Leasehold and Freehold Reform Bill

Gareth Johnson Excerpts

Report stage
Tuesday 27th February 2024 Commons Chamber

[Lee Rowley]

The hon. Gentleman made that case in Committee, and I am grateful to him for that and for repeating it today. As I say, we understand the strength of feeling on the issue and are considering it further.

[Gareth Johnson (Dartford) (Con)]

rose—

[Lee Rowley]

I will give way one final time and then I will conclude, so that others can get in.

[Gareth Johnson]

These management companies that the Minister alluded to have a literal monopoly over the residents they are meant to serve—in effect, they control the residents, rather than the other way round—so I welcome the amendments made in Committee to ensure that residents can change their management companies. Will he give a commitment to this House that he will ensure that those amendments stay in the Bill, both here and in the other place, and that they will become law?

[Lee Rowley]

My hon. Friend has been a campaigner for many years on the importance of this matter, and I know how strongly he feels and how much he acts on it on behalf of his constituents. We are absolutely committed to making progress on estate management. The Bill demonstrates a significant step forward in doing that, and we will see what else we can do in the future.

Leasehold and Freehold Reform Bill

Gareth Johnson Excerpts

2nd reading
Monday 11th December 2023 Commons Chamber

[Gareth Johnson (Dartford) (Con)]

My speech will be brief, as I want to concentrate on one aspect of the Bill. Estate management companies are a massive and growing issue in my Dartford constituency. Some 7,000 new homes have been built in my constituency over the last 10 years, and they are predominantly “looked after” by management companies.

I welcome the measures in the Bill that will rightly allow residents to challenge the invoices and bills they are sent by management companies. This will help to transfer some of the power back to residents, by giving them a tool to say, “This invoice is unfair,” “This bill is not right,” or, “These accounts are not right.”

It is absolutely right that power is transferred away from management companies and into the hands of local residents, because at the moment management companies seem to do pretty much whatever they like. They can put up the charges they levy on residents way above inflation while providing a very poor service, and local residents can do very little about it. Local residents find themselves completely restricted in challenging what is, on occasion, a hideously poor service with extortionate fees. They are trodden on by the management companies.

Of course, residents question why they have to pay council tax at the same time as paying management fees, as they often find that their management fees are used to pay for, say, play parks that the whole community can use for free. They have to pay for it, they have to pay for the maintenance and they have to pay council tax, too, which seems very unfair.

In my experience, local residents want to be able to change their management company. They want to be able to switch over and to say to their management company, “No, you have not provided a good enough service. You are charging us too much money, and therefore we are going to use a different management company.” If that happens, it will help to tackle most of the problems we are experiencing with management companies. It will end the monopoly by returning competition to the system, enabling the good management companies to prevail and the poor ones to fall by the wayside.

[Sir Peter Bottomley]

The whole House will accept that my hon. Friend is rightly arguing for total transparency. There ought to be open-book accounting by these managing agents, so that those who are paying can see what is happening.

Does my hon. Friend agree that the amalgamation of managing agents is a dangerous trend? It means that the choice is reducing, not increasing. Given that some managing agents are very large and people’s experience of them is not very good, we ought to try to make sure that there is not this continual amalgamation and that there is a good choice of good managing agents that want to earn a better reputation.

[Gareth Johnson]

The Father of the House makes a very good point. I would like to see co-operation between companies, rather than amalgamation. In my constituency, we often see two management companies sending two people to mow the grass on the same estate. Residents look out of their window and see the grass on one side of the estate being mowed by one company and the grass on the other side of the estate being mowed by a different company. Of course, they have to pay twice for that pleasure. If the companies co-operated, that situation would not arise.

Some 20% of the people attending my surgeries are there to complain about management companies. Even a constituent of the hon. Member for Greenwich and Woolwich (Matthew Pennycook) came to my surgery—with two of my constituents, I hasten to add—to raise issues about management companies. She was very complimentary of the hon. Gentleman, by the way, but I put her straight. However, she was not very complimentary about the management company that she was suffering from. This problem happens in Greenwich, in Dartford and across the country, and we need this Bill to get to grips with it.

[Mr Kevan Jones]

Is the hon. Gentleman aware that management fees slowly go up in some retirement villages and retirement complexes? Older people do not challenge them, and it ends up making their flats either unsellable or worth less than they paid.

[Gareth Johnson]

The right hon. Gentleman makes an excellent point, and it highlights how management fees undermine the whole housing sector. We will end up in a situation where people do not want to buy nice homes because of the management companies that operate on these estates.

It undermines freehold, because people living on these estates have to go to the management company to get an information pack in order to sell their home. Of course, the information pack does not come free. On most estates in my constituency, people have to pay the management company £350 effectively to ask for permission to sell their house.

A lady contacted me and, apart from the cost, some of the information in her information pack was wrong. When she contacted the management company to ask some questions about the information it had provided, she was told that each question would be charged at £60 plus VAT, but this was the management company’s fault, not hers. That is just one example—I could give thousands—of just how horrifically some management companies behave. The Bill needs to deal with these organisations.

[Barry Gardiner]

The hon. Gentleman is making some excellent points. Is he aware that some companies managing residential properties for the elderly charge 10% of the property’s sale price, which they take to themselves for the privilege of allowing it to be sold?

[Gareth Johnson]

I have heard of those kinds of things. The same happens with park homes, and we are also trying to tackle that. It is only right that we tackle this issue with management companies, because it totally undermines the concept of freehold. The Secretary of State rightly says that he supports home ownership, yet we have a system that undermines the principle of home ownership.

People bought these houses in my constituency because they are nice homes in a nice area, and they often bought them in a seller’s market. They were literally standing in a queue, with other people waiting behind them to buy the same property. If they had not signed on the dotted line there and then, there were plenty of people behind them who would have. They signed without a full appreciation of the terms of the contract, which effectively said that the management company can put up its management fees way beyond inflation, and there is nothing that can be done about it.

I echo the Father of the House. As we consider the Bill throughout its passage, Members have to decide which side we are on. Are we on the side of the management companies, or are we on the side of local residents? It should be a no-brainer for every Member of the House, and I hope we will come together. After the Bill gets its Second Reading, I am sure we would all like to see some amendments in Committee.

Oral Answers to Questions

Gareth Johnson Excerpts

Monday 10th July 2023 Commons Chamber

[Michael Gove]

It does indeed sound a concerning case, and we will follow up.

[Gareth Johnson (Dartford) (Con)]

T9. Property management companies are undoubtedly holding back home ownership. New homeowners are often obliged to sign up to contracts that they cannot leave. That leaves them stuck with inflated fees, and very often with poor services. I am sure the Minister agrees that management companies need their activities curbed; they need legislation imposed on them so that we can get back to a fairer system of housing.

[Rachel Maclean]

I agree entirely. I thank my hon. Friend for the excellent debate that he brought to Westminster Hall, in which we discussed these issues in detail. I am happy to reiterate to the House that we will legislate, when parliamentary time allows, to deal with many of the issues that he has raised that are affecting freehold homeowners.

Freehold and Leasehold Reform

Gareth Johnson Excerpts

Wednesday 5th July 2023 Westminster Hall

[Gareth Johnson (Dartford) (Con)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered freehold and leasehold reform in England.

I will centre my remarks on the issue of management companies and the fees that they charge to people who live on newer housing estates. This is a big and growing issue in my constituency, and I want to talk to the House about some of the practices of management companies that behave in the most appalling way—in respect of not just the services they provide but the fees they charge to homeowners on the estates for which they are responsible. We have a large number of affected people in my constituency, which is perhaps not surprising given that some 7,000 new houses have been built in Dartford over the last 10 years. Management fees are imposed on homeowners, whatever their tenancy, to pay for the upkeep of communal areas and other amenities.

It is hard for me to overstate how big an issue the conduct of management companies is. Since announcing that I secured this debate, I have had email after email from local residents at their wits’ end, who complain about the practices of management companies. Indeed, around 20% or 25% of people who attend my surgeries are there to raise such experiences. Frankly, the stories they have provided about the practices of management companies are shocking.

The central allegation is that developers retain ownership of the land once a house is built and then create a company or use an existing company to sell the land to, so that they have the right to be the estate management company. This happens without any consultation at all with homeowners or anybody else, and without sufficient regulation. Central to my speech is asking the Government to bring in the necessary legislation so that we can deal with this growing problem once and for all. What often happens is that companies are set up or used to implement the work or to liaise with residents, thereby creating several tiers of companies for homeowners to deal with.

Take, for example, the Bridge estate in Dartford. The local councillor, Clement Quaqumey, has raised the plight of local residents who are enduring a nightmare. Because the Bridge community is divided roughly half and half between businesses and residents, the residents end up paying huge amounts of money to receive little more than landscaping services. They have no alternative but to pay the money, as they are committed through the service charge deed they have signed. These contracts are the source of the homeowner’s commitment. People unwittingly signed up to the contracts without fully understanding their implications.

Particularly when it is a seller’s market, people are desperate to buy their dream home and never expect that management companies will hike up their fees with little notice. When that is challenged, however, it soon becomes clear that the homeowners can do little or nothing about it. We simply cannot allow homeowners to continue to be treated in this way.

A constituent contacted me yesterday to say that they are being charged £2,500 a year for an extremely poor service. Such fees are in addition to the council tax that homeowners still have to pay in full. Homeowners understandably resent having to pay council tax and a separate payment for the maintenance of roads, pavements and play parks that can, of course, all be accessed by the general public free of charge. This is a problem that has to be addressed, and soon.

Residents of Ingress Park, another estate in my constituency, have contacted me to say that this beautiful place to live—and it is beautiful—is spoilt by the charges imposed on the homeowners there. The charges make the properties harder to sell and create bureaucracy that strangles the people living there. People complain of the accounts not adding up—and that is if and when they are able to obtain them. Again and again, I receive complaints from residents who ask for accounts to show them what their money is being used for but they are not able to obtain them. Residents have also complained of contractors clocking in late and leaving early, with nothing whatsoever being done to check their behaviour.

One of the worst instances that I have dealt with was in a road called Winston Close, which is in Stone in my constituency. Residents were given just two months’ notice that their annual fee was going to rise from just under £2,000 to just under £6,000, to pay for windows to be replaced. To be fair to the management company, it relented and phased that increase over a longer period of time during which the windows would be replaced, but it still led to huge increases for local residents, as well as a lot of stress and upset. Had the original demand been persisted with, the residents would have had no option whatsoever other than to pay. That clearly illustrates what is wrong with the current system of management fees. The management company can literally treble the amount that homeowners have to pay, with little or no notice, and the residents have no alternative other than to cough up.

A constituent in Castle Hill, which is in the Ebbsfleet Garden City area, also contacted me. He relayed to me that the fee for residents in that area has recently been increased by 30%, yet as a freeholder he does not have access to any dispute-resolution tribunal, so he has just had to take that increase on the chin. That cannot be right and this practice has to end.

I met residents of Bexley Park in my constituency who have managed to secure the agreement of more than 50% of residents that they should remove themselves from their management company and go to another. I am sure Members will agree that it is no mean feat to get over 50% of residents in an area to sign up and say, “We no longer want to use our management company. We want to transfer to a different one.” However, the original management company cleverly said to them, “That’s absolutely fine, but we want hundreds of pounds from you, and every single householder has to pay that money before they are allowed to transfer.” That was an impossible hurdle for those people to overcome, as the management company knew.

We have to make it easy for residents to move to another management company and thereby end the monopoly that such companies enjoy over homeowners. There is currently no competition because residents are stuck with their management company, which has no incentive whatsoever to improve its services or provide value for money.

Another constituent from Stone told me that they had questioned some workmen in their communal area who were there to change four of the fluorescent light fittings. It turned out that they had travelled from Leeds to Kent to do that job and were charging over £400 to do it. It was clear that that lady could do absolutely nothing about the situation. There in front of her was a clear example of the abuse that is meted out to homeowners in some of these newer housing estates, in the form of someone being sent from such a long distance away to carry out a fairly straightforward job and then charging an exorbitant amount of money for it.

Residents on the old Stone House Hospital site in my constituency, which I understand comprises purely leasehold dwellings, contacted me to complain that the freeholder was forever changing and rarely cared about problems on the development.

Another problem with the current system is that there is little or no co-operation between management companies. Two or even more management companies operate on some estates in my constituency, so we end up with a situation in which separate people come to mow the grass, with one at one end of the estate and another at the other, when that job could have been carried out by one individual mowing the whole estate. That lack of co-operation illustrates the poor value for money. The examples instances just go on and on—indeed, I could fill the whole 90 minutes of the debate with issues that have been raised with me about poor value for money, exorbitant fees and the unfair and unjust current system.

I genuinely believe that developers and management companies are taking advantage of how the public conceive of a freehold. Understandably, people believe that a freehold will give them full control over their property, but the reality on these new estates is very different. So-called freeholders are not only being forced to pay the charges, but when it comes to selling the property they have to effectively ask permission from the management companies to do so and have to pay a fee to those management companies for a seller’s information pack. One lady contacted me to say that when she questioned the management company over the contents of her seller’s pack, it responded that each query she raised with them would be charged at £60 plus VAT. Ironically, she was questioning the management company about mistakes it had made in the pack. Such a system of having to ask permission simply causes delay, unnecessary costs and, of course, extra profit for the management company.

Moreover, people have no say in the running of the management company or input as to what the priorities should be for an estate. Whatever the management company wants for an estate is done to the residents who live there. There is no way of avoiding the exorbitant fees, no right to challenge and no conceivable way of changing the management company. Quite frankly, it is a licence for those companies to print money. If we do not legislate quickly, we will create a legacy that will stay with the British housing sector for generations to come. We should not allow people to be treated in this way for simply wanting a nice new home to live in.

--- Later in debate ---

[Gareth Johnson]

The Minister says in her speech that the Government will act to deal with the abuse by management companies and the imposition of fees for freeholders. Does she mean by “act” that legislation can be expected?

[Rachel Maclean]

I ask my hon. Friends and other Members for a little patience while I proceed through my speech. I want to set out precisely the Government’s commitment to legislation because I know that is the question that everybody wants to be answered and I have limited time in which to do that.

My hon. Friends the Members for Dartford and for Congleton pointed out that freeholders on new estates must pay charges towards the maintenance or upkeep of communal areas. The obligation to pay those charges might be provided by a deed of covenant or through an estate rent charge that forms part of the purchase contract. The Government believe that when buying a home, it should be clear to potential purchasers what the arrangements are for the maintenance of roads and upkeep of open spaces, public or otherwise. That information is most often set out in a freehold management inquiry form, which is published by the Law Society and widely used across the sector. However, I know that that information was not provided to some, or perhaps not drawn to their attention, at the point of purchase. Furthermore, in many cases contracts do not specify, limit or cap those freeholder charges. To compound matters, when people receive an invoice, they are not provided with information about what the charges cover. Much as with leaseholders, that lack of transparency, both at the homebuying stage and when people have settled into their property, leaves homeowners in a vulnerable position and is something that the Government intend to address.

Leaseholders already have certain protections and rights that will enable them to hold management companies to account. Freehold homeowners have no equivalent, even though they might be paying for the same or similar services, as highlighted in the remarks by my hon. Friends. The current situation is unfair. Where they are required to contribute, it is not appropriate that people have limited rights to challenge those costs, and we are committed to introducing legislation to plug that gap. We intend to create a new statutory regime for freehold homeowners based on the rights that leaseholders have, ensuring that estate management charges are reasonably incurred, that services provided are of an acceptable standard and that there is a right to challenge the reasonableness of charges at the property tribunal.

We will also give a right to change the provider of maintenance services by applying to the tribunal for the appointment of a manager. That might be useful if a homeowner is dissatisfied with the service they are receiving or there is a significant failure by the estate management provider in meeting their obligations. We will also consider the option of introducing a right to manage for freehold homeowners. It is not only estate management charges that need to be reasonable; that principle must also apply to administration fees that individual homeowners may face in their dealings with the estate management company.

Turning back to leaseholders, as highlighted by the hon. Member for Ellesmere Port and Neston and the right hon. Member for Islington North, there is a similar situation. Leaseholders complain of unreasonable and excessive service charges and we strongly believe that service charges should be transparent and communicated effectively, with a clear route to challenge or redress if things go wrong. Many landlords and managing agents already demonstrate good practice and provide relevant information, but too many do not and are failing to provide sufficient information or clarity to leaseholders, especially over fees and service charges.

We recognise that the existing statutory requirements do not go far enough to enable leaseholders to identify and challenge unfair costs. That is why we will take action to support and empower leasehold homeowners. We will take action to increase service charge transparency to help leaseholders better understand what they are paying for, make it harder for landlords or managing agents to hide rip-off charges and enable leaseholders to more effectively challenge unreasonable fees or charges. I also want leaseholders to know that they can seek free advice from an organisation funded by the Government, the Leasehold Advisory Service, if they are concerned about charges that they are asked to pay.

--- Later in debate ---

[Gareth Johnson]

I thank all right hon. and hon. Members for their contributions to the debate. The consensus on both sides of this Chamber is that we need to see a transfer of power from management companies to homeowners, so that we can end the poor value that is too often provided by management companies, end the exorbitant fees and, perhaps most importantly of all, give homeowners the power to transfer from one management company to another, which is currently restricted. I am grateful to both the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Greenwich and Woolwich (Matthew Pennycook), and the Minister for their responses, and I certainly look forward to His Majesty’s speech.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House has considered freehold and leasehold reform in England.

Draft Police and Crime Commissioner Elections (Amendment) Order 2022 Draft Assistance with Voting for Persons with Disabilities (Amendments) Regulations 2022

Gareth Johnson Excerpts

Tuesday 15th November 2022 General Committees

[Lee Rowley]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mrs Cummins.

The statutory instruments are a key part of the implementation of the Elections Act 2022, which was debated at some length earlier this year. The Assistance with Voting for Persons with Disabilities (Amendments) Regulations are made in consequence of or to make provisions similar to section 9 of the Elections Act 2022. The intent of both section 9 of the Act and these consequential regulations is to improve the support available to disabled voters at polling stations, and they do that in two ways. First, they replace the existing requirements to provide a single prescribed device to assist blind and partially-sighted voters with a broader, better requirement that returning officers provide equipment to assist a wider range of disabled voters, so that they can cast their votes independently. They also revoke the reference to that device for UK parliamentary elections where its description is already included in the secondary legislation. Secondly, they remove the unnecessarily restrictive requirement that anyone assisting a disabled voter be either a close family member of that voter or an elector themselves with a requirement that the person assisting be 18 or over. That will allow people to more easily get support to cast their vote where the person is best placed to support them, and where that person may not have met either of the two previous criteria.

[Gareth Johnson (Dartford) (Con)]

I support the two SIs, and I hope that all colleagues and hon. Members support them. It is good that we are giving greater ability to blind and other disabled people to vote in an easier manner. I do question whether the Department considered still allowing candidates and agents to take blind people into polling stations to assist them to vote. I am sure that the Minister agrees that democracy and its processes need to not only be done properly, but be seen to be done properly. Could that arrangement not give rise to the perception, at least, that unfair persuasion was being placed on an individual?

Planning and House Building

Gareth Johnson Excerpts

Thursday 8th October 2020 Commons Chamber

[Gareth Johnson (Dartford) (Con)]

I am not sure whether the hon. Member for Coventry South (Zarah Sultana) has been listening to the debate, but every single Conservative Member has talked about having the correct development, not unrestricted development across the country.

In the short time I have, I want to concentrate on my constituency of Dartford, which is a very proactive builder. It has allowed a garden city with some 7,500 homes to be built on a brownfield site in Ebbsfleet, which is less than 25 miles from the Chamber of this House. I defy any Member to point to a development within 25 miles of the Chamber that has been put forward with less controversy than the garden city in my constituency. Dartford Borough Council has ensured that it has exceeded its target each and every year.

Last year, Dartford built a new house for every 104 local residents. In comparison, Manchester built one house for every 389 people, and the West Midlands built one house for every 1,340 people, so we cannot be accused of not playing our part. However, I regret to say that our housing target has been doubled under these proposals, while neighbouring Gravesham has seen its housing target halved. Anybody who knows Gravesham will vouch for the fact that it is a fairly similar local authority, with a similar mix of rural and urban areas. It is very Kentish in its identity, and it has similar house prices. We therefore find ourselves in a bit of an odd situation.

It is essential that we bring local authorities with us in proposing these targets. Good, proactive councils that are already building houses need to be encouraged, but there is a danger that they will get rebuffed and end up building fewer houses as a consequence. I spoke to the leader of my council, Jeremy Kite, who rightly said that house building is at its best when there is an enthusiastic relationship between the developers, the local authority and local residents. We need to ensure that that continues.



People are realistic about housing targets. They realise, because they have youngsters at home who want to get on the housing ladder, that we need to build new houses. However, that is only up to a point. What they fear is a lack of infrastructure. Too often, we see Governments of all persuasions sitting down and working out where we can put more houses and more developments on brownfield sites and how we can get local authorities to build, when people at home are saying, “How can I get an appointment with my GP? How can I get a place for my child in school? How can I get to work through the congested roads?” We need to also concentrate on infrastructure.

United Kingdom Internal Market Bill

Gareth Johnson Excerpts

Tuesday 15th September 2020 Commons Chamber

[Joy Morrissey]

I will not give way—I will make some headway and then give way in a moment. When we talk about the internal market, we are talking not about a political objective, but about an economic objective—to remove regulatory obstacles from more goods and services in the UK so that we are able to trade freely among ourselves and make ourselves globally competitive. We are removing the technical, legal and bureaucratic barriers to allow its citizens to trade and do business freely, for its citizens to enjoy products from all over the UK.

When SNP Members raise concerns about state aid, I would imagine that they are referring to the EU structural funds or the EU development funds, the criteria for which have, in the past, benefited certain deprived areas in regions in Scotland and other parts of the United Kingdom. I can understand how there would be concern, and perhaps something could be established to look at how that fund and the targets were set to help in disadvantaged and impoverished areas where the EU structural funds have helped to improve the livelihoods of people in the United Kingdom, and to look at how we move that forward. This is not a Bill to take any political power: it is to make us stronger economically. It is purely on the grounds of economics—

[Gareth Johnson (Dartford) (Con)]

Is my hon. Friend aware of the decisions being made in Shetland that if the nationalists get their way and there is separation of the United Kingdom following a second referendum, Shetland will seek to go independent itself? Therefore, not only are the nationalists seeking to break up the United Kingdom, they are seeking to break up Scotland.

[Joy Morrissey]

My hon. Friend makes an excellent point.

Criminal Law

Gareth Johnson Excerpts

Tuesday 28th January 2020 Commons Chamber

[Chris Philp]

Ensuring that this cohort of prisoners stays in prison for a bit longer does serve the public interest and public safety, because they cannot commit further offences while they are in prison. Under these measures, they will still spend a third of their sentence on licence. Of course, there is an opportunity for people to take part in rehabilitative activity while they are in prison. There will be an impact on the prison population, which I will outline in a moment, as my hon. Friend the Member for Cheltenham (Alex Chalk) asked the same question. We are making provisions to ensure that places are available so that meaningful rehabilitative work can take place, but this is about preventing crime by ensuring that serious offenders are in prison for a bit longer, and ensuring that victims’ rights are respected by making sure that the time served in prison better reflects the sentence handed down by the judge.

[Gareth Johnson (Dartford) (Con)]

The Minister is being generous in giving way. I welcome today’s announcement because it injects an element of honesty into our sentencing system, and reduces confusion and frustration among victims. Will he be absolutely categoric that this is part of a process and not an event in itself—that is, will we see further occasions where such measures will be rolled out so that there can be more justice for the victims of crime?

[Chris Philp]

My hon. Friend has been a tireless campaigner for victims’ rights and ensuring that justice is done. I can give him the assurance he is asking for. This is just a first step. The sentencing White Paper and Bill later this year will have the scope to go further and take wider action across the sentencing field. I look forward to working with him and other colleagues in this area.

Oral Answers to Questions

Gareth Johnson Excerpts

Monday 13th January 2020 Commons Chamber

[Jake Berry]

In terms of practical action, the £3.6 billion towns fund seems to be a good place to start. When we add to that the £13 billion that we are saving for businesses in business rates, we are certainly making some progress, but I will go away and look at the hon. Gentleman’s suggestion about high street enterprise zones.

[Gareth Johnson (Dartford) (Con)]

T1. If he will make a statement on his departmental responsibilities.

[The Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government (Robert Jenrick)]

From Kensington to Sedgefield, and from Workington to Wrexham, this Government were elected to represent all parts of the country. My Department is focused on repaying that trust by levelling up every community with a renewed focus on those areas that have been overlooked and undervalued for too long. We will ensure that local government is properly supported to deliver the services that we all rely on with the best financial settlement in a decade. We will keep building the homes that this country needs with investment in infrastructure and affordable housing, while making the dream of home ownership a reality for everyone, and we will redouble our efforts to bring about the biggest change in building safety for a generation.

[Gareth Johnson]

This year, we commemorate the 75th anniversary of the liberation of the world war two concentration camps. I ask the Secretary of State, in his communities role, what is being done to mark the occasion, and furthermore, what is being done to tackle antisemitism more generally wherever it occurs?

[Robert Jenrick]

On 23 January, I will accompany His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales to the holocaust forum at Yad Vashem, Jerusalem, to mark the 75th anniversary of the liberation of the concentration camps, which brought an end to the murder of 6 million Jewish men, women and children, but as we know, did not bring an end to the cancer of antisemitism. The Government have provided an additional £2.2 million for schools to teach lessons from Auschwitz and £1.7 million for visits to Bergen-Belsen, the camp liberated by British troops. I will continue to champion the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance definition of antisemitism, including requiring all councils to adopt it forthwith.

British House Building Industry

Gareth Johnson Excerpts

Thursday 5th September 2019 Commons Chamber

[Siobhain McDonagh]

I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend, and I know that he works really hard on that subject. Just like the issues about the whole planning system, that could be the topic of another debate, to which I am sure we would both want to contribute.

The median pay for FTSE 100 house building CEOs is 228 times that of the typical UK construction worker.

[Gareth Johnson (Dartford) (Con)]

Does the hon. Lady agree that one way forward would be to increase the opportunities for self-build? It is incredibly difficult at the moment. If an individual wants to buy a plot of land and find a builder to construct a house for them, they find so many obstacles in their way. Does the hon. Lady agree that that may be a way forward to improve on the current situation?

[Siobhain McDonagh]

I think the hon. Gentleman has stolen the words of the hon. Member for South Norfolk (Mr Bacon), who also does loads of work on self-build. It is an issue that small and medium-sized builders have been squeezed out, but unfortunately I do not have time to address that matter today.

Let me return to the matter of pay ratios. At Barratt, the pay ratio between median executive pay and median construction worker pay is a disappointing 113:1. At Taylor Wimpey, it is an awful 126:1. At Berkeley, it is a shocking 331:1. But at Persimmon, it is an absolutely deplorable 1,561:1. Jeff Fairburn, in his final year of employment as chief executive of Persimmon, received more than £38.9 million, yet his average member of staff earnt £37,118. That was for technical staff. We do not know what the company’s subcontracted electricians, roofers or other wet trades people might have received. How can that be fair?

The vast scale of inequality looks even worse in the light of UK housing prices. Assuming that the average UK house price is £230,630—I assure the House that it is not possible to buy anything in my constituency or in the constituency of the right hon. Member for Enfield North (Joan Ryan) for that price—and that the average UK construction worker saves 10% of their earnings to buy a house, it would take them 92 years to save up and 19 years just to save for the deposit alone. But the average FTSE 350 CEO could buy 28 houses outright in one year, 532 houses over 19 years—the years that the construction worker would be using to build a deposit—and 2,567 houses over the 92 years in which the construction worker would be saving up to afford their home. On no level can this be right or fair. It cannot be right for our society. It cannot be right for us as taxpayers. It is simply wrong. The system is broken. In the main, the market does not reward hard work, endeavour and meeting the housing need. In my view, it certainly should do.