Leaseholders and Cladding

Daisy Cooper Excerpts

Tuesday 24th November 2020 Commons Chamber

[Christopher Pincher]

My hon. Friend is an expert in this field and I pay tribute to him for the work that he has undertaken. Mr Wade, our adviser, is working hard with us and with the sector to develop solutions that will provide help and support to leaseholders. In the meantime, as I say, the Government have stepped up and provided a significant amount of public money to remediate the buildings that are most in need of it where there is no other means of paying, but it must be right that we ask developers and those responsible for these buildings to pay. To signal that the state will simply step in and sub them will not encourage them to do the right thing, and it is for developers, owners and warranty suppliers in the first instance to ensure that the buildings for which they are responsible are remediated.

[Daisy Cooper (St Albans) (LD)]

Leaseholders in St Albans are already facing estimated bills of between £50,000 and £120,000 each for fixing safety defects in their buildings that they did not cause. These are not bills that are in the far-off distant future; these are costs that are being passed on to leaseholders right now, including through increased service charges. In the last three years, leaseholders in St Albans have seen their service charges rise from under £1,000 a year to £6,000 a year. Some of my residents cannot afford to pay these bills any more, and that will affect their ability to continue working in some professions, so will the Government get a grip and take urgent action to ensure that leaseholders no longer have to pay, as they are already doing, and that they do not have to foot the bill for these costs?

[Christopher Pincher]

I am obliged to the hon. Lady. She is right. We recognise, as she will, that there are many cases in which leasehold agreements allow the building owners—the freeholders or their managing agents—to pass on remediation costs to the leaseholders of individual flats. That is why we have instituted the work of Michael Wade to ensure that leaseholders are protected from any charges for historical remediation that are unfair. The fundamental responsibility—the first responsibility—for the remediation of those buildings must lie with the developers, the building owners and the warranty holders, and not with the leaseholders.