Leasehold and Freehold Reform Bill

Jacob Young Excerpts

Consideration of Lords amendments
Friday 24th May 2024 Commons Chamber

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (Jacob Young)]

I beg to move, That this House agrees with Lords amendment 1.

[Mr Deputy Speaker]

With this it will be convenient to discuss Lords amendments 2 to 67.

[Jacob Young]

All amendments made to this legislation in the other place were minor and technical in nature, and serve to make the legislation function as intended.

This is a historic day for leaseholders: this package of reforms will transform the leasehold housing market and the lives of millions of leaseholders across England and Wales. Our reforms to lease extensions and the buying of freehold will give families and individuals security, which is a core Conservative principle. Giving more leaseholders the freedom to manage their own building will empower them to make important decisions themselves, such as choosing a management company that delivers good-quality work at reasonable prices, and will require management companies to up their standards and give leaseholders a better deal in order to retain and win business.

On service charges, leaseholders must be given more information as to what is being done to their property and what they are actually paying for. The requirement for landlords and management companies to specify exactly what the service charge entails will encourage higher standards among those companies and empower leaseholders to challenge poor service. That is because transparency is a core Conservative value, too. Similarly, our buildings insurance reforms will stop leaseholders being charged exorbitant, opaque commissions on top of their premiums and tackle the proven cases of insider trading in the market—fairness is another core Conservative principle.

Then, we turn to the millions of freeholders living on new estates who are impacted by poor service, bad management and opaque fees. Those estates and the properties on them bring joy, security and futures for everyone who has purchased those properties, including the 1 million households that will have been created in this Parliament. I can tell the House today that the Government’s target of building 1 million new homes in this Parliament has been met. These further rights for homeowners on private and mixed-tenure estates encapsulate what the Bill is trying to do: bring fairness, security, transparency and competition to freehold estates. It is not right to force someone who has bought a freehold property to deal only with one management company, which is not required to give any information or charge reasonable fees—a monopoly.

The Bill will explicitly ban the creation of future leasehold houses. This is a once-in-a-generation reform that will alter the housing market forever, and I commend the Bill to the House.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)]

I call the Father of the House.

[Jeff Smith (Manchester, Withington) (Lab)]

On that note, may I on behalf of the Opposition also welcome this Bill? We are pleased that the disagreements down the other end of the building have been resolved and that it can go forward. It is not perfect, as the Father of the House has pointed out, and I hope that a future Labour Government will take the next steps that we need. It is a step forward, so we are pleased to support this legislation going on to the statute books this evening.

[Jacob Young]

With the leave of the House, I pay tribute to all the staff and Clerks here, the countless campaigners on the rights of leaseholders and some of those mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Worthing West (Sir Peter Bottomley), the brilliant parliamentary champions of the Bill, including my hon. Friend himself, the officials who have worked so hard to deliver the Bill, and indeed my private office and officials for their work on the Renters (Reform) Bill, which sadly has not made it through the wash-up today, such is the nature of a snap general election.