Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Lee Rowley and Clive Betts

Monday 22nd April 2024 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I call the Chair of the Select Committee.

[Mr Clive Betts (Sheffield South East) (Lab)]

The Select Committee welcomed the more than £2 billion provided through the building safety fund to private leaseholders with regard to remediation due to fire safety works. On the other hand, social housing providers received only £200 million, which is about 10% of the amount going to private leaseholders. How can it possibly be fair that in a block of flats a private leaseholder gets their remediation costs paid, but in the same flat next door a social housing tenant has to pay for the total cost out of their rent? That simply is not fair. Ministers have accepted the unfairness in the past. When will they do something about it?

[Lee Rowley]

As my constituency neighbour recognises, there is, rightly, a substantial amount of taxpayer subsidy for remediation. We are trying to ensure that that taxpayer subsidy is then clawed back from those responsible for the problems in the first place. Where there are challenges and issues with registered providers, we are very happy to talk to them. We have done that and we have made changes where necessary.

Leasehold and Freehold Reform Bill

Debate between Lee Rowley and Clive Betts

Report stage
Tuesday 27th February 2024 Commons Chamber

[Lee Rowley]

I am grateful to the hon. Lady for outlining that issue; I know she has raised it in this place before. As she indicates, this is a complex area of law, but I am happy to talk with her separately on that matter in the coming weeks, if it is helpful.

How are we doing this? We are giving leaseholders more security over the future of their homes by increasing the standard lease extension term to 990 years, by making it cheaper and easier for leaseholders to buy their freehold, and by tackling unfair charges, exploitative practices and poor management. In doing so, we are overturning centuries of iniquity.

The Bill will also give leaseholders the control they deserve over the buildings they live in. At present, management companies are too often unaccountable to those who pay for them, meaning that they are able to charge excessive fees for poor-quality service. The Bill gives more leaseholders the opportunity to manage the buildings themselves, so that works get done properly and they have more of a say.

[Mr Clive Betts (Sheffield South East) (Lab)]

The Minister might anticipate the question I am going to ask, because I have asked it before. It is fine giving leaseholders easier ways to buy their freehold, until we come across companies such as Coppen Estates, which we have debated before. It just does not reply to letters. I think that we are now on our third recorded delivery letter to the company about the residents on the Flockton estate, who have just been sent enhanced bills for their ground rent charges, with no justification. They face threats if they do not comply. Where in the Bill is there any measure to make sure that Coppen Estates and the like respond properly in future or face consequences if they do not?

[Lee Rowley]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman. As he knows, we have debated the iniquities of Coppen Estates extensively, and I repeat that it is treating my constituents in a way that is inappropriate, in the same way that it is doing with his constituents over the border. Given that we are extending the opportunity for charges to go to tribunal, I hope that the hon. Gentleman’s constituents in Flockton will be able to go to tribunal and hold that company or other companies to account, should that be helpful.

Through the reforms, we will scrap the presumption that leaseholders must pay their freeholder’s legal costs, even when they win at tribunal, correcting another historical and unfair imbalance. Someone would not be expected to pay legal costs if they were successful in their claim in other cases, so leaseholders should not be treated any differently.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lee Rowley]

The right hon. Gentleman is absolutely right, which is why I hope that measures such as new clause 51 go some way towards making it crystal clear that there is no way to get around this, and towards providing clarity to those who seek to buy a new property.

New clause 52 will require a statement on the front of all new leases declaring that it is a permitted lease and is not a long residential lease of a house. Should a developer make a dishonest declaration to His Majesty’s Land Registry, the homeowner may be able to exercise the redress right contained in new clause 54, which will allow them to acquire the freehold from the developer free of charge.

Under new clause 53, if a lease does not include the prescribed statements, His Majesty’s Land Registry will have the power to restrict the resale of the property until the right information and declarations have been provided.

[Mr Betts]

The Minister is talking about the information on houses. Will it also apply to flats so that, before anyone buys a property, it must be explained to them that they are buying a lease and what that entails? I tabled new clause 38, which says that everyone buying a lease should be presented with a copy of the Government’s “How to Lease” document. Everyone in this situation should be given independent advice.

[Lee Rowley]

I am focusing on homes, and we have been emphatic and clear that the sale of leasehold homes will be precluded other than in exceptional circumstances. I am happy to talk to the hon. Gentleman both later in the debate and outside the Chamber about whether further consumer protections for those purchasing a flat may be proportionate and reasonable.

New clause 54 grants homeowners who have been mis-sold a new lease of a house the right to acquire the freehold from the landlord, as well as any superior leasehold interest in the property, for zero cost. New clauses 55 and 56 set out protections and reasonable limitations on this requirement, and new clause 57 provides for the Secretary of State to make regulations setting out further details on how redress can be obtained.

We understand that granting homeowners the right to redress alone may not be enough to prevent bad actors from attempting to breach the ban on the sale of leases on houses, which is why we are introducing a system of financial penalties where there is a breach. These penalties will start at £500 for a minor breach, rising to £30,000 for the most serious breaches. To enforce this system of fines, as set out in new clause 58, we are asking all local weights and measures authorities to play a part where they see infractions in their area. We will also set out how they need to work through new clause 60.

The chief responsibility for investigating and taking action will lie with the lead enforcement authority. Through new clause 61, the Secretary of State will have the power to appoint the right authority to fulfil this important role, while new clause 62 details the duties. By amending the Consumer Rights Act 2015, clauses 63 and 64 also vest the appropriate investigatory and enforcement powers essential for both the lead authority and local authorities to carry out the job.

Leasehold and Freehold Reform Bill

Debate between Lee Rowley and Clive Betts

2nd reading
Monday 11th December 2023 Commons Chamber

[The Minister for Housing, Planning and Building Safety (Lee Rowley)]

It is a pleasure to wind up the debate after so many useful, thoughtful and detailed contributions. In that spirit, I want to spend a little time going through some of those details. Before doing so, I wish to thank, as so many others have, all the campaigners and all those who have spent so much time working in this area for so many years.

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Worthing West (Sir Peter Bottomley), the hon. Member for Sheffield South East (Mr Betts), my hon. Friend the Member for Redditch (Rachel Maclean), the right hon. Member for East Ham (Sir Stephen Timms), my hon. Friend the Member for Dartford (Gareth Johnson), the hon. Member for Battersea (Marsha De Cordova), my hon. Friend the Member for Harrow East (Bob Blackman), the hon. Member for North Shropshire (Helen Morgan), my right hon. Friend the Member for Aldridge-Brownhills (Wendy Morton), the hon. Member for Brentford and Isleworth (Ruth Cadbury), my hon. Friend the Member for Cities of London and Westminster (Nickie Aiken), the hon. Member for City of Chester (Samantha Dixon), my hon. Friend the Member for North Norfolk (Duncan Baker), the hon. Member for Walthamstow (Stella Creasy), the hon. Member for Liverpool, West Derby (Ian Byrne), and all those who intervened for the helpful comments they provided.

I welcome the general and broad support for the actions that are being taken in the Bill. I also welcome the consensus in the House on the need for reform, which I know, as was highlighted several times, has been some time coming. I hope right hon. and hon. Members will recognise that this is a complicated and intricate area, which is observable not least from the many examples given in the debate. We now have in front of us a good proposition for making progress.

Our focus in the Bill is on being able to make practical progress—to make the Bill as practically useful as it can be—and then to have the greatest impact that it can have. Some, including hon. Members tonight, have said that it does not go far enough; others have said that we should return to first principles and seek to build the whole system again. I am sure that those hon. Members will make their case in Committee if they are part of it, and on Report and in subsequent stages. The Government seek to have a proposition on which can be built; one that is practical, achievable and makes a difference. The art of politics is about being able to make progress, and we think that the Bill will make a significant difference to people’s lives.

Let me turn to some comments made in the debate. I pay tribute to the long-standing work of the Father of the House, my hon. Friend the Member for Worthing West. He raised a number of points, which we will go through in more detail in Committee, but I want to highlight his point on building safety with regard to sub-11 metre properties. A number of Members made similar comments. We have a process in place, so if colleagues have concerns about fire remediation issues in sub-11 metre properties, they should ensure that they get the appropriate fire assessments needed in all buildings. If substantial works are needed to those properties, they can be raised with the Department, which has committed at this Dispatch Box and has executed commitments to look into those issues in more detail.

I pay tribute to the work of the Select Committee, chaired by my constituency neighbour, the hon. Member for Sheffield South East. I particularly enjoy our interactions on this issue because it gives me, like him, the opportunity repeatedly to say as a constituency MP how outraged I am about Coppen Estates’s consistent failure to respond. That is a hallmark of a small cohort of actors in this area, which consistently and flagrantly ignore reality and their ability to make a difference to our residents’ lives. Coppen Estates is a good example of such actors, but there are many others.

[Mr Betts]

I thank the Minister for responding to that point. Will he look at strengthening the Bill to stop companies like Coppen Estates avoiding the legislation? Strengthening the legislation is fine, and so is changing the way that enfranchisement fees are calculated so that people get a better deal, but in the end, the freeholder has to respond, which Coppen Estates refuses to do. My constituents in the Flockton estate in Sheffield have tried and failed for years to get a response. How will the legislation be strengthened to ensure that such companies respond?

[Lee Rowley]

I am very happy to look at specific issues in Committee. As the Secretary of State highlighted in his opening speech, if there are areas where we can improve the Bill, we will be happy to do so. I cannot make promises, but we are happy to look at them. The hon. Gentleman’s constituents in Sheffield, my constituents in Dronfield and constituents all across the country have similar issues to those with Coppen Estates, so I hope we will be able to make progress.

The hon. Gentleman, the hon. Member for Battersea and others rightly talked about leaseholders not knowing what they are paying for. A few weeks ago, I had the privilege of taking part in a two-hour discussion with one of the better estate managers about an issue in my constituency in Hunloke Grove. They were willing to go into detail, talk about the issues, work through and be transparent on their fees in a way that so many other managing agents are not. The importance of that came home to me in that discussion.

My hon. Friend the Member for Redditch should rightly take all the credit for where we are today. I am surfing on all her work over many months to get the Bill ready. She deserves a huge amount of credit for that. She was an exceptional Housing Minister and has made some extremely constructive comments today, which we will look at along with the similar comments from my hon. Friend the Member for North Norfolk. I can confirm that our intention is that there will be sufficient time to be clear on ground rents. As my hon. Friend the Member for Redditch rightly said, it is so important that we secure a property-owning democracy for the next generation.

I thank the right hon. Member for East Ham for making a series of important points, which I am happy to look at. The Government are happy to see whether they are possible. He made a specific point about asbestos, which we will take away and review with the detail it deserves. I look forward to the visit to Barrier Point, which I wanted to make following his correspondence. It is important that, on building safety, we look at not just the overall macro picture but individual circumstances, to see whether we can learn anything.

I am also grateful to the right hon. Member for giving me this opportunity to make the point about insurance from the Dispatch Box. I am as keen as him to see progress on insurance. I have met representatives of the insurance sector on a very regular basis in the year that I have been in post. I hope that they will hold to their intentions. They have told us that they will launch the scheme, and we are keen to see it. The Secretary of State’s further meeting this week will, I hope, enable progress.

My hon. Friend the Member for Dartford made extremely important points on estate management. He has continually articulated the challenges on a regular basis, and has been a champion on this matter. He rightly speaks of the outrages he has seen in his constituency. It is important that we respond to that as best we can.

I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Harrow East for highlighting a number of the important changes that are coming. He is right that our objective is to squeeze out the bad practice in the sector. There are honourable people out there and there are honourable ways in which it is done, but where bad practice occurs it gives the entire sector a bad name. We will legislate and regulate to remove it in a proportionate way.

My hon. Friend also highlighted an example of a property that has not yet made progress on remediation, and similar examples were given by the hon. Members for Brentford and Isleworth and for Walthamstow and my hon. Friend the Member for Cities of London and Westminster. We can see significant progress. We have only recently produced a new detailed set of data covering all the funds that are open on building safety. I hope hon. Members will see the progress that has been made, but we recognise that there is more to do. The hon. Member for Walthamstow is absolutely right that there are a number of names that pop up repeatedly—for example Y&Y Management and E&M. There are many others and they should be on notice that they need to change their practices, because they are not acceptable.

Leasehold Reform

Debate between Lee Rowley and Clive Betts

Tuesday 23rd May 2023 Commons Chamber

[Lee Rowley]

I will give way in a moment, but will make a bit of progress first. There is broad agreement across the House, and beyond, that the situation needs to change to make home ownership fairer, easier and cheaper. That is why the Government have already taken significant steps to better protect leaseholders from unreasonable costs, and why we are committed to going further and bringing forward further leasehold reforms to strengthen transparency and accountability.

[Mr Betts]

I am pleased that the Government have good intentions, but the Select Committee’s 2019 report had 52 recommendations. The Government accepted many of them completely and said they wanted to move towards accepting others and work out how that could be done. Since 2019, which was before the last general election, what have the Government actually done? Would the Minister confirm that all they have done in practice is to bring in measures to ensure that peppercorn ground rents are charged on new leasehold houses? That is the only thing they have done, out of all the recommendations they agreed to accept four years ago.

[Lee Rowley]

I am grateful to my neighbour, the hon. Member for Sheffield South East (Mr Betts). He pre-empts a part of my speech that I will come to in a moment.

The hon. Member for Wigan indicated that we have debated the subject many times in this Chamber. That is true and there will be lots of opportunities to do that again, because we have committed to make it easier and cheaper for leaseholders to extend their lease or to buy their freehold. We will bring forward legislation to ban new residential long leases on houses. While there are still issues, I am pleased to see that the market has already responded, with only 1.4% of houses in England now being built as leasehold, compared with nearly 15% previously.

Adult Social Care

Debate between Lee Rowley and Clive Betts

Wednesday 8th March 2023 Commons Chamber

[Lee Rowley]

I certainly acknowledge that there are differences in individual circumstances between rural areas, urban areas, and suburban and near-rural areas, one of which I have the privilege to represent in Derbyshire. The finance settlement seeks to acknowledge that to some extent. As I will come to in a moment, we are also introducing Oflog—the office for local government—which will seek to understand how councils spend the money they receive or raise, so that we can understand the differences that occur around the country and also how people choose to make decisions arising from those differences.

Let me come to the second point, which is where we are going.

[Mr Betts]

rose—

[Lee Rowley]

If I may make a little more progress, I will happily give way to the hon. Gentleman.

I recognise the points that have been made about reform. I note that the hon. Gentleman, my right hon. Friend the Member for Ashford (Damian Green) and others highlighted the importance of looking at how we can continue to improve adult social care in the round and over time, and I pay tribute to my right hon. Friend for his work in the all-party parliamentary group on adult social care in that regard. I also note the broader questions of what we do over the long term, over many years and decades, and some of the issues that the hon. Member for Worsley and Eccles South (Barbara Keeley) highlighted, and also the intervention from my right hon. Friend the Member for East Yorkshire (Sir Greg Knight) about the importance of carers, which I absolutely acknowledge. I will certainly pass back to my colleagues in the Department of Health and Social Care all the policy points, which absolutely have been heard today.

Both my right hon. Friend the Member for Ashford and the hon. Member for Sheffield South East highlighted alternatives, and mentioned Japan and supplements. Decisions about how best to fund the system are long-standing and challenging, and there are always alternatives; I hope it will be recognised that the Government have tried to resolve some of the issues through changes and proposed reforms over the last couple of years, even if they are later than originally intended. There is acute difficulty and challenge in reforming this area, and successive Governments of different colours have been unable to do what many people would like to happen, yet we are determined as a Government to get it right. I hope we have demonstrated progress—both in the short term through further amounts of funding, and through the reforms we proposed a couple of years ago—and we will continue to try to do that.

[Mr Betts]

I thank the Minister for giving way; his further comments were quite helpful because they lead on to the intervention I was going to make, which comes back to local funding for social care. The joint report by the two Select Committees in 2018 said:

“There should be a continuation for the foreseeable future of the existing local government revenue streams.”

That was accepted, but we went on to say, very clearly, that a new source of funding is needed for social care to recognise the gaps that exist. Does the Minister accept in principle that the Government must come up with a new, discrete source of funding for social care? The Government sort of got there two years ago, then backed off. Are they going to come back to that at some point?

[Lee Rowley]

As I think the hon. Gentleman is aware, substantial additional funding has gone into the system. I am always happy to discuss the best way that that should be structured—obviously that is a multi-departmental discussion—but I hope there is an acknowledgement that additional funding has gone into the system and continues to go in. The additional information given in our announcements about the remainder of the spending review, over the coming financial year and the year after, demonstrates our commitment to do that. We hope that will have a positive impact on the challenges that have been articulated.

Finally, I want to talk about the long term, which hon. Members from across the House raised in their speeches. We acknowledge that there is a desire, and it is important to try to plan for the long term. We will bring forward a plan for adult social care reform in the spring. I hope that will answer some of the questions that hon. and right hon. Members have raised and assuage some of their concerns locally. To answer the challenge from the hon. Member for North Shropshire (Helen Morgan) about a long-term settlement for councils, while some of the long-term nature of that is debatable, I hope that the broader policy statement, which the Government announced several weeks ago with the local government finance settlement, demonstrates our intent to move forward with a longer-term understanding of what councils can expect to receive from Government, where we are able to do that. As I have highlighted, in the long term we are also seeking to introduce new elements to government, such as the office for local government, which hopefully will provide information not just about what is happening, but information that explains in more detail how local government is spending that money.

Voter Identification

Debate between Lee Rowley and Clive Betts

Tuesday 21st February 2023 Commons Chamber

[Mr Betts]

I thank my hon. Friend. If I were a young person with a travel pass issued by the same authority, I could not produce it at the polling station. Quite simply, what do the Government have against young people? Why are they discriminating against them? Why are they finding every reason to disqualify their forms of ID? Is it because the Government do not expect that many young people will vote for them?

[Lee Rowley]

I am grateful to my near constituency neighbour for his question. No, it is absolutely not the case that we are discriminating against anybody. We want maximum participation in elections, and we want to ensure the integrity of the ballot box. I gently draw his attention to the Government research that found that younger people are more likely than the general population to hold a form of voter ID. His logic does not apply.

Capital Projects: Spending Decisions

Debate between Lee Rowley and Clive Betts

Thursday 9th February 2023 Commons Chamber

[Mr Clive Betts (Sheffield South East) (Lab)]

I congratulate the Minister on a valiant attempt at deflection. He has said that the budget and the policy had not changed, and they have not; what has changed is that the Treasury no longer trusts the Department to spend the money without Treasury approval. That is the change, isn’t it? Normally, surely this would be a matter for conversation between permanent secretaries, or between the Secretary of State and the Chancellor—“Bring yourselves into line, and sort yourselves out.” That presumably has been done, but now there is the strongest public condemnation from the Treasury of the Department’s ability to spend money properly. How can the Minister ever again admonish a council leader, or hold them to account, for not spending money properly?

[Lee Rowley]

I am grateful to the Chair of the Select Committee, my constituency neighbour in South Yorkshire and north Derbyshire, for his comments. We had a similar exchange yesterday on the local government finance settlement. I have already outlined what the change is and I understand the point the hon. Gentleman is making, but I have to reiterate that there has been no change to budget or to policy objectives. We continue to look forward to working with the Treasury, and with all other Government Departments, to achieve the outcomes we all want in this House, whichever Bench we sit on.

Council Tax

Debate between Lee Rowley and Clive Betts

Monday 12th December 2022 Commons Chamber

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

I beg to move,

That the draft Voter Identification Regulations 2022, which were laid before this House on 3 November, be approved.

This statutory instrument is a key part of how we implement the voter identification policy in the Elections Act 2022. This area was debated extensively during the passage of the Act earlier this year. Through this SI, we will be fulfilling a Government manifesto commitment to protect the integrity of our democracy by introducing identification to vote at polling stations. Gaps in our current legislation leave open the potential for someone to cast another vote at the polling station. Our priority is adopting legislation that ensures the public can have confidence in the integrity of our elections and certainty that their vote belongs to them, and them alone.

The introduction of a voter identification policy is the best solution to the problem. It has been long called for by the independent Electoral Commission, as well as by international organisations, such as the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe, which regularly monitors and reports on our national polls.

[Mr Clive Betts (Sheffield South East) (Lab)]

The Minister mentions the Electoral Commission. It issued a press statement at the weekend that expressed continued concerns about the delays in the Government getting their act together on this policy. It said it was not now sure that all the considerations it wanted taken into account to ensure the policy works properly could fully be met. That was in the press release. That comes alongside the Local Government Association and other council leaders expressing real concerns about whether this matter could be implemented properly and fairly and give people full access to voting in the May local elections. Does the Minister not just want to stop and think for a minute about the timing of the implementation, if not the policy itself?

[Lee Rowley]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his comments. We absolutely are thinking about how best to implement this policy. In the period while I have been in post, I have already met the Electoral Commission to talk about it. I have spoken to the Association of Electoral Administrators about it, and today I have spoken to the LGA about it. There are a range of views, but we are confident and focused on ensuring that this policy is implemented properly. We will continue to be so. On the key point, the Electoral Commission has been clear since as early as 2014 that

“we should move to a system where voters are required to produce identification at polling stations.”

This SI sets out further detail on the new processes that will be put in place to help us to implement this policy in practice. First, it sets out the updated polling station conduct rules for a range of elections and referendums, and details exactly how photographic identification documents will be checked and how data will be recorded by polling station staff. Secondly, it sets out a series of updates to election forms. As Members would expect, a number of existing forms, such as poll cards, have been updated to inform electors of the new requirement to show identification and of the types of documents that will be accepted.

On top of those changes, there are also new forms, such as those for polling station staff, which we will use to record data that will help our planned reviews of the policy in the future. Lastly, the policy sets out the details of the new electoral identity documents that can be obtained if someone does not already have an accepted document: the voter authority certificate and the anonymous elector document. These forms of photographic identification will be available to voters free of charge and will ensure that everyone who is eligible to vote will continue to have the opportunity to do so.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Lee Rowley and Clive Betts

Monday 21st November 2022 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I call the Chair of the Select Committee.

[Mr Clive Betts (Sheffield South East) (Lab)]

The Local Government Association has calculated that councils are facing extra inflation costs of £2.5 billion this year and extra costs of £3.5 billion next year. If we look at the autumn statement, apart from social care there was no mention of any extra money whatsoever for local government. All that will come is a potential £0.6 billion if councils put up their council taxes by the 3%, aside from the social care precept. Surely £3.5 billion versus £0.6 billion means significant cuts to council services or the prospect, as the LGA has said, of some councils going bankrupt next year?

[Lee Rowley]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman, who brings a huge amount of experience from his Select Committee perspective, but the combination of what the Government have offered, which is a substantial increase in funds from the financial year 2023-24, plus a recognition that local councils can make decisions about their council tax bases, plus the usual efficiency savings that every large organisation should be making—[Interruption.] The Labour party seems to have a problem with local councils being as effective and efficient as they can, but I know most councils will respond to that challenge as they see fit.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Lee Rowley and Clive Betts

Tuesday 21st September 2021 Commons Chamber

[Lee Rowley]

The benefits will be huge. This work is another example of the fantastic Conservative Tees valley team led by my hon. Friend, supporting Darlington, and the Mayor, and it demonstrates what we can do in an area to level up and improve it for the long term.

[Mr Clive Betts (Sheffield South East) (Lab)]

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