Leasehold Reform (Ground Rent) Bill [Lords]

Eleanor Laing Excerpts

Report stage & 3rd reading
Monday 24th January 2022 Commons Chamber

[Mike Amesbury (Weaver Vale) (Lab)]

I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:

Amendment 1, in clause 2, page 3, line 16, at end insert—

“Retirement developments where some leasehold residential flats have already been sold prior to commencement but others remain unsold

(12) A lease is an excepted lease if it is a lease of a retirement home in a development, where—

(a) other residential flats within the development have sold and completed on a long leasehold before the relevant commencement day under section 26(4) but it is a flat within the development which remains unsold, and

(b) the development commenced prior to 6th July 2021.”

This amendment seeks to avoid retirement developments where properties are on the market, but not fully sold by the time the Act comes into force for retirement properties, needing to have two lease types within one building, some paying ground rents and others funding the development of communal areas by another method.

[Mike Amesbury]

Let me begin by thanking all colleagues who have helped this short but important Bill through its stages so far, including our friends in the other place. In particular, I thank those who joined the Minister and me in scrutinising the Bill in Committee. Let me also begin with an apology to the Minister. I told him on the occasion of our final meeting in the Committee that that would be my last outing in respect of housing, having handed over the portfolio to my capable hon. Friend the Member for Greenwich and Woolwich (Matthew Pennycook), who is sitting behind me. I was wrong to say that, and I am very pleased that I was wrong. I stand here today ready to continue to raise an issue which matters hugely to me, to many of my constituents, and to leaseholders across the country—and, indeed, to the Minister himself.

Although the Bill is short, many important issues in it have already been covered extensively, first by our colleagues in the other place and then by Members here, in Committee. I do not wish to repeat too much of what has already been said, but the two new clauses tabled for Report are an opportunity for Members on both sides of the House to raise again two important aspects of the Bill.

New clause 1 would require the Government to produce draft legislation within 30 days to reduce ground rents to a peppercorn in existing long residential leases. The antiquated feudal system of leasehold is unjust for the many and not just the new. People in England and Wales have been trapped in that relic from the past for far too long. I urge the Minister to set them free, level up their life chances and support the new clause.

New clause 1 proposes that the narrow scope of the Bill be simply widened to improve the lives of leaseholders—the 4.5 million people trapped in this feudal system. Some 1.4 million of them are in houses, many in the north, the north-west and Wales, and may be experiencing high ground rents on top of other exploitative terms built into their leasehold contracts.