Leasehold and Freehold Reform Bill

Mark Tami Excerpts

Report stage
Tuesday 27th February 2024 Commons Chamber

[Lee Rowley]

My hon. Friend raises an important point. I know that it is covered in an amendment put down by the hon. Member for Sheffield South East (Mr Betts), and I will come to it later in the debate.

[Mark Tami (Alyn and Deeside) (Lab)]

On the point made by the hon. Member for Harrow East (Bob Blackman), Bellway is certainly a company that has done this. Indeed, many people did not even realise that they had a leasehold house and only found out quite a while afterwards when all the costs started to come down the road. I welcome what the Government have done, but we must try to find a good solution for everybody who now finds themselves in this position, because in the years to come those houses could become very difficult to sell.

[Lee Rowley]

The right hon. Gentleman makes an important point about the need to ensure that this regime works. We recognise that there are challenges, which is why we are bringing forward a number of measures.

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To ensure that consumers have access to the material information they need and that they have the confidence to make a decision when purchasing a new house, new clause 50 requires those proposing to sell a new lease of a house to make this clear when marketing the property. To ensure that vendors comply with the new marketing requirements, this measure will rely on new clause 59 to implement a new penalty regime. This includes a fine for failing to provide the required marketing information at the right time. We know that not all home buyers will read the detail of all the marketing information and that not all leases will be advertised, so new clause 51 introduces warning notices so that all vendors will have to alert purchasers in writing that they are entering into the lease of the house, or an agreement for the lease of the house, and informing them on what grounds that lease is permitted.

[Mark Tami]

I thank the Minister for giving way again. One problem is that many of these companies encouraged buyers to use their lawyers, who did not point out some of the pitfalls of leasehold properties.

[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.

Leasehold and Freehold Reform Bill

Mark Tami Excerpts

2nd reading
Monday 11th December 2023 Commons Chamber

[Michael Gove]

An embarrassment of riches! I will give way to all colleagues currently standing, and then I will try to make progress.

[Mark Tami (Alyn and Deeside) (Lab)]

I represent an area with a lot of leasehold houses. It is just a cynical money-making scam. Some people own a house but are required to pay an admin charge to change the flooring or have a pet, so it does not feel as if they own it. I can understand the flooring thing if they are in flats, but not if they are in houses. It is just a con.

[Michael Gove]

I couldn’t agree more.

Leasehold Reform

Mark Tami Excerpts

Tuesday 23rd May 2023 Commons Chamber

[Lisa Nandy (Wigan) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House notes the commitment by the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities in January 2023 to abolish the feudal leasehold system which he has acknowledged is an unfair form of property ownership; calls on him to keep his promise to the millions of people living in leasehold properties by ending the sale of new private leasehold houses, introducing a workable system to replace private leasehold flats with commonhold and enacting the Law Commission’s recommendations on enfranchisement, commonhold and the right to manage in full; and further calls on the Secretary of State to make an oral statement to this House by 23 June 2023 on his plans to reform leasehold.

It is always nice to see the Under-Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, the hon. Member for North East Derbyshire (Lee Rowley) in his place, but there was a time when the Secretary of State, the right hon. Member for Surrey Heath (Michael Gove) could not resist a housing debate. His appearances in this Chamber are fast becoming rarer than the sight of a Tory councillor in the north of England. I worry that he may be in danger of becoming extinct.

Nothing, as the Minister knows and we know, matters more than a home. Security in your own home, the right to make it your own and the right to live somewhere fit for human habitation are non-negotiable. Housing may be a market, but it is not just a market—it is a fundamental human right. But for so many people in our country, what they thought would be the reward of years of hard work and the realisation of their dreams of home ownership are shattered by the reality of what it means to be a leaseholder.

[Mark Tami (Alyn and Deeside) (Lab)]

As my hon. Friend will know, in the north-west of England and north Wales, leasehold houses were sold for many years. People who were told at the time that they would be able to buy the freehold for perhaps a few thousand pounds, are now being asked for £20,000 or £30,000, which they cannot afford. They are finding that selling their house is becoming very difficult. Linked with that are often very high management fees. This is really affecting them and their lives. People tell me that they do not feel that they actually own their house anymore.

[Lisa Nandy]

My right hon. Friend is absolutely right. He has been a tireless campaigner for his constituents affected by this issue, but I fear we will hear so much more of that from all parties in the House today. We have heard it for years that people’s homes have become a prison. The shocking lack of information—or in the case he cites, misinformation—just compounds the injustice that is felt by many. So many leaseholders face the daily reality of appalling charges and uncertainty. This issue affects millions of people up and down the country. There are nearly 5 million leasehold homes in England: the majority of flats in the private sector and 8% of all houses in England.

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[Mark Tami]

My hon. Friend is being generous with her time. I have met many people, particularly first-time buyers, who purchased a leasehold property and were offered a discount by the developer selling the house for using its lawyer for the transaction. Surprise, surprise—the fact that it was leasehold and the pitfalls were never pointed out to them. That seems to be a common practice.

[Lisa Nandy]

That story illustrates so well that that form of tenure—that feudal, archaic system—has become home for sharp practice all over the place. We have heard that from hon. Members over and over on both sides of the House, and it is about time we stopped it. We can take important steps forward on ground rent and extending leases that will make life easier for many, but after all that has been promised, leaseholders have the right to expect their Government to go further. Will the Minister give us a cast iron guarantee that the Bill they have promised will bring to an end the sale of new private leasehold houses at the point the Bill comes into force, ensure those provisions are applied retrospectively to December 2017, a promise that has been made repeatedly by this Government, and bring in a workable system to replace private leasehold flats with commonhold?

Back in May 2021, the Government launched the Commonhold Council, an advisory panel of leasehold groups and industry experts to inform the Government on the future of this type of home ownership. Can the Minister update the House on when the Commonhold Council last met and what its recommendations are for bringing in a commonhold system? As he will know, commonhold has been in force since 2004 but has failed to take off for two main reasons: first, conversion from leasehold to commonhold requires unanimity from everyone with an interest in the block, which has proved difficult to achieve, and, secondly, developers have not been persuaded to build new commonhold developments.

Members on both sides of the House are acutely aware of how complex an issue this is to get right, but complexity is not an excuse for inaction. Credit must be given to the three Law Commission reports that represent a detailed, thoughtful road map, which Labour has committed to implement in full. It is only by implementing those proposals in full that the commonhold system will sufficiently improve, so that leaseholders can easily convert to commonhold, gain greater control over their properties and have a greater say in how the costs of running their commonholds are met.

The proposals would go further still to support those on low incomes and those who have found themselves trapped in leasehold by improving mortgage lenders’ confidence in commonhold to increase the choice of financing available for homebuyers. They would allow shared ownership leases to be included within commonhold and enable commonhold to be used for larger, mixed-use developments that accommodate not only residential properties, but shops, restaurants and leisure facilities.

We have debated these issues in this Chamber so many times since the appalling tragedy at Grenfell, when a group of people were rendered invisible to decision makers only a few miles away, with the most appalling and tragic consequences. Clearly, the burdens that homeowners have long laboured under, because of the disfunction of the property agent market and the inherent flaws of the leasehold system, have become more acute over recent years as a result of the building safety crisis and surging inflation.

That combination has already pushed many hard-pressed leaseholders to the brink of financial ruin. How can we accept that these rip-off companies, on behalf of owners we often do not even know—we do not have the right to find out who they are—are allowed to tell people whether they can even change the doorbell on their own home, as my hon. Friend the Member for Denton and Reddish (Andrew Gwynne) said, or make minor changes that would make all the difference to their lives? Who can doubt that a person’s home is, in most cases, the biggest investment they will make? So it is simply unacceptable for so many homes to be built on an exploitative and unjust business model.

Levelling up, which is included in the name of the Department, was supposed to answer a clamour for more control and agency, and give people who have a stake in the outcome and skin in the game a greater ability to make decisions about their own lives. As I have said in this place before, that is the legacy that we should seek to build, and we should do so in tribute to the tireless campaigners and in honour of those who lost their lives in Grenfell. We must build a fairer, more just system that is fit for the 21st century.

Everybody, everywhere in the United Kingdom, regardless of the type of tenure that they happen to hold, has the right to a decent, secure, safe home—full stop. We could end these arcane rules and give power back to people over their own homes, lives and communities. Politics is about choices and Labour is clear—we choose to bring this injustice to an end. Change is coming and the Government now have to decide: will they enable that change, or seek to block it? Whose side are they on?

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[Lee Rowley]

The hon. Lady makes a strong point and I will come to that in a moment. We have shared concerns about specifics, which we have all experienced as constituency MPs—Coppen Estates in North East Derbyshire, I am looking at you—and about the general principle and the broader point, which I will come to in a moment.

We have already taken action. The hon. Member for Sheffield South East has highlighted that we have ended ground rents for most new residential leases. The Leasehold Reform (Ground Rent) Act 2022 came into force last June and prevents landlords under new residential long leases from requiring a leaseholder to pay a financial ground rent. That will ensure that people buying most new leases will not face problems associated with ground rents. However, we remain concerned about the cost of ground rents and, in 2019, we asked the Competition and Markets Authority to investigate abuses in the leasehold sector. Since then, the CMA has secured commitments benefiting over 20,000 leaseholders, including commitments to remove a doubling of ground rent terms and to revert charges to original rates.

We know that there is more to do to tackle unfair practices, however. We know that many leaseholders find the process for extending their lease or buying their freehold prohibitively expensive or complex or lacking transparency. Equally, we understand that many right-to-manage applications fail on technicalities that may be attributed to an over-detailed procedure, and we are committed to improving this by making the process simpler, quicker, more flexible and more effective. That is why, as the hon. Member for Wigan said, we asked the Law Commission to look at the issue, and we are carefully considering the reports that it has since produced on enfranchisement, valuation and the right to manage.

[Mark Tami]

As I mentioned earlier, when many of these leasehold houses were sold, the purchasers were promised that they could purchase the freehold, only to find that that was not an option, the freehold was sold on immediately and freeholds were packaged up; they are financial products. I have spoken to people who get a letter every couple of months informing them that the freehold has been sold on to somebody else. This is their life, this is their property, but they feel that they do not own it because it is being bought and sold on a regular basis.

[Lee Rowley]

The right hon. Gentleman makes a strong point about the importance of reform. This is one of the reasons that we have committed to reform and I hope that we will be able to provide that in the months ahead in the remainder of this Parliament.

We are committed to tackling problems such as these at the root, so we will abolish issues such as marriage value and we will cap ground rents in enfranchisement calculations so that leaseholders who currently pay onerous ground rents do not also have to pay an onerous premium. To make this process simpler and more transparent, we will introduce an online calculator to help leaseholders to understand what they will pay to extend their lease or to buy it out. These changes should, and will, generate substantial savings for some leaseholders, particularly those with fewer than 80 years left on their lease, and also ensure that landlords are sufficiently compensated in line with their interest. These changes are therefore fair for all concerned.

Leasehold Reform (Ground Rent) Bill [Lords]

Mark Tami Excerpts

2nd reading
Monday 29th November 2021 Commons Chamber

[Eddie Hughes]

I largely agree with the hon. Lady, not least because the ten-minute rule Bill to which I referred, which I brought to the House when I was a Back Bencher, completely endorsed her points. It is unfortunate that some people include such egregious terms in ground rents.

[Mark Tami (Alyn and Deeside) (Lab)]

Does the Minister agree that this issue is about not only ground rents, but the admin fees that are often associated with any minor changes that the owner of the property wants to make? A lot of these properties are also linked with extra charges for management fees for the land and other things. The levels of charges placed on leaseholders are becoming totally unacceptable.

[Eddie Hughes]

I do not want to jump forward several pages in my speech, but the right hon. Gentleman is predicting—or at least pointing to—the fact that we have identified this problem and have ensured that when we reduce ground rents to a peppercorn, people will not be able to cheat by introducing associated management fees and other charges. If he is looking for further changes, the second part of our seminal legislation, when it comes in due course, will no doubt satisfy his needs.

The starting point for this legislation has to be our shared recognition that for many people, to be a leaseholder is also to be a homeowner, and we are clear that homes that have been bought should be theirs to live in and enjoy, not be treated as cash cows for third-party investors. This Government are on the side of homeowners, which is why in our manifesto we committed to introduce this important legislation.

Hon. Members will be well aware of the problems that many leaseholders have faced in recent years, including, as pointed out by Opposition Members, spiralling ground rents and onerous conditions that have turned the dream of home ownership into a nightmare for some leaseholders. This Bill is the first of our seminal two-part legislation to reform and improve the leasehold system. Further legislation will follow later in this Parliament to continue to address the historic imbalances in the leasehold system.

[Eddie Hughes]

The work of the CMA has been pivotal so far in already changing the behaviour of a number of significant developers. I have spoken to it recently; further work is ongoing and I hope that it will have further successes in the future. My hon. Friend is completely right to raise that point.

Both this Bill and the wider leasehold reform programme have been informed by consultation. I thank those present here today, including the Opposition Front Benchers, who have taken the time to discuss the issue. I look forward to further discussions over the coming weeks and months.

The Bill has a specific focus: the ground rent in future long residential leases. Some existing leaseholders face substantial difficulties, including costly enfranchisement, a lack of transparency and burdensome lease terms. Escalating ground rents in particular can reach unaffordable levels and make some properties difficult to sell. That is not right, which is why we have asked the Competition and Markets Authority to conduct a thorough investigation into potential mis-selling and unfair terms in the leasehold sector.

[Mark Tami]

I have met many people who were told by the company that sold them their property that they would be able to buy the lease, only to find out, when they inquire to buy it, that it has been sold on to some financial institution. Does the Minister accept that point?

[Eddie Hughes]

Once again the right hon. Gentleman points out an egregious and unfortunate practice that hopefully we will be finding ways to address in future.

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

The Leasehold Reform (Ground Rent) Bill sets ground rents on new leasehold homes to peppercorn levels. We welcome this very small step towards reform, and will not oppose the Bill this evening.

Generating income through high ground rents is an outrageous practice, as has been discussed, but serious leasehold reform is long overdue. Leasehold has been the main way that properties in shared blocks or converted flats have been owned in this country. It stems from arcane feudal laws that date back to an era of landed gentry and aristocracy, and it needs reform urgently. In its more recent manifestations, there has been what can only be described as a scam on an industrial scale, as was pointed out by my hon. Friend the Member for City of Chester (Christian Matheson), against innocent leaseholders—and it increasingly affected new houses, not just flats. It is totally wrong, and it needs ending.

[Mark Tami]

I have been struck by the way that two houses, next door to each other, may be exactly the same, but one can be leasehold and the other freehold. We see that all the time. When a house is advertised, the advert often says, “This is not leasehold”—it points out that fact. Leasehold properties are being devalued by the day.

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[Lucy Powell]

I am glad the right hon. Gentleman raises that point, because I am sure colleagues around the House will be keen to highlight—

[Mark Tami]

Will my hon. Friend give way on that point?

[Lucy Powell]

I will first try to answer it, and then when I do not answer it very well, I will give way to my right hon. Friend to give a better answer. What I do know is that, unfortunately, many people who bought houses in this situation were advised to use the solicitor of the marketing company or company selling the houses—I have many in my constituency. So they were given poor advice, and this is a mis-selling scam as well. Would my right hon. Friend like to give a better answer?

[Mark Tami]

My hon. Friend has in many ways made the point I was going to make. These people were often first-time buyers, keen to get on to the housing market and get their first home. They were told, “Don’t use this solicitor or that solicitor; use these ones, and we will give you a discount to use them”, and—shock, horror—many were not even aware, as my hon. Friend has made clear, of the property being leasehold, let alone of all the other charges associated with that.

[Lucy Powell]

Absolutely; my right hon. Friend makes a very good point as well. Many people, especially first-time buyers, do not understand the difference between leasehold, freehold and so on, and many of these issues come to light only as problems arise later or when they try to sell the property.

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[Mark Tami]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

[Lucy Powell]

I will, because my right hon. Friend is an expert on this issue.

[Mark Tami]

To list just a few examples that I have come across, some leaseholders who—in theory—own a house and the land around it are asked to pay if they want a pet or want to change the flooring in the house or the layout of the garden. People have said to me, “I’m paying a mortgage on a house that I don’t really feel I own.”

[Lucy Powell]

My right hon. Friend is absolutely right and he gives good examples, some of which I was going to use later. He makes a very good point—some of these charges are outrageous. Will Ministers respond to that and address how we can stop that practice?

Secondly, the millions of people already trapped in leasehold homes will see no benefit whatsoever from the Bill, so none of the examples that we have heard will end as a result of it. The Government have chosen to limit the scope of the Bill to new homes, which means those already facing these bills will see no benefit at all. Delay has real costs for them; the Minister can pass the buck on to us for what happened 11 years ago, but more than 2 million new homeowners have been trapped in this feudal leasehold system since his Government came to power.

The Competition and Markets Authority has done some good work taking down the largest and worst-offending of the freeholders, but we cannot wait for it to take on every single company involved in this outrageous practice. Will the Minister work with us and support our proposal, which we will table in Committee, to protect existing leaseholders?

Thirdly, the Bill does nothing at all to stop new houses being sold as leasehold. Leasehold houses are straightforwardly wrong, for the reasons that we have already heard. At the same time that the Government promised to set ground rents at a peppercorn, which the Bill does, they committed to ending the practice of newly built homes being sold as leasehold.

Half a million houses have been sold as leasehold since 2010, 60% of them in the north-west. Those homeowners face not just exorbitant ground rents but restrictions on how they can alter their homes. We have already heard some examples: if someone wants to have a pet, or if they want to make changes to the building, they have to ask permission. All too often, people are left feeling that they do not really own the home. When the leaseholder tries to escape this nightmare by buying out the freehold, they often discover all kinds of other restrictions that they were not told about when they bought their home. This needs to change.

As recently as 2017, the Government promised legislation to prohibit the granting of new residential long leases on houses. When will that come in, and why is it not included in the Bill? It makes no sense to me whatsoever that that has not made it into the Bill. Again, perhaps Ministers will work with us, and with some of my colleagues who are in the Chamber today, in Committee to end new leaseholds on houses altogether.

There was a lot more that the Government could have done in a simple first-step Bill, but I hope the whole House will recognise that wholesale reform of leasehold is long overdue. The building safety crisis has brought into stark relief how terrible our feudal leasehold laws are. Innocent leaseholders can be passed remediation bills totalling hundreds of thousands of pounds with no right of recourse. It is a David and Goliath situation that is hitting more and more homeowners across the country. Fixing the building safety crisis truly must mean fixing our outdated leasehold laws too.

As the last few years have shown, this is now an urgent task, so we call on the Government to do these simple things when it comes to wider leasehold reform: enable leaseholders to extend the lease or buy the freehold; make commonhold the norm, and make it much easier for properties to operate that way; abolish marriage value, as they promised they would; strengthen leaseholders’ voices and simplify the right to manage; give real teeth and real recourse to the bodies that are supposed to arbitrate and act on behalf of leaseholders, or create new ones altogether; and prevent freeholders in law from passing on extortionate costs for remediation works, or for putting right problems that they have created that are not the problems of the leaseholders, as well as the things that I have already discussed. Those are just some of the reforms that are urgently needed to ensure that no leaseholder is trapped against their will in this broken, outdated system.

In conclusion, the Bill is a tentative attempt at reform. While it is welcome, it represents a massive missed opportunity to transform a leaseholder sector that continues to scam working people on an industrial scale. Even in a slimmed-down Bill, the Government have failed to close loopholes, protect those already in leasehold homes or end the sale of new houses as leasehold altogether. Wholesale reform is urgently needed to ensure that nobody continues to be voiceless, trapped in leasehold homes they cannot sell, and facing ever-growing bills and charges.

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[Robert Jenrick]

I will make progress, if my right hon. Friend does not mind.

The Bill was born out of two issues. One is a recent phenomenon, which the Front Benchers and other hon. Members have mentioned: the abuse of leasehold in recent years. A system that was never perfect and that many of us would wish to see reformed was subject to wholesale abuse and rip-off practices by developers and freeholders, who used ground rents as an income stream and escalated them, leaving leaseholders in a perilous position. Leasehold was used for properties for no good reason, purely to benefit from ground rents. We have heard about such examples, and particularly the use of ground rents for houses. It is difficult to see that any house needs to be built as a leasehold property. In different times, I have bought into the argument that there might be exceptional reasons why one would need to build such a home, but it is very difficult to think what those would be. The system is not used in other countries around the world, including in the United States, where there are gated communities, communities for the elderly—all manner of different homes. They are not being built as leasehold properties, so I do not see why they should be in this country.

[Mark Tami]

I agree fully with that point. As the right hon. Gentleman said, this practice had largely gone away. For years, houses were not built as leasehold properties, but in the north-west and in north Wales, a group of builders decided that this would be an extra way of scamming—I use that word deliberately—even more money out of the people buying the properties.

[Robert Jenrick]

The right hon. Gentleman is absolutely right; I do not disagree in any way. The north-west was particularly targeted, for reasons that I do not understand, with tens of thousands of homes built in this manner. It really was disgraceful. It gave leasehold a very bad name and necessitated these changes and others that will be introduced in future. The Bill ends these practices for new properties; that is key. It will ensure that the business model behind ground rents—the creation of such properties as leasehold to benefit commercially—will come to an end. We are already seeing its gradual reduction, and the Bill will lead to its elimination.

I want to address the point that was raised about why the proposals should be extended to retirement properties. As Secretary of State, I came under fierce resistance and lobbying from the retirement property sector. Its lobbyists approached Members of Parliament and my Department and threatened judicial review of our proceedings. I considered it to be an unfair practice, targeted at the most elderly and vulnerable in our society, that in addition to paying their service charge they should pay a ground rent that might escalate at a significant pace. Why not have a fairer and more transparent system where an elderly person knows exactly what they are getting when they pay the purchase price on their property and then when they pay the service charge on an annual basis, instead of receiving two bills every year? I think that is a simple matter of fairness and transparency, and it was the right decision to bring that to an end. We did, however, give a longer period for businesses to transition and to change their business model, which is why that part of the industry will not feel the force of the Bill until 2023.

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[Justin Madders]

My hon. Friend makes an interesting point. There is clearly an imbalance. We have already talked about how some enthusiastic first-time buyers who just want to get into their new homes put their trust in the people who have been assigned to deliver the legal niceties such as putting a value on the property and doing the conveyancing. They put their trust in those people, and sometimes that trust is betrayed through the egregious injustices that we have talked about.

[Mark Tami]

My hon. Friend has mentioned management fees, which I see as the next scandal coming down the road. People who bought their properties and were being charged perhaps £100 or £200 a year will have thought that that was okay, but that might now have gone up to £500 or £600 and there are often additional charges because, for example, fences or certain parts of the ground are not covered. People have told me that they feel they are paying their council tax twice. That is how they see it, and it is totally unfair.

[Justin Madders]

I thank my right hon. Friend and neighbour for his intervention, which leads me beautifully into the next section of my speech, in which I shall talk about exactly that.

I will never accept that it is right for developers to choose not to pay a sum to councils to adopt the communal areas, and that they instead save themselves money by passing on that cost to the homeowners and then make even more money from the homeowners by charging them for things that ought to be coming out of their council tax. Like my right hon. Friend, I worry that this trend will be accelerated because the ground rent gravy train is coming to an end, and that we will hear more and more stories of homeowners having no choice but to pay inflated annual service charges that, given the choice, they would prefer to pay through their council tax.

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[Matt Rodda (Reading East) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to speak in tonight’s debate. I wish not only to address a number of issues that colleagues have raised, but to add in further details that I hope are particular to my constituency but fear may be common around the country.

First, I wish to support the points raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Manchester Central (Lucy Powell). Obviously, I welcome this Bill, which will help, but the broader point about the deep inequities of leasehold still stands true and we should be moving much faster on this important matter, trying to remove leasehold from the system of ownership in this country. Is it not incredible that the UK still has this medieval system of ownership, which, as has been mentioned, so discriminates against first-time buyers, people on lower incomes, older people and many other groups, which in many ways deserve more support and encouragement to get on to the property ladder? They deserve not to have their lives blighted by what is, sadly, sometimes the behaviour of irresponsible developers. I am not saying that all developers are irresponsible, but Members have clearly highlighted some awful and appalling examples of behaviour.

First, Loddon Park is a pleasant development on the edge of Woodley, a suburb of Reading. It is a relatively new and really quite beautiful development, with many attractive homes. The homes are freehold properties but some of the shared areas in the large development are subject to charges. In many ways, the sort of problems described so eloquently by my hon. Friend the Member for Ellesmere Port and Neston (Justin Madders) are also occurring for those at Loddon Park—several hundred people living in an attractive new development on the edge of an urban area in the south-east of England. The residents potentially face unlimited extra costs for the maintenance of some attractive grounds—including meadow areas, large ponds and other areas where children can play—because no cap was written into the charging policy and they did not realise that when they bought their properties.

As explained earlier by my hon. Friends the Members for Ellesmere Port and Neston and for City of Chester (Christian Matheson), as well as other colleagues, some of the first-time buyers we are talking about are unfortunately not always aware of some of the difficulties into which they might get themselves. There is an unequal situation in which on the one hand there are powerful and articulate developers with an excellent team of lawyers and on the other hand there are first-time buyers. That is deeply unfair. In this case, young families face potentially unlimited additional costs to pay for the upkeep of the rather attractive communal areas around their houses. That is very sad and deeply unfair. I respect the fact that the local authority had difficulties in trying to provide the properties, but I wish it had been more careful. There is also an element of involvement from Wokingham Borough Council, which is the local authority involved. Will the Minister look into that issue? I will write to him to explain the situation and ask for his help and support.

Before I mention another egregious example from the Reading East constituency, I offer my support to colleagues who have mentioned the issue of snagging and the problems with developers that prevent the adoption of roads. I know of cases in both Reading borough and Wokingham borough in which different developers have started to build a new estate and completed all the properties, which have been sold, but the roads, street lighting and other services have not been properly completed. Although the issue has gone on for years, there has been an ongoing tussle—similar to what the hon. Member for Thirsk and Malton (Kevin Hollinrake) mentioned—between council officers and developers. It has been deeply problematic for local authorities, which often have low levels of resource in their planning departments so are not well equipped to argue the case.

[Mark Tami]

I totally agree with my hon. Friend. Quite often, the moment the developers sell the last property, that is it: they are not interested any more. They are not interested in snagging or doing the roads; they are off to build somewhere else. The problem is that, as my hon. Friend was saying, local authorities do not have the money to chase these people. In my opinion, if they do not finish an estate—what they were allowed to do under the planning permission—they should not be granted permission again to build anything else.

[Matt Rodda]

My right hon. Friend makes an excellent point. There should be much stricter rules on this issue, because such sharp practice by developers helps no one. It does not help the building industry as whole, homeowners, local authorities or, indeed, other businesses that have to operate. In one estate near me, drivers can feel the difference as they drive on to the unadopted piece of road because their vehicle goes over a huge bump. That is not good for anyone, including many of the small businesses that have to deliver to that estate. It is surely in everybody’s interests, including those of the wider building industry, to get on with it and come up with a clear, simple and fair solution to the problem so that we can all move on and not spend vast amounts of unnecessary energy chasing after developers to sort out problems such as lamp posts that do not work or roads that have not been finished off.

I wish to address a specific issue that relates to a social housing enterprise in my constituency that operates across large parts of Berkshire. I have been deeply disappointed by Housing Solutions and ask for the Minister’s help. This organisation appears to have badly let down a number of residents in Woodley, the Reading suburb I mentioned earlier. It applied for planning permission to build properties next to a transport depot, where there are a lot of heavy goods vehicle movements, and on an industrial estate. The properties have been sold in a part-ownership scheme to local residents who were desperate to get on the housing ladder and were finding it quite difficult because they are on modest incomes. The local authority gave planning permission and carried out all the relevant checks—again, this is Wokingham Borough Council not Reading Borough Council. There was nothing in planning law to stop these flats from being built next to a haulage yard. The local authority looked into it and it was not able to reject the plans on that basis—on the basis that the flats were close to a noisy and polluting business. However, it did try to insist on conditions on the development. Sadly, though, it appears from lengthy inquiries from my office and also from one of the local councillors—Councillor Shirley Boyt—that these conditions have not been met. Residents, including a constituent of mine, Elise Maslen, who lives in the development, were not told of the additional changes that would need to be made to these properties—in particular, the need to adapt to air quality problems, such as mechanical ventilation and other forms of enhancements to the properties. They were also not told about the noise and pollution from the depot when they purchased the properties. That has resulted in around 20 families being trapped in flats that they do not want to be in, suffering from noise and air pollution.

The local authority has tried to find a way of bringing these properties up to spec. It has insisted on Housing Solutions doing that, but there has been a great deal of delay. This has gone on for five or six years. Sadly, some of the residents have moved away and are now having to pay for the cost of living in these properties while also living at a new address. They are deeply concerned about the health of their children and of themselves. This seems to be an egregious abuse of the situation. While it is not directly related to leaseholders, it has many of the same features, with powerful organisations, sadly, abusing their position of power and ordinary householders struggling and being provided with incorrect information. I wish to write to the Minister to ask for his help on this matter because it is of huge concern to me, to the local community and to the residents concerned. They have been treated appallingly by the housing association.

Holocaust Memorial Day 2021

Mark Tami Excerpts

Thursday 28th January 2021 Commons Chamber

[Mark Tami (Alyn and Deeside) (Lab)]

It is nearly 76 years since the end of the second world war in Europe, but the lessons that the world needs to learn from the events that culminated in the holocaust remain as relevant today as they were then. The holocaust did not begin and end with Auschwitz and the other extermination camps; its roots lay in the falsehoods and hatred that festered for centuries before and continue to exist today.

In the 1920s and 1930s, that hate and antisemitism was whipped up at rallies, and pamphlets were published that transformed Germany from an advanced liberal democracy into a vicious dictatorship. Today, that poison and those lies have not gone away. We rarely see the mass rallies and events, but the battle has moved online, where hate speech and holocaust denial can be found at a disturbing level. There are those who hide behind the idea that somehow this should be allowed, under some perverse idea that it is free speech.

The other night, I re-watched the excellent David Baddiel documentary in which he made contact with holocaust deniers. I was particularly struck by his concerns about what he termed to be “soft” holocaust denial—the idea that, yes, something may have gone on, but that it has been exaggerated and somehow blame lies on all sides. This is extremely dangerous. We see today populist Governments in Poland and Hungary seeking to rewrite history, to airbrush out the involvement of their countrymen and women in terrible crimes.

I believe that the holocaust is not just a terrible one-off event that happened in our history, carried out by a madman and his thugs. The truth is very different. Before the establishment of mechanised extermination in death camps, Einsatzgruppen squads followed the German advance into eastern Europe and Russia, shooting over 2 million men, women and children. These groups were led not by so-called thugs but by a university lecturer, a theologian, a doctor. These should be warnings to us about how this can take over.

History teaches us the events of the past, but it is also a warning for our future. The holocaust is a fact. There are no alternative facts, and we should never allow that to be said.

Mobile Homes Act 1983 (Amendment) Bill

Mark Tami Excerpts

2nd reading & 2nd reading: House of Commons
Friday 23rd October 2020 Commons Chamber

[Sir Christopher Chope (Christchurch) (Con)]

I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.

It is a pleasure to introduce this Bill. It is a two-clause Bill, but the second clause covers only the Bill’s extent, commencement and short title, so it essentially has only two provisions. It arises directly from my long-standing interest in the welfare of park home residents. I have been privileged to be the chairman of the all-party parliamentary group on park homes for more years than I can recall.

Mobile and park homes provide residential accommodation for about 85,000 households on some 2,000 sites in England. Most of those residents are of pensionable age. They normally own their own home, and they pay rent to the site owner for the land on which the home is stationed. Let me put it on the record that they are not bungalows. Some rogue firms out there are marketing new park homes as bungalows. I have written to the Advertising Standards Authority on the subject but have yet to receive a satisfactory response.

The Bill will make two changes to the Mobile Homes Act 1983 that will help all residents. The changes were set out by the Government in their response to their own call for evidence in their 2017 review of park homes legislation. On page 6 of the response, which was published on 2018, it says at paragraph 12:

“Some site owners pass on their repair, maintenance and other ad hoc costs to residents by requiring them to pay variable service charges in addition to the pitch fee.”

The Government response goes on to say, in a subsequent paragraph, that the

“Government wants to ensure that residents only pay for services that they are required to pay for through the pitch fee and will introduce legislation in due course to amend and clarify the definition of a pitch fee and prevent the use of variable service charges in written agreements, when parliamentary time allows.”

Well, parliamentary time does allow; it needs the will of Government. I hope we will hear from the Minister that the Government do have the will to implement what they said they wanted to do.

[Mark Tami (Alyn and Deeside) (Lab)]

The hon. Gentleman referred to the charges that are made; does he agree that quite often those charges are made but the work is not actually carried out? Many owners are just interested in cramming as many mobile homes on to sites as possible.

[Sir Christopher Chope]

The tenor of the hon. Gentleman’s intervention is that there are a heck of a lot of rogues out there and they are up to no good, and he is absolutely right. There are, however, quite a lot of good park home owners, and it is important that we try to support them and to prevent the rogues from taking over the whole industry. That is why it is so important that the Government take seriously the changes—albeit quite modest—in the Bill to try to improve the lot of residents on park homes sites.

Leasehold and Commonhold Reform

Mark Tami Excerpts

Wednesday 2nd October 2019 Westminster Hall

[Sir Peter Bottomley]

That is the sort of remark I can survive, and I am grateful for it.

I will say, as I try to in each of the debates on the issue, that I am a leaseholder of a small flat in my constituency, and with the other five leaseholders we bought the freehold. We had a good freeholder, good managing agents and we have had no problem whatsoever, and we know how the system can work. In effect, we are commonhold now, but we were originally freehold. Ground rents were low and we did not have the problem of ground rents doubling every 10 years.

We also did not have the kind of crooks, such as Martin Paine, who came in and gave informal leases, which really made a mess of people’s lives. We did not suffer from the Tchenguiz interests, which were responsible—both in the retirement field and in other fields—for some of the worst excesses. Frankly, the public authorities, such as the fraud people, the economic crimes people, the police and the Competition and Markets Authority people failed, and the Tchenguiz-controlled business got away scot free, when the people in that business should have been sent to jail and fined millions of pounds. The millions of pounds would have made up for the losses of the ordinary leaseholders who were failed by them.

I also pay tribute to Martin Boyd and Sebastian O’Kelly, chief executive and trustee of the Leasehold Knowledge Partnership, who have done so much, and they have now joined members of the National Leasehold Campaign and Bob Bessell, the former director of social services in Warwickshire, who in his retirement built 1,600 retirement homes without a single ground rent.

I thank my right hon. Friend the Minister for coming down on a fast train from Manchester, where she has given distinguished service over the past two days. I ask her to review whether it is sensible, necessary or right to allow ground rents in retirement properties. I look on the Churchill Group as the son of McCarthy and Stone, which was, with Peveril, at the foundation of some of the problems that hit previous generations. To any Treasury civil servant who reads the report of this debate, I would say that if we get leasehold and commonhold right, the value of homes will go up, not down, and the income to the Treasury will go up.

[Mark Tami (Alyn and Deeside) (Lab)]

My area has quite a few new leasehold housing estates, some of which have now been there for a number of years. The residents are being hit with a double whammy. They have all the costs associated with leasehold and they also have service management fees, which are absolutely enormous and growing. More and more people are reporting to me that they cannot sell their properties because they get partway through the process and the buyer looks at the cost and says, “No way.”

[Sir Peter Bottomley]

We are not able to cover everything in a half-hour debate, but that is one of the issues to which I think the House of Commons needs to return. We ought to have a full-day debate, preferably in Government time and on the Floor of the House, so that many other Members can speak and be a voice for their constituents.

As an example for those who do not read Private Eye on the day it comes out, there is a story about Rothesay Life, which apparently has £1.5 billion of loans. It can revalue the interest over 30 years and take it almost as instant profit. That is the kind of thing that leads people to say, “I am going to be greedy and get away with things as long as I can.”

--- Later in debate ---

[Ms McVey]

I will indeed meet the right hon. Gentleman and a delegation of fellow MPs. I did not realise he was such a good reader of body language, but he is quite right. The cases raised are not right, the system is not working right and those who agree with the market can see that it is not working right for the market either. Such cases should not be happening.

Let me be clear: the Government are committed to improving consumer fairness for leaseholders, and we have a programme of work under way to make sure that changes are made. Some of that work has already happened, including setting out how the ban on leasehold for new homes will work and stating our intention to reduce to zero ground rents on new leases, if we have them at all.

[Mark Tami]

The Minister talks about going forward, which is great, but we must go back too. We cannot leave behind the people who have been sold a pup. People tell us how they were advised to use Taylor Wimpey’s own lawyers and how it was never pointed out to them that the properties were leasehold. Even now, some people do not realise that they have a leasehold property.

[Ms McVey]

The hon. Gentleman makes a fair point; I will come to it later in my speech. No doubt, he realises that with leaseholds dating back a long time, there are legalities to unpick, but we are working on understanding how to do that.

I am pleased to see that the leasehold house ban has had an immediate effect on the market. In 2017, when we first made the announcement, 10% of new-build houses in England were sold as leasehold; today, that figure is down to 2%, which is significant progress, but we obviously want to make more. We will still legislate to ensure that, in future, apart from in exceptional circumstances, all new houses will be sold on a freehold basis.

Developers will no longer be able to use leases on houses for financial gain—a practice that has become the norm in some parts of the country, as we have heard again today. That will make certain that the right tenure is used on the right properties, which will make it fairer for all. The reforms will remove the incentives for developers and freeholders to use leaseholds to make unjustified profits at the expense of leaseholders.

Freehold Estate Fees

Mark Tami Excerpts

Tuesday 22nd January 2019 Westminster Hall

[Mark Tami (Alyn and Deeside) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hollobone. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Bishop Auckland (Helen Goodman) on securing this debate.

I am old enough to remember when developers would build estates that were brought up to adoptable standards, a bond was put down and the council would adopt and take responsibility for generally doing what we all expect to be done around our homes. A lot has changed. Councils now do not have much money and are probably keen to pass that responsibility on. As my hon. Friend the Member for Bishop Auckland said, developers have found another money-making exercise—a bit like leasehold, really—to squeeze even more money out of their sales.

In my own area, companies such as Persimmon in Buckley, Taylor Wimpey in Penyffordd and Bloor Homes in Broughton have passed that maintenance requirement on to maintenance companies: my hon. Friend has mentioned Greenbelt, and Trinity is another one of the big players. A person needs only to look on the internet and Google those companies to see what the average resident thinks of the service they are providing.

When people move in, perhaps the charge is only £100 a year at first; it does not seem too much and people are not that bothered about it. The lawyers have perhaps not pointed it out because, as my hon. Friend the Member for Bishop Auckland has said, they may well be close to the people selling the properties.

By year two, that charge may have risen to £200, and by year three, it may be £300 and so on. There is very little explanation of exactly what the charge is for, or indeed what the tendering process is for the people supposedly doing the work, when the work is actually done in the first place. These are not luxury London developments that have a swimming pool, a gym, and perhaps someone sitting on the front desk. The charge is for cutting the grass and, in some cases, maintaining a play area and maybe a nature area as well.

On top of the standard charge, there are things that are not covered—a very vague category. Greenbelt, in its nice, glossy little brochure showing happy, smiling people who are no doubt delighted to be paying the fees that the company charges, has a list of services. One of those is fencing, and under “What is covered?” it says “Fences will be checked as part of the routine supervisory inspections. The condition of the fence will be monitored and any repairs instructed as and when required.”

If we move on to things that are not covered but are chargeable, we find “fencing works”, which “will be identified as part of the routine supervisory inspections. The conditions of the fence will be monitored and any works instructed as and when required.” Now, to the ordinary person, those sound very similar, yet people are being charged extra for the work that is not covered.

Indeed, the list of things that can be charged for in these circumstances is a very open one; as I have said, residents in many cases are not aware of what they are being charged for. When people move in, certainly in their first year, there does not appear to be any breakdown of the charges. As my hon. Friend the Member for Bishop Auckland said, when a breakdown is provided, it appears that half of that charge—if not more—is the management fee. In my experience, that management fee is never broken down, and it is never explained exactly how that large sum of money comes about.

[Catherine McKinnell]

I see a lot of similarities in the speech that my hon. Friend is making. Does he agree that there is frustration not only about the charges being levied, but about the fact that the standards being maintained are often not as good as they would be had those estates been adopted? I know of some cases in which children have practically lived in a home, left that home and gone to university before they have the basics, such as pavements, on their estates.

[Mark Tami]

My hon. Friend is right. The issue of how estates are left is a broader one: quite often, the moment the last house is sold, the developer does not want to know. As for the standard of work that is being carried out by the maintenance companies, I have heard from loads of people who say that they go out themselves and cut the grass in the communal areas, because those are left in such a terrible state.

Many people have described the charges as like a second council tax. They are now reaching a level that is not the £100 that people started off with; it is a much higher figure, particularly for something that most people thought was covered by the council tax that they pay in the first place. Freeholders who face those charges are now coming to me and saying they are increasingly worried that they could affect the saleability of their property in the future, just as leaseholders are telling me that sales are falling through because people look at a property and say, “I am not going to buy that.” That is just not acceptable.

At the moment, there are effectively no legal protections for people. Leaseholders have some, but they are very weak. My constituency has a lot of mixed estates where, between two houses next to one another—often both exactly the same—one is leasehold and one is freehold. What they have in common is that they both have to pay management charges.

I will summarise because I know other hon. Members wish to speak. People feel abandoned. They feel that the law does not actually protect them and that they do not have any redress. I welcome what the Government have said about leaseholds. My concern is that that relates only to people building houses, selling them and moving on. What about the people already affected by the arrangements, just as leaseholders are? We need to look after them and ensure that they have fair redress against unfair charges. Residents should have the ability—where they want to—to form their own management companies, run their own maintenance and put out tenders. The council might want to tender for some of that work and could provide it at a considerably cheaper cost. The charges are unfair. We really need to get to grips with the issue because otherwise we will store up huge problems for people in the future.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Minister for Housing (Kit Malthouse)]

It is a great pleasure to serve under your wise and sanguine chairmanship once again, Mr Hollobone. The hon. Member for Bishop Auckland (Helen Goodman) and I shared many thrilling meetings of the Select Committee on the Treasury, and I congratulate her on securing this debate. I know that she is promoting a ten-minute rule Bill, and I thank her for the opportunity to debate an issue that affects not only her constituents but mine.

This Government are committed to making the housing market work. We aim to increase house building to an average of 300,000 net new homes a year by the mid-2020s. It is vital that as housing supply increases, the quality of new developments continues to improve. We expect all housing developers to deliver good-quality housing and estate facilities, to deliver it on time, and to treat house buyers fairly. Fairness includes making house buyers aware of arrangements for the upkeep of communal facilities and any fees for which they may be liable.

As hon. Members have pointed out, many freeholders must pay charges towards the maintenance or upkeep of communal areas on an estate. The obligation to pay these charges might be provided by a deed of covenant or through an estate rent charge that forms part of the purchase contract. These charges can include contributions towards the upkeep of open spaces on an estate, or for the maintenance of roads and other infrastructure that is not adopted by the relevant authorities. Hon. Members have quite rightly raised concerns about the lack of redress should a freeholder disagree with these charges, and there have been disputes about who should be responsible for, and control, the maintenance of communal areas. In many cases, contracts do not specify, limit or cap those freeholder charges. This lack of transparency leaves homeowners in a vulnerable position.

Leaseholders have a whole suite of protections and rights that enable them to hold management companies to account. Freeholders have no such equivalent, even though they might be paying for the same or similar services. The current situation is unfair to freeholders, and we are committed to introducing legislation to plug that gap. We set out our proposed approach to implementing these measures in the recent leasehold reform consultation, which closed on 26 November. We intend to create a new statutory regime for freeholders that is based on the rights enjoyed by leaseholders. This would ensure that maintenance charges must be reasonably incurred and that services provided are of an acceptable standard, and it includes a right to challenge the reasonableness of charges at the property tribunal.

[Mark Tami]

As with leaseholders, it should be relatively easy to sort out the problem. The issue is that people are already in these arrangements. We should ensure that they can do something about it, so that they do not feel that they are not covered or that no one cares about them.

[Kit Malthouse]

The right hon. Gentleman raises a valid point. We are also considering whether freeholders should have a right to change the provider of maintenance services by applying to the tribunal for the appointment of a new manager, which might be useful for existing freeholders if they are dissatisfied with the service they receive. The Government intend to introduce legislation to implement the changes as soon as parliamentary time allows. The hon. Member for Croydon Central (Sarah Jones) quite rightly challenged us on when that might be; she will know that we have an exciting and packed legislative timetable at the moment, but our aspiration is that the legislation will be introduced within the next 12 months. I realise that there are many impatient freeholders out there, but we have to deal with the small matter of national destiny before we get on to equally pressing matters on the domestic agenda. I assure her that we will give it our attention as soon as we can.

It is absolutely right that consumers should have fair, quick and easy ways to get things put right when they have problems. In October we announced our intention to introduce legislation to require all developers to belong to a new homes ombudsman. Last year, we consulted on how we could improve redress for residents across all housing sectors, and we will publish our response to that consultation shortly.

It has been argued that local authorities should be compelled to adopt all communal facilities on a new estate. At this point it is worth pausing to consider planning arrangements and how they support new developments. When a new development is granted planning permission, local authorities can use conditions, or a section 106 planning obligation, to secure a commitment from developers to provide and maintain open and communal space. This means that the local authority does not have to adopt or maintain the land at its own expense.

It is up to developers and the local planning authority to agree appropriate funding arrangements as part of those commitments. Conditions and planning obligations cannot, however, currently be used to compel local authorities to do something. The local authority has powers to ensure that developers build and maintain communal facilities to the standards and quality set out in the planning permission. In terms of roads, local highways authorities are responsible for the maintenance of local public roads in England. A decision on whether to adopt a road is a matter for the local highway authority and the Government have no direct role in that process.

It has been suggested that freeholders who pay these charges should receive a rebate in their council tax. We think that argument is misplaced. The amount of council tax due from each of us is not adjusted to reflect the specific level of services we receive as residents of the area. Instead, the level of council tax helps the authority to deliver a broad range of services to the wider community in its area. It is open to local authorities to offer council tax discounts to individuals or groups of taxpayers. This is an entirely local decision.

In the end, all these matters have to be paid for. There is only so much money that can be extracted from a particular housing development. It is therefore at the discretion of local authorities to decide the balance of 106, the cost to them of adopting measures, and where and when maintenance should fall on residents rather than on the local authority.

It should always be clear to potential purchasers what the arrangements are for the upkeep of open space and the maintenance of roads. However, we do not think that requiring local authorities to adopt all communal facilities on new developments is the right approach. It removes local flexibility and, in our view, sends the wrong message to developers about their responsibilities.

I do agree with the hon. Member for Bishop Auckland regarding redress. Consumers must have effective ways to get things put right when they have a problem with their housing. That is why we are committed to legislate, so that freeholders have a right to challenge the reasonableness of any maintenance charges for which they are liable. That is why we will establish a new homes ombudsman to protect the interests of homebuyers and hold developers to account when things go wrong.

The hon. Member for Croydon Central asked four specific questions. First, I am certainly willing to consider the suggestion to use Help to Buy as a lever to improve standards. Secondly, on mis-selling, it is open to any hon. Member to make a reference to the regulatory authorities, whether that be the FCA or the Senior Salaries Review Body. Is the hon. Member for Bishop Auckland still on the Treasury Committee?

Parking (Code of Practice) Bill

Mark Tami Excerpts

3rd reading: House of Commons & Report stage: House of Commons
Friday 23rd November 2018 Commons Chamber

[Faisal Rashid (Warrington South) (Lab)]

I am grateful for the opportunity to speak in support of this important Bill, and I commend the right hon. Member for East Yorkshire (Sir Greg Knight) for his hard work in championing it and enabling it to reach this stage. I also congratulate all the Members who have worked on it with him.

The Bill will, I hope, lead to long overdue change in the car parking industry. It is alarming to hear from Citizens Advice that parking companies are issuing 13 times more tickets than were issued a decade ago. This is a business model that is designed to exploit motorists rather than fulfilling its purpose. It is a case of several cowboy parking companies treating motorists in the most unfair terms, and it cannot be allowed to continue. Throughout our debates we have heard of a range of problems that motorists have faced, from poor signage and broken machines to appeal systems that lack transparency and fail to apply any common sense. Today we have the opportunity to ensure fairness for British motorists.

[Mark Tami (Alyn and Deeside) (Lab)]

I support the Bill. Does my hon. Friend agree that some of these car parks are set up to trap motorists and lure them in? Their real aim is to get motorists not to pay the parking fee, but to pay the fine.

[Faisal Rashid]

I totally agree. It can be difficult for the general public to understand these machines; they are set up to be confusing and then people get trapped. We are passing a Bill that will oblige the Government to introduce a new statutory code of practice to spell out what behaviours can be reasonably expected from private car parking operators.

As the right hon. Member for East Yorkshire, who is in charge of this Bill, highlighted on Second Reading, there are almost 19 million journeys a day that end at a parking space. This is truly a Bill that will affect almost every person in this country in some way; it is an issue that hugely affects my constituents in Warrington South, as it affects the constituents of many other Members here. I have been contacted by a number of people who have told me of issues they have faced with parking companies. In most of these cases, my constituents are being penalised for breaking an obscure term of the car park, or they are being falsely accused of not purchasing a parking ticket.

One constituent told me that she had purchased a ticket but made a genuine mistake and failed to enter her vehicle registration number correctly. As a result, my constituent was sent a number of letters threatening court action if she did not pay a substantial fine. Despite the innocence of her mistake, the letters scared my constituent into offering up the money.

Such threatening and exploitative behaviour is totally unacceptable and cannot be allowed to continue, and this is far from a one-off incident. I have been contacted by several constituents who made similar mistakes, often entering a single digit or character of their vehicle registration incorrectly, and have then been faced with fines and threatening letters.That is wholly unacceptable, especially as these mistakes are often made because of parking companies’ deliberately misleading signage and complicated machines.

Rating (Property in Common Occupation) and Council Tax (Empty Dwellings) Bill

Mark Tami Excerpts

Tuesday 16th October 2018 Commons Chamber

[Simon Hoare]

It is a great pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Oldham West and Royton (Jim McMahon). I draw the House’s attention to my interest, which I think is in my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests, as a vice-president of the Local Government Association. The hon. Gentleman and I served—I will not say with distinction, but we certainly served—on the Local Government Association resources panel for some years.

All Members will recognise that, as a result of our perfectly properly facing up to trying to repair the disastrous legacy that the Government inherited in 2010, the local government family has certainly faced a disproportionately heavy share of the burden. As we know, that has had an impact on our communities up and down the country. In my judgment, local authorities have acted perfectly properly. I served for 12 years as a district councillor, for seven of which I was running resources and the budget, and my then finance director, Frank Wilson, and I were always at great pains to find any way whatsoever to bring in extra money. We went down the back of every sofa, armchair and chaise longue to find coinage wherever it could possibly be hiding. When the Government presented us with an opportunity to raise perhaps a couple of extra quid, we grasped it like drowning men in a turbulent ocean.

I was interested to hear what my hon. Friend the Minister said about flexibility, which is of absolute importance. My understanding of both the Bill and indeed the Lords amendment is that this should not be viewed not as a revenue raiser for local authorities, but rather a spur to maximise housing stock accessibility. There cannot be a colleague in the House who does not meet people—at their advice surgeries or at other constituency engagements—raising the problems of accessibility to housing, the inability to get on to the housing ladder and the length of and delays in the planning process, all of which make a contribution to the difficulty of getting on to the housing ladder itself. Anything that can be done to increase access to existing housing stock has, in my judgment, to be welcomed very warmly.

If I may, I want to probe what the Minister said and to read into the record his very important comments about flexibility. Proposed new subsection (1A) in Lords amendment 1 reads:

“In subsection (1)(b)”—

if anybody wants to buy shares in the man who makes the keys for the bracket signs, I suggest they do so now, because there are an awful lot of brackets in this measure—

“(maximum percentage by which council tax may be increased)”.

The key word there is the conditional “may”. It does not have to be increased, and local authorities should view this as not merely a cash cow but, as I say, as a spur to increase accessibility. I hope that my hon. Friend will consider providing very clear guidance to local authorities—perhaps via the Local Government Association, but also directly to finance directors and leaders of councils—that they do have such flexibility.

My hon. Friend the Minister suggested one or two things. I am concerned about cases in which the clock is not reset when a property is sold. I appreciate entirely that there may be circumstances in which there is a paper transaction between brother and brother, or sister and sister, to try to dodge the additional tax, but I suggest that that is probably, given stamp duty and so on, a rather unlikely scenario.

[Mark Tami (Alyn and Deeside) (Lab)]

I understand what the hon. Gentleman says, but does he not accept that there are cases in which people do not have any intention of selling the property? It might be on the market at inflated price, but if not, when someone tries to buy it, every obstacle is put in their way to stop the purchase.

[Simon Hoare]

I entirely agree with the hon. Gentleman, which is why I am rather pleased that the Minister may be writing guidance and setting out examples. The hon. Gentleman is entirely correct: whenever we create a system, someone somewhere will find a way of playing it. However, with the greatest respect, I do not think that that should preclude the authoring of guidance notes with examples and, indeed, the creation of those systems. However, he is right that we should always be alert to those who try to play the system.

I would like to give the House and my hon. Friend the Minister some examples to consider. If a building is in a conservation area or has listed building status, that can lead to a complicated planning process. If a house is incredibly run down and is not legally habitable, but someone buys it with a view to doing it up and putting it on the market, it would be perverse, if they were making an investment to make the house habitable but experience problems with listed planning consent and so on, for them to be double-clobbered with an expensive council tax bill.

My hon. Friend alluded to natural disasters.