Affordable and Safe Housing for All

Hilary Benn Excerpts

Tuesday 18th May 2021 Commons Chamber

[Hilary Benn (Leeds Central) (Lab) [V]]

On the cladding crisis, I regret that there was nothing in the Queen’s Speech to protect leaseholders from having to pay to fix faults that are not of their making. When the Building Safety Bill comes before us, Ministers will find that amendments are tabled to provide that protection to leaseholders. We are not giving up and there are a growing number of Members of this House, including on the Government Benches, who are determined to do right by our constituents, because they have run out of patience and are running out of time. As their lives remain on hold, their flats remain worthless, they face monthly bills for waking watches and insurance premiums, and the demands are starting to arrive for sums of money that they simply do not have.

As the Chair of the Housing, Communities and Local Government Committee, my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield South East (Mr Betts), rightly pointed out, offering to solve half the problem will not work, because there are other fire safety defects. As the recent fire at New Providence Wharf reminded us, living in an unsafe building is not a theoretical risk; it is an actual risk. I know it is difficult for Ministers, but believe you me it is nothing like the difficulty that our leaseholders are living with. The only solution is to make loan funding available to the blocks to fix all the problems and then to pay back the cost of that loan over the long term by levying the house builders and developers.

My second concern in the context of this debate is for all those in rent arrears because of covid. As the moratorium on evictions comes to an end, what is the Government’s plan to stop lots of people being made homeless? I am not aware that there is one. At the beginning of the crisis, the Secretary of State said, as we heard earlier, that

“no renter who has lost income due to coronavirus will be forced out of their home”,

yet when the Government recently announced that the bailiff-enforced eviction ban would be extended to 31 May, their own press notice said:

“This will ensure residents in both the private and social sector can stay in their homes and have enough time to find alternative accommodation”.

Those two statements do not square. Either my constituents will be able to stay in their own homes or they will have to find alternative accommodation because they have been evicted. Which is it? And by the way, where is the alternative accommodation that they can afford?

This brings me finally to the planning Bill, which I think will have a rough ride. I do not think it will fix the problem that it is trying to address. Ministers have announced many changes to the planning system in the last decade or so, and all of them have tried in one way or another to remove power from local communities, because it is argued that they are the main obstacle to house building. I think that analysis is wrong. A growing number of people contact me as an MP because they live in unsatisfactory and overcrowded accommodation. They bid with hundreds of others for a council property, they cannot afford to buy and they cannot afford to rent privately. There simply are not enough council houses, so local authorities need the means and the funding to build them.

We are never going to have enough homes if we just rely on the volume house builders, because they will build only the number of properties they think they can sell at the price they want to get for them. That is why we have planning permissions unbuilt, which is hardly a sign of a planning system that is working. I read that Ministers are contemplating a “use it or lose it” levy, and I think that is a very sensible idea. Indeed, we proposed it six years ago. Even where local communities come forward to designate sites, they do not have the power to ensure that that is where the new homes are built. Community after community can tell the story of sites being identified locally, whereupon the house builders come along and say, “I’m really sorry, that doesn’t work for us, but what about that greenfield site over there?” And even if their planning application is refused, they are pretty confident that they will win on appeal.

I cannot think of a system less likely to encourage local communities to take responsibility than one in which the final decision is removed from their hands. That is why local communities should have the power to determine exactly where the new homes are built, what kind of homes are constructed and who gets them. It is not surprising that we see resistance to new homes if the community knows that no one on its waiting list and no one living locally who is hoping to buy their first home can have any chance of affording them. How many more planning Bills will it take before we come to the realisation that in the end local communities have in every sense to take responsibility? I believe that if we give them all the tools, they will do the job.

Fire Safety Bill

Hilary Benn Excerpts

Wednesday 28th April 2021 Commons Chamber

I will support the Lords amendment today, and I hope that the Government and my colleagues on the Government Benches will do so. If they are serious about protecting innocent leaseholders and securing the Bill, they will agree to the Lords amendment or table their own in the other place before the end of the parliamentary Session. I think everyone knows that it is time to take the compromise.

[Hilary Benn (Leeds Central) (Lab) [V]]

The Minister knows that this problem is not going to go away. Whether it is the Fire Safety Bill today or in the Building Safety Bill, we will keep returning to this. He knows that because what has been done so far is insufficient. He knows it because, as things stand, the length of time it is likely to take to sort this out will be too long for many leaseholders to be able to continue to bear the costs that they are paying at the moment and to contemplate the future costs that hang over them. And the Government know it because, as they said right at the beginning of this crisis—we intend to hold them to this promise—it is not right that leaseholders should be asked to bear the costs of something they were not responsible for.

I really do not understand the Minister’s argument. The uncertainty is not caused by our voting for the Lords amendments; it is the unresolved problem that is causing huge uncertainty. As for his point about drafting complexity, he should give a commitment to go away and draft something and bring it back in the Building Safety Bill, because either his view is that it is complex and no one has drafted anything suitable yet—so go away and draft it—or it is simply a way of trying to resist the idea that leaseholders should not have to pay.

In the meantime, I have a practical suggestion to make. All those involved, including MPs, spend a lot of time going back and forth about practical problems in respect of blocks, difficulties, delays, a lack of communication and so forth. I have had to use parliamentary questions to try to find out what has been happening in respect of applications to the building safety fund for particular blocks in my constituency. I have to say, the replies I have received have been distinctly unhelpful.

A very large range of people is involved: leaseholders of course, freeholders, the fire service, managing agents, building companies, developers, chartered surveyors, local authorities, mortgage lenders, insurance companies, and the Minister’s Department. I know that Ministers and officials meet individual groups and organisations regularly, but I think there would be great merit in bringing together representatives of all these groups to establish what we can call a contact group or an action group, so that the Minister and his officials can sit around a table on a regular basis to share information about what is happening and to progress-chase, iron out problems, test out ideas and find answers to the problems for which there is as yet no plan, but which my constituents in Leeds have to live with each and every day and which weigh so heavily upon them, their lives and their sense of whether there is a future that they can look forward to, because, as things stand, there is not one. I really hope that Ministers will take up the idea and finally acknowledge that only a comprehensive plan is going to bring this nightmare to an end.

[Dr Liam Fox (North Somerset) (Con)]

Again, we all want the same thing. We want the protection of leaseholders from bills that they cannot afford and should not have been given; we want the protection of taxpayers from a burden that they should not have to carry; and we want the application of the “polluter pays” principle, so that the developers, insurers and builders who are responsible for the problems in the first place are the ones who have to pay the costs of remediation. All of that has become perfectly clear during our various debates on the matter.

I welcome what my hon. Friend the Member for Southampton, Itchen (Royston Smith) said yesterday and today about establishing a study on the ground—similar, in some ways, to that which the right hon. Member for Leeds Central (Hilary Benn) just mentioned—that would make it possible to talk to real people about real bills, and about why the huge sum of taxpayers’ money that has been set aside is not getting through to them. What rate-limiting steps, and what problems with bureaucracy and the timescales that have been set, make it impossible for that money to get to the people who need it? I very much welcome that idea. I hope that the timescale will be short and the Minister will be able to share the lessons learned with all Members.

Today, the Minister has edged us towards the necessary compromise. If we are willing to make it clear in the Queen’s Speech that leasehold reform will deal with forfeiture, that will remove one of the biggest fears. As the Father of the House said, what about the potential for forfeiture to occur during the time before the passing of that legislation? That does need to be dealt with. If I may say so, my hon. Friend the Minister was clearer about that today than he was yesterday, and that is hugely to be welcomed. I have always thought that the idea that we could not say what would be in the Queen’s Speech sat a bit oddly with the fact that we can read what will be in the Budget three days before it actually happens.

I also welcome what my hon. Friend the Minister said about the scope of the Building Safety Bill and the ability to set out in it the concept of apportionment, which will be a major element. I hope that if we can take these concepts forward in the other place, we might reach a solution to this problem. It seems to me that the building blocks of a solution are there.

As my hon. Friend and Members from all parts of the House have said, we all want certainty, so that lenders can lend, property values can stabilise and homeowners—the very people my party wants to encourage—can sleep soundly in their beds once again, as they have a right to do.

Fire Safety Bill

Hilary Benn Excerpts

Consideration of Lords message
Tuesday 27th April 2021 Commons Chamber

[Royston Smith (Southampton, Itchen) (Con)]

The longer this debate drags on, the more damaging it becomes to the Government and the worse it becomes for innocent leaseholders. On Saturday evening, there was a fire in the tallest tower block in Southampton. That building has ACM cladding. As I understand it, it was alight. Hampshire fire and rescue responded quickly and dealt with the fire with its characteristic professionalism. Fortunately, the fire was not too serious, but it could have been. What would we be saying today if the worst had happened, I wonder?

I have said from the start that there are three dimensions to the fire safety scandal: the moral, the economic and the political. The moral obligation is obvious: this Government have a duty to hold those who are responsible to account and to defend the innocent leaseholders. There should be no disagreement on that issue.

Secondly, on the economic, the Government clearly think that my concerns about toxic debt, mass bankruptcy and repossession are wrong, but it is not just me who thinks it is a risk. The Bank of England is concerned, too—so concerned that it is assessing whether the fire safety scandal could cause a new financial crisis. With up to 1.3 million flats unmortgageable, perhaps the Government should be a little more concerned about the economic issue.

Finally, on the political, the Government believe in the home-owning democracy. It defines us. We have encouraged it. We have incentivised it. In fact, many people would not be in their own property without the support of Government. How do we look ourselves in the mirror when we have helped people to buy a home in a dangerous building that is worth less—sometimes much less—than they paid for it? The truth is that most MPs, including Conservative MPs, agree that the Government should resolve this issue. They believe, as I do, that it should not be the taxpayers who pay, despite what some in government have been saying. It should be those who are responsible—the manufacturers, the developers, the National House Building Council and development control. Some of those, of course, are local authorities. The Government can underwrite what is needed and then take it back from the industry. It may take years, but we will charge interest. It should be those who are responsible who pay.

We have been accused of wanting to kill the Fire Safety Bill. Nothing could be further from the truth. If the Government wanted the Bill to succeed as much as I do, they would do what was necessary to get the Bill through this place and the other place, but they have thus far chosen not to. After today, the Bill will go back to the Lords, and it will, in all likelihood, come back again. The amendment may come back with a different name and moved by someone else. If that happens, the Bill may well fall. That will not be my fault or our fault. That will be the Government’s fault.

[Hilary Benn (Leeds Central) (Lab) [V]]

It is a great pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Southampton, Itchen (Royston Smith). Here we are again debating a Lords amendment to protect leaseholders from having to pay to fix construction defects and unsafe cladding that never were and never should be their responsibility, and yet Ministers continue to resist, even though they have repeatedly said that leaseholders should not have to bear the cost. The trouble with this endless debate is that the clock is ticking and innocent leaseholders continue to face unreasonable costs as bills now start to arrive demanding sums of money that they simply do not possess. One constituent wrote to me last week enclosing a photograph of the bill he has just been sent, for £27,000. Another thinks that their bill will be £40,000. They obviously cannot remortgage their flats. So I ask the Minister: what are people in this situation meant to do? Sadly, we know that the Government do not have an answer to this, or indeed to the mental and emotional torment that these people are being put through. That is why this amendment is needed, and needed now.

Even taking account of the Government funding already announced, the Leasehold Knowledge Partnership estimates that about two thirds of the total cost will still fall on leaseholders: the very people whom the Government say should not pay. The Association of Residential Managing Agents estimates that the average remediation bill will be about £50,000 a flat and that insurance costs have risen by 400%. The Government estimate that the average cost of a waking watch outside London is over £2,100 a year for each flat. Leaseholders in shared ownership properties are in a particular bind. The building safety fund is moving too slowly. There is a shortage of companies who can, or will, do the work. There is total uncertainty as to what is meant to happen when we know that there are other works that have to be done to make buildings safe but for which the Government are not prepared, so far, to offer funding. I find it very hard to believe that Ministers do not understand that the remedy they have come forward with so far is patently insufficient, or that, without a comprehensive plan, leaseholders will, month by month and year by year, inevitably face financial collapse because of the huge burden of costs being put on their shoulders.

In conclusion, can I assure the Minister that the growing number of MPs who support the Lords amendment are not going anywhere, and that is because our constituents have nowhere else to go?

[Stephen McPartland (Stevenage) (Con) [V]]

It is a pleasure to be able to speak in this debate.

It is unfortunate that this is the third time the House of Lords has felt it necessary to return this Bill to the House of Commons. That is because their lordships, like many MPs across the House, feel that the Bill cannot progress without some form of protection for leaseholders. It completely astonishes me that people in government cannot hear the screams of pain of leaseholders begging for help—people who are going bankrupt and people who are being hit with high insurance premiums. We were told only last week of an insurance premium for a building that was £11,963 last year but £242,400 this year. People are being hit with bills of £6,000 each with seven days to pay them and no recourse to help. With waking watches, there are interim bills that are going through the roof. Leaseholders cannot pay this; they cannot afford this. The reality is that these buildings will not be made safe by transferring the financial and legal liability on to leaseholders. Leaseholders do not have the funds to fix it. As my hon. Friend the Member for Southampton, Itchen (Royston Smith) said, we, leaseholders and leaseholders’ groups do not want the taxpayer to pay; we want the taxpayer to provide a safety net to help. We believe that those responsible should pay—nobody else.

Nobody wants this Bill to fail. We are nearly four years on from Grenfell. The Minister mentioned Grenfell in his opening remarks. I would like to read him a statement that has been issued by Grenfell United:

“The fire safety bill is back in the commons. Government is using the excuse that the amendment will delay Grenfell recommendations. The amendment is to protect leaseholders from charges. The FSB is separate & it is wrong to claim support of it damages recommendations. Using Grenfell Recommendations to justify government’s indifference is deeply upsetting for us and shows they’d rather protect the corporates responsible from paying for the mess they created. Our request is simple: implement Grenfell recommendations make homes safe & protect lease holders from financial ruin. Nearly 4 years since Grenfell and yet not a single piece of legislation has been passed. Homes have to be made safe this is a basic human right. We ask all MPs that committed to ensuring Grenfell 2 could not happen to do the right thing today by us and the thousands of leaseholders effected.”

Grenfell United and the people affected there have spoken. Leaseholders up and down the country are speaking. Our constituents are speaking and Members of Parliament are hearing them. The Bishop of St Albans has tabled an amendment to try to provide the Government with the opportunity of the time and space to come forward with a compromise. I urge the Government to compromise and bring forward an amendment in the House of Lords later today to help support leaseholders.

Fire Safety Bill

Hilary Benn Excerpts

Consideration of Lords amendments
Monday 22nd March 2021 Commons Chamber

[Stephen McPartland (Stevenage) (Con) [V]]

I thank the Lord Bishop of St Albans and the Lord Bishop of London for ensuring that we have the opportunity to vote on the amendments today. It gives us the chance to divide the House on whether leaseholders should be responsible for paying for historical fire safety costs. I urge the Minister and the Government to accept the amendments or, if there is something wrong with them, to table their own. They should work with us and with leaseholders to try to resolve this issue.

It is unacceptable that people feel that we want taxpayers to pay. Leaseholders do not want taxpayers to pay and Members across the House do not want taxpayers to pay; we want those who are responsible to pay—the developers, the insurance companies and the building regulators who said that these properties were safe over the past 20 to 30 years, when many of the leaseholders who will be forced to pay these bills were in primary school or not even born. It is not acceptable, it is not fair and it is not right. What we are doing today is shameful.

The amendments would maintain the status quo with regard to the costs of remediation. I understand the Minister’s point that this is a small Bill and not the right place to deal with the costs of remediation. I agree with him, but it is he who is transferring the liability to leaseholders in this Bill. The status quo is that leaseholders are not responsible for the costs of anything to do with external walls or doors. It is this Bill that amends the legislation. It is this Bill that will make leaseholders responsible for paying for historical fire safety defects. Again, that is not fair.

I was at a building today and it became clear very quickly that the estimated costs of remediation are greater than the value of the properties within it. Can the Minister give me an answer? What will happen in cases where the costs of remediation are greater than the value of the building and the properties within it? Will the building be written off, like an insurance company would write off a car? Will those people be made homeless? We know that if the Bill goes through, even more leaseholders will face bankruptcy and huge issues of homelessness.

At the moment, the interim costs are bankrupting leaseholders up and down the country. Leaseholders are screaming for help; they are screaming in pain. And what are we doing? Today, we are saying to them, “Thanks for paying the interim costs. Once you’ve finished that, we’re going to load you up with the remediation costs on top.” That is tens of thousands of pounds that people just do not have.

We are nearly four years on from Grenfell, and it appears to me that the Government have given up on those who should be responsible for paying and are pushing the costs on to leaseholders. It is morally unacceptable.

[Hilary Benn (Leeds Central) (Lab) [V]]

I will be supporting the amendment moved by the Bishop of St Albans, because in circumstances where leaseholders are beset by worry, fear and uncertainty, it will provide them with the reassurance that they will not have to pay to fix a problem for which they are not responsible. It will also make the Government realise that they have to come forward with a different solution.

There are two problems here: the first is dangerous cladding and the second is other fire safety defects, which have been discovered in building after building. The Government appear to be in the position where the funding they have announced will pay for the remediation of missing fire cavity barriers where they are integral to the replacement of dangerous cladding, but not where they are not—in other words, where they are elsewhere in the building. I do not really understand that. Can the Minister say whether, if the works the Government are prepared to fund through the scheme are completed, the buildings in question will be declared safe so that the waking watch and insurance costs disappear even if the other fire safety defects have not been fixed?

Time, however, is not on our side, because we know how long making all of these homes safe is going to take, even if all the necessary funding had already been identified.

There are detailed inspections to be done, tenders have to be put together, firms found who are willing to do the work, and scaffolding and building materials have to be ordered before the work can even begin. So, given the scale of this, it is going to take a long time. But that is the one thing that leaseholders do not have, because, as we have heard, they are paying bills that they cannot afford.

Even worse, the bills are now starting to arrive on their doormats demanding payment to fix the cladding. One recent example was a demand for £71,000. It might as well be for £1 million, because there is no prospect of leaseholders being able to find that kind of money.

So the longer this goes on, the more likely we are to see leaseholders becoming bankrupt. What are the local authorities going to do when they turn up at their door and say, “I’m homeless; I need somewhere to stay”? And make no mistake: the anger that leaseholders are feeling at the moment will be something else again when they find themselves being made homeless through no fault of their own.

So, let us do the right thing today to protect leaseholders, and then the Government can turn their attention to finding an answer that will actually work. At a time when people are getting bills to the tune, as I have just said, of £71,000 through the letterbox, to stand up and say, “I’m really sorry, but this isn’t the right legislation” demonstrates a failure to understand the nightmare that so many of the people we represent are living through.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)]

I will call the Minister to wind-up the debate at five to 9.

Residential Leaseholders and Interim Fire Safety Costs

Hilary Benn Excerpts

Wednesday 10th March 2021 Westminster Hall

[Hilary Benn (Leeds Central) (Lab) [V]]

[Inaudible.]

[Mr Philip Hollobone (in the Chair)]

I call Sir Robert Neill.

--- Later in debate ---

[Hilary Benn [V]]

I hope you can hear me now, Chair.

[Mr Philip Hollobone (in the Chair)]

We can hear you, and now would be a really good time to hear your contribution.

[Hilary Benn]

I do apologise.

I join others in congratulating my hon. Friend the Member for Vauxhall (Florence Eshalomi) on securing the debate and on talking so passionately, as others have, about the unaffordable cost to our constituents of waking watches and insurance bills. We all know that those costs are to pay for the symptom of the problem; they will never remedy the problem itself, but they will eventually end up bankrupting people.

My constituent Hayley Tillotson saved up for four years to buy her flat. She called it:

“The proudest moment of my life.”

Just before Christmas, she had to declare herself bankrupt and hand back the keys to her dream home. Why? Because the waking watch fee was the same as her mortgage, and she did not have the money to pay it. The point I want to make is simply this: despite the steps the Government have taken, without something else happening, these so-called interim costs will continue to be demanded in the months and years ahead because the buildings will not have been made completely safe. Why is that? Dangerous cladding is only part of the problem. The other part is that wooden balconies and walkways, flammable insulation and missing fire breaks have been discovered time and time again as innocent leaseholders learn that their block was not constructed even to the building standards of the time.

The Minister knows perfectly well that leaseholders do not have the money to fix those other fire safety defects. When the Secretary of State was pressed on that, he said that the taxpayer could not be expected to meet the cost of fixing any safety defect on any building of any height. That is a fair point, although successive Governments do bear some responsibility because they presided over the scandal. But the people who really should pay—the developers, the builders and the freeholders—should be asked for the money. The Government have created the means through the tax and the levy announced by the Secretary of State, so they should provide loans to fix the problem and recoup the money from those three sources.

I am grateful to the Minister for his reply to my written question about whether works to remove dangerous cladding that are funded by the building safety fund will be delayed if insufficient funds are available to fix the other fire safety problems. A press report suggested that that could happen, but his reply implied that it would not. Could he clarify that in responding?

The fact remains that until sufficient funds are identified, the costs will continue to drain the resources and the spirits of all the leaseholders caught up in this nightmare. The question to the Minister remains a simple one: he knows that leaseholders cannot afford to fix the other problems, so what is his plan for getting them fixed?

Unsafe Cladding: Protecting Tenants and Leaseholders

Hilary Benn Excerpts

Monday 1st February 2021 Commons Chamber

[Hilary Benn (Leeds Central) (Lab)]

I am pleased to follow the hon. Member for Stevenage (Stephen McPartland), whose amendments to the Fire Safety Bill I have signed. I will speak on behalf of my constituents in Leeds—they include Hayley Tillotson, whose story has moved us all—who find themselves in desperate circumstances not of their making. They saved up. They bought what they thought was the home of their dreams. It has now turned into a nightmare as the outer layers have been peeled back on each block to reveal the full horror underneath. Their homes are firetraps. They are worthless. They cannot borrow against them. They cannot sell them. They are trapped by waking watch bills, trapped by rising insurance, and trapped by the fear that they will be told they must pay to fix this, even though they are not in any way responsible.

The impact on the mental health of my constituents is enormous, because every day they wake up and are reminded of this nightmare with no apparent way out. Today’s debate is so important, because we, together on both sides of the House, need to give them hope by calling on the Government to draw up a plan to sort the situation out.

Ministers know that the building safety fund will not deal with the problem. Why? Because the cost of making every home safe is way in excess of the money allocated so far, and we know that Ministers are looking at a loan scheme. I am not opposed to a loan scheme in principle, provided that leaseholders are not required to pay the loans back. After all, they did not fail to put in the firebreaks or cover the blocks in unsafe cladding, so why on earth should they have to pay?

This is a story of monumental regulatory failure and of flats being built as cheaply as possible—in many cases without even complying with the building regulations. Like the Minister, I applaud those freeholders and developers who have taken responsibility and sorted things out, but I deplore those who have tried to walk away and claim that it is nothing to do with them. Those who developed and constructed the buildings should pay, the industry as a whole should pay, and the Government should pay because they allowed it to happen. We all have a responsibility for that.

The most important thing of all, however, is that we act now to bring this crisis to an end, because that is what the leaseholders I represent and Leeds Cladding Scandal, which has done such a great job, want. More than anything else they just want to feel safe and secure in their homes once again, so that they can get on with their lives. We have a responsibility to make sure that that now happens.

United Kingdom Internal Market Bill

Hilary Benn Excerpts

Consideration of Lords amendments & Ping Pong & Ping Pong: House of Commons
Monday 7th December 2020 Commons Chamber

[Dr Fox]

I entirely agree. I have used the analogy myself that this is a lifeboat that we hope we never have to launch. We hope the ship will never go down because we will reach a trade agreement, and we should reach a trade agreement because, as I said earlier in the House, there has never been a trade agreement that has begun with the two parties in complete identity of trade law, of tariffs and of regulation. It should be, if it was only about trade, an easy agreement to reach, but it is not just about trade. The main stumbling blocks are constitutional—the very constitutional issues that made me want to vote to leave the European Union in the first place.

There are those who have said that this Bill is outrageous and that it sets new precedents, but in fact it says only that, under certain circumstances, domestic law might have to be used to overrule treaty law. Is it revolutionary? Is it unprecedented? Well, on 12 February 2016, the German federal constitutional court said:

“Treaty overrides by national statutory law are permissible under”

the German constitution. It added:

“Under the system of the Basic Law, international treaties have the same rank as statutory federal law. Therefore, they can be superseded by later federal statutes that contradict them.”

That is merely the power that the United Kingdom Government are seeking to use as a contingency power, should they need it, yet nobody screams about the German Parliament being able to exercise an identical power.

In the short time that I have, I want to make a couple of comments about the value of free trade in the internal market to the Union itself. The 1707 articles of Union between England and Scotland, and those between Great Britain and Ireland in 1800, abolished all customs duties between the different parts of the United Kingdom. Free trade across the whole of the United Kingdom was not only integral to the development of the whole of the United Kingdom from the industrial revolution on, but it was particularly important to Scotland and Ireland, whose citizens could freely trade with the much bigger English market—something that exists today. That point was made very well by the right hon. Member for East Antrim (Sammy Wilson) earlier in this debate.

It is easy, given how successful it has been, to forget how important that single market is, and how easily it could be damaged and what the what the implications would be if it were interfered with or restricted. Of course, that is why the hon. Member for Glasgow North (Patrick Grady)—I am sorry that he has left his place—was unwilling to engage in debate with me last week when I asked what estimates had been made by the Scottish nationalists of the break-up of the UK internal market in terms of the Scottish economy. He said, “We will come and make those arguments in due course,” because they do not want to hear those arguments aired in front of the Scottish people at the present time.

The devolved legislatures were created after the UK joined the European Community and then the European Union. Because the single market rules apply to regional Governments and legislatures as well as central Governments of member states, there was no pressing need during our membership of the European Union for specific UK-based rules maintaining the UK internal market against fragmentation. Brexit changes all that, and that is why I believe that we should reject the Lords amendments tonight.

However, in supporting the Government, I just ask this one question: when did the Government’s legal advisers advise Ministers that the withdrawal Act indeed, by direct application, threatened the internal market of the United Kingdom? It was not something that I heard discussed at the time, but I would like to know the answer to that question, as would many of us who are supporting the Government tonight and who believe that what we are seeing is proportionate contingency planning, fulfilling the duty of the maintenance of the UK internal market, the key part of the United Kingdom itself.

[Hilary Benn (Leeds Central) (Lab)]

Who would have thought that we would be here on 7 December—there are 24 days to go—with the Government wanting to put these international law-breaking clauses back into the Bill and the Brexit negotiations still going? I have always thought that there will be an agreement, but I must confess that in the last few days I have felt a bit gloomy. I do not know whether the announcement in the last 20 minutes that the Prime Minister and Ursula von der Leyen are going to meet later this week to pore over the areas of disagreement should raise our hopes or not. What do they say? It’s the hope that kills you.

Anyway, the truth about this Bill is out. The offending clauses are nothing more and nothing less than a piece of negotiating leverage, which we now know will be dropped the moment a satisfactory resolution is found to the questions that the Joint Committee is properly considering. That was confirmed in the Prime Minister’s statement this afternoon.

The Prime Minister’s dilemma with this Bill and, indeed, with the talks is best explained in this way. Four and a bit years ago, he famously decided to publish the second of two articles that he had written about Brexit. One of them was for leaving the EU, and the other was against. When he made that decision, he climbed on the back of what I would describe as the Brexit tiger. It has taken him on quite a journey—it has taken him through the door of 10 Downing Street, which I am sure was his hope, but there is just one problem: it is not entirely clear he knows how to get off the tiger in order to secure a deal. He is the prisoner of the fateful decision that he made.

It is not that he was not aware of the consequences, because thanks to Tim Shipman, we now know what he wrote in the other article, which was not published. He said:

“Almost everyone expects there to be some sort of economic shock as a result of a Brexit. How big would it be?”

Well, we know the answer, because the Government have done their own economic assessment, and we saw what the Office for Budget Responsibility reported a couple of weeks ago: the economy is hit either way, but it is much worse if no agreement is reached.

The question now for the House and for the negotiators is, how do we get out of this? It is clearly not by the clauses that the Government are seeking to put back in the Bill. One of the reasons why the Government are having so much trouble with the level playing field negotiations is the existence of those clauses. Let us think about this for a moment. Why do Ministers think that the EU negotiators are so keen to tie down commitments that both sides will be asked to give in the negotiations? It is for the very simple reason, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Doncaster North (Edward Miliband) made clear in another brilliant speech, that we have shown that we are not to be trusted to keep our word. If a country is in the process of negotiating a new international treaty, it does not do wonders for its credibility if it is busy preparing to tear up part of the previous treaty that it negotiated with the same partners and signed just over a year ago.

The other issue is sovereignty, about which we have heard an enormous amount today. If sovereignty is absolute, and if we were to take it to its logical and absurd conclusion, for example, why should we be negotiating on fish at all? Would not giving any of “our fish”, as some people describe it, be a betrayal? If sovereignty is absolute, what are we doing in the World Trade Organisation? As the right hon. Member for North Somerset (Dr Fox) knows only too well, the WTO has a dispute resolution body that gives other countries, if they win a case against the UK, the ability to impose countervailing measures upon us, including tariffs. How could that be acceptable to a sovereign country that claims complete sovereign control? The truth, of course, is that sovereignty is not absolute. It is what we choose to do with it that matters, and we cannot avoid that choice. We cannot avoid that choice in these negotiations, because the only way out of this mess, in the interests of the country, is for both sets of negotiators to grasp the heavy responsibility that they have at this moment to make the choices that will secure the deal that the country desperately needs.

In conclusion, since German car makers, as was once rather fancifully suggested, are not going to turn up late in the day to rescue the negotiations, a bit like Blücher at Waterloo, we have to save ourselves. That is what we have to do at this point. Whatever the bluster, I simply say to those on the Front Bench that the country will not forgive this Government if they impose no deal upon us.

[Sir Bernard Jenkin (Harwich and North Essex) (Con)]

It is always an enormous pleasure to follow the right hon. Member for Leeds Central (Hilary Benn). For decades, the EU was a train that we had to stay on, and now Brexit is a tiger that we have to get off. There is not time to re-engage in the old arguments about sovereignty, but it was very telling that he thought the importance of sovereignty was what a country chooses to do with it, not what it is imposed with. There is no international organisation of which we are a member in the world that is like the EU, which imposes its will on us through our own laws and courts; every other international body—such as the WTO, to which the right hon. Gentleman referred—is a voluntary association governed by international law, which is a completely different matter.

Leaseholders and Cladding

Hilary Benn Excerpts

Tuesday 24th November 2020 Commons Chamber

[Christopher Pincher]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his thoughtful contribution. Yes, we will continue to work with the lending sector to ensure that the EWS1 form is fully and properly understood and is not misused, or that its use does not bleed across in a way that is inappropriate. We will of course roll out the 2,000 assessors as quickly as we possibly can. I will take on board his point and consider how those assessors can be best and most effectively deployed.

[Hilary Benn (Leeds Central) (Lab)]

For the past hour and a half, the Minister has had to listen to testimony about the nightmare that all our constituents, including mine in Leeds city centre, are living with. He knows that leaseholders simply do not have the billions that are still required to fix the problem. He knows that without funding from elsewhere, they will continue to live in unsafe homes, as waking watch and insurance bills mount. He knows that some of them will eventually lose their homes, because they will be made bankrupt by those costs. He knows how much anguish this nightmare is causing them. He also knows that an answer must be found, but I think the question that leaseholders who have been listening to this urgent question would like to put to him is: when will the Government come forward with that answer?

[Christopher Pincher]

I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman. The question he puts is a fair one, and the way in which he puts the issues he raised was entirely reasonable and fair. We will bring forward proposals as quickly as we can, to ensure that costs to leaseholders are mitigated. He will understand that this is a complicated issue that tracks back over political generations. To unpick that challenge, and to ensure that remediation is done effectively, that liability falls where it should, that the taxpayer is not subjected to unfunded commitment and that leaseholders have the right thing done by them is a challenge, but one that we are rising to and one for which we will bring forward proposals as quickly as we can.

Planning for the Future

Hilary Benn Excerpts

Thursday 12th March 2020 Commons Chamber

[Robert Jenrick]

My hon. Friend understands this issue well and has represented two constituencies with very serious affordability issues, but where there is also a great opportunity to build housing. We need to ensure that that is done in a very sensitive way and that the infrastructure flows with the new housing. That is the objective of creating the development corporations, which will be partnerships between the local community and the Government, and we hope that this will be well planned, environmentally sustainable, good quality, beautiful housing and that the services—GP surgeries, schools, roads, utilities—flow with the housing and meet the demands. I really hope that I can work with all of those communities to ensure that they are great successes.

[Hilary Benn (Leeds Central) (Lab)]

I welcome the £1 billion cladding fund that was announced yesterday. It is a start but, as the Secretary of State knows, the devil is in the detail. May I encourage him to set up a contact group with representatives of leaseholders, freeholders, managing agents, fire services, local authorities, mortgage companies and his officials, perhaps chaired by the Housing Minister, to work through that detail so that it does not take another two and a half years for all the unsafe cladding to be removed?

[Robert Jenrick]

I welcome the work my right hon. Friend the Housing Minister has done on this issue, and I will take that away. We want to work progressively with all the stakeholders. We have built an effective operation on ACM above 18 metres in recent months. We have named contacts for all the buildings, and all, bar a very small number, now have plans to remediate.

By opening the fund’s scope much more widely to other dangerous materials above 18 metres, we will have to put in place the same procedures for those materials to understand exactly where the buildings are, to understand who are the right people to work with us and to make sure that work is tendered for and that workers get on site as quickly as possible. That will be a very complex piece of work. At the moment, it can take up to six months to get workers on site to do ACM remediation, and some projects can take up to two years to complete. I do not underestimate the scale of the challenge, but I am keen to work with anybody who is interested to make sure it begins as quickly as possible.

Leaseholders and Cladding

Hilary Benn Excerpts

Wednesday 12th February 2020 Westminster Hall

[Geraint Davies (in the Chair)]

Before I call Hilary Benn, may I simply say that 13 Back Benchers wish to contribute? In the event that Mr Benn speaks for 20 minutes, everyone will have three minutes; in the event that he speaks for 10, everyone will have four. He is free to take as much time as he likes, and I will divide the remaining time equally between Back Benchers. Obviously, interventions will take time, but they will not result in more time for Back Benchers. I call Hilary Benn to move the motion.

[Hilary Benn (Leeds Central) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered leaseholders and cladding.

May I say what a great pleasure it is to serve under your chairship, Mr Davies? I am grateful to all colleagues present. I know that a number will wish to intervene, but the more interventions there are, the longer I will take to complete my argument, which I am keen that the Minister should hear. I think the turnout shows her the strength of feeling on this issue.

It is not difficult to understand why there are strong feelings. Imagine that someone has saved up all their money and bought their first flat. It is the home of their dreams. They move in, the future beckons, and then one day a letter drops on the mat. It is from their managing agent, and it tells them: “Your home is in a building that has now been judged a fire risk because of unsafe cladding, and as a leaseholder you must immediately—this day—start paying for a waking watch. Otherwise, all of you will have to move out of your homes.” In one case in Leeds, such a waking watch is costing each flat-owner £670 a month plus VAT, on top of mortgage payments and the service charge.

The leaseholder is probably then asked to meet the cost of putting in a fire alarm system, which may or may not reduce the cost of the waking watch. Then, to their absolute horror, they are asked to pay for the cost of replacing the dangerous cladding to make their building—their home—safe. The problem is pretty obvious to us all: they simply do not have that kind of money. Their home has been rendered completely worthless, therefore they cannot remortgage. Their insurance premium is, in all likelihood, going up, and they worry about possibly being made bankrupt because of all the costs. That could result, depending on what job they do, in the loss of their job as well as their home. Yet none of that is in any way the fault, responsibility or doing of the leaseholders.

[Mr David Lammy (Tottenham) (Lab)]

I have a building in the Tottenham Hale village with 432 people who cannot get a mortgage or remortgage. Is it the view of my right hon. Friend that that is entirely unacceptable, because fire and building regulations are rightly the Government’s responsibility? The Government should step in to support those individuals.

[Hilary Benn]

That is absolutely my view. My right hon. Friend anticipates what I will come on to say.

[Mr Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi (Slough) (Lab)]

I congratulate my right hon. Friend on securing this immensely important debate. Does he agree that, although the Government’s recent announcement of the aluminium composite material cladding fund is welcome, it does nothing to help blocks, such as the Lexington and Rivington apartment blocks in my constituency, that have non-ACM dangerous cladding or are plagued by other fire safety defects, such as a lack of effective firebreaks? It is distressing to see those residents, who are worried about their finances and security, now suffering sleepless nights and fearing bankruptcy and homelessness. The Government need to help them out.

[Hilary Benn]

My hon. Friend is correct: there is a fundamental unfairness in the treatment of different types of leaseholders. That is the argument that I will make.

As we have just heard from two colleagues, a growing number of our constituents face this problem—in my case, leaseholders from St George’s building and a number of blocks in Leeds Dock and Timble Beck, who have other types of dangerous cladding. I pay tribute to the Leeds Cladding Scandal group, to all the other groups that have been organised up and down the country, and to the very aptly named Manchester Cladiators, who have really got organised. That name tells us how determined they are to win.

[Lucy Powell (Manchester Central) (Lab/Co-op)]

I thank my right hon. Friend for securing the debate, and for mentioning the Manchester Cladiators: a network of dozens of blocks in my constituency that are affected by such issues. What the Manchester Cladiators really want is to be at the heart of an ongoing dialogue with the Government to resolve the issues. The period of passing the buck between freeholders, insurers and the Government has to stop.

[Hilary Benn]

I agree completely, and I hope that today’s debate is part of the dialogue that has already begun. Leaseholders want to feel that they are being listened to, and they want to be able to meet Ministers. I hope that this debate will ensure that more of that happens.

[Steve Reed (Croydon North) (Lab/Co-op)]

It is powerful to hear how the issue is affecting people across the country, including residents of Radnor House in my constituency of Croydon North, which is in south London. Leaseholders are living in a block, converted from offices, that has wooden cladding, so they do not come under the ACM fund that the Government have opened. Yet they, too, face massive bills that they cannot afford, in homes that they cannot sell. It feels to them as if the Government are penalising innocent leaseholders instead of stepping in with real help, which is what they need.

[Hilary Benn]

My hon. Friend has painted a picture, as we all can, of the strain, the heartache and the worry, which are not difficult to understand. If we had received one of those letters and it was happening to us in our home, we too would be worried sick. Our constituents who are caught up in that nightmare want our help, and they need it now.

The Minister knows only too well how we got here, following the terrible fire at Grenfell Tower, so I do not propose to go over any of that again. The Government had to act in the wake of that tragedy to change what was clearly a wholly defective system. However, having done so, Ministers have put leaseholders in a manifestly unjust position. Were that not bad enough, as more and more building surveys have been done, other problems have come to light, such as missing firebreaks—which mean that the buildings were never built according to building regulations in the first place—or wooden balconies, which the new guidance says have to be replaced.

[Dr Matthew Offord (Hendon) (Con)]

I have 1,087 developments in the Pulse development in Colindale. A lot of people bought those properties after the building regulations were signed off by the local authority, as recently as 2017. Those people have not been protected by building regulations and now, as the right hon. Member says, simply cannot afford to either remortgage or sell their property. They are in redundant properties. The concern is that the assurances from building regulations were simply not worth the paper on which they were printed.

[Hilary Benn]

The hon. Member makes a really important point. Lots of my constituents say to me, “But it was signed off under building regs. Surely that means it’s safe.” Well, it does not quite mean that, for reasons that we can go into on another occasion. It is part of the system that has still to be fixed.

Other leaseholders are drawn in because, even though their blocks have not been identified as having a problem, when they try to sell the flat the mortgage company says, “Okay—but, by the way, where’s the certificate that says that this building complies with the new regulations that the Government have, quite properly, put in place?” If they cannot produce it, the property is worthless and becomes unsellable. If that was not complicated enough, just to complete the story, the ownership structure of blocks and the history varies. The developers may have gone bust, the builders may no longer be trading, and some freeholders say, “I’m terribly sorry, but I don’t have the money to replace the cladding on this building.”

[Kevin Hollinrake (Thirsk and Malton) (Con)]

I draw the House’s attention to my declaration in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. It is not simply that freeholders say, “I don’t have the money.” They do not have the obligation. Most freeholders do not have an obligation to mitigate any such problems. Perhaps the only people who do are the original developers—who, as the right hon. Member says, may not be there—or the leaseholders. Is that not the problem? As he rightly says, leaseholders in many cases have no means to pay for that remedial work.

[Hilary Benn]

The hon. Gentleman, who has great expertise in this matter, is correct. I will come to what the Government have said about the responsibility of freeholders, but I think the point we are all making is that this is not the fault of the leaseholders, who never expected when they bought that first dream home that this burden might fall upon them.

[Rushanara Ali (Bethnal Green and Bow) (Lab)]

My constituency, like my right hon. Friend’s, has a lot of high-rise blocks—among the highest number in the country. One of the major issues is getting the Government to finance the work that needs to be done ahead of any further tragedies and fatalities, and ahead of the Budget statement. Does my right hon. Friend agree that two years after the appalling, horrific tragedy of Grenfell, the Government need to step up and create a fund so that those works can be done, and should then go after the freeholders to make them—rather than our constituents—pay when they are able to do so? That should be our focus and priority, as we said time and again in the last Parliament. I hope that we do not have to keep saying this. I hope that the Government heed our advice and make sure that the Chancellor puts some money into those works in the March Budget.

[Hilary Benn]

I agree with my hon. Friend. When the problem of ACM cladding was first identified, the Government quite properly said that it all has to come off and be replaced. Importantly, they also said that however it was done, leaseholders should not have to pay. On 29 November 2018, the then Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government said:

“Everyone has a right to feel safe in their homes and I have repeatedly made clear that building owners and developers must replace dangerous ACM cladding. And the costs must not be passed on to leaseholders.”

I agree with that. The Secretary of State repeated that point on 9 May 2019, when he said:

“Leaseholders find themselves in this position through no fault of their own, and this is not morally defensible.”—[Official Report, 9 May 2019; Vol. 659, c. 688.]

Again, I agree. It would be monstrous to expect people who are entirely blameless to pay for the mistakes and errors of others. It has been pointed out that if our constituents had bought cars or washing machines that were a fire risk, no one would dream of saying to them, “Sorry, you are going to have to pay for the cost of replacement.” Their problem is that they bought the home of their dreams.

I acknowledge the responsible way in which some freeholders, including in Leeds, have accepted that they need to foot the bill to replace the cladding. That work has either been done, is in progress, or we are told it is timetabled. However, despite the Government’s policy, there are freeholders who have not lived up to their responsibilities. That is why the Government eventually realised they could not carry on, because otherwise ACM cladding would not be removed.

On 9 May last year, the Government announced the £200 million fund to support the removal of ACM, to protect those leaseholders from bearing the cost. There have been problems with that fund—slow disbursement, bureaucracy and the like—that are for another debate, but I welcome that decision. It showed unreservedly that the Government were determined to uphold the principle they had established: leaseholders should not have to pay. However, what is now happening in respect of buildings with other types of unsafe cladding completely contradicts the principled position that the Government have taken until this point.

Why is this happening? First, the Secretary of State said on 20 January that he had received advice that ACM cladding was much more dangerous than other types of cladding. Anyone who has seen the film of student accommodation in Bolton going up, convulsed in flames, might wonder whether that is the case, since that building was covered in high pressure laminate. It was the Government’s review that brought in the new advice, and that advice toughened the standards, leading to other buildings being peered at, prodded and having bits taken off them when people discovered the problems with HPL and other systems. Nobody knows how many such buildings there may be, but the point is that leaseholders in buildings with other types of cladding find themselves in exactly the same position as people who are living in buildings with ACM cladding, except for one thing: the Government’s fund does not cover the removal of their cladding.

Secondly, the idea of differential risk is not applied by the West Yorkshire Fire and Rescue Service. It does not distinguish between different types of cladding when it issues notices that say, “This building is unsafe. Start a waking watch now, or you are going to have to move out. Give us a plan for how you are going to replace this cladding.” The chief fire officer of West Yorkshire fire service put it to me this Monday that

“it is our view that there is no difference between unsafe ACM cladding and unsafe HPL cladding.”

Why, then, are the Government seeking to distinguish between the two when it comes to the position of leaseholders? I say to the Minister that that position is completely unsustainable.

Thirdly, Ministers have rightly been adamant that unsafe cladding has to be removed. They have set up the fund and said that they are going to name and shame freeholders who do not get on and do it. The latest building safety data says that 174 ACM-clad private-sector residential buildings are still yet to be remediated. What is those Ministers’ position on other types of dangerously clad buildings? Are the owners of those blocks going to be named and shamed—and if not, why not?

When the Secretary of State was pressed on that point in the House on 20 January, he indicated that the Government were considering further help. In answer to my hon. Friend the Member for Hackney South and Shoreditch (Meg Hillier), he talked about the possibility of loans. If those loans went to the freeholders, that might possibly be a way forward, but only if the Government could guarantee that none of the costs would be passed on to the leaseholders; if they just got a bill for it through their service charge, that would breach the principle that the Government set out. However, it was clear from the Secretary of State’s reply to my hon. Friend that he was talking about loans to leaseholders, because he referred to existing examples of building owners who have provided low-interest or zero-interest loans on a hardship basis. He went on to say:

“There may be a role for the Government in ensuring that that works, that the loans are affordable, and that it is done as quickly as possible.”—[Official Report, 20 January 2020; Vol. 670, c. 33.]

However, that would be another change of policy, because on 9 May last year, when the then Secretary of State announced the grant fund, he was specifically asked about loans. He said:

“We looked at questions such as whether a loan arrangement could work but ultimately, given the complexity, the time that would have been involved and the need for all sorts of different consents, and given that my priority is providing a sense of assurance for leaseholders and getting on with this, we decided to adopt this structure.”—[Official Report, 9 May 2019; Vol. 659, c. 695.]

By “this structure”, he meant grants. If that was the view then, what has changed? Perhaps the Minister can explain in her response. When the Secretary of State talked about hardship, when leaseholders are on low incomes or do not have any savings, the implication was clearly that if a person does not fall into one of those two categories, they will bear the total cost themselves.

The problem with the idea of loans is that it completely breaches the principle that the Government set out at the start of this crisis—and believe me, it is a crisis. That principle was that leaseholders living in buildings with unsafe cladding should not have to pay for the cost of its removal, because that would create two classes of leaseholder: one whom the Government would seek to protect from the cost of replacing cladding, and another to whom the Government would say, “I’m terribly sorry, you’ve got to pay.” That would be completely unfair, which is why many of us are calling on Ministers to extend the coverage and size of the fund to all buildings with unsafe cladding of whatever type. We have already heard those calls today, and I am calling for that as well, because it is the only fair way forward and the only way in which the objective of removing all dangerous cladding, with which we all agree, can be achieved.

Unless that happens, in situations where freeholders cannot or do not find the money and leaseholders clearly do not have the money, the nightmare will continue. They will go on living in an unsafe building; the only way they will be able to stay in it will be to go on and on paying for a waking watch, as the cladding will never be removed because there is no one to pay for it. Eventually, that will bankrupt them.

[Stephen Timms (East Ham) (Lab)]

I thank my right hon. Friend for the case he has set out. Residents of the Lumiere building, in Manor Park in my constituency, tell me that there is ACM cladding on the front side of the building and other kinds of dangerous cladding on the other three sides. Does it not seem particularly absurd that Government funding can help with one part of the building, but not the rest?

[Hilary Benn]

My right hon. Friend makes an overwhelmingly powerful case for treating all unsafe cladding as unsafe and needing to be replaced.

The Minister has a tough job, because negotiations with the Treasury are difficult and there are complications. Was building control at fault originally? Can freeholders claim on insurance or building warranties? Can they sue the architects or developers for defects in the original design or construction, assuming there is still someone to sue? Perhaps, but that will take years, and it is not an answer.

I say readily, however, that if a claim is successful and the Government have paid to remove the cladding, the money ought to go back to the Government. I also have no problem with the Government taking equity in the freehold of buildings if they have coughed up for the removal of cladding. What more can the Government do about buildings that have not yet been identified as unsafe but where mortgage companies are asking for a certificate? The EWS1 form has not solved all the problems, so it would be good to hear from the Minister what more can be done.

I will bring my remarks to a close, because many hon. Members want to speak. I see no case for Ministers to move away from the principle they established at the start of the crisis: that leaseholders should not have to pay. I see no case for treating one group of leaseholders differently from another. I see no way for all the dangerous cladding to be replaced other than for the Government to step in and extend the coverage of their fund to all types of blocks that the fire service has identified as unsafe. That is what is needed and it is needed urgently.

All leaseholders on whose behalf we speak today, whose lives are in turmoil, will be watching very carefully to see how the Minister responds. They are not going anywhere—indeed they cannot, because they are trapped in their homes. All they are asking for is to be able to put this nightmare behind them, to go back to living in a safe home and to get on with their lives. Every single hon. Member in this Chamber has a responsibility to ensure that that is what happens, and happens soon.

[Several hon. Members rose—]

--- Later in debate ---

[Hilary Benn]

I thank all colleagues for the force and clarity of their arguments. It is no good pretending that the leaseholders listening to the debate will not be very disappointed by the response that they have heard. I hope that the Minister will go back to the conversations with the Treasury and say, “Blimey, we’re in a bit of a mess here—MPs on all sides of the House are not going to go away,” because we will be back. The Budget is coming up, and I hope that on that day, we will hear what the Government will do to ensure that leaseholders do not have to pay.

Motion lapsed (Standing Order No. 10(6)).