was about not just building rules and regulations but culture. The Grenfell report clearly sets out that there needs to be an overall comprehensive review to avoid the gaps in regulations. That is absolutely right, and the Government will no doubt follow that through and report on what they are going to do, but Dame Judith said that there was a “race to the bottom” culture in the building industry—that it was about how cheaply could things be done. That was shown in Grenfell, as there were examples of cheaper products being substituted for others.

In the end, the safety of individuals was put behind financial returns. Unfortunately, that is far too common in the construction industry. The Minister may even struggle more with that fundamental reform to attitudes and culture than she does with the review of building regulations, which will be a struggle enough itself. That has to be borne in mind right the way through. Nevertheless, we look forward to the Government’s response to all the recommendations of Sir Martin Moore-Bick and his inquiry.

The Minister said in a written answer to me the other day that about 4,000 homes still have dangerous cladding on them. After all this time, that really is quite shocking. I wonder whether the Minister might consider updating that figure regularly—maybe placing it in the Library every three months—so we can all look at whether progress has been made quickly enough. She might even like to provide a list of all the buildings, their owners and their developers so we can start to see who the guilty parties are. Some have legitimate reasons for not having made changes yet, which we want to know, but others simply are not interested in getting on with the work that is their responsibility.

There are some other problems and challenges that the Minister might also like to address. My attention was drawn to a particular block that could access the building safety fund for the removal of cladding, but not for other safety work that needed to be done, including replacing missing firewalls and dangerous fire doors. That is okay when developers are involved, who should be pushed to put right their wrongs of their construction, but in this case, the developer had gone bust and the building was owned by its leaseholders. Where did they go in that situation? Well, actually, the building work just stopped.

We ended up with a building safety fund that is not comprehensive—the Select Committee recommended it cover all aspects of building safety work—and covers just cladding, and because other elements of building safety are not covered by the fund, there are situations where buildings are left unsafe and there is no one really to point the finger at and say, “They’re responsible.” The Minister probably cannot give me an answer to that point today, but I hope she will think about it. If we can start to identify precisely where these buildings are, many more such situations may emerge.

Where there are recalcitrant developers and owners, how can the leaseholders get help? As has been mentioned, they are often faced with high insurance costs and enormous worries about what happens next in their life. The Select Committee talked to people who were in despair, and that was a few years ago; they are probably still in despair now because nothing has changed in their situation. On top of that, they can be faced with legal costs to challenge the developers and owners. Can the Minister give us some assurance that her Department and officials will stand ready to offer all assistance possible to leaseholders in that situation, who are really struggling and desperate in many circumstances? The Leasehold Knowledge Partnership has done good work in providing assistance, but the technical and legal advice should really be coming from her Department.

I wanted to mention one or two other key issues, although if I tried to go through all the building safety issues that came up in the Select Committee, I would be here for a lot longer than today’s debate. Skills have been mentioned. When the Committee looked at the Building Safety Bill, we recommended a national system of third-party accreditation and registration for all professionals working on the design and construction of high-rise buildings. That did not include all the people who work on buildings, such as labourers and those with other skills, but all those involved with professional skills—whether it be architects, those overseeing construction work or building safety managers—should be properly accredited, and there ought to be a national system. It is clear that there are gaps in that regard.

As for those who work in the trades involved, it is a disgrace that under building electrical safety regulations, it is still the case that the only rules relate to “competent persons”. In a high-rise building, an electrician who does work in a kitchen where there is water, or in the garden where there is water, will not be covered by any building safety regulations. An electrician who does work in the bathroom will be covered, but will have to be part of a competent persons scheme—which does not mean that the person doing the work must be competent; it simply means that the company must be registered as having someone who is competent to sign off the work at the end of the day, even if the person never sees the work that has been done. The Committee reported on that several times back in 2015 and never got any further with it, so it needs to be looked at.

Construction products were clearly a problem at Grenfell, and I welcomed the comments about that in the Grenfell report. We called over and over again for a comprehensive review of the testing of products and their safety. We called for the publication of information not only about the products that had been tested and found to be safe, but about those that had failed. What Dame Judith Hackitt found initially in her review was that companies were going from one testing house to another with their products until they found one that passed them. No one was ever notified of the failures, and that cannot be right. Sir Martin Moore-Bick has called for more transparency over product testing, so can we ensure that failures are reported, as well as successes?

In all the costs of Grenfell, while developers are being held to account to some degree, not one construction product manufacturer has been asked to pay a single penny towards the cost of building remediation, although many of them are clearly responsible for some of the problems. Why is that? We pushed the then Government about it. We last wrote to the relevant Minister in March last year. The Government commissioned a report by Paul Morrell on construction products and safety, but never responded to it in detail. Will this Minister now look at it and give a response? Will she look at the testing and categorisation of products, and at how manufacturers can be made to pay some of the costs that should not fall on leaseholders or on social housing providers?

I am pleased by the recommendation in the Grenfell report that building control officers should always be appointed by an independent third party. The developers should not be choosing—in some cases—their own friends to sign off a building. In the case of the highest-rise buildings, the building safety regulator is now responsible for appointing building control officers.

[Jeremy Corbyn]

Let me compliment the hon. Gentleman on all his work on this. Does he agree that one of the problems is the systemic underfunding of local authorities—leading to the inadequacy of all their inspection regimes, building control in particular—which has had such a devastating effect on the quality of building in so many parts of the country?

[Mr Betts]

Yes, I do. The Committee has made many recommendations in many reports about the whole issue of local authority funding and the squeezing of resources in respect of services of this kind, given the priority that authorities have to give to social care in all its forms and, now, temporary accommodation. As well as the question of resources, however, there is the question of independence. The building control officer will be beholden to the developer, whoever the developer is, because the developer will say, “If you give me a difficult time on this building, I will not give you any work for the next one.” That must be stopped. The last Government would say that they did so in respect of the highest-rise buildings, but it needs to be stopped for all buildings, and I am pleased about what Sir Martin said about that in his report.

Let me now return to the issue of social housing. I am sorry, but I must tell the Minister that I am not going to let it go away. Both the Prime Minister and the Deputy Prime Minister made comments about the discrimination against and bad treatment of social housing tenants. For a long time we have had the attitude that this is poor housing for poor people who do not really matter. We must challenge that, because they do matter. Landlords in the social housing sector, housing associations and councils, will always do their best to make buildings safe, and in some cases—because there is no access to the building safety fund unless they can show that they cannot do the work, and they can always find some money to do it—that will mean squeezing the headroom in the housing revenue account or housing associations’ business plans. That squeezed headroom would otherwise be available for the building of new homes.

If the Government want to build 1.5 million new homes—and I fully support that; I think it is one of the best commitments that they are making—they will not be built by the private sector alone. A substantial number of social houses will have to be built, and that requires HRA resources and resources in the housing associations’ business plans. The more we squeeze them with other responsibilities that are not financed by the building safety fund, the less money will be available to build new social housing.

[Emily Darlington]

I thank my hon. Friend for raising that point about the impact on the HRA. We had two such buildings where the council had to deal with compartmentation with no support from the Government, and had to rehouse 300 families in just under a year, per best practice. Does my hon. Friend agree that the pressure on councils has been much greater than it has been on private developers to move quickly on remediation and removal?

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[Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)]

Order. I must remind Members that contributions are made through the Chair, so it is important to make eye contact with the Chair rather than with the Minister on the Front Bench.

[Mr Betts]

I am sure you appreciate, Madam Deputy Speaker, that I always want to make eye contact with you. [Laughter.] I probably will not be called again for a long time after that.

Of course I agree with my hon. Friend that while social landlords in particular should take their responsibility seriously, and I think that most of them do, many are struggling.

My final ask of the Minister is this. Given the urgency of the issue, will she agree to meet me—together with Kate Henderson, the chief executive of the National Housing Federation, and the representative of the local council who recently produced an excellent report about funding for council house building—to discuss this issue and the extra challenges that it poses to both housing associations and councils at what is a difficult time?

Let me end by thanking all my colleagues who were involved in the Select Committee in the previous two Parliaments. Its new Chair is to be elected today, and I offer to help and support whoever it is in any way I can, because I am sure that this issue is one that the new Committee will want to address.

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

I call the Liberal Democrat spokesperson.

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[Alex Norris]

I can give the hon. Gentleman that assurance. We will absolutely share the best of our knowledge and insight—I am sure that will be a two-way process—to ensure that we are doing right by everybody across Great Britain and Northern Ireland.

[Mr Betts]

I thank the Minister for his kind words about my chairing of the Select Committee. I am really pleased that he is now looking at raising some money from product manufacturers; they have escaped their responsibilities for far too long. Might I suggest that he use some of the money raised to help with social housing providers, given the concerns that I raised about their being treated differently in their access to the building safety fund?

[Alex Norris]

My hon. Friend’s suggestions often come with a smile but a degree of force. He will know that we are not very far from a spending review and a Budget, so I will not make financial commitments at this point. However, that idea is well expressed, and duly noted as a result. I am grateful for it.

Oral Answers to Questions

Clive Betts Excerpts

Monday 2nd September 2024 Commons Chamber

[Rushanara Ali]

The Government have set out very ambitious plans on home building and on green issues. The future home building programme will address those issues; we look forward to working with colleagues on the issue.

[Mr Clive Betts (Sheffield South East) (Lab)]

The last Government consulted at very great length about bringing accessibility standards for all new homes up to M4(2) level. The Housing, Communities and Local Government Committee recommended that be done immediately, but the response we got was that more consultation was needed. Will the Minister assure us that the issue will now be dealt with as a matter of urgency, so that all new homes are more accessible for people with disabilities? It is a really important issue that seems to have been forgotten about.

[Rushanara Ali]

Today, in our written ministerial statement, we have set out a number of proposals. The points my hon. Friend makes about accessibility are extremely important. We will do further work, building on the statement published today. I look forward to working with him to address the issue.

Building Homes

Clive Betts Excerpts

Tuesday 30th July 2024 Commons Chamber

[Angela Rayner]

These are the answers to the questions. [Interruption.] No, they are the bits that I have written, actually, in regard to her questions.

Members of the party opposite are now talking to themselves and not the country. The right hon. Lady mentioned chaos and uncertainty; I really do not know how Opposition Members can say that with a straight face after the chaos and uncertainty that we have seen, with countless Housing Secretaries not knowing what was going on.

In every inner-city area—this is in answer to the question—there are increases in the targets. I remind Members that we inherited the most acute housing crisis in living memory. I say to the right hon. Lady that the green belt definition is in the consultation document, and I suggest that she read it. It also tackles the issue of “beautiful homes”, We will build homes at scale and they will be beautiful. We will protect the natural environment, and we will make sure that people have the homes that they deserve and need.

I was astonished by what the right hon. Lady said about councils and council leaders. The council leaders I have spoken to are overjoyed by the fact that the Tories were kicked out. They say to me that they have been left in a dire situation. I know that Opposition Members like to think that that is just Labour councils, but councils across the political spectrum have been left in a disastrous situation, because the party opposite did not build the homes that people need. We have a homelessness crisis in this country. People under the age of 30 cannot get homes now. It is impossible for people to get on to the housing ladder. That is the failure of the last Conservative Government, and that is what we are going to fix. That is what we are going to get on and do.

[Mr Clive Betts (Sheffield South East) (Lab)]

I welcome you to your place, Madam Deputy Speaker. I also welcome both the ambition and the detail in my right hon. Friend’s statement, and the commitments made in it.

I have two questions. First, if the targets are not mandatory—although, in the last Parliament, the Levelling Up, Housing and Communities Committee said that they had to be—many councils will simply choose to ignore them, but if they are to be mandatory, will my right hon. Friend assure me that they will be based on a proper needs assessment of each local authority, and will do away with the nonsensical and arbitrary urban uplifts to which she referred in the context of London?

Secondly, may I ask a question about social housing? I was proud to be brought up in a council house, as my right hon. Friend was. Will she work closely with local authorities and look particularly at land value capture? Will she ensure that when the planning permission for a site uplifts the value of that site, the total increase in value does not go to the landowners alone, but is used to benefit the public purse and reduce the cost of building those homes?

[Angela Rayner]

I can confirm that we are getting rid of the urban uplift. The new method of establishing housing targets is better than the previous one, which we believed was outdated. The urban uplift figures were plucked from thin air, but we believe that our new method will give councils the stability and certainty that will enable them to plan for the homes and local services that they need. As for land value capture, there is a little bit about it in the consultation document, but there will be more in the forthcoming planning and infrastructure Bill.

Renters (Reform) Bill

Clive Betts Excerpts

Report stage
Wednesday 24th April 2024 Commons Chamber

[Mr Clive Betts (Sheffield South East) (Lab)]

Will the Minister assure us that proper energy efficiency standards will be contained in the decent homes standard? Otherwise, tenants will still be living in damp and cold homes because they will be unable to afford to heat them.

[Jacob Young]

I commit to working with the Chair of the Levelling Up, Housing and Communities Committee, and indeed with all Members of the House, to ensure that the decent homes standard provides for decent homes of the kind that he describes.

This is the first time we have applied the decent homes standard to the private rented sector, and we have to get it right. In order to target the minority of unscrupulous landlords, in Committee we also gave stronger powers to local councils, and we strengthened rent repayment orders. That will help to ensure effective and proportionate enforcement of the new system.

Let me turn to the Government amendments that we have tabled on Report. They respond to concerns from Members, constituents, and tenant and landlord groups, ensuring security for tenants while giving confidence to good landlords and supporting the private rented market. Several Members from across the House have played a direct role in helping us to ensure that the Bill works as effectively as possible for all those who live and work in the private rented sector. I of course include in that my hon. Friends the Members for Totnes (Anthony Mangnall) and for Northampton South (Andrew Lewer) for their continued engagement and constructive dialogue on the measures in the Bill.

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[Jacob Young]

My hon. and learned Friend is absolutely right. We have committed to making the assessment, so we will ensure that the relevant funding is in place. I have said that we have invested £1.2 million for HM Courts and Tribunals Service to deliver a new end-to-end online possession process, but I am pleased also to confirm to him today that we are investing a further £11 million this financial year to deliver a new digital system.

[Mr Betts]

The Minister has tried to blame the Levelling Up, Housing and Communities Committee for this delay by saying that we noted that there was a problem in the courts, which would need to be ready to deal with the extra work caused by the abolition of section 21. However, the Government have had five years to sort the courts out and get them working properly. Surely that has been planned for right from the last election. On the Select Committee asking for improvements to the courts, I just point out that we asked for a specialist housing court—a bit like a small claims court—that could process things more quickly. We did not ask for that in our report last year; we asked for it in 2018, and the Government rejected it.

[Jacob Young]

I think I have been quite clear that it is important that we see that the courts are ready for these reforms. The Under-Secretary of State for Justice, my hon. Friend the Member for Finchley and Golders Green (Mike Freer), is here on the Front Bench with me. He and the MOJ are working at pace to ensure that the courts are ready for the reforms we are introducing. The hon. Member for Sheffield South East (Mr Betts) asks about a specialist housing court. We do not believe that that is the best way to improve the court process for possession—a view shared by the judiciary who responded to our call for evidence.

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[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

Order. Before I call the next speaker, I inform the House that I will be giving priority to those Members who have amendments down, so that they can speak to them before we hear from others. I call Chair of the Levelling Up, Housing and Communities Committee, Clive Betts.

[Mr Betts]

It is disappointing that we are having to focus primarily on the Government back-pedalling on the timetable for the abolition of section 21. The Levelling Up, Housing and Communities Committee looked at this a year ago and concluded unanimously that the principle of the Government’s intention was right. We had some reservations and caveats, and we raised concerns and suggested detail changes, but nevertheless we agreed on the principle. Generally speaking, there is agreement across the House that it is the right thing to do.

In the meantime, people are living in uncertainty in private rented housing. That is why we thought it was the right thing to do. That is what the measure is for: to give people greater certainty about where they will be living in a year’s time. It is not merely that; it is also so that they know, if they do not have a car, that they can get on the bus to their place of work in the morning—if the landlord evicts them and they have to move home, will they be able to get to that job in the future? It is also about children at school: will those children be able to get to the same school if they are evicted from their home and have to find a new property? That is the sort of family certainty that the abolition of section 21 will introduce. So many families are living in uncertainty—not just housing uncertainty but other uncertainty—while we await that abolition. The Minister needs to get on with it and give us some clear time commitments on when it will happen.

We have just discussed the problem of the courts. Of course, covid has affected lots of public services, but I say to the Minister that it is not a surprise. If we look at how long it was taking local authorities to get court hearings to deal with antisocial behaviour cases before covid, we see even then that those ran into months. It has been a problem in the courts for many years. That is why the Committee has suggested—it has been suggested before—a housing court system. I know that Ministers do not want it and that the Ministry of Justice does not want it, but it seemed to us a way of resolving what are often simple or quick problems. A small claims court format could do it in many cases without the need for lawyers to be introduced. I am sorry, but I have no conviction that, with several months of looking at this, several years of contemplation and plans for action, the courts will be any quicker in two or three years than they are now. The court system has delays, and they are likely to remain, so we need to look a bit beyond the existing system to resolve these problems. Obviously, Ministers have set their minds against that.

I turn to the other main problem that we highlighted on implementation: local authorities and their staff. We know that local authorities are desperately short of staff for enforcement in the private rented sector. Once section 21 goes, tenants who are currently frightened—even those living in appalling damp properties—to make complaints against their landlords, because they are concerned they would be evicted as soon as a complaint is made, will feel emboldened to make that complaint, and if their complaint is not listened to, they will be emboldened to go to their local authority and ask for help. Local authorities will get more requests for help, and they have not got the people to deal with that.

Will the Minister assure us that he is starting to talk to the Local Government Association about the new burdens that will be placed on local authorities—this is a new burden that we are imposing on them, albeit a good one—and that there is some agreement on the resource that will be needed? Resources do not produce extra staff overnight, so local authorities will need advance warning so that we have the staff in place to respond quickly.

[Anthony Mangnall (Totnes) (Con)]

I apologise for interrupting the hon. Gentleman. Given the important point he is making about redress for tenants and who they might go to, would he add any comment on consumer protection for unfair trading, which is one of the remedies for those who have difficulties with either the standard and quality of their property or the landlord, as well as those who have been mis-sold for a rental period?

[Mr Betts]

I think the reality is that local authorities are generally short of resources right through, as the Committee’s recent report on local authority funding—again, it was unanimously agreed—showed. Because of the demands of social care on local authority budgets, other services are often cut even more than the mainstream. We have previously looked at trading standards and consumer protection, which are an important element—the hon. Member is absolutely right—and I hope that they will be factored in when we have the new burdens discussions.

There are some things that the Minister could resolve fairly quickly. He referred to the important role that the ombudsman can play in resolving disputes. There is sometimes a bit of a conflict between whether someone goes to the ombudsman or to the courts—sometimes, the ombudsman will not deal with a case if it is in the courts. It would be helpful to clarify those issues. But why does he not just decide that the housing ombudsman, who currently deals with social housing issues, will also deal with private sector housing? He should make that decision. Again, if the ombudsman is to have that responsibility, it needs to gear up by starting to recruit more staff and getting in resources to be able to do it. It is a simple decision. He has not ruled it out, but he has not ruled it in. Can we not just do it? It seems obvious. Why set up another body, which would have to start from scratch, when the ombudsman has the skills to do it? Those skills are slightly different in some cases, but why not let it get on with that, and tell it now that it will have that job to do?

I have a couple of other points. The property portal is a really welcome development. We know that when someone is trying to track down a landlord—it is often a local authority, which wants to serve a notice on them—suddenly, the ownership of the property moves, and a different member of the family becomes an owner, or a different company is set up. To know who owns the property, information will have to be given to the property portal, along with all other information about the property. That is a really important step forward, as well as making sure that the portals are digitised so that the information can be kept up to date simply.

I welcome the Minister saying that selective licensing and the property portal are not the same thing, with the property portal to be there for all properties. Selective licensing—it is in the name—will be there for some properties. When there is a review of selective licensing and the relationship with the property portal, will the proposals come back to the House for consideration at some point? I want reassurance on that. Many of us support selective licensing, which we see operating against the worst landlords and the worst properties, and we hope that there will not be a diminution of those powers and responsibilities that would weaken what it can achieve.

[Jacob Young]

I can certainly commit to working with the hon. Member and his Committee when we are at the point of making a decision on where we go after such a review. I completely agree that selective licensing has its role—it is not overtaken by the property portal—but we must ensure that the two work together.

[Mr Betts]

That is a helpful assurance, which I accept, and I think he has already given assurance of similar collaboration on the decent homes standard, which is appreciated.

Finally, I come specifically to some complicated amendments that I have tabled—I admit that they even confuse me on occasions—which are about the powers that social landlords have when they come to regenerate areas. The Committee has heard some pretty awful examples of poor properties in the social housing sector, and we have been critical. However, often it is not an individual property that is the problem, but properties in deck-access blocks built in the ’60s, ’70s or ’80s. The property has reached the end of its life and people do not like living there: it might have damp or other problems, such as antisocial behaviour. The management costs are high and the cost of regeneration, making it fit for purpose and bringing it up to decent homes standards, is so great that it is not worth spending the money. In some cases demolition and rebuild is needed, and in others substantial regeneration and improvement is needed, and that means the tenants have to move out.

In those cases, social landlords need to be certain that they have the power to require tenants to move, because in a block of properties of 100 residents, 95 of them will probably be terribly enthusiastic about moving out, particularly if they are going to get a new or refurbished home, but the other five might dig their heels in and try to stick it out, holding up the whole scheme. The Minister believes that social landlords have the power to do that under existing legislation. I have tabled amendment 52 and the related amendments because the National Housing Federation is concerned that social landlords think they have powers, but they do not exist where the initial tenancy with their secure tenant was set up by a nomination from a local authority. It is a complicated legal issue, but an important one.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jacob Young]

The hon. Gentleman makes legitimate points, and I am more than happy to meet him and the National Housing Federation.

[Mr Betts]

I thank the Minister for that response. On that collaborative point, I will end my contribution.

[Mrs Natalie Elphicke (Dover) (Con)]

I am very pleased to follow the Chair of the Levelling Up, Housing and Communities Committee, on which I sit. He expressed very well the importance of the section 21 reforms, in particular to families and to renters who are so reliant on them.

My view is that the Bill does not go far enough in dealing with the fundamental challenges of the private rented sector, which is no longer a flex or transitionary tenure but the main tenure for millions of people for much, if not all, of their lives. There has been a long-term structural shift away from social renting and home ownership into an expanded private rented sector. That shift needs to be addressed by building more homes—affordable homes and for first-time buyers—and by finding a new balance that reflects the new reality for millions of people in our country.

Sadly, the original principle of the Bill, which was to create a fair and responsible new rented sector, has been undermined by the Government’s amendments. That change of position undermines not just the Bill but the very manifesto commitment on which the Conservative Government were elected in 2019.

Turning to the amendments and new clauses that stand in my name, new clause 39 would require a landlord to make a relocation payment to the tenant if the tenant is evicted within two years of the start of the tenancy, other than on exempted grounds such as antisocial or criminal behaviour. Evidence from Shelter and Generation Rent shows that unrecoverable costs—the wasted cost to the renter of an unwanted move—can be between £700 and £1,700. My new clause proposes that a payment would be made by the landlord in recognition of those unrecoverable costs to the tenant. Being evicted places a great emotional strain on tenants, who find themselves in insecure housing. It should not place them under a financial strain as well.

Amendment 257 would amend ground 12—possession due to a failure to carry out an obligation of the tenancy—in schedule 2 to the Housing Act 1988, setting out the grounds for possession. That provision will gain much greater importance following these changes, for it is the catch-all provision for evictions. The amendment is intended to address the risk of being served a notice for eviction for trivial matters, such as hanging up washing outside, displaying a poster on a wall, or a teenager putting up a poster with Blu Tack. Those are real examples written into existing tenancy agreements by letting agencies that are members of their relevant professional bodies. Amendment 257 would provide that ground 12 could be used only for material breaches, not for Blu Tack.

The Minister has written to me to say that there were landlords who wanted to make the ground 12 position mandatory. These are landlords who want to be able to serve notice and evict tenants for using Blu Tack. In my book, if you are to lose your home it should be for a serious reason, not for Blu Tack or hanging the washing outside or any other trivial thing. All the more so, because we know that the majority of evictions take place when notices are given to the tenant without court applications, let alone court repossession orders.

The Law Society has raised the issue of the scarcity of legal advice available to tenants across the country. We have heard already today that the Government have not yet produced even working drafts of what the new forms might be for the new eviction grounds. That also matters, because at the moment the court forms require the ground to be set out in the document. They do not require, for example, for that to specify whether it is in fact a discretionary or other ground for the courts. So this does impact directly on tenants’ understanding and ability to challenge their potential eviction. As such, the Government’s position, which is to allow ground 12—the Blu Tack ground—unamended, is to invite every landlord to invoke spurious and unfair reasons for evictions. This is apparently not the intent of the Bill. I am grateful to the Minister for his engagement with me on that ground. I ask him to reconsider that position and see what more can be done to ensure that ground 12 applies only in relation to serious matters. That seems much more reasonable, and fair to landlords and tenants alike.

On Government new clause 30, when I spoke to major landlords recently, they confirmed that they are not yet ready to digitise. They are not yet ready to put in place and work with the very provisions for which they have so strongly advocated. I understand that it might take some more than two years to put their own systems in place to engage with the new measures they have asked for. Meanwhile, and after all this time—nearly five years—the Government have no detailed plans about what these court changes might be. In November, in Committee, the Minister denied that this was a delaying tactic. However, since then the Ministry of Justice has published its digitisation and reform programme all the way through to 2025. There is absolutely no reference—not even an indicative reference—to this reform programme relating to repossessions. I asked the House of Commons Library for assistance, but it too has been unable to find any specific reference to the changes that may come up in the court process. So I am afraid that the truth is that new clause 30 is a delaying tactic to benefit landlords.

As has been mentioned, the Levelling Up, Housing and Communities Committee has written to the Minister on the implementation of these measures. It has been noted by the Committee that court guidance is already in place to deal with repossession claims in a timely manner. They are contained already in civil procedure rules 55.5. Of course, the courts can always be improved—indeed, it is most welcome that there is a commitment that they should be so—but it should be noted that the Ministry of Justice’s data shows that last year the target set out for repossession has, in fact, been met. The courts’ performance in landlord repossession cases stands in marked contrast, in the recovery since covid, to many other court backlogs.

That was confirmed in written evidence to the Justice Committee. I am grateful to the Chair of the Justice Committee, my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Sir Robert Neill)—he is not currently in his place—for whom I have the greatest respect. I note that in the written evidence to that Committee, the MOJ confirmed, just in September, that 95% of courts were meeting that target. I understand that the much larger number of weeks to which my hon. and learned Friend referred may relate to personal injury and other matters that were brought before the Committee, but I will discuss that with him later, given that he is not currently in the Chamber.

These are important reforms and it is important for the court processes to work in the right way, but they are working within their current targets, in marked contrast to other court backlogs. That is why new clause 30 is not necessary, and is properly considered to be a delaying tactic.

This is a Bill that the 2019 Conservative manifesto promised would benefit tenants, but it has become a Bill in which the balance too often favours the landlords, particularly if it includes new clause 30, which could indefinitely delay the abolition of section 21 no-fault evictions. That would be nothing short of a betrayal of the promise that was made in 2019, and for that reason I am unable to support the new clause.

--- Later in debate ---

[Anthony Mangnall]

I come at it from a different angle: we are heaping so many rules and regulations on people, and making things so difficult, they are leaving the market as a result. This was one of the pioneering policies of Thatcher, bringing in the idea of the free market in property, and ensuring that millions of people across the country could realise the social value of having a buy-to-let property on a long-term basis. The hon. Lady will not agree with me; I do not think that we agree on very much. That is okay; it is good to be able to debate the issue, especially in this Chamber.

We must be honest about this: removing fixed-term tenancies is essentially the state telling individuals what they can and cannot do with their own private properties. It is conceivable to remove section 21 while retaining fixed-term tenancies. I have said that the Conservatives have long prided ourselves on being the party of free markets, and we should keep that in mind when we vote later. We are sending completely the wrong message, with dire consequences for future levels of housing supply. We are making an enormous mistake, which will reduce long-term lets in favour of short-term lets and result in many properties being taken off the rental market. I would hate to be back here, having to repeat the figures that I gave at the start of my remarks—in 2019, there were eight people for every one property; now there are 25—and say that the number is going up and up. I fear that, as a consequence of the Bill, that will happen.

[Mr Betts]

The hon. Gentleman seems to be in favour of abolishing section 21, but then giving landlords the right to bring in fixed-term tenancies, which end with a section 21 notice. If the landlord chose, therefore, section 21 would not be abolished, would it? It would be a figment of our imagination here, because in practice it would never be delivered with his proposal.

Oral Answers to Questions

Clive Betts Excerpts

Monday 22nd April 2024 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I call the Chair of the Select Committee.

[Mr Clive Betts (Sheffield South East) (Lab)]

The Select Committee welcomed the more than £2 billion provided through the building safety fund to private leaseholders with regard to remediation due to fire safety works. On the other hand, social housing providers received only £200 million, which is about 10% of the amount going to private leaseholders. How can it possibly be fair that in a block of flats a private leaseholder gets their remediation costs paid, but in the same flat next door a social housing tenant has to pay for the total cost out of their rent? That simply is not fair. Ministers have accepted the unfairness in the past. When will they do something about it?

[Lee Rowley]

As my constituency neighbour recognises, there is, rightly, a substantial amount of taxpayer subsidy for remediation. We are trying to ensure that that taxpayer subsidy is then clawed back from those responsible for the problems in the first place. Where there are challenges and issues with registered providers, we are very happy to talk to them. We have done that and we have made changes where necessary.

Planning Reform

Clive Betts Excerpts

Wednesday 13th March 2024 Westminster Hall

[Daisy Cooper (St Albans) (LD)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Betts. I thank the right hon. Member for Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland (Sir Simon Clarke) for securing this debate. If I am perfectly honest, we have more in common that I thought we might. That gives me great hope, and I hope that we might continue to work together on the reforms about which we do agree.

The Liberal Democrats are committed to overhauling this broken top-down planning system. I supported amendments tabled to the Levelling-up and Regeneration Act that would have given councils the powers to force land bankers to build or sell. Unfortunately, they did not go through. We also supported amendments that would have given local councils the power to regulate Airbnbs, something that is so important to my St Albans constituency. I have also been running a campaign to get the Government to scrap the cap on planning fees, as my constituents are subsidising big developers, and our planning department has been left woefully underfunded. It is really disappointing that those amendments were not accepted for the levelling-up Act.

Today, I want to focus on the failed top-down approach to setting housing targets. The Liberal Democrats have an ambition to build 380,000 homes a year, but by adopting a bottom-up approach we would ensure that they were built in the right places and were the right homes. We would require councils to start by addressing their local housing need and identifying any local constraints. The approach would include ensuring that 150,000 homes each year would be truly affordable for social rent, and I am delighted that that is supported by research from the National Housing Federation, Crisis and Heriot-Watt University.

I want to interrogate recent reforms to the national planning policy framework. I intend to challenge the Minister to clarify whether the reforms her Government announced in December have in fact been incorporated into the NPPF at all. I am sure it will come as no surprise to Members or the Minister that I take a keen interest in the proposals to update the NPPF. The Minister will know that I have tabled scores of parliamentary questions, secured debates, responded to various consultations and tabled amendments to the levelling-up Act. I have been clear that the current Government policy and the NPPF itself do nothing to solve the housing crisis. What they do is incentivise developers to destroy great swathes of precious agricultural land, natural habitat and green open spaces on the metropolitan green belt.

The root of the problem is the Government’s top-down housing targets, which are based on out-of-date population data and which councils are required to meet irrespective of any local constraints. There is no clear guidance in the new NPPF at all about whether those top-down targets or preserving undeveloped green belt space for future generations should take precedence, and that is quite confusing.

Let us look at the history of this issue. In 2015, the then Minister of State for Housing and Planning took steps to address it in a written ministerial statement. On permitting development on the green belt, he said that unmet need is

“unlikely to clearly outweigh harm to the green belt and any other harm so as to establish very special circumstances.”—[Official Report, 17 December 2015; Vol. 603, c. 95WS.]

There was a very clear instruction in that statement to local planning authorities and to the planning inspector that the protection of undeveloped green belt should be given more weight than meeting housing targets.

However, that ministerial statement was made nine years ago. There have been 12 Conservative Housing Ministers since then, and unfortunately not one of them has seen fit to incorporate that statement and that principle into the NPPF. That remarkable state of affairs has meant that the Planning Inspectorate has never been able to give that statement any weight at all when deciding on planning appeals. Nor has the Planning Inspectorate had the ability to apply that principle to its examination of local plans—in fact, the planning inspector said as much in a planning appeal heard for an application in Colney Heath in my constituency that has resulted in the wrong homes being built in the wrong place. As a consequence, many councils are not able to meet the top-down housing targets without surrendering undeveloped green belt land for development.

The Minister will know that in St Albans, we unfortunately have the oldest adopted local plan in England. Two previous drafts developed under Conservative administrations were rejected by the Planning Inspectorate. Since 2019, the Liberal Democrat administration has prioritised the local plan process. It has been put under the auspices of the leader of the council, and in recent months the district council has made significant progress by completing a call for sites, producing a draft local plan and completing a regulation 18 consultation.

The Government’s top-down approach has a real impact in St Albans, and that is the situation our district council now faces. The Government’s standard method produces a top-down target of approximately 14,000 homes that need to be built within the St Albans district. The Government’s approach does not allow for any reduction in that top-down target, even though we have been given a Government-imposed strategic rail freight interchange the size of 3.5 million square metres of green belt, equivalent to 490 football pitches, which could instead have potentially accommodated between 2,500 and 3,000 homes. Following the district council’s call for sites and the regulation 18 consultation, it is thought that only around 5,000 homes can be accommodated on brownfield or grey belt sites. Around 9,000 homes will need to be built on previously undeveloped green belt.

The district council is working at pace to put a plan in place, but the combined failure of the Government to embed that written ministerial statement into the NPPF and of previous administrations in St Albans to develop a local plan now means that the council is currently unable to defend itself and its communities from inappropriate, speculative development. As a result, developers have mostly won their cases by appealing to the Planning Inspectorate.

St Albans City and District Council remains unable to prevent the wrong houses from being built in the wrong place. For example, just in the last year 2022-23, most of the housing built in our district was four, five or six-bedroom executive housing, not the three-bedroom homes that we desperately need. After months of delay, hopes were raised that an updated national planning policy framework would finally address the scandal of local plans being required to meet those centrally produced, top-down housing targets, as produced by the so-called standard method. In St Albans, our council leader took the Secretary of State’s promises at face value, saying that that if the new national planning policy framework is changed, such that the protection of underdeveloped metropolitan green belt takes precedence over top-down targets, our draft local plan will change as well. But it seems to me that the changes to the NPPF actually make the situation worse.

The Secretary of State said on 19 December 2023 that the changes provide

“clearer protection for the green belt…In summary, the new NPPF will: facilitate flexibility for local authorities in relation to local housing need; clarify a local lock on any changes to green-belt boundaries…the Government are ensuring it is clear there is generally no requirement on local authorities to review or alter green-belt boundaries if this would be the only way to meet housing need.”—[Official Report, 19 December 2023; Vol. 742, c. 97-99WS.]

The Secretary of State said all of that, but I have read the new national planning policy framework and I am afraid that it says absolutely no such thing. Rather than softening the need to meet those top-down targets, the changes to the NPPF actually strengthen and reinforce the requirement of councils and their communities to meet them.

There are at least five examples that I can find. Paragraph 15 changes the requirement from “addressing” the targets to “meeting” them, which is a significant change in firming up the requirement. Paragraph 60 adds a new requirement that the overall aim of any local plan

“should be to meet as much of an area’s identified housing need as possible”.

Again, that is a significant firming up of meeting that top-down target. Paragraph 61 codifies the Government’s previous position that

“the standard method is an advisory starting-point”,

but the meaning of “advisory” is not clarified. It is widely understood in the planning sector that “advisory” does not mean that it is merely a suggestion, but it is actually a warning. It is a warning that, if that target is not met, the planning inspector will almost certainly throw out and fail any local plan that does not meet that target.

In paragraph 61, the accompanying footnote 25 restricts the circumstances that might permit deviation from the standard method to extreme examples, such as

“islands with no land bridge”.

It appears to deliberately stay silent on undeveloped green belt constraints. Paragraph 145 had, in the version that the Government put out for consultation, the strongest and clearest indication that

“Green Belt boundaries are not required to be reviewed and altered, if this would be the only means of meeting the objectively assessed need for housing over the plan period”.

Inexplicably to those who expected that revision to strengthen green belt protection, that change was scrapped altogether in the final version of the NPPF. Indeed, there is not one single statement anywhere in the NPPF—none at all—that indicates to the planning authorities or the planning inspector that more weight can or should be given to protect undeveloped green belt over top-down housing targets.

Planning professionals agree that, at best, the new NPPF brings nothing to green belt communities. It was reported that one very senior and respected planning barrister, who attended a Hertfordshire Infrastructure & Development Board meeting on 29 February, described the Government’s changes as nothing more than “window dressing”. St Albans City and District Council has proceeded with its local plan-making, in compliance with the previous version of the NPPF, in the expectation that the Government would honour their promise to give councils more power and the ability to protect parts of undeveloped green-belt land. It is clear that those promises have now been broken.

I am told that the Liberal Democrat administration has followed the advice of the Local Government Association, the Planning Advisory Service, the Planning Inspectorate, its own KC and external experts acting as critical friends. In effect, they have all told the council the same thing: “You must meet this top-down target or you are at risk of your local plan being failed.”

Without a local plan, communities in St Albans will continue to end up with our natural environment bulldozed over for inappropriate and oversized executive homes, with no way for the council to require developers to provide the three-bed family homes that our district so desperately needs. Indeed, the draft local plan that the district council has prepared has identified that more than 50% of the new homes in the area have to be three-bedroomed homes. Yet at the moment we have no way of ensuring that developers build them. There is now a limited window of opportunity for the Government to intervene and clarify whether St Albans District Council can move forward with the draft local plan that revises the top-down housing targets downwards, in recognition of local constraints.

To sum up, I have three questions for the Minister. Will the Minister confirm today whether the Government-imposed strategic rail-freight interchange, the size of 490 football pitches, which prevents the building of 2,500 to 3,000 homes, can be taken into account? Secondly, on 9 January, the Minister for Housing, Planning and Building Safety, the hon. Member for North East Derbyshire (Lee Rowley), responded to my written question on the issue of the green belt to say that the Government would consider whether updates were needed to planning practice guidance in due course. Can the Minister today confirm whether that consideration has been completed and, if not, when it will be? My third and final question is will the Government urgently provide updated guidance for local authorities and the planning inspector, making it clear that the protection of undeveloped green-belt sites—not the grey belt—can be considered an exceptional circumstance, which justifies an alternative approach to assessing housing need?

Since the new year, I have tabled 12 written questions asking for clarity on these issues. So far, not one of them has received a satisfactory response. Instead, I have been redirected back to the very statements on which I am trying to seek clarification. My constituents deserve straightforward answers on the Government’s intentions. I hope the Minister will take the opportunity to provide substantive responses today.

[Mr Clive Betts (in the Chair)]

We now move on to the Front Benchers. For Labour, Matthew Pennycook.

Oral Answers to Questions

Clive Betts Excerpts

Monday 4th March 2024 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I call the Chair of the Select Committee, Clive Betts.

[Mr Clive Betts (Sheffield South East) (Lab)]

The Select Committee recently produced a report on local government finance in which we said that the Government must act now if local authorities are to survive this severe crisis. What has the Secretary of State done? He has asked every local authority to produce a productivity plan. That sounds a bit like advising councils how to spend better the money they have not got. He has asked local authorities to identify

“ways to reduce wasteful spend”.

What does he think they have been doing for the last 13 years? In particular, he has asked them to identify waste on

“discredited staff equality, diversity and inclusion programmes”.

How much does he think that will save when it comes to avoiding section 114 notices?

Leasehold and Freehold Reform Bill

Clive Betts Excerpts

Report stage
Tuesday 27th February 2024 Commons Chamber

[Lee Rowley]

I am grateful to the hon. Lady for outlining that issue; I know she has raised it in this place before. As she indicates, this is a complex area of law, but I am happy to talk with her separately on that matter in the coming weeks, if it is helpful.

How are we doing this? We are giving leaseholders more security over the future of their homes by increasing the standard lease extension term to 990 years, by making it cheaper and easier for leaseholders to buy their freehold, and by tackling unfair charges, exploitative practices and poor management. In doing so, we are overturning centuries of iniquity.

The Bill will also give leaseholders the control they deserve over the buildings they live in. At present, management companies are too often unaccountable to those who pay for them, meaning that they are able to charge excessive fees for poor-quality service. The Bill gives more leaseholders the opportunity to manage the buildings themselves, so that works get done properly and they have more of a say.

[Mr Clive Betts (Sheffield South East) (Lab)]

The Minister might anticipate the question I am going to ask, because I have asked it before. It is fine giving leaseholders easier ways to buy their freehold, until we come across companies such as Coppen Estates, which we have debated before. It just does not reply to letters. I think that we are now on our third recorded delivery letter to the company about the residents on the Flockton estate, who have just been sent enhanced bills for their ground rent charges, with no justification. They face threats if they do not comply. Where in the Bill is there any measure to make sure that Coppen Estates and the like respond properly in future or face consequences if they do not?

[Lee Rowley]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman. As he knows, we have debated the iniquities of Coppen Estates extensively, and I repeat that it is treating my constituents in a way that is inappropriate, in the same way that it is doing with his constituents over the border. Given that we are extending the opportunity for charges to go to tribunal, I hope that the hon. Gentleman’s constituents in Flockton will be able to go to tribunal and hold that company or other companies to account, should that be helpful.

Through the reforms, we will scrap the presumption that leaseholders must pay their freeholder’s legal costs, even when they win at tribunal, correcting another historical and unfair imbalance. Someone would not be expected to pay legal costs if they were successful in their claim in other cases, so leaseholders should not be treated any differently.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lee Rowley]

The right hon. Gentleman is absolutely right, which is why I hope that measures such as new clause 51 go some way towards making it crystal clear that there is no way to get around this, and towards providing clarity to those who seek to buy a new property.

New clause 52 will require a statement on the front of all new leases declaring that it is a permitted lease and is not a long residential lease of a house. Should a developer make a dishonest declaration to His Majesty’s Land Registry, the homeowner may be able to exercise the redress right contained in new clause 54, which will allow them to acquire the freehold from the developer free of charge.

Under new clause 53, if a lease does not include the prescribed statements, His Majesty’s Land Registry will have the power to restrict the resale of the property until the right information and declarations have been provided.

[Mr Betts]

The Minister is talking about the information on houses. Will it also apply to flats so that, before anyone buys a property, it must be explained to them that they are buying a lease and what that entails? I tabled new clause 38, which says that everyone buying a lease should be presented with a copy of the Government’s “How to Lease” document. Everyone in this situation should be given independent advice.

[Lee Rowley]

I am focusing on homes, and we have been emphatic and clear that the sale of leasehold homes will be precluded other than in exceptional circumstances. I am happy to talk to the hon. Gentleman both later in the debate and outside the Chamber about whether further consumer protections for those purchasing a flat may be proportionate and reasonable.

New clause 54 grants homeowners who have been mis-sold a new lease of a house the right to acquire the freehold from the landlord, as well as any superior leasehold interest in the property, for zero cost. New clauses 55 and 56 set out protections and reasonable limitations on this requirement, and new clause 57 provides for the Secretary of State to make regulations setting out further details on how redress can be obtained.

We understand that granting homeowners the right to redress alone may not be enough to prevent bad actors from attempting to breach the ban on the sale of leases on houses, which is why we are introducing a system of financial penalties where there is a breach. These penalties will start at £500 for a minor breach, rising to £30,000 for the most serious breaches. To enforce this system of fines, as set out in new clause 58, we are asking all local weights and measures authorities to play a part where they see infractions in their area. We will also set out how they need to work through new clause 60.

The chief responsibility for investigating and taking action will lie with the lead enforcement authority. Through new clause 61, the Secretary of State will have the power to appoint the right authority to fulfil this important role, while new clause 62 details the duties. By amending the Consumer Rights Act 2015, clauses 63 and 64 also vest the appropriate investigatory and enforcement powers essential for both the lead authority and local authorities to carry out the job.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Betts]

It is five years since we produced the Select Committee report on leasehold reform. It came after long years of campaigning by the all-party parliamentary group on leasehold and commonhold reform, and I particularly commend the efforts of the Father of the House, the hon. Member for Worthing West (Sir Peter Bottomley), who has just spoken; my hon. Friend the Member for Ellesmere Port and Neston (Justin Madders); and our good friend Jim Fitzpatrick, who is no longer in this House, but who certainly made a major contribution to that. To be fair to the Government, it is good that we have made progress on many of the items in the Select Committee report. The caveat, of course, is that we probably have not gone as far as we would have wanted or as quickly as we would have expected.

When the Committee met, I remember going into a room with about 100 leaseholders from all over the country—the hon. Member for Harrow East (Bob Blackman), who was in his place a few minutes ago, was there as well—and hearing horror stories of people being ripped off in the sale of leasehold homes by developers. They were told that there was no difference between a leasehold property and a freehold property. They were told that by the solicitors who worked for them, because the solicitors were recommended by the developers. That was together with the free carpets in the living room that came as a bribe—that is what it was. Leaseholders were not aware that they would have to pay £300 to get a doorbell fitted if they wanted one because they had to get permission, or £3,000 for a conservatory, or whatever fees the freeholder chose.

Leaseholders were told that they could, within a couple of years, buy the freehold at a fixed price from the same developer. The problem, of course, was that by the time a leaseholder came to inquire about purchasing the freehold, the freehold had been sold to another party. There are lots of examples of that, which is why I have an amendment—new clause 39—that I want to push to a vote, although I hope the Minister will accept it. It is a simple amendment to say that before the sale of a freehold, the right of first refusal has to go to the existing leaseholder. That right already exists for leaseholders in flats, but not for leaseholders in houses. Why is that? That really cannot be justified or even explained.

Will the Minister accept just that one simple amendment? It would give leaseholders that right, and stop freeholders —we know that this happens—who want to evade the legislation, including the improvements the Government are bringing in, passing a property around from one organisation to a subsidiary to a third party, with a view to evading the legislation, so that leaseholders never know where to go to get the relevant freeholder to agree to the sale.

[Matt Rodda]

My hon. Friend is making an excellent speech. Does he agree that part of the problem is that some of the freeholders are based overseas, and it is extremely difficult for leaseholders to track them down? This is an ongoing issue that I hope the Government will look into.

[Mr Betts]

Absolutely. I hope the Minister will have a look at the whole issue of freeholders who will not respond. That certainly applies to many who are overseas, with whom it is very difficult to get in touch.

I will not press new clause 40 to the vote, but the purpose of it is to say to the Minister that the default answer cannot be that the leaseholder can always go to a tribunal. Most leaseholders are simply ordinary residents trying to get on with their lives, who think it ought to be fairly easy to put in a request, get a calculation done and buy their freehold. They are not ready for these organisations, with all their lawyers and surveyors, that want to evade this and try to hide away, in some cases overseas, so that they cannot be contacted.

Can the Minister look at that issue? I know he is aware of it, because we share the same problem with Coppen Estates. There are others that are based overseas, but this one is based in a semi-boarded-up shopfront with a letterbox that never seems to be opened. That is the sort of company we are dealing with. They are small organisations that make a living out of charging ground rents from leaseholders, who cannot exercise their enfranchisement because of the attitude and evasion of the freeholders concerned. I hope that the Minister will have another look at that issue.

The other amendments I have tabled are about having professional qualifications and some form of regulation of property managers. The Government have legislated to say that the managers of social housing will need professional qualifications in future, but what is the difference between a manager of social housing and a property manager of leasehold blocks? In some ways, there may be greater complications in trying to manage a multitude of different leaseholders than people who have secure tenancies in a council or housing association block of flats. What is the difference?

Why will the Government not recognise that there are some good property managers who are well qualified, experienced and can be held to account, but others who are not like that? Indeed, some are put in place for that purpose: they are cheap, they do not have experience or qualifications, and they provide another way of avoiding the restrictions and rules that are rightly put on the management of property. They do not bother with proper service charge information or a proper list of charges for permission fees. I accept that the Government have tried to improve that, but in the end such improvements will only work if the individual or organisation managing the property does so in a proper way. Will the Minister look at those issues? What is the rationale? Why is there resistance to ensuring that people doing a serious and important job as property managers are qualified to do it and properly held to account through regulation?

[George Eustice (Camborne and Redruth) (Con)]

Let me begin by declaring my interest as an adviser to the HSPG group, which among other things is a registered provider of social housing.

I rise to speak to new clause 68, which is based on a specific challenge that I have encountered in my constituency and that affects residents in more than 70 homes spread across three locations in the town of Hayle and the village of Mount Hawke. The experience of those cases exposes a potential gap in the Bill and in policy on the issue of shared ownership. The Bill deals at some length with standard leasehold agreements and the problems of extortionate ground rents, as well as with some of the issues around service charges and management companies with which we are familiar. However, in the early 2000s some agreements were put together that were technically leasehold agreements but that masqueraded as shared ownership agreements, even though those shared ownership agreements do not comply with the standards of modern shared ownership agreements.

The agreements I have encountered contain a number of defects, and I would like the Minister’s view on them. The first is that the freehold on those homes is not held by a registered provider. It was initially owned by the developer who built the sites, but it has changed hands twice. In a way that is familiar to many Members, the freehold has ended up in the hands of an offshore investment vehicle based in the British Virgin Islands, and with a company called Rockwell, which has not been easy for residents to deal with over the years.

The second major defect in the agreements is that there is no provision for staircasing or enfranchisement of the leaseholder’s share of the property. Residents typically own between 58% and 72% of their property, but their stake is fixed and cannot be extended. There is no right to extend under the agreement. The agreements are under a 990-year lease and there is no ability to extend that, although I appreciate it is a long-term lease.

The third defect is that even if residents could enfranchise and extend or staircase their ownership within the agreement, a section 106 covenant means that the properties must be sold to a local connection with a significant discount on market value. The way that has been worded in the agreement means that it is simply not worth the while of residents to increase their share, since there would be no value to the increased share that they would have.

Finally, there was something described as ground rent, although in practice a big chunk of that was effectively a rent on the shared ownership portion. The ground rent was initially around £20 per week, but that was linked to the retail price index on an escalating model. It has now got close to £2,000 per year for those residents, and it is still increasing rapidly.

All of those defects in that leasehold tenure arrangement or shared ownership arrangement—indeed, it appears to be neither one nor the other—mean that all of the properties have been judged unmortgageable by lenders, and that means the residents are trapped. They cannot sell their properties because no one can get a mortgage to buy them. These are people in my constituency who had a local connection. Typically, they are on modest incomes. These agreements and these homes were sold to them as a way to get a foot on the housing ladder, and for those residents it has transpired to be a complete nightmare.

I will say a word about planning and pay tribute to Penwith District Council, as it was then, and Cornwall Council. Planning was granted between 2004 and 2006, and the local planning authorities did their due diligence. They could see that this shared ownership model was defective, and they refused planning permission on all three sites on that basis. The Minister might ask how these homes were then built and sold under the arrangement, but I suspect he can predict the answer, which is that they were approved at appeal by the Planning Inspectorate, an agency within his own Department. The situation that my constituents face has been caused principally by a chronic failure of due diligence by the Planning Inspectorate, as is often the case with such issues.

In conclusion, my new clause 68 seeks to address a gap in the Bill and to give the Government the opportunity to atone for the mistakes of the Planning Inspectorate. It deals explicitly with shared ownership agreements and would create a statutory right to staircase ownership and put a cap on the rent of the freeholders’ portion of the home. I do not intend to press new clause 28 to a Division this evening, but I hope that the Government will consider the matter closely. I would like to meet the Minister or the Secretary of State and share with them and their officials a copy of the shared ownership agreement that my constituents are suffering under so much, with a view to seeing whether the Government might consider further changes at later stages of the Bill’s consideration to address a gap in it. Given that the Planning Inspectorate has been somewhat culpable in creating this problem for my constituents, I hope that the Government will seek to do that.

I support the general thrust of the Bill in all its attempts to deal with management charges, service charges and ground rents, but I hope that the Minister will agree to meet me to discuss some of these remaining issues.