King’s Speech

Lord Shinkwin Excerpts

Thursday 9th November 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Truscott (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Bull, and her thoughtful and thought-provoking speech. I also agreed with the noble Baroness, Lady Deech, on her powerful speech about the Holocaust Bill. I support a Holocaust memorial and learning centre, but the current proposals reflect the fact that it is the wrong location and the wrong design, at an exorbitant cost of £139 million.

I am here in your Lordships’ House today to speak about housing. In that case, I need to declare an interest in that I have been a landlord in the private rented sector since the 1990s and before that I was a renter in the private rented sector up until my mid-30s. I have seen renting from both sides of the fence.

I welcome His Majesty’s Government’s determination in the gracious Speech to proceed with both the Renters (Reform) Bill and the leasehold and freehold Bill. Both are long overdue, in my view. However, in almost 30 years of being a private landlord, I have never known the situation facing both landlords and private renters to be so bad. We are moving towards an inheritocracy, where only those who inherit will own property and wealth. Social inequality will increase as a result. Better to tax unearned inherited wealth, rather than everyone else, to provide the housing that is so badly needed.

One of the fundamental problems we have heard today in your Lordships’ House is the shortage of property to rent. The Government thus urgently need to increase the supply of socially rented housing to make it affordable for people, as the noble Lord, Lord Howarth of Newport, said earlier today. It is a simple question of demand and supply. When demand outstrips supply, prices, or in this case rents, go up. There are of course other contributing factors; recent rises in mortgage rates mean landlords with buy-to-let mortgages—and there are 1.7 million of them—have seen their mortgages triple or even quadruple. In that event, it is not surprising to see rents in some cases go up by 30% to 40%. There are other factors; tax changes have meant that buy-to-let landlords are the only business owners I know to be taxed on their turnover, rather than profits. Increasing regulation, often necessary, has nevertheless meant costs have been piled on landlords, which they pass on to their tenants.

Let us look at these private landlords. Profits are at their lowest for 14 years. Over the last year, the level of landlords defaulting on their mortgages has doubled, so arrears have been building up. Most landlords just have one or two properties, which they have worked hard to buy, to provide for them in their old age. In the past, property capital growth has enabled landlords to cross-subsidise tenants in lean times, but this is no longer the case.

On the specifics of the Bills, I welcome the abolition of Section 21, so giving security to tenants. But His Majesty’s Government should be careful of the unintended consequences of introducing periodic tenancies to replace assured shorthold tenancies. In city centres and resort areas, short-term tenancies and increased use of Airbnb-type ultra-short tenancies will mean less property is available to local residents and students, not more, as the noble Lord, Lord Best, already mentioned. It does seem bizarre to me that His Majesty’s Government will outlaw longer tenancies, so guaranteeing more security of tenure when both parties want it.

I am glad that pets, particularly dogs, will be banned when the lease forbids them. That should remain at the discretion of the landlord. Dogs may be appropriate in houses, but in flats they can cause nuisance and even be dangerous. We have seen a massive increase in dangerous dog attacks and fatalities in recent years; my wife and I were on the receiving end of one in our own garden from tenants who had a dog in breach of the lease. I would not recommend the experience.

In terms of the leasehold Bill, I welcome His Majesty’s Government’s intention to abolish the feudal and archaic leasehold system, as the noble Lord, Lord Young of Cookham, referred to previously. For centuries, freeholders and their agents have had a licence to fleece leaseholders, with little or no chance of redress. In particular, I agree leaseholders should be given greater rights to self-manage, ending the opportunity for freeholders and their agents to exploit vulnerable leaseholders with excessive service and other charges.

It is time that lease extensions and valuations were made more transparent, quicker, cheaper and easier, rather than the theatrical system we have today, which is designed to benefit everyone except the leaseholder. The opaque lease extension system in place, its absurd marriage value and other calculations mean leaseholders have little or no control over the process or the cost.

It is regrettable, as the noble Lord, Lord Best, has mentioned on numerous occasions in the past, that property management agents remain wholly unregulated. What other body sometimes dealing with millions of pounds is totally unregulated and requires no professional qualifications and standards whatsoever? On balance, His Majesty’s Government should be supported in reforming the private rented sector and leasehold. They should be awarded six out of 10, but need to do better still.

[Lord Shinkwin (Con)]

My Lords—

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Shinkwin (Con)]

My Lords, I apologise to the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, for jumping the gun. I had looked around for my noble friend Lord Carrington of Fulham, so it was entirely my mistake.

As someone who went through the torturous process of extending the lease on a property I used to own, I too welcome the Bill to reform the housing market by making it cheaper and easier for leaseholders to purchase their freehold. However, I hope the House will indulge me if I confine my remarks to a housing-related issue that compromises my ability as a severely disabled parliamentarian to keep my promise made in this Chamber to speak truth to power without fear or favour.

When I joined your Lordships’ House almost eight years ago, I could never have imagined that I would encounter a double whammy of discrimination not only on account of my disability but as a severely disabled parliamentarian. Yet that is the sad and bizarre situation in which I now find myself and which I am taking this opportunity to bring to the attention of noble Lords.

It was my severe disability that informed my recent decision to move to a housing development where accessibility is an integral part of the design. Credit for that must go, ultimately, to the Earl of Moray, the landowner who conceived the exciting vision that is Tornagrain. My acute vulnerability as a severely disabled parliamentarian also informed my need for privacy, which email exchanges show I communicated to the developers almost two years before I reserved my house. Emails show not only that that need was expressly acknowledged in writing but that I was advised as to the possible suitability of various plots on that basis. Noble Lords might therefore imagine my surprise when I discovered on moving in that my house lacked any privacy and created genuine security concerns. As a result, I do not feel safe in my own home.

I was grateful to Police Scotland for issuing a crime prevention assessment survey report that made recommendations as to how the situation should be remedied. In doing so, it made specific reference both to my additional vulnerability as a severely disabled parliamentarian and to the Equality Act 2010, particularly with regards to the duty to make reasonable adjustments.

Unfortunately, Moray Estates, acting on behalf of the landowner—and, specifically, the Tornagrain Conservation Trust, whose managing director sits on the trust board—have seen fit to reject the most important recommendations made in Police Scotland’s report, despite my having made clear in writing that this would void my privacy and security. My neighbours, with whom I am keen to enjoy good relations—and who, it was confirmed in writing, had previously approved a compromise proposal by the developer—suddenly changed their minds, following an approach by the Tornagrain Conservation Trust. I can assume only that this was done on the premise that, if I do not feel safe, as a severely disabled parliamentarian, in my own home, I will have to sell up and leave. In other words, sit tight, do nothing and the problem will disappear because I will have been forced out. The point here is that if I, as a disabled Member of the House of Lords, am having such a challenging experience securing the accessible housing in which I can feel safe, what does that say for a disabled person who does not have a voice, particularly given the evidence of the challenges that people who have disabilities find in accessing accessible accommodation?

For the avoidance of doubt, my experience is not a planning dispute. It is actually far more serious because it is impacting directly on my ability to carry out my parliamentary duties. I am encountering two organisations, the Tornagrain Conservation Trust and Moray Estates, that give every impression of ignoring their legal duty to make reasonable adjustments to policies, procedures and practices on account of disability—and of acting in a manner that I think most people would say belonged to feudal times. To be clear, the trust exercises what would generally be recognised as, effectively, planning authority powers, without either transparency or accountability. No minutes of meetings are published, requests for the trust board to visit sites of residents applying for permissions go unheeded and residents are discouraged from attending the AGM.

Housing is a devolved matter, so I conclude by respectfully suggesting that the Scottish Parliament might want to look again at the Title Conditions (Scotland) Act 2003 and consider specifically whether the spirit of the legislation, particularly as it pertains to the 2016 amendment order, which added the Tornagrain Conservation Trust to the list of prescribed conservation bodies, is being honoured in practice. In light of my experience, I respectfully suggest that it ensures that an equality impact assessment, which was not undertaken at the time on the basis that the policy does not have any impact on equality issues, is now undertaken.

I close with this point. It is surely wrong that in 2023 a severely disabled parliamentarian should be placed in the utterly invidious position of having to bring such an issue to the attention of your Lordships’ House and our fellow parliamentarians in Scotland. I hope this will be resolved quickly so that I may keep my promise to speak truth to power, on whatever issue, without fear or favour.