Leasehold Reform (Ground Rent) Bill [HL]

Lord Berkeley Excerpts

Committee stage
Monday 14th June 2021 Grand Committee

[Baroness Pinnock (LD) [V]]

My Lords, I will speak to Amendment 20 in my name and that of my noble friend Lady Grender. I draw the Grand Committee’s attention to my relevant interests, recorded in the register, as a member of Kirklees Council and a vice-president of the Local Government Association.

Today marks four years since the Grenfell tragedy, which cost the lives of 72 people. It took away from many others their homes and their livelihoods. Those who survived will for ever have the dreadful memory of that night, leaving a dark mark on the rest of their lives. That tragedy has rightly cast a long shadow over the construction industry. Questions asked immediately following Grenfell are still failing to be adequately answered.

The Government know that the Grenfell fire was accelerated by the use of flammable cladding. They know that hundreds of other buildings have the same or similar cladding, with the same fire risk. They also know that post-Grenfell investigations of these self-same buildings have uncovered further fire safety defects, such as the lack of building regulation-required fire breaks. The Government’s response to this life-threatening catalogue of errors is half-hearted at best. Leaseholders are being forced by the Government to carry the financial and emotional burden of the total inadequacy of the Government’s response.

The reform of leaseholders’ obligations is of course a central purpose of this Bill. I understand that the Bill seeks to prevent future unwarranted financial burdens being placed on leaseholders through ground rent demands. The purpose of Amendment 20, in my name and that of my noble friend Lady Grender, is for the Government to assess the financial impact on leaseholders of this Bill after six months. It is a perfectly reasonable and sensible amendment that I hope the Government will be minded to accept.

The cladding scandal has revealed the enormous financial impact on leaseholders. In a housing association block of flats in the Manchester area, leaseholders have been sent bills for £95,000, when those very flats were built to enable people on lower incomes to buy their own homes. Given that the value of their asset is now zero, paying any bill of that size is simply impossible for the leaseholders.

Those leaseholders who have, often unknowingly, signed up to escalating ground rent penalties are also omitted from the Government’s thinking. For instance, one leaseholder found that his annual ground rent for a one-bed flat in London was to double every five years on a flat that was purchased for £170,000 in 2018. In 20 years’ time, the ground rent will have risen from an affordable £1,050 per annum to a completely unaffordable £16,800 per annum. As with the innocent victims of the cladding scandal, these leaseholders need help from the Government, hence subsection (2) of my amendment.

There is an accumulation of evidence that leaseholders are not getting fair treatment as malpractices are uncovered. Those leaseholders facing massive bills for putting right fire safety defects have done everything right and nothing wrong. Those leaseholders who face increasingly large bills, having unwittingly signed up to ground rent clauses, are also victims of a housing scandal.

Amendment 20 is the opportunity for the Government to turn their attention to righting failures in the housing system for leaseholders, current and past. On the day when we remember Grenfell, let this also be the day when the Government finally agree to find financial solutions for leaseholders who have been left to pay the enormous price of the wrongs of the housing industry. I look forward to the Minister’s response.

[Lord Berkeley (Lab)]

My Lords, my Amendment 21A is grouped with Amendments 19 and 20, spoken to by the noble Lord, Lord Lennie, and the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock. They have one thing in common, in seeking further information and reports from the Government to clarify and provide more information to help us debate not only this Bill but subsequent ones. I will confine my remarks to the Crown issues listed in Clause 23(2), which comprise the Crown Estate, the Duchy of Lancaster, the Duchy of Cornwall and government departments in summary, and in particular the definitions and scope of excepted areas.

It is interesting to refer to paragraphs 7.149 and following in the Law Commission’s report. These basically suggest that the Crown, in its totality, is happy to comply with whatever legislation the Government put forward on these issues, except in relation to what are called “excepted areas”, which are listed in paragraph 7.151. To summarise, those are:

“(1) where the relevant property stands on land which is held inalienably; (2) where particular security considerations apply”—


which is fair enough—

“(3) where the property is in”

or closely connected to

“historic Royal Parks and Palaces; and … (4) where the property … has a long historic or particular association with the Crown”.

When it comes to the Duchy of Cornwall, which of course claims to be part of the Crown, the report goes on to say that the Duchy of Cornwall estates

“are specifically stated to fall within the fourth category”.

I would challenge that; I think that it is specifically stated by the Duchy, and I will come on to why.