Leasehold and Freehold Reform Bill (Ninth sitting)

Matthew Pennycook Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 30th January 2024 Public Bill Committees

[Richard Fuller]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Mark. I remind colleagues that we have moved from the clauses that relate to what was termed the “feudal” system of leasehold to the rather more modern problem of estate management charges, which in large part, although not exclusively, are incurred by those who own their homes. Essentially, the charges have arisen because of issues to do with adoption by local authorities. They are charges for a range of services in what might be termed, but are not necessarily, public areas, and for what might be, but are not necessarily, services or provisions that would normally be provided by a local authority.

It is worth bearing in mind how rapidly the issue of estate management charges has grown. From being essentially non-existent, or at least very rare, I think the charges now cover at least 1 million or 1.5 million homeowners—perhaps the Minister will tell us it is an even higher number. One issue is that we are essentially creating a two-tier society of council tax payers: people who pay council tax once to cover a range of public services, and residents in parts of our country who pay for those services twice—once through their council tax and again through their estate management charges.

The provisions in part 4 deal with a number of changes that seek to improve the rights of those subject to estate management charges and to improve access to redress. I commend a number of my local residents and councillors, most importantly Councillor Jim Weir of Great Denham, as well as 30 of my Conservative colleagues who wrote with me to the Prime Minister and Secretary of State to ask them to include the provisions in the Bill. I am grateful to them for doing so. Most particularly, I thank the former Minister—my hon. Friend the Member for Redditch—and the current Minister for their help and guidance on these matters. The provisions will enable us to make a great amount of progress. However, it is clear—and it was clear from the evidence the Committee received—that there is another path, or at least it is clear that the public also desire to abolish or reduce the current system of estate management charges, rather than improving it and the rights that people have. That is what the amendment seeks to achieve.

At issue is the matter of adoption. In the summary on page 4, paragraph 2 of the Competition and Market Authority report that looks into estate management charges and other issues, it states that

“evidence gathered in our market study to date has shown that, over the last five years or so, amenities on new housing estates that are available for wider public use (ie not for the exclusive use of households on the estate), are increasingly not being adopted by the relevant authority. This appears to be driven by the discretionary nature of adoption, housebuilders’ incentives not to pursue adoption and by local authority concerns about the future ongoing costs of maintaining amenities”.

That gets to the crux of the issue. The decision process for creating estate management charges takes place in a cosy discussion between the developers of new estates and the local authorities, both of which have an interest in ensuring that they are not the ones to carry the cost for a range of communal services. Guess who ends up paying the bill? It is homeowners up and down the country, who have no role in that cosy discussion. I wish to influence that cosy discussion through my amendment.

It is tricky to change the process of adoption, and I think you would consider it out of scope, Sir Mark, if we sought to do so in the Bill. In the evidence session, I heard colleagues talk about some of the risks involved in leaving councils with unadoptable roads and poor-standard infrastructure that the council tax payer has to pay to bring up to standard. No one on the Committee wishes to see that happen. My amendment would not force adoption, then, but essentially take the payer—the householder or homeowner—out of the equation for paying for those costs. It would exclude services or works that would ordinarily be provided by local authorities so that they would not count as costs that could be incurred by estate management charges.

My hope is that the amendment would pour a dose of reality on to developers by saying that they could no longer pass the buck for the costs of poor-standard infrastructure used by the public to homeowners on their estates. They would have to bring them up to standard, and then councils could adopt them.

[Matthew Pennycook (Greenwich and Woolwich) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to continue our line-by-line consideration of the Bill with you in the Chair, Sir Mark. I rise to speak to amendment 150, tabled in my name and that of my hon. Friend the Member for Weaver Vale. As we have heard, part 4 of the Bill deals with the regulation of estate management. The hon. Member for North East Bedfordshire provided an extremely comprehensive overview of the problem and its prevalence.

The distinct set of problems faced by residential freeholders on private or mixed-tenure estates that part 4 seeks to address is well known and well understood. Those problems include: excessive or inappropriate charges levied for minimal or even non-existent services; charges imposed for services that should by right be covered by council tax; charges that include costly and arbitrary administration fees; charges hiked without adequate justification; and charges levied when residential freeholders are in the process of selling their property.

In addition to a general lack of clarity and transparency about how estate management charges and fees are arrived at and how they break down—these problems are not dissimilar to those experienced by long leaseholders in respect of service charges—residential freeholders on privately owned and managed estates clearly suffer from inadequate transparency in other unique respects. For example, as I have said in past debates on the subject in the House, it would appear to be fairly common for residential freeholders not to be notified of their future liability for charges early in the conveyancing process; many learn of their exposure only at the point of completion. Even in instances in which residential freeholders are notified about their future liability in good time, many have to confront the fact that their contracts do not specify limits or caps on charges and fees.

There is clearly a distinct problem with management fragmentation on many privately owned estates that have been constructed throughout the country in recent years, with residential freeholders even on relatively new estates frequently having to navigate scores of management companies, each levying fees for services in a way that further exacerbates the general lack of transparency and potential for abuse that they face in respect of charges and fees. Underpinning all those issues of concern is a fundamental absence of adequate regulation or oversight of the practices of estate management companies and the fact that residential freeholders currently do not enjoy statutory rights equivalent to those held by leaseholders.

There has been a broad consensus across the House for some time that residential freeholders on new build private and mixed-tenure estates require greater rights and protections, and the Government have recognised publicly—for at least six years, by my count—that they need to act to address the range of problems that freeholders face. Labour therefore welcomes the Government’s decision to use the Bill to create an entirely new statutory regime for residential freeholders based on leaseholders’ rights and is fully supportive of the intent behind the provisions in this part of the Bill.

Although part 4 sets the broad framework for regulating estate management, much of the detail necessary to bring that framework into force will come via regulations. We take no issue with that, and do not intend to pre-empt the regulations by attempting to prescribe a series of requirements on the face of the Bill. However, we believe that, where possible, we should seek to use part 4 not only to provide greater protection to residential freeholders who live on the estates, but to contribute to a reduction in the prevalence of such arrangements—a point that the hon. Member for North East Bedfordshire was driving at.

Although additional protections of the kind introduced under part 4 will almost certainly still be required, in its “Private management of public amenities on housing estates” working paper, published on 3 November last year, the Competition and Markets Authority stated that

“we consider that reducing the prevalence of private management arrangements would be the most direct route to address the root cause of our emerging concerns”.

The CMA made it clear in that working paper that reducing the prevalence of private management arrangements would require a mix of legislative and policy changes more fundamental than the introduction of regulatory protection, and drew attention to the fact that it would result in a wider set of consequential changes, not least the potential for

“significant impact on local authority finances and resources at a time when local authority funding is already stretched.”

That is why, while we very much sympathise with its intent of ensuring that residential freeholders on private or mixed-tenure estates are not charged for services that should by right be covered by council tax, we have reservations about amendment 145. We are concerned that it will, in effect, force local authorities to adopt public amenities on new housing estates, irrespective of circumstance, or—if compulsion is not the intent of the hon. Member for North East Bedfordshire—would see those amenities degrade and deteriorate as a result of not being maintained by either the private management company or the local authority.

[Richard Fuller]

I am grateful to the shadow Minister for his detailed look at my amendment. First, will he explain to the Committee where he sees compulsion on local authorities in the amendment? I cannot see it. Secondly, will he explain why his more material concern about the possibility of items degrading and estate management not doing anything would not be addressed by the strengthening provisions that the Government are putting in the Bill on behalf of homeowners?

[Matthew Pennycook]

Under my reading of the hon. Gentleman’s amendment, if it is ensured that services or works that would ordinarily be provided by local authorities are not relevant costs for the purposes of charges in this part, who will pick up the bill? If the local authority is not compelled to adopt the amenities, our concern is that no one will maintain them. To address his point directly, I worry that his amendment would not ensure that the private estate management company picks up the charge. I will come to why I think our amendment is a superior way of addressing this very real problem.

[Barry Gardiner (Brent North) (Lab)]

I am listening carefully to my hon. Friend. It may interest him to know that I was on a private estate in Kingswood at the weekend, for some reason. It soon became apparent that the developer had gone into liquidation and the estate was being run down in a quite dreadful way. As my hon. Friend said, in that situation, the developer itself and the management of the estate had, to all intents and purposes, ceased—residents were very voluble on things not being done—but the local authority had not adopted the road in the first place, and the services were suffering accordingly.

[Matthew Pennycook]

We are all driving at the same point. I was very much taken by the CMA’s conclusion that reducing the prevalence of these arrangements requires a combination of the mandatory adoption of amenities and putting in place corresponding common adoptable standards. If we do one without the other, we risk some unintended consequences.

My concern about the amendment tabled by the hon. Member for North East Bedfordshire is that we cannot simply remove from estate charges costs that should in an ideal circumstance be borne by local authorities and then expect the private management company to simply pick them up. I fear that the more likely scenario will be that the amenities are not properly maintained. That is a real concern, and should be for residential freeholders on the estates. As the hon. Member for North East Bedfordshire outlined, there are some good reasons why local authorities are reluctant to adopt public amenities on private or mixed-tenure estates.

[Richard Fuller]

I would hate to detain the Committee because we have a lot to go through, but let us understand the economic process here. Initially, the local authority and the developer will work out whether to adopt roads. The developer will then have to decide whether to set up an estate management company, which may or may not deliver facilities and services that would normally be covered by council tax. If the amendment is part of legislation, no property manager in their right mind will accept taking on the responsibility because they will not wish to be liable. Here is the flow of responsibility: one cannot lumber home owners with the cost, the property manager will not be lumbered with the cost for the reasons outlined—it may go bust—so the developer will then have to recognise that there is nowhere for it to turn.

[Matthew Pennycook]

We fundamentally disagree on where the logic chain leads. I do not think that, on the basis of the amendment, the developer will be forced to pick up the costs. It is far more likely that they would build below what would be considered a common adoptable standard and then leave residential freeholders to live with substandard amenities. We could debate this further, but that is my take on the hon. Gentleman’s amendment: it would not force the management companies to do that. That is a real concern.

As I said, there are a variety of reasons why local authorities often do not take on responsibility. The most common one is that the public amenities on new housing estates are not built to a determined, adoptable standard. In those circumstances, one can hardly blame the local authority in question for a reluctance to adopt roads and common services that it will have to repair and maintain a great cost. My central argument is that if we are to reduce the prevalence of these arrangements, we must ensure that we introduce a common adoptable standard for public amenities on estates at the same time as we require mandatory adoption, as the CMA advises.

[Eddie Hughes (Walsall North) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under you, Sir Mark. The civil engineer in me rises to agree with the hon. Gentleman completely; it is slightly embarrassing that we once again find common cause. The point is well made: if a set standard is identified that will be accepted universally by councils as one they would be prepared to adopt, and forced on the developers, the developers will meet that standard, but if they are left with any opportunity to build something substandard, they will always take it and they will frequently try to go further and not even meet the standard that they have prescribed in their own design work. I am sure that all Committee members will have seen examples of that in their constituencies. I again find common cause, and I hope the Minister considers these points.

[Matthew Pennycook]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for that intervention; it is a habit that I hope he continues because I think there is common ground here. When it comes to common adoptable standards, Ministers have often put it to me—the Minister no doubt will; previous Ministers have done—that local authorities have the tools they need to drive up the standards of public amenities that are constructed, but there is clearly something going wrong in that they are not ensuring that those standards are in place. As a consequence—not in every instance, but in many—local authorities have good reason to be reluctant to take them on.

We have tabled amendment 150 in an attempt to challenge the Government to consider how they might utilise the regulatory framework introduced by part 4 to drive up the standards of public amenities on the estates in question—that is the other half of the equation that I think we are all agreed we need. Our amendment would ensure that services or works on private or mixed-tenure estates that are required as a result of defects in construction are not relevant costs for the purposes of estate management. I think that, rather than the amendment of the hon. Member for North East Bedfordshire, would be the incentive that developers need to ensure that high standards are in place at the point that they hand the estate over. Ours is consciously a probing amendment and I hope the Minister will understand and appreciate the problem that it attempts to address, as does the hon. Member’s amendment. I look forward to hearing the Minister’s thoughts on it.

[Alistair Strathern (Mid Bedfordshire) (Lab)]

I rise briefly to add my weight to the comments of the shadow Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Greenwich and Woolwich. I wholeheartedly share the concerns on this issue expressed by my Bedfordshire neighbour, the hon. Member for North East Bedfordshire. I know that, like me, he has received a lot of correspondence from constituents who find themselves with a variety of challenges and exposed by a situation whereby regulation simply has not kept pace with best practice.

As the CMA outlined last year, we have gone from a situation in which it was simply the norm that estates were adopted by the local authority to one in which that is far from the norm. In the last week, I have spoken to residents right across my constituency who have faced incredibly high service charges. Estate management companies are looking for the next frontier for their rent-seeking behaviour, often by charging fees for services that would normally be covered by council tax. Such is the fragmentation on estates, as the shadow Minister set out, that they sometimes even duplicate the fees charged by other management companies on the same estate.

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[Matthew Pennycook]

Amendment 150 was a probing amendment. I take on board the Minister’s statement that the Government are looking at the issue and that they do not believe that this legislation is the appropriate vehicle to deal with it.

If the Minister is willing to respond again, I would like a bit more clarity on precisely why in many cases amenities on estates are not being built to an adoptable standard. I think we all agree that we would like to see such a system. The Minister introduced a different problem, namely circumstances in which residents might not want their amenities adopted; I think that that would be a relatively small number of estates, but we would have to account for them. In general, we want to reduce the prevalence of arrangements and see adoption becoming mandatory in most circumstances.

Will the Minister expand on why the Government think the common amenable standards are not being met across the board? In a previous debate, the then Minister stated:

“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.”—[Official Report, 22 January 2019; Vol. 653, c. 132WH.]

Is something going wrong with the standards that most local authorities require at the planning permission stage? Is the section 106 agreement breaking down in some way? What is the reason? That might give us an insight into the solution that the Government have in mind and into why common adoptable standards are not currently the norm.

[Lee Rowley]

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right that there are a variety of scenarios. I am not sure that residents of Fenton Street would not take the opportunity to adopt if they were given the opportunity; it is more about the broader challenges of getting a single coherent answer to a very complicated set of questions that have come about in the past few decades or over a longer period.

The hon. Gentleman raises a valid point about the outcome of the planning system. Everybody, irrespective of party, would want the planning system to work to a point where there are common standards for roads and public spaces. There is an interesting question as to why that is not the case. It is an area that as a Minister I intend to look into in more detail.

The question is whether is it a systemic problem or a matter of individual circumstances, where it is working okay in some areas but not in others. Anecdote leads to bad policy and bad law, but in my experience as a constituency MP it has worked in a number of areas and not in others. That suggests that there is variability and that it is therefore not a systemic issue, but that might be different elsewhere in the country. It is an area that I think we should look at more; I am not sure whether it needs legislation. That is an open question, but it is definitely something that I am keen to understand more.

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[Lee Rowley]

Clause 42 introduces new obligations on estate managers where the costs they wish to charge a homeowner exceed an appropriate amount. It mirrors sections 20 and 20ZA of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1985. Subsection (1) places an obligation on estate managers to consult homeowners where the costs for works or services exceed a given threshold. Subsections (2) to (4) confer a power to allow the Secretary of State to determine the appropriate threshold in regulations; the Secretary of State may also determine whether the threshold is to be a total sum or if the costs for individual homeowners exceed an appropriate amount.

Subsections (6) and (7) confer a power on the Secretary of State to set out in regulations the consultation require-ments and the provisions that may be included in the consultation process. Issues that may be in regulations are not exhaustive, but may include matters of relevance, including details of the proposed works, the provision of estimates, and requirements to have regard to homeowner observations and to specify reasons for carrying out the works if they proceed. We recognise that there are occasions where it may not be appropriate or possible for estate managers to consult homeowners—for example, where urgent or emergency works need to be carried out. Subsections (5) and (8) to (10) therefore allow estate managers to seek dispensation from the relevant tribunal of the need to consult. However, should estate managers fail to obtain dispensation or follow the consultation requirements, individual homeowner contributions are capped at the appropriate amount. The Government will engage extensively with stakeholders to determine the appropriate threshold for consultation and what the detail of the consultation arrangements should be. I commend the clause to the Committee.

[Matthew Pennycook]

I wish to probe the Minister a little further on the clause. As he said, it introduces requirements for estate managers to consult managed owners if the costs of any works to be charged as an estate management charge exceed an appropriate amount, which will be set out in regulations. Overall, the Government’s aim in this part of the Bill is clearly to introduce statutory protections for residential freeholders equivalent to those enjoyed by long leaseholders with regard to service charges.

If I understood the Minister correctly, he has confirmed that the Government’s intention with the clause is to establish for residential freeholders an equivalent to section 20 of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1985. If that is the intention, can the Minister confirm that the new requirements provided for by the clause will include requiring estate managers to have regard to written observations from residential freeholders on charges in excess of the to-be-determined appropriate amount, and where necessary to justify in writing the reasons why they awarded a contract to a tenderer that neither submitted the lowest estimate nor was nominated by a resident?

Furthermore, if the clause is indeed intended to mirror the operation of the existing section 20 consultation process, I urge the Minister to consider what might be done to address the known deficiencies of the process, including the fact that a leaseholder’s sole means of redress if they take issue with the landlord’s decision is the tribunal, and that there is no statutory meaning of what “have regard to” means in the context of the consultation. While he does so, I encourage him to take the opportunity to overturn, or at least modify, the decision of the Supreme Court in the 2013 Daejan Investments Limited v. Benson case, which has proved so detrimental to the consultation rights of leaseholders. I make this series of points because the Homeowners Rights Network, among others, has questioned the logic of extending to privately managed estates a regime that is not always effective in protecting residential leaseholders from unreasonable charges associated with major works.

[Lee Rowley]

The hon. Member for Greenwich and Woolwich encourages me to seek to overturn decisions of the Supreme Court! That could start a whole heap of discussion early on a Tuesday morning, but I will withhold further comment for now.

The hon. Member is absolutely right that clause 42 is intended to mirror section 20 of the 1985 Act. He is correct that the intention is to consider written responses as well; I hope that that reassures him. We will need to go through a consultation process: although we have said that our intention is to mirror section 20 of the 1985 Act to give confidence about the direction of travel, what is appropriate for these individual circumstances will need to be discussed, and I hope that we can pick up that discussion within the consultation.

Question put and agreed to.

Clause 42 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 43

Limitation of estate management charges: time limits

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[Richard Fuller]

I beg to move amendment 140, in clause 44, page 69, line 6, at end insert—

“(7) The Secretary of State must by regulations provide—

(a) that an estate manager’s litigation costs incurred as a consequence of an application under this section may not be recouped through the estate management charge, except where the tribunal considers it just and equitable for such costs to be so recouped;

(b) for the right of an applicant under this section to claim litigation costs incurred as a consequence of an application under this section from the estate manager, where the tribunal considers it just and equitable in the circumstances.

(8) Regulations under subsection (7) may amend primary legislation.”

This amendment would require the Secretary of State to make regulations preventing estate managers from passing their litigation costs on to residents through the estate management charge, and providing for residents to be able to reclaim their litigation costs from an estate manager.

The amendment, which is in a similar vein to the previous one, is designed to probe the Minister on whether we have got the balance right in the clause to enable effective use of the tribunal by those who would wish to bring a case against estate managers. As we heard when we discussed the clauses on leasehold, one of the biggest concerns that people have is that they will face open-ended litigation costs. In this case, the litigation costs will essentially be cycled back through the estate management charges, and therefore effectively end up being paid by homeowners on the affected estates.

Amendment 140 is designed to prevent that passing on of litigation costs. It also recognises that many homeowners may wish to take action but not have the wherewithal to pay the litigation costs. Paragraph (b) of the amendment therefore enables residents to claim the litigation costs arising from their application. I am interested in the Minister’s view on the balance of litigation in such circumstances—we have spoken about it in relation to other circumstances. I think we all want the tribunal to work, but for that to happen, people must not be put off by the fear that they may face significant direct or indirect litigation costs.

[Matthew Pennycook]

I rise to support the amendment. We discussed litigation costs in relation to clause 34; we strongly argued for a general prohibition with very limited exceptions. The hon. Gentleman is right to draw attention to the fact, which applies to part 4 as a whole, that we should not replicate the flaws of the leasehold system in the newer system of estate management charges. Our arguments in relation to the leasehold regime therefore apply equally here, and the hon. Gentleman is right to raise the point.

[Lee Rowley]

I will try directly to address the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for North East Bedfordshire, to which we are sympathetic. It is important that litigation costs are not passed on. On the leasehold side, there is clear evidence that that is happening, but the question is whether there is clear evidence of it happening in the area of estate management. From speaking to officials, we do not see that clear evidence at the moment. However, if any members of the Committee or others have such evidence, I would welcome it. If it is happening, I am sure that we would be happy to consider the issue as the Bill progresses.

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[Matthew Pennycook]

Briefly, when we discussed the regulation of service charges in clauses 26 to 30, we made a number of specific arguments about how those clauses might be tightened and strengthened. Can the Minister give us a commitment that if the Government determine to amend those clauses in any way, they will seek to read across the equivalent changes to this part of the Bill or, if they do not think that they apply, to justify where wider deviations between the two regimes are necessary? As I said, we are mirroring broadly the statutory protections in place for long leaseholders here, but where they differ, the Committee would certainly welcome clarification as to why.

[Lee Rowley]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his question. He tempts me into hypotheticals, but I hope that we are demonstrating our willingness to try to work constructively to see where areas can be improved. I must caveat that with clarity that we will not be able to improve every area; of necessity, prioritisations will need to be made. Of course there will be disagreements in this place and elsewhere about what is possible, but we shall see; if there is read-over, we shall see.

Question put and agreed to.

Clause 46 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 47

Right to request information

Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.

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[Richard Fuller]

The Minister or shadow Minister will correct me if I am wrong, but I believe we covered issues to do with penalties earlier. The intent of this proposal is to ensure that damages in the leasehold and freehold system are the same. I therefore think I ought to ask leave to withdraw my amendment.

[Matthew Pennycook]

Without rehashing the debate on clause 30, I rise briefly to put on record that the Opposition think that the point the amendment is driving at is well made. We need equivalence between the two regimes, but we were concerned, notwithstanding damages versus penalties and all the rest, that the proposed financial penalty is too low to act as a serious deterrent to the type of behaviour that we are trying to do away with.

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[Lee Rowley]

My hon. Friend highlights an important point. I think it is better that I write, but in principle, the transparency we seek to bring and the requirement to clearly articulate the charges that have been made, either in the annual report or elsewhere, aim to provide the sunlight that means that it is clear who is paying for what, and, if it is not a reasonable charge, there is a process that can be followed. But I will write to him with more on that, if that is helpful, because we all want to get this right.

[Matthew Pennycook]

I rise briefly to support the argument made by the hon. Member for North East Bedfordshire. There is a specific problem on privately managed estates, which I referred to when speaking to clause 41, relating to the fragmentation of multiple estate management companies. I share his concern, which partly speaks to whether the penalties are appropriate in terms of enforcement. On some estates, residential leaseholders will face a situation where, yes, there may be a requirement for an annual report and there may be a degree of transparency, but the onus will be on them to go through six or seven sets of accounts from the different subsidiaries. We need to look at how we can simplify some of the management structures that companies use, which could cause huge amounts of confusion for residential leaseholders, and, as I say, put the onus on them to try to work through different sets of accounts in a way that they might find difficult to do.

Question put and agreed to.

Clause 51 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 52 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 53

Limitation of administration charges

Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.

[Lee Rowley]

I hope that some of the comments I am about to make will reassure my hon. Friend the Member for North East Bedfordshire that we are keen to get this right.

Homeowners on managed estates can be subject to excessive administration charges, with little understanding of what fees they may be liable to pay. Subsection (1) puts a stop to that by introducing a requirement for all administration charges to be reasonable. Subsections (2) and (3) require that an administration charge is payable only if the amount or the description of how the amount is to be calculated has been published on an administration charge schedule for 28 days. Subsection (4) sets out other conditions under which an administration charge is not payable to the estate manager. They include circumstances where the estate manager is charging homeowners on the same estate different amounts for carrying out similar tasks, and therefore prevents them from being charged at different rates. I commend the clause to the Committee.

Question put and agreed to.

Clause 53 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 54

Determination of tribunal as to administration charges

Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.

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[Lee Rowley]

Part 5 of the Bill addresses issues relating to rentcharges. Since the Rentcharges Act 1977, the creation of most types of rentcharge has been prohibited. The main class of rentcharge excepted from the general prohibition is known as an estate rentcharge. Estate rentcharges are usually mechanisms for a management company to obtain contributions towards the costs of maintaining communal areas.

Part 4 of the Bill creates new protections for homeowners who pay an estate rentcharge to an estate manager for the provision of estate management services. Clause 58 makes a minor amendment to the Rentcharges Act 1977 to amend the definition of “estate rentcharge” in section 2 of the Act. The effect of the amendment is to ensure that payments may be made to cover improvements to communal areas as well as maintenance and repairs. This ensures that it aligns with the definition of the service charges that leaseholders must pay, and allows estate managers to pass on costs of any improvements to the areas they look after, and will ensure that they meet their legal obligations as well as having sufficient funds to carry out such works. The sums paid for improvement will still be subject to the protections in part 4—for example, the requirement to be reasonable. This is a clarificatory amendment, and I commend clause 58 to the Committee.

[Matthew Pennycook]

This is a clarificatory amendment, and we do not take issue with it. I will speak on our concerns about rentcharges in relation to clause 59.

Question put and agreed to.

Clause 58 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 59

Regulation of remedies for arrears of rentcharges

Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.

[The Chair]

With this it will be convenient to discuss new clause 4—Remedies for the recovery of annual sums charged on land—

“(1) Section 121 of the Law of Property Act 1925 is omitted.

(2) The amendment made by subsection (1) has effect in relation to arrears arising before or after the coming into force of this section.”

This new clause, which is intended to replace clause 59, would remove the provision of existing law which, among other things, allows a rentcharge owner to take possession of a freehold property in instances where a freehold homeowner failed to pay a rentcharge.

[Lee Rowley]

An income-supporting rentcharge is an annual sum paid by a freehold homeowner to a third party who normally has no other interest in the property. Under the 1977 Act, no new rentcharges of this type may be created, and all existing ones will be extinguished in 2037. Most income-supporting rentcharges can be for relatively small amounts—typically between £1 and £25 per annum—and the majority of freehold properties affected by these rentcharges are located in the north-west and the south-west of England.

However, a loophole remains. Failure to pay a rentcharge within 40 days of its due date means that, under section 121 of the Law of Property Act 1925, the recipient of the rentcharge may take possession of the subject premises until the arrears and all costs and expenses are paid. The rentcharge owner may alternatively grant a lease of the subject premises to a trustee that the rentcharge owner may set up themselves. The Government believe that that law is unfair and can have a grossly dispro-portionate consequence for a very small amount of money not being paid. This clause seeks to address that and ensure that freeholders cannot be subject to a possession order or the granting of a lease for rentcharge arrears.

Subsection (2) introduces new sections into the 1925 Act. Proposed new section 120B details that no action to recover or require payment of regulated rentcharge arrears may be taken unless notice has been served and the demand for payment complies with the new requirements. Those requirements set out what information the notice must include. The section also sets out that the homeowner does not have to pay the rentcharge owner any administrative fee.

Proposed new section 120C sets out various requirements relating to the serving of notice under proposed new section 120B, aimed at ensuring that freeholders receive the demand of payment at the address of the charged land. Proposed new section 120D confers powers on the Secretary of State to set out in regulations a limit on the amounts payable by landowners, indirectly or directly, in relation to the action of recovering or requiring payment of regulated rentcharge arrears. That provision seeks to avoid abuse of administration costs charged when simply accepting payment of arrears, and the process of removing any restriction on the freehold title at the Land Registry. The charge does not affect the cost that is paid directly to the Land Registry itself.

Clause 59 (3) and (4) to clause 59 seek to disapply rentcharge owners from using the provisions set out in sections 121 and 122 of the 1925 Act. In doing so, they provide additional protection to avoid rentcharge owners rushing to invoke those provisions. The effect of those subsections is to make any action to reclaim arrears using the 1925 Act void retrospectively once the provisions are introduced. Subsection (5) ensures that the provisions of the clause apply to rentcharge arrears that have arisen before and after the changes come into force. Subsection (6) inserts new section 122A into the 1925 Act, which details that an instrument creating a rentcharge, contract or any other arrangement is of no effect to the extent that it makes provision contrary to the provisions in this clause. Clause 59 delivers on a Government commitment to protect freehold homeowners from the disproportionate effects of falling into arrears in the payment of their rentcharge.

I turn to new clause 4, for which I thank the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Greenwich and Woolwich. It seeks to abolish section 121 of the 1925 Act. The effect of the new clause would be that a failure to pay any form of rentcharge would prevent the owner of the rentcharge from granting a lease on the property, or from taking possession of it until the fee was paid. We are sympathetic to the issue raised by the shadow Minister, and we have recognised that forfeiture is an extreme measure and should only be used as a last resort. Although in practice it is already rarely used, I recognise that the potential consequences may feel disproportionate. That is why we have included clause 59, which disapplies this remedy for income-supporting rentcharges where we know that homeowners pay nominal sums for very little in return.

As with leasehold forfeiture, any changes will require a careful balancing of the rights and responsibilities of interested parties. We are concerned as to what this new clause could mean where a homeowner pays estate rentcharges that are essential for the management of their estate, or any other form of legitimate rentcharge. The Government want to ensure that where they are required to be paid, these charges are paid in a timely manner so that the smooth running of the estate can continue. If estate management companies are unable to recover these sums, there is the potential that the costs will fall to other homeowners or that the upkeep of the estate will worsen. We are keen to understand any unintended consequences before abolishing section 121 of the 1925 Act all together. We need to weigh up the needs of the estate with the stress and uncertainty that we know this law can cause for some homeowners and lenders. We are listening carefully to the arguments, and I am happy to give the hon. Gentleman that commitment. I hope that, with those reassurances, he may consider not moving his new clause.

[Matthew Pennycook]

I was slightly surprised, in a welcome way, by the Minister’s response, in that he seemed to indicate that the Government are open to considering the abolition of section 121 of the 1925 Act all together, notwithstanding the need to ensure that there are no unintended consequences, but we are debating clause 59 as it stands, which does not propose that, so I hope to convert the Minister’s sympathy into agreement with our position if I can.

Part 5 of the Bill concerns rentcharges, which in general terms can be understood as an indefinite, periodic payment made in respect of freehold land by the current freeholder to a third party or “rent owner” who has no reversionary interest in the charged land in question. In some cases, the charge relates to the provision of a service; in others it is, in effect, simply a profit stream for the interested third party. All rentcharges, as the Minister made clear, are covered by the Rentcharges Act 1977, which prohibited the creation of new so-called income-only rentcharges and provided that all such rentcharges will be extinguished in 2037.

The 1977 Act does not detail the remedies available to a rentcharge holder whose rentcharge is not paid, although any can simply sue for a money judgment. It is section 121 of the Law of Property Act 1925 that creates two additional remedies for rentcharge non-payment. First, unless excluded by the terms of the rentcharge itself, there is a right for the rentcharge holder to take possession of the charged land in question and retain any income associated with it so long as the money owed, whether demanded or not, is unpaid for 40 days. Secondly, unless prohibited by the terms of the rentcharge, and assuming that the money owed is outstanding for at least 40 days, there is a power to demise the land to a trustee by way of a lease in order to raise the funds necessary to pay the arrears and costs.

In short, the 1925 Act provides for the power to seize freehold houses for non-payment of a rentcharge, even if the arrears are merely a few pounds, and allows the rentcharge holder to retain possession or render it in effect worthless by means of maintaining a 99-year lease over it, even if, as demonstrated by the 2016 case of Roberts v. Lawton, the rentcharge is redeemed or the underlying debt cleared. In our view, the remedies provided for by the 1925 Act are a wholly disproportionate and draconian legacy of Victorian-era property law. As I have said, the 1977 Act prohibited the creation of new rentcharges and provided for existing rentcharges to be abolished in 2037, but 13 years from now is still a long time away and any lease granted prior to the abolition will remain in force. Rentcharges are therefore an area of law in respect of which legislative reform is long overdue, and the need to protect rent payers from what amounts, essentially, to a particularly severe form of freehold forfeiture as a result of the relevant remedies provided for by the 1925 Act is pressing.

With clause 58 having amended the definition of estate rentcharge, clause 59 seeks to provide for revised remedies for arrears by amending the 1925 Act. As the Minister has set out, clause 59, in place of the existing two remedies for rentcharge non-payment under the Act, proposes requiring the third party or rent owner to issue an appropriate demand before they can seek to recover or compel payment, and gives the Secretary of State the power by regulation to limit the amount payable by the freehold homeowner in respect of rentcharge arrears or to provide that no amount is repayable. Although we appreciate that the intent of the clause is to better protect freehold homeowners from the existing disproportionate remedies that are available to rentcharge holders when rentcharges go unpaid, we believe it is an overly complicated and onerous attempt to make more palatable the methods of enforcing rentcharges provided for by the 1925 Act that are simply not justifiable in any form.

No one disputes that there might be a need for legitimate and reasonable rentcharges. Indeed, if and when the Government finally deliver on the pledge to require all new houses in England and Wales to be sold as freehold properties, such charges will become even more important as a means to ensure that freehold houses contribute towards communal estate services. However, the threat of their being enforced by means of the draconian remedies in section 121 of the 1925 Act must, in our view, be removed.

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[Lee Rowley]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman. He makes a strong case for his arguments. As I have indicated, although I will not accept new clause 4, we do think there is an argument that is reasonable to be had here, while recognising that we need to consider the consequential potential of any change. I am happy to discuss that further with him separately to see whether we can make further progress at a later stage of the Bill.

[Matthew Pennycook]

I thank the Minister for that answer. I am tempted to not move the new clause, but I can only deal with the piece of legislation in front of me. What is in front of me is not a placeholder clause that says, “We will review the 1925 Act”; it is a clause that puts in place an amended version of the remedies. We feel so strongly about this point that we will vote against clause stand part, but I will take the Minister up on his offer to discuss a more sensible way of dealing with the types of contraventions that we have discussed.

Question put, That the clause stand part of the Bill.

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[Lee Rowley]

Clause 64 makes provision for the commencement of the Bill. The substantive provisions of the Bill will come into force on a day appointed by the Secretary of State by regulation. For a number of policy areas, regulations need to be drafted and laid before Parliament before the provisions in the Bill can commence. Hon. Members should be assured that we are not intending to have any unnecessary delay in implementation, and the Department is working hard to plan and carry out the associated programme of secondary legislation. Subsection (2) sets out that the provisions for section 59, namely the regulation of remedies for rent charge arrears, come into force two days after the Act is passed. I commend the clause to the Committee.

[Matthew Pennycook]

I have two brief points. On the general commencement provisions, the Minister just made it perfectly clear that there are no firm dates for commencement on all the issues that require regulations. I take on board what he said about not seeking any unnecessary delay, and that is welcome. However, I push him to go slightly further to give us a sense of the timetabling of some of the more important provisions in the Bill, because leaseholders watching our proceedings will want to know when the rights provided for by the Bill can be enjoyed.

I have a point specifically on subsection (2), which specifies that clause 59 comes into force at the end of a period of two months, as I understand it—the Minister said “two days”, and I think it is two months. Given that some of the provisions in clause 59—I am thinking particularly of new subsection 120D(4)—bring the relevant provision into force on First Reading on 27 November 2023, why is there a two-month delay after Royal Assent? Why not bring the measures into force on Royal Assent?

[Lee Rowley]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his questions. Obviously, as he will know, I do not need to push too heavily the point that we need to get the Bill through this place. We are trying to move it as quickly as we possibly can, but the other place may have other ideas, although I hope that it will not. I hope I can provide assurances that we will try to get these things moving as quickly as possible.

On the hon. Gentleman’s specific point about subsection (2), I thank him for correcting me; it is two months. As I understand it—I am happy to go away and review it—there is a relative convention in these instances. However, given the desire and intention of all parties, including the Secretary of State, to move as quickly as possible, we will see whether we can speed it up.

Question put and agreed to.

Clause 64 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 65

Short Title

Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.

Leasehold and Freehold Reform Bill (Eighth sitting)

Matthew Pennycook Excerpts

Committee stage
Thursday 25th January 2024 Public Bill Committees

[Lee Rowley]

The amendment is consequential on Government new clause 6, which introduces a requirement for landlords to provide a future demand notice under section 20B of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1985 if the landlord has incurred costs and cannot issue a demand for those costs within 18 months. The new clause makes it clear that a future demand notice applies only in respect of variable service charges; as a result, there is no longer a need to include the reference to section 20B(2) in clause 26, which otherwise seeks to provide clarity on what measures apply to all service charges and what measures apply only to variable service charges. I commend the new clause to the Committee.

I turn to clause 26. It is important that all leaseholders have access to appropriate information on what they are paying for and the condition of their building. That will help them to determine whether their landlord is providing an adequate service or whether they are being overcharged. Many landlords already provide a good service; however, some do not, and that must change. The existing regime is geared up to protect leaseholders who pay variable service charges. There are some leaseholders who pay fixed service charges, and those leaseholders do not enjoy the same protections. Leaseholders who pay fixed charges have a right to receive a good-quality service, which means having a better understanding of how their funds are being used, as well as having access to key information on matters that are important to them, as we discussed before we adjourned.

Clause 26 extends part of the regulatory framework on the provision of information to cover leaseholders who pay fixed service charges. Subsection (2) amends section 18 of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1985 to create separate definitions of “service charge” and “variable service charge”. That enables the Government to provide clarity on which provisions in the 1985 Act apply only to variable service charges. Subsections (3) and (4) amend the 1985 Act to ensure that parts of the regulatory regime continue to apply only to leaseholders who pay variable service charges—that includes, for example, the ability to challenge the reasonableness of the service charge under section 19 of the Act. The measure will ensure that leaseholders paying fixed service charges are entitled to receive information of relevance to them. I commend the clause to the Committee.

I return to Government new clause 6. When section 20 major works are undertaken, landlords may require a leaseholder to pay for costs up front or pass on costs to the leaseholder once the work has been carried out. Where leaseholders are charged after work is completed, the leaseholder must be issued with a demand for payment within 18 months of the costs having been incurred or, alternatively, be notified in writing within the 18-month period that they will be liable to pay the costs in the future. Failure to meet one of those two conditions will mean that leaseholders are not liable.

There is no prescribed form or content of a notice under section 20B(2) of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1985, which has led to confusion regarding the meaning and effect of the section, and much case law has followed. It has also left leaseholders with uncertainty on whether they will be required to contribute, the amount of their contribution and when the demand for payment could be served; the new clause seeks to provide clarity on all of those. New clause 6 introduces new subsections (3) to (9) into section 20B of the 1985 Act, which will require landlords to specify the amount of costs incurred, the leaseholder’s expected contribution and the date by which the demand will be served. The intention is to give leaseholders certainty on costs that have been incurred by the landlord, their own individual liability and when they are likely to receive the demand.

The changes to subsections (2) and (3) require landlords to issue a future demand notice when they will be passing costs through the service charge more than 18 months after the costs have been incurred. Subsection (3) defines “future demand notice” as a notice in writing that relevant costs have been incurred, and that the leaseholder is required to contribute towards the cost by payment of a variable service charge. Subsection (4) sets out that the Secretary of State and Welsh Ministers can, by regulations, specify the form of the notice, the information to be included in it and the manner in which the future demand notice must be given to the leaseholder. Subsection (5) details that regulations by the Secretary of State and Welsh Ministers may specify that information to be included in the future demand notice should include an estimate of the costs incurred; an amount that the leaseholder is expected to contribute to those costs; and a date on or before which it is expected that the service charge will be demanded. We will work with landlords, managing agents and leaseholders to set out what a future demand notice may contain, to ensure that regulations require the right level of information.

Subsection (6) sets out that regulations may provide for a relevant rule to apply where the leaseholder has been given a future demand notice and the demand for payment is served more than 18 months after costs were incurred. Subsection (7) sets out the relevant rules and the leaseholder’s liability to pay the service charge where a future demand notice contains estimated costs, an expected contribution or an expected demand date. Subsection (8) also allows the landlord to extend the expected demand date in cases specified by regulations. That might be because of unexpected delays in completing the work, for example. The measures seek to provide leaseholders with more certainty on costs. I commend the new clause to the Committee.

Amendment 46 agreed to.

Clause 26, as amended, ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 27

Service Charge Demands

[Matthew Pennycook (Greenwich and Woolwich) (Lab)]

I beg to move amendment 11, in clause 27, page 43, leave out line 12.

This amendment would remove provision for the appropriate authority to exempt certain categories of landlord from the requirements relating to service charge demands set out in subsection (1) of the clause.

Clause 27 replaces provisions in the 1985 Act with a new provision that imposes a simple requirement on landlords to demand payment of a service charge using a specified form, rather than, as is presently the case, in accordance with the terms under the lease in question—or, in the absence of any such provisions, in any manner that suits them. We very much welcome the clause, which should ensure that service charge demands and annual reports are provided to leaseholders in a standardised format. If it works well, the clause is likely to have the most widespread practical impact of any provision in the Bill, given that many hundreds of thousands of service charge demands each year will have to be in a prescribed form.

The clause will also ensure, by means of inserting proposed new section 21C into the 1985 Act, that where the demand for service charge payments is not in the specified form, containing the specified information and provided to the leaseholder in the specified manner, the lease provisions relating to late or non-payment do not apply to the charge in question, and there is no obligation to pay until they are met. There is also a new sanction for non-compliance, which we will consider in due course. The effectiveness of the provisions in the clause will ultimately rely on enforcement, but new section 21C should ensure that the majority of freeholders and managing agents comply with the requirement to issue a service charge in the standardised form.

We do, however, have two concerns about aspects of the clause. Amendment 11 addresses the first of those concerns, which relates to exemptions from the requirements being introduced. New section 21C(3) confers powers, by regulations subject to the negative procedure, on the appropriate authority to exempt certain landlords. We have reservations about the inclusion of such powers, because they could be used to exempt entire categories of landlords from the requirements set out in subsection (1), and thereby deny large numbers of leaseholders the benefits that they would otherwise secure as a result of their application. Amendment 11 simply deletes subsection (3)(a) to remove the power to provide exemptions from subsection (1) for certain types of landlords. We hope the Minister will consider accepting it. If not, we would be grateful for some clarity on what kind of landlords the Government believe might need to be legitimately exempted from the relevant requirements, and some reassurance that the power will be used sparingly and in an extremely limited manner.

[Lee Rowley]

I thank the shadow Minister for his amendment. We will resist it for reasons that I will give, and I hope I can reassure him to the extent that he does not seek to push it to a vote. I am happy to give at least one instance of a good reason for exempting landlords now or in future: there are cases where it may be too costly or disproportionate to expect a landlord to provide this degree of information, or where doing so is unnecessary. An example that I was not aware of before I was told is a freeholder of two flats who resides in one of them; that is known as a Tyneside or criss-cross lease, which became common in the north-east of England in the 19th century. Given the limited number of people who live in there, and the reason for that structure, we would deem it unnecessary to provide this form, hence the ability to exempt.

However, to address the hon. Gentleman’s key point, notwithstanding individual exemptions, I am happy to place on record that once we have consulted, understood people’s views, taken on the broad range of views about this, and potentially found other things like criss-cross leases, we would expect any list to be very small indeed. We share the clear hope that the power will be used only where it is absolutely necessary, and certainly not to the extent that the hon. Gentleman fears. I hope that, on that basis, he may consider withdrawing his amendment.

[Matthew Pennycook]

I thank the Minister for that response. I was also unaware of criss-cross or Tyneside leases, although the Opposition Whip, my hon. Friend the Member for North Tyneside, indicated to me during the Minister’s remarks that she used to live in one, so she will have some familiarity with them. On the basis of the Minister’s response, and given the reassurances that he has provided, I am happy to withdraw the amendment. It is our hope that the measure will apply to very limited categories of landlord, and I think that the Minister indicated as much, so very few leaseholds will be exempt from the requirements. On that basis, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

[Lee Rowley]

I beg to move amendment 47, in clause 27, page 43, line 24, after “1987” insert “(‘the LTA 1987’)”

This amendment and Amendment 54 align references to the Landlord and Tenant Act 1987 with other references to Acts.

[Lee Rowley]

Amendments 47 and 54 are required because of new clause 9, which amends the Landlord and Tenant Act 1987. They ensure that references to the Landlord and Tenant Act 1987 are aligned with other references to Acts, by adopting the abbreviated reference. Amendment 124 is consequential on amendments 47 and 54; it aligns references to the Landlord and Tenant Act 1987 with other references to Acts in the Bill. I commend these amendments to the Committee.

Amendment 47 agreed to.

[Matthew Pennycook]

I beg to move amendment 12, in clause 27, page 43, line 38, at end insert—

“(c) in section 48 (notification by landlord of address for service of notices), after subsection (3) insert—

‘(3A) Subsections (2) and (3) do not apply in relation to a written demand for payment of a service charge if section 21C of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1985 requires the demand to include information which subsection (1) also requires to be provided to the tenant.’”

This amendment would ensure consistency between the information requirements provided for by Clause 27 and specific contractual requirements set out in leases.

Amendment 12 addresses our second concern with clause 27, which relates to consistency between it and existing contractual requirements. This issue came to our attention purely as a result of written evidence—actually, to be precise, I think it was as a result of a blog post—from Mark Loveday of Tanfield Chambers. He drew attention to the fact that the amended provisions in this clause are likely to supplement, rather than replace, contractual requirements in some existing leases about the form of demands for payment. There is therefore potentially a risk of confusion and duplication. Mr Loveday also highlighted the overlap between provisions in the 1987 Act relating to the information to be furnished to tenants, and the fact that clause 23(4) does not disapply the information requirements of section 48 of the 1987 Act.

I throw my hands up: this is far from my most elegantly drafted amendment. It is simply an attempt to probe the Government on the consistency between the information requirements provided for by this clause and provisions in 1987 Act relating to specific contractual requirements set out in leases. I look forward to hearing the Minister’s thoughts on the amendment, and on the general need to ensure complete consistency between the measures being introduced by clauses 26 to 30 and those in the 1985 and 1987 Acts that set out the main limitations on variable service charges in residential leases.

[Lee Rowley]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his amendment. The advice that I have received is that the amendment is unnecessary. Sections 47 and 48 of the 1987 Act already prescribe that landlords must give details of their name, and an address in England or Wales where they can be served with notices, when making a demand for rent or other sums, including service charges. Clause 27(4) provides clarity on the fact that if there is an overlap between information required under proposed new section 21C of the LTA 1985 and the obligations under the 1987 Act, proposed new section 21C takes precedence. For example, if the new standardised service charge demand form requires a landlord to give the same information as is provided under sections 47 and 48 of the 1987 Act, proposed new section 21C would take precedence, and failure to provide the information would be dealt with by the provisions of the proposed new section.

Critically, the new standardised demand form will not restrict the amount of information that must be provided with a demand. Landlords will be able to provide additional information on the demand form if they wish. That may include any information set out in the lease. Unless we have missed something, we believe that, for that reason, the amendment is unnecessary, and request that it be withdrawn.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lee Rowley]

I recognise that in some instance it is an incredibly frustrating process to go through. As I know the hon. Gentleman will appreciate, this is a pretty technical element of policy. The assurances that I have received from officials and experts involved is that the legislation should cover those bases. There will always be challenges around finding people and going through operational processes. There will be challenges in finding people who do not want to be found easily, but ultimately the law is clear that they need to be found. From that perspective, I think that the law is sufficient. We do not think anything has been missed, but if something has, we will happily receive further correspondence and consider it.

[Matthew Pennycook]

I will be brief. My hon. Friend the Member for Brent North raises an interesting point. Can the Minister—if not now, then perhaps in writing—expand on whether, where a landlord has not complied with the relevant requirements, proposed new section 21C means that the provisions relating to late or non-payment do not apply? Does it provide that level of protection? The hope is that it does.

On the general point, I welcome the clarification and assurances that the Minister has provided. On that basis, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Question proposed, That the clause, as amended, stand part of the Bill.

[Lee Rowley]

Service charge demands are one of the most important ways in which leaseholders receive information from their landlord, as we have been discussing. Under current arrangements, landlords are required to issue any service charge demand in accordance with the terms of the lease, or otherwise in a manner that suits them. That has led to variable practice in the sector, which has often been to the detriment of the leaseholder, who then gets confused about what they are paying for and has to spend time chasing the landlord for more information.

Proposed new section 21C enables the Secretary of State and Welsh Ministers to prescribe a standard form and the information that it should contain. We will work closely with leaseholders, landlords and managing agents to ensure that we prescribe both the right information and the right level of detail. Proposed new section 21C(2) makes it clear that a failure to provide information in the new standard format will mean that the leaseholder does not have to pay the charge until the failure is remedied, and any provisions in the lease for non-payment will not apply. The Secretary of State will also have the power to create any exemptions if our work with stakeholders demonstrates that there is a good case for any landlord being excluded, either now or in the future.

Clause 27(2) omits existing legislation relating to obtaining information on a summary of costs, as well as other unimplemented legislation surrounding service charge demands. Those measures will be superseded by the provisions we are implementing in part 3 of the Bill, so it is not necessary to retain them. That measure, alongside others, should ensure that landlords provide relevant information to leaseholders, and I commend the clause to the Committee.

Question put and agreed to.

Clause 27, as amended, accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 28

Accounts and annual reports

--- Later in debate ---

[Barry Gardiner]

Amendment 131 would enable leaseholders to withhold service charge payments where the landlord has failed to comply with their obligation to provide a written statement of account in the specified form and manner within the six-month period from the end of the financial year that is specified in the legislation. Arguably, it is more important for leaseholders that the accounts are presented in time than that they are presented in a specific form. I welcome what the Government have done to make sure that accounts are presented in a specific form, but the real crux of the matter is: are they presented in time? The amendment would enable leaseholders to have redress if they were not.

We heard in the evidence sessions of that huge imbalance of power in the leasehold system. Given that the Government already accept the principle of leaseholders withholding service charge moneys where they have not been demanded by a landlord in the right way, surely we should rebalance that imbalance of power in the landlord-tenant relationship in leasehold by permitting them to withhold service charges when they are not forthcoming within that allotted time. I believe that policy was also in the 2002 Act, but again, as with the provisions on sinking funds, it was not brought into force.

I also welcome amendments 13 and 14. Certainly, the former achieves something similar—maybe even better. If the Minister were able to give me an assurance that he were willing to accept amendment 13, tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Greenwich and Woolwich, I might even be persuaded to withdraw amendment 131.

[Matthew Pennycook]

I rise to speak to speak to amendments 13 and 14. As I think my hon. Friend the Member for Brent North just touched upon, clause 28 inserts new sections 21D and 21E into the 1985 Act to create a new requirement for a written statement of account to be provided by landlords within six months of the end of the 12-month accounting period for which variable service charges apply. It also places an obligation on landlords to provide an annual report to leaseholders. We welcome the clause, as did my hon. Friend the Member for Brent North, for the reasons discussed in the evidence sessions last week. The 2002 attempt to mandate a form of regular service charge accounts and statements was ultimately unsuccessful, with the replacement section 21 of the 1985 Act never brought into force. As a result, service charge processes remain unstandardised.

A staggering range of different procedures are being used across the country. Some leases specify the form that annual budgets and accounts must take, while others do not. Some require certification by the freeholder, managing agent, management company, accountant or auditor, while others do not. Some prescribe deadlines by which budgets or accounts must be produced and make adherence to those conditions a precedent to liability to pay a service charge, while others do not.

Clause 28 clearly seeks to overhaul this fragmented patchwork of arrangements by introducing the new section 21D, making annual accounts and certification by a qualified accountant a mandatory requirement and, through new section 21E, introducing a statutory duty to provide leaseholders with an annual report about their service charges. By introducing the mandatory requirements that it does, new section 21D(2) implies a term into leases of dwellings with variable service charge provisions.

In our view, the decision to imply terms raises a number of questions and concerns. First, do the implied terms of new section 21D replace any equivalent existing provisions in the lease? If not, landlords and managers will potentially be forced to prepare two sets of accounts: one under the existing terms of the lease and the other under the new implied terms in section 21D. Secondly, why are no express sanctions for non-compliance included in new section 21D? That point was raised by Amanda Gourlay in the Committee evidence sessions.

Given that the implied terms are not covered by the enforcement provisions in new section 25A—provided for by clause 30—surely it is not the Government’s intention to require leaseholders to apply for specific performance through the courts when it comes to this matter. Thirdly, despite the clause including no right to recover implied costs, there is a risk that some landlords will nevertheless seek to recover the extra costs of complying with these requirements through service charges. Can we be sure that leaseholders will not find themselves picking up the bill for complying with the new mandatory requirements? I would welcome the Minister’s response to each of those questions and concerns, in writing if he is not able to address each in detail today—they are very specific and technical.

Perhaps the more significant question that arises from the decision to imply terms by means of new section 21D is whether the landlord’s compliance with those terms will be treated by the courts and the tribunal as a condition precedent to the lessee’s obligation to pay their service charges. We believe it is important that it is made clear in the Bill that compliance with the implied terms in question is a condition precedent to the lessee’s obligation to pay their service charges and that, by implication, leaseholders are not required to pay if the landlord does not comply with the implied terms. Amendments 13 and 14 would have that effect, with the same desired outcomes as the welcome amendment 131, in the name of my hon. Friend the Member for Brent North, but without the tribunal potentially having to arrive at a judgment on the state of mind of the leaseholder who is withholding their charge. I hope the Minister will accept those amendments as a means of providing the necessary clarification.

[Lee Rowley]

I thank the hon. Members for Brent North and for Greenwich and Woolwich for their amendments.

Amendment 131, in the name of the hon. Member for Brent North, seeks to enable leaseholders to withhold payment of their service charges when accounts are not provided within six months. I absolutely agree with the sentiment that information must be provided in a timely manner, and that there have to be consequences for not doing so. However, the question is whether withholding the service charge is a proportionate and effective means of doing so; the effective question is whether the risk of doing so creates unintended consequences. For example, were a leaseholder to withhold payments in circumstances where it is found that section 21D had been complied with, that may render the leaseholder liable to pay their landlord’s litigation costs, depending on the terms of the lease. Withholding payments also creates consequences for other leaseholders and may eventually mean that works are not carried out. I recognise that that is not the intention or the point that the hon. Gentleman is making, but in the portion that we are looking at, it is important that we consider all potential unintended consequences.

Services of certified accounts will, for most landlords, be a necessary step for a landlord to identify whether they have spent more than estimated during the accounting period and, where the costs incurred during that period are more than was estimated, the landlord will wish to serve a further demand to recover the shortfall. It is in the landlord’s interest to do that, but I recognise that not all landlords act in a completely rational way or a way that necessarily follows logic. Should a landlord, however, fail to issue a demand for costs within 18 months of those costs having been incurred, then through new clause 6, the leaseholder would not be liable to contribute towards those costs at all.

I realise that that answer will probably not address every part of the concern expressed by the hon. Member for Brent North; it is the same as when I applied that logic to the amendment in the name of the hon. Member for Greenwich and Woolwich. However, I hope it demonstrates both that we are clear that it should be done—that there is a logic, an incentive and a rationale for it to be done—and that there is ultimately a cliff at the end of it, a cut-off point in the event that they do not do it. I hope that provides some assurances; I will see whether that is enough to tempt the hon. Member for Brent North to withdraw his amendment.

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[Barry Gardiner]

I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

[Matthew Pennycook]

Mr Efford, may I respond to the Minister’s comments on amendment 13?

[The Chair]

No, you have missed that chance, I am afraid. We are in the votes.

[Matthew Pennycook]

In that case, I will press the amendment to a vote without justifying it.

Amendment proposed: 13, in clause 28, page 45, line 4, at end insert—

“(8) Where a landlord of any such premises fails to comply with the terms implied into a lease by subsection (2), any rent, service charge or administration charge otherwise due from the tenant to the landlord shall be treated for all purposes as not being due from the tenant to the landlord at any time before the landlord does comply with those subsections.”—(Matthew Pennycook.)

This amendment would require courts and tribunals to treat the landlord’s compliance with the implied term requirement for annual accounts and certification as a condition precedent to the lessee’s obligation to pay their service charges.

Question put, That the amendment be made.

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[Lee Rowley]

We have already talked about this, but in summary, most landlords are required under the terms of the lease to provide leaseholders with a written statement of accounts. Where leaseholders feel they have not been provided with sufficient information, they may ask for a written summary of costs for the past accounting period or, if the accounts have not been made up, for the period of 12 months ending with the date of the request.

We know that the current arrangements, as we have just discussed, do not provide adequate statutory protection. Although many landlords provide their leaseholders with sufficient information, others fail to do so. Subsection (2) of clause 28 introduces two new measures to address that. Proposed new section 21D of the 1987 Act implies into leases a new requirement for landlords who charge variable service charges and manage blocks of four or more dwellings. The threshold reflects existing arrangements for the preparation of a summary of costs. We are placing an obligation on such landlords to provide a written statement of account to leaseholders within six months of the end of the 12-month accounting period. This statement must be certified by a qualified accountant.

[Matthew Pennycook]

The Minister provides me with the opportunity to get my justification in, but, without going through it, he can answer the question that underpinned amendments 13 and 14 by simply telling me whether the decision to imply terms, as new section 21D does, means that a landlord’s compliance with them is to be treated as a condition precedent to the lessee’s obligation to pay their service charges.

[Lee Rowley]

I am grateful to the shadow Minister for his question, and, because of its specifical legal and technical nature, I will write to him. I know that members of the Committee may wish to seek assurances about the word “arising”, which was referenced in evidence last week. I am happy to give the assurance that we will consult accountants on to how to present these service charge accounts, which I hope will mean that there is a process to ensure that any necessary clarification of particular terminology will be clear to those who operate within it.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lee Rowley]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. One of the reasons why I want to write is that I want to ensure that the specific elements and substantive parts of the concept of audit are represented to the Committee in the most accurate way. We have to strike a balance by ensuring that sufficient information is made available for decisions to be made, but equally we cannot create a process that is so involved, for what I am sure are very good reasons, that it would be disproportionate, and then create a whole heap of new consequences on the other side, which is what we are trying to avoid.

To conclude, new section 21E places an obligation on landlords to provide an annual report. For service charges, that report must be provided within one month of starting a 12-month accounting period, although it can be provided earlier if it is expedient to do so. Both new sections allow the Secretary of State, as we have already discussed, and Welsh Ministers to prescribe the detailed content in secondary legislation. We will work closely with interested parties when we come to do that. Subsections (3) and (4) make consequential changes to the definition of “qualified accountant” under sections 28 and 39 of the 1985 Act to reflect these new sections. I commend the clause to the Committee.

Question put and agreed to.

Clause 28 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 29

Right to obtain information on request

[Matthew Pennycook]

I beg to move amendment 15, in clause 29, page 46, line 19, at end insert—

“(3) Information specified for the purposes of section (1) must include accruals and prepayments and digital copies of service charge accounts.”

This amendment would ensure that regulations made by the appropriate authority must provide tenants with the right to accruals and prepayments and digital copies of service charge accounts.

As things stand, leaseholders only enjoy the right to request a summary of relevant costs and inspect supporting documentation in relation to such a summary. Barring a disclosure order made during tribunal proceedings, there are few direct means for leaseholders to secure relevant information. Clause 29 makes a series of changes to the 1985 Act to provide for a new stand-alone right for leaseholders to request information from their landlord, and we welcome it.

Precisely what such a right will entail will largely be set out in regulations that will presumably not only specify the relevant categories of information that can be requested and obtained, but the relevant timelines for compliance. We take no issue in principle with the detail being brought forward by statutory instrument—for obvious reasons—but we have tabled amendment 15 to ensure that the information that ultimately can be lawfully requested by leaseholders under clause 29 includes accruals and prepayments, as well as digital copies of service charge accounts.

We feel that statutory access to accruals and prepayments is vital because they are prepared on a true and fair basis and are necessary to understand most service charge accounts. The case for ensuring that service charge account information can be accessed by leaseholders in a digital format is, we hope, self-evident. I hope the Minister will consider accepting the amendment or, if he feels that he cannot, will at least provide the Committee with robust assurances that the relevant regulations will in due course specifically include accruals and prepayments and digital copies of accounts in the categories of information that can be requested.

[Lee Rowley]

I do not seek to detain the Committee, and I hope the hon. Gentleman will accept my short response. I am not disregarding the substantive points of the amendment, but some of them we have discussed before. I accept that this is an important area and we have to get it right. We must make sure that the information prescribed in the process works and is comprehensive enough for people to get a true understanding of what is going on and proportionate enough to make it meaningful and not incur unnecessary costs. I agree with the hon. Member that leaseholders should have access to the relevant financial information and that that information should be clearly understood and articulated so that people can derive decisions and comfort from it.

The Government prefer that the detail is prescribed in secondary legislation and are committed to consulting. It is fair to say that the details will be key parts of a discussion about the feasibility of inclusion in the final decision when it is made.

[Matthew Pennycook]

I welcome that response from the Minister. On that basis, I am happy to beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

[Matthew Pennycook]

I beg to move amendment 16, in clause 29, page 48, leave out lines 1 to 8 and insert—

“(4) P may not charge R any sum in excess of the prescribed amount in respect of the costs incurred by P in doing anything required under section 21F or this section.

(5) The prescribed amount means an amount specified in regulations by the appropriate authority; and such regulations may prescribe different amounts for different activities.

(6) If P is a landlord, P may not charge the tenant for the costs of allowing the tenant access to premises to inspect information (but may charge for the making of copies).”

This amendment would make the appropriate authority (i.e. the Secretary of State or the Welsh Ministers) responsible for setting a prescribed amount for the costs of providing information to leaseholders. That prescribed amount would be the maximum amount that freeholders and managing agents employed by them could seek to recover through a service charge.

[The Chair]

With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:

Amendment 132, in clause 29, page 48, leave out lines 1 and 2.

This amendment would prevent a landlord from recovering the costs of complying with the requirements to provide information imposed by new sections 21F and 21G.

Amendment 133, in clause 29, page 48, line 3, leave out “But,”.

This amendment is consequential on Amendment 132.

[Matthew Pennycook]

Arguably of more importance in ensuring that clause 29 is beneficial to leaseholders than the type of information that they will henceforth have the right to request and what form it is shared in is the need to protect them from excessive charges levied for providing that information. As it stands, subsection (4) of new section 21G of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1985 would allow person P to charge person R for the costs of doing anything required under new section 21F or this new section, while subsection (6) renders those costs relevant for the purposes of a variable service charge. In other words, new section 21F includes an implied right for landlords to recover the costs of supplying the relevant categories of information to leaseholders through the service charges, with penalties for non-compliance under clause 30.

We obviously do not take issue with the right to recover reasonable costs of complying with the mandatory requirements introduced by the clause, but there is an obvious risk, given everything we know about how some landlords in the market operate, that some will charge excessive fees for supplying that information. We have tabled amendment 16 to give the Secretary of State the power, just as the Bill provides for in other respects, to set prescribed amounts with a view to ensuring that leaseholders are not subject to unreasonable costs should they feel they need to request certain categories of information. I hope the Minister can understand the very simple point that the amendment is driving at and will consider accepting it.

[Lee Rowley]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for moving amendment 16. He does not deny that landlords will incur a cost for answering information requests. The level of cost will vary, depending on the volume of information, the complexity, the period, the timeline and a number of other factors. There may be difficulties in obtaining all that information. Landlords may also incur a cost in chasing other people who hold the information required to answer a leaseholder’s request, notwithstanding our earlier conversations about the reasonableness of the costs for talking to other parties.

Given the variety of different scenarios, we start from a place in which it is very difficult to set a cap that would not create another unintended consequence somewhere else. None the less, I note the hon. Gentleman’s concern and am happy to confirm that we are listening very carefully on this matter, but I hope he might consider withdrawing the amendment.

[Lee Rowley]

I will not detain the Committee, because my response will be similar to the one I gave to the hon. Member for Greenwich and Woolwich.

We accept the broad point made by the hon. Member for Brent North but, for the reasons I outlined previously, we think it would be difficult to do this. There is at least an argument that proportionality has to be considered. However, I am happy to confirm that we are listening very carefully. On that basis, I hope the hon. Member for Greenwich and Woolwich may be willing to withdraw amendment 16.

[Matthew Pennycook]

I appreciate what the Minister has said, both about the variety of circumstances that need to be covered and about the difficulties with imposing a flat cap. I take on board what he said about the Government listening carefully.

I am minded to press the amendment to a vote purely to indicate how strongly we feel about this issue. The thrust of the five provisions is, “Let’s increase transparency and let’s increase the enforcement measures,” all ultimately to ensure that leaseholders have a better ability to bear down on unreasonable costs, and it is of great concern to us that while we are trying to do that, we are opening up other routes whereby unscrupulous landlords can start to introduce unreasonable costs in relation to the very things that we are trying to clamp down on. We will press the amendment to a vote simply to put on the record our concern in respect of leaseholders needing some protection—even if it is not a flat cap—from unreasonable costs being passed on through this mechanism.

Question put, That the amendment be made.

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[Lee Rowley]

As I outlined in relation to clause 28, the Government accept that the current arrangements do not provide adequate statutory protection. In addition to the measures set out in clauses 26 to 28 to drive up transparency, clause 29 introduces new provisions to enable leaseholders to request information from their landlord or a third party who holds relevant information. Subsection (2) introduces proposed new section 21F of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1985, which sets out provisions that enable leaseholders to receive information on request. That information may relate to

“service charges, or…services, repairs, maintenance, improvements, insurance, or management of dwellings.”

One example might be a stock condition report for the building. Landlords will be obliged to provide information that they have in their possession, and where they need to ask another person for it, that person is required to do the same.

Proposed new section 21G provides further details on information requests under section 21F. It allows a leaseholder to request that they inspect a document and make and remove a copy of the information. Section 21G also provides that landlords may not charge the leaseholder for providing facilities for access, although they can charge for the making of copies. Alternatively, the landlord can pass the reasonable costs of any inspection through the service charge. This section allows the Secretary of State and Welsh Ministers to specify the time period for providing such information, circumstances in which that period may be extended and how the information is to be provided.

Proposed new section 21H provides that where the lease is assigned, the obligation to provide the information requested under section 21F must still be complied with. However, the person obliged to provide the information is not required to provide the same information in respect of the same dwelling more than once.

Question put and agreed to.

Clause 29 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 30

Enforcement of duties relating to service charges

[Matthew Pennycook]

I beg to move amendment 19, in clause 30, page 49, line 15, leave out “damages” and insert “penalties”.

This amendment, together with Amendments 20 to 25, would make clear that the sum to be paid to the tenant in circumstances where a landlord failed to comply with duties relating to service charges is a punishment rather than a recompense for loss to the leaseholder thus ensuring it is not necessary to provide proof of financial loss. See also Amendments 17 and 18.

[The Chair]

With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:

Amendment 20, in clause 30, page 49, line 27, leave out “damages” and insert “penalties”.

See explanatory statement to Amendment 19.

Amendment 21, in clause 30, page 49, line 30, leave out “Damages” and insert “Penalties”.

See explanatory statement to Amendment 19.

Amendment 22, in clause 30, page 49, line 34, leave out “damages” and insert “penalties”.

See explanatory statement to Amendment 19.

Amendment 23, in clause 30, page 49, line 39, leave out “damages” and insert “penalties”.

See explanatory statement to Amendment 19.

Amendment 24, in clause 30, page 49, line 41, leave out “damages” and insert “penalties”.

See explanatory statement to Amendment 19.

Amendment 25, in clause 30, page 50, line 2, leave out “damages” and insert “penalties”.

See explanatory statement to Amendment 19.

Amendment 134, in clause 30, page 49, line 29, at end insert—

“(4A) An order under subsection (2)(c) or (4)(c) may include an order that the landlord remedy any breach revealed by the application in respect of any other leaseholder.

(4B) Where the tribunal makes on order under subsection (4A), the tribunal may make an order that the landlord, or (as the case may be) D, pay damages to any other leaseholder in respect of whom a breach revealed by the application must be remedied.”

This amendment would enable a tribunal to order the remedy of a breach in respect of, and damages to be paid to, a leaseholder affected by a breach revealed by the application to the tribunal, even if that leaseholder is not a party to the litigation.

[Matthew Pennycook]

Clause 30 substitutes existing section 25 of the 1985 Act, which includes penal provisions dealing with any failure to comply with the relevant provisions, with proposed new section 25A, which decriminalises the sanctions and applies a new enforcement regime. The new enforcement regime will allow a tenant to apply to the appropriate tribunal in instances in which their landlord did not demand a service charge payment in accordance with section 21C under clause 27, failed to provide a report in accordance with section 21E under clause 28, or failed to provide information in accordance with sections 21F and 21G under clause 29. The tribunal will have the power to issue an order that the landlord comply with the relevant provision within 14 days and that they pay a fine of up to £5,000 to the applicant, or other consequential orders.

We welcome the new enforcement regime, but we have three main concerns about how it will operate in practice. With amendments 19 to 25, we seek to address the first of those concerns, which is our fear that the use throughout clause 30 of the term “damages” may imply that leaseholders are required to provide proof of financial loss for the tribunal to order that the landlord pay a fine for failing to comply with one or more of the modified requirements introduced in clauses 27 to 29. The risk that the tribunal takes that view, and thus stipulates that proof of financial prejudice is required, is real, as we have seen with the reforms made to section 20 of the 1985 Act. We tabled this group of amendments to encourage the Government to consider replacing “damages” throughout the clause with “penalties” to make it explicit that an order for failing to comply with requirements under sections 21C, 21E, 21F or 21G of the 1985 Act requires no proof of financial loss on the part of leaseholders. I look forward to hearing the Minister’s thoughts.

[Lee Rowley]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for amendments 19 to 25, with which, as he indicated, he seeks to adds clarity that any sums paid to the leaseholder where there is a failure to comply are a punishment rather than a recompense for loss. As the Committee is aware, clause 30 will replace the existing and ineffective enforcement measures for failure to provide information with new, more effective and more proportionate measures. That includes allowing the leaseholder to make an application to the appropriate tribunal in cases where landlords have failed to provide the necessary service charge information.

It is the Government’s view that the tribunal is the appropriate body to handle such disputes and to determine whether the landlord has failed in their duties, and whether subsequently they are required to pay damages to the leaseholder. In reaching its decision and ordering that damages be paid, the tribunal need only be satisfied on the balance of probabilities that the landlord breached the relevant section. If a financial penalty were applied, the appropriate tribunal would need to be satisfied beyond reasonable doubt that the landlord had breached the relevant section.

While I understand the hon. Gentleman’s point on the use of the term “damages”, I am advised that its use does not mean that evidence of financial loss is required. Therefore, in aggregate, we consider that financially recompensing the affected leaseholder by way of the payment of damages is both a suitable incentive for the leaseholder to bring the application and a suitable deterrent for landlords, while aligning with the tribunal’s powers.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lee Rowley]

I am happy to ask the Department to look into that in further detail. I have no personal understanding of whether that would be possible or reasonable and proportionate and not have a series of other consequences, but it is reasonable to look into it further.

[Matthew Pennycook]

Briefly, I welcome what the Minister said on the issue of damages versus penalties. It could be another word than “penalty”, but I hope the point that the amendment tried to make was understood. I am not certain, because I, like him, do not have expertise in the area, whether “damages” could be misinterpreted by a tribunal, notwithstanding what he said. I encourage the Minister to go away and ensure that the reassurance he has given—it is on the record and can be referred to, which is helpful—is understood and cannot be misinterpreted. I think we share the same end: this must be punishment rather than recompense, and leaseholders cannot be expected to provide proof of financial loss. If, as the Minister has indicated, that is the shared intention, I am happy to ask leave to withdraw the amendment, but I hope he will go away and reassure himself further that the tribunal can have no confusion on that point. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

[Matthew Pennycook]

I beg to move amendment 17, in clause 30, page 49, line 30, leave out “£5,000” and insert “£30,000”.

This amendment would raise the cap on penalties under this section (see explanatory statement to Amendment 19) for a failure to comply with duties relating to service charges to £30,000.

[The Chair]

With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:

Amendment 142, in clause 30, page 49, line 30, leave out “£5,000” and insert “£50,000”.

This amendment would increase from £5,000 to £50,000 the maximum amount of damages which may be awarded for a failure on the part of a landlord to comply with the obligations imposed by new sections 21C (service charge demands), 21E (annual reports), or 21F or 21G (right to obtain information on request) of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1985.

Amendment 18, in clause 30, page 49, line 30, at end insert—

“(6) Penalties under this section must be at least £1,000.”

This amendment would insert a floor on penalties under this section (see explanatory statement to Amendment 19) of £1,000.

[Matthew Pennycook]

Amendments 17 and 18 address our remaining main two concerns about the clause. The first concern, to which we will return when we consider penalties in relation to part 4 of the Bill, is that we are not convinced that a penalty cap of £5,000 is a sufficient deterrent against non-compliance with the requirements in question. For many—not all, but many—landlords, a penalty of £5,000 will be very easily absorbed. The degree to which the sanctions in proposed new section 25A to the Landlord and Tenant Act 1985 bite would obviously be improved if the penalty cap of £5,000 applied to all leaseholders partaking in any given application, rather than them having to share an amount up to £5,000 between them. My reading of proposed new section 25A(5) is that the fine would apply to each person making an application on grounds that the landlord has failed to comply with a relevant requirement, but I would be grateful if the Minister would clarify that point. Is it a single fine, or is it a fine that would apply to each leaseholder involved?

However, even if a fine of up to £5,000 could be awarded to multiple leaseholders, we still question whether it is sufficient—I think that is a point that is worthy of debate. Labour is minded to believe a more appropriate threshold for penalties paid under proposed new section 25A—I remind the Committee that penalties are awarded at the discretion of the tribunal, so they are not automatic—would be £30,000, thereby aligning penalties in the Bill with other leasehold law, such as financial penalties for breach of section 3(1) of the Leasehold Reform (Ground Rent) Act 2022. Amendment 17 proposes such a cap, although we would certainly consider an even higher limit, such as the £50,000 proposed by the hon. Member for North East Bedfordshire.

Secondly, Labour thinks that the functioning of the new enforcement regime would be improved by specifying a floor on penalties in the Bill. In making clear that non-compliance with the relevant requirements will always elicit a fine, landlords will be incentivised to comply. Amendment 18 proposes that penalties under this section must be at least £1,000, with the implication that the tribunal would determine what award to make between the range of £1,000 and £30,000 for each breach. I look forward to the Minister’s response to each amendment.

[Richard Fuller]

I am tempted to frame page 25 of today’s amendment paper, because it includes the shadow Minister’s amendment 17, which would increase the penalties from £5,000 to £30,000, and my amendment 142, which would increase them from £5,000 to £50,000. I thought it was usually the Conservative party that is pro-business and tries to keep costs on business low, but then I recalled that these penalties apply to people doing something wrong, and of course the Labour party is always soft on criminals.

Seriously, though, the shadow Minister and I have a clear intent, which I am sure is shared by the Minister. A lot of the measures in this part of the Bill are trying desperately to unpick complicated things and rebalance them in favour of people who own their own home but do not run a large business, or people with small financial interests, where there are 30 or 40 of them against one person with a significant financial interest that covers all those people. In trying to rebalance things here, we all want to ensure that these measures are as effective as possible and that there is enough encouragement to ensure that the good practice the Government want to see can be done effectively.

The concern that I share with the shadow Minister is that the current levels of penalties just look like a cost of doing business. [Interruption.] Indeed! The hon. Member for Brent North has just slapped himself on the wrist, which is probably how many businesses will see it.

Can I gird the Minister’s loins and encourage him to take up his shield and his sword of righteousness in defence of individual leaseholders and say, “This amount is too low. We shall change the legislation. This party and this Government stand to make the intent of what we will do to truly bite on those who are doing wrong”?

[Lee Rowley]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for North East Bedfordshire and the hon. Member for Greenwich and Woolwich for tabling their amendments. I share their basic conceptual desire, and that of other Committee members, for people or organisations that have done the wrong things to be held to account. There should be penalties that recognise that they have done the wrong thing. The challenge is always going to be where we draw the line.

I recognise that there are multiple parts of the menu on offer. Notwithstanding the very valid points that have been made, it is important not to lose sight of the fact that the Government are doubling the number from £2,500 to £5,000. Individual right hon. and hon. Members will take different views throughout this process and beyond on whether that is proportionate or whether it should be higher or lower. We think we have struck a proportionate balance.

I will add to the record, for consideration, the importance of the potential for unintended consequences. The response will quite rightly be that it will ultimately be for the tribunal to determine how much to apportion and how to use any changed option. There is a scenario in which the potential penalty on the freeholder, or the party being taken to the tribunal, becomes so great and the hazard becomes so visible that the freeholder starts to oppose it with even more objections, difficulties and the like.

I am making quite a nuanced argument, and Members may feel that I am overthinking this, but we have to be cautious not inadvertently to create a process that emboldens freeholders to fight even harder because of the potential hazard and because they feel that they may be exposed to a fine larger than would be reasonable and proportionate. However, I take the point about the challenge of setting the penalty in the right place. The Government’s view is that the increase from £2,500 to £5,000 is a step forward. That is what we are proposing to this Committee. As a result, we will resist the amendments.

[Matthew Pennycook]

To clarify whether my reading of proposed new section 25A(5) of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1985 is right, is the penalty a single amount that is shared, or an amount per challenge? This is important.

--- Later in debate ---

[Matthew Pennycook]

The Minister’s response was quite disappointing. I think he has made it clear that it is per challenge per group, so what is the incentive for a large group of leaseholders to press the dispute if the potential amount of the share that they are going to get is £100, or even £50? It might be a low amount. [Interruption.] No, it could be. It is a share of the challenge; if there are 100 leaseholders in the challenge, they get a maximum of £5,000 to share between them unless they make multiple challenges. That is my reading of what the Minister has just said.

[Richard Fuller]

Bearing in mind that this is an intervention—

[Richard Fuller]

I think the shadow Minister is mixing two things up when he says that people get a share. The issue here is about changing the behaviour of the person who is doing wrong, not “I’m going to get this much money out of it.” The incentive is for the person who is doing wrong. Does the shadow Minister agree with the point made by the hon. Member for Brent North about clogging up the system: why would 150 people put one challenge in when they could put 150 challenges in?

[Matthew Pennycook]

I take the point, and I understand what the hon. Gentleman is driving at: there is the very real risk of clogging up the system with multiple challenges if leaseholders are sophisticated enough to understand the provisions of the clause and work out that the best thing they can do is submit multiple challenges. I do not think that most will. There is therefore a detrimental impact on the incentives for leaseholders to try to dispute these matters.

Coming back to the fundamental point of whether this will change the behaviour of landlords when it comes to compliance, though, I think the hon. Gentleman is right: the figure of £5,000 is too low. I have had this debate so many times with Government Ministers. We had it on the Renters (Reform) Bill: the maximum that local authorities can charge for certain breaches of that Bill is £5,000. Most landlords will take that as a risk of doing business.

[Barry Gardiner]

An operational cost.

[Matthew Pennycook]

It is operational. It can be absorbed on the rare occasion that it will be charged, so we think that amount should be higher. Ultimately, as the hon. Member for North East Bedfordshire said, we have to make clear that we are very serious about the sanctions in this new section biting appropriately. For that reason, although I am not going to push the amendment to a vote at this stage, it is a matter that we might have to come back to. It applies to part 4 of the Bill—to residential freeholders—equally, and it is important that we get it right and convince the Government to look at this matter again. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

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[Matthew Pennycook]

I will be fairly brief, because my hon. Friend covered a lot of detail. He is right to do so, because these are important clauses. We welcome the intent behind them, and we think they have the potential to address a very serious problem that has plagued leaseholders across the country for many years. Not just those in buildings with fire safety defects who have seen their insurance premiums soar in the aftermath of the Grenfell fire, but across the board, we are seeing leaseholders face unreasonable and in many cases extortionate buildings insurance commissions that the property managing agent, landlords and freeholders have charged through the service charge. We discussed this in our evidence sessions last week. The Financial Conduct Authority’s report of September last year on the subject of insurance for multi-occupancy buildings found evidence of high commission rates and poor practice, which were “not consistent” with driving fair value to the customer.

The FCA also found—I put this question to one of the witnesses in our evidence sessions, because I find it quite staggering—that the mean absolute value of commissions more than doubled between 2016 and 2021 for managing agents and freeholders of buildings with fire safety defects. Put simply, in far too many instances, managing agents, landlords and freeholders have been gouging leaseholders in this area with impunity. In practice, the effectiveness of this clause will hinge almost entirely on whether the definition of “excluded insurance costs” is sufficiently tightly drawn, and how we define “permitted insurance payments” for the purposes of specifying what payments can be charged.

I appreciate fully that the Minister will be bringing the necessary detail forward through regulations and we will scrutinise them very carefully when that happens. My right hon. Friend—sorry, just hon. Friend, but it is only a matter of time—the Member for Brent North is right to try to strengthen the clauses, because although the permitted insurance payments must be attributable to a permitted insurance, there is nothing on the face of the Bill to ensure that they or the cost of providing information in relation to them is reasonable to the leaseholders. As far as we understand the clause, there is no guarantee that leaseholders will be able to transparently scrutinise quotes or the agreed contract. We fully support my hon. Friend’s amendments 151 to 153, 157, and particularly new clause 41, which attempt to address some of these omissions and deficiencies. I hope the Minister will give them due consideration.

Specifically on my hon. Friend’s amendment 136, clause 32 introduces a new duty to provide specified insurance information to leaseholders. Again, it will be for regulations to fill out the detail about how the new duty will operate in practice, but I would like to briefly probe the Minister on it. During our evidence session with Matt Brewis of the Financial Conduct Authority, it became clear that although the FCA’s new rules mandate that a contract of insurance must be provided by an insurer or broker to the freeholder, and although the leaseholder will be able to write to the insurer to request a copy of the contract, there is nothing that we can see in either the FCA’s rules or the Bill as drafted that will permit a leaseholder to know who that insurer is in the first place. I would like to press the Minister, as my hon. Friend has, to confirm that the Government’s intentions when regulations are made under this clause is for the specified information to include a copy of the contract with the relevant insurer.

While we are considering these two clauses, I would like to take the opportunity to raise a separate concern, which I do not believe is covered by my hon. Friend’s amendments, in relation to proposed new section 20H of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1985, as provided by clause 31 of this Bill. This proposed new section would introduce a new right to claim where excluded insurance costs are charged. Again, this has the potential to provide leaseholders with effective means of redress, but its efficacy depends on how it is implemented. I would be grateful if the Minister could confirm that there is no specific requirement for any damages awarded under this proposed new section to credit the service charge accounts of leaseholders not party to the claim, or any service charge fund generally. It stands to reason that if one has been affected—and this follows from the debate we had on a previous clause—the rest of the leaseholders in the building will be too. If so, could the Minister look at how the regime operates to ensure that all leaseholders that have paid excluded costs are reimbursed in the same manner as the claimant?

[Lee Rowley]

I turn first to amendment 151, in the name of the hon. Member for Brent North. As someone who has held the building safety portfolio in my Department for the past 16 months, one of my greatest frustrations is that we have not yet made the progress that I would like to see, and that I am sure we would all like to see, with regards to insurance for buildings that have been affected by cladding, having made good progress on lending and other areas.

I think we have made some progress, and the willingness of a number of brokers to come together and voluntarily cap what they are willing to take is a step forward; I would like to see other brokers doing the same. I would also like to see an industry-led solution to be brought forward for those with the greatest exposures at the earliest possible opportunity. That is something I outline to the Association of British Insurers, and other insurers, on a very regular basis—with varying degrees of frustration and emphasis. I hope we will see movement on that in the very near future.

That is a broad discussion about a more specific issue—I will turn shortly to the amendments we are currently debating—although I hope that highlights my interest in this area and my desire to get this right not just for people with remediation and cladding issues, but for the broader community of leaseholders in general. On that basis, I hope that both the hon. Members for Brent North and for Greenwich and Woolwich will appreciate that we have similar ambitions in making sure that transparency in this area is as effective as it can possibly be, and that we ensure the appropriate outcome so as to improve things from where they are at the moment.

I turn to the amendments, specifically amendment 151. We believe that clause 31, which inserts proposed new section 20G into the Landlord and Tenant Act 1985, already achieves the intent behind the amendment by providing powers that allow the appropriate authority to specify the permitted insurance costs that can be passed through the service charge to leaseholders.

From discussions held with the insurance sector itself, and with the FCA, we know that the value chain is a complicated one. Some buildings rely heavily on the reinsurance market—we have seen that increasingly with remediation issues—using a broker for access, and some do not. Some place insurance with numerous insurers splitting the risk, whereas others only use one—the hon. Member for Brent North may know this from his previous engagement with the industry.

Clause 31 is designed to constrain unreasonable costs in all scenarios by defining a payment and allowing us to then separate these costs as either permitted or excluded. Although I understand the intent of the hon. Member for Brent North, the Government’s concern about amendment 151 is that in seeking to tighten the provisions, it may have pulled the strings a little too tightly and become too narrowly focused on certain elements. I hope the hon. Gentleman will consider withdrawing his amendment as a consequence.

Again, although I have great sympathy for the sentiment behind amendment 135, I hope the transparency provisions already in the Bill will help in this regard. Once implemented, they intend to enable leaseholders to have access to details of the policy and the total amount of remuneration being taken on their building's insurance placements. This can be used for a legal challenge if costs have not been reasonably incurred. Our concern with the amendment is the potential for delays in the placement of insurance, which could result in a lapse in cover to the material risks of the building. There also may be instances—although I hope it would be a minor number of cases—where three quotes cannot be obtained, as much as that is possibly unlikely to occur.

We seek to focus the legislation on ensuring that those buildings have insurance that works, with a balance that is appropriate and supported by regulatory changes brought in by the FCA. On the basis of that explanation, I hope the hon. Member for Brent North will withdraw his amendment.

I will address amendments 152 and 153 together. Again, we have are similar ambitions, aspirations and intent, but again, there is a question of narrowness through the amendments, and our view remains that clause 31 will allow full scrutiny of what is to be a permitted insurance payment. The intention is for that to be both through consultation and then subsequently set out in regulations through the affirmative procedure, which will allow hon. Members to debate measures and highlight if there is a better way of doing it. I hope that, with those reassurances, the hon. Member for Brent North may be willing to withdraw the amendments.

Amendment 137 seeks to introduce a reasonable test to permitted buildings insurance costs. At the heart of clause 31 is the need for any costs passed on to leaseholders relating to the placement or management of buildings insurance to be fair and transparent. That is the whole point of it. Section 19 of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1985 already requires for those costs to have been reasonably incurred and for a reasonable service to have been provided. We have obviously seen a whole heap of bad behaviour in this sector; I accept that that is the case. Within the sector, there is ubiquitous use of commissions with poor or no underlying connection to the work undertaken, and I hope that some of the progress made through the Bill will hopefully reduce that.

I do not believe that the amendment would sufficiently protect leaseholders. We seek very clear requirements in the secondary legislation for how permitted insurance fees will be calculated, and that their reasonableness be included in that. We will consult on the measures in due course, and I hope that, with those reassurances, the hon. Member for Brent North will withdraw his amendment.

I turn to clauses 31 and 32, which address insurance, before turning to some further Opposition amendments. Several actors in the procurement of buildings insurance each seek to make a profit in return for their role in supplying insurance, whether they be brokers, managing agents or landlords, who can all take commissions, and that all adds to the overall cost.

Currently, as we have discussed, leaseholders do not have to be made aware of these commissions, and that can hinder the ability of leaseholders to challenge unfair costs. Inflated premiums can be paid through the service charge because there is a lack of transparency and knowledge about what is happening. Clause 31 seeks to ban the placer of insurance on residential leasehold properties from receiving any form of commission that is passed on to leaseholders as a cost, and instead uses a transparent handling fee that must be proportionate to the value of the work done.

Proposed new section 20G provides that excluded insurance costs cannot be charged and enables the Secretary of State and Welsh Ministers to prescribe a permitted insurance payment, which will be the only payment that can be charged. The detail of calculating the fee is to be set out in affirmative secondary legislation, and we will work with stakeholders across the industry and in this place to support that.

Proposed new section 20H sets out what happens should the ban be breached. There is an ability to apply to the tribunal in England and the leasehold valuation tribunal in Wales. It also removes the presumption that leaseholders have to pay their landlord’s legal costs when challenging poor practices, as we talked about earlier. If the tribunal determines that the legislation has not been complied with, damages can be paid. That will be a minimum of the commission taken or the unlawful insurance handling fee, but it will not exceed three times the level of the commission or fee.

Proposed new section 20I outlines the right of the landlord to obtain a permitted insurance payment. The section clarifies how all costs for placing and managing insurance incurred by the landlord must then be charged to the leaseholder. Transparency reforms in the Bill will require the placer of insurance to disclose information about the decision-making processes when purchasing buildings insurance on behalf of leaseholders.

Amendments 154 and 155, tabled by the hon. Member for Brent North, seek to stipulate how the insurance contract is to be provided to leaseholders. We have been working already with the FCA on that area, and it has already produced a number of reports and changed its regulations. The changes allow leaseholders to receive their policy documents and information about the charges within their overall premium. Those changes are important to ensure that the relevant information is available, but they do not remove the necessity for the landlord to supply that information as the placer of the insurance. The amendments tabled by the hon. Member for Brent North remove the focus on the landlord’s responsibility to undertake that activity. Clause 32 is designed to complement the work of the FCA and to provide the powers necessary to ensure that landlords supply the information that will enable leaseholders to scrutinise. With those assurances, I hope that the hon. Member will not press the amendments to a vote.

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[Lee Rowley]

We know that there is currently a lack of transparency around administration charges and that leaseholders can face high administration charges. Administration charges must be reasonable, but this can be difficult to determine due to the lack of clarity surrounding them. As a result, leaseholders are often reluctant to challenge the reasonableness of administration charges at the appropriate tribunal.

Clause 33 inserts new paragraph 4A into schedule 11 to the Commonhold and Leasehold Reform Act 2002. It will require landlords to publish an administration charge schedule. A revised schedule must also be published if a landlord revises the administration charges. The Secretary of State and Welsh Ministers will be able to prescribe the form and content of the schedule, and how it is to be provided to a leaseholder, in regulations. If a landlord has not complied with the provision of publishing an administration charge schedule, a leaseholder may make an application to the appropriate tribunal. The tribunal may order that the landlord provide an administration schedule within 14 days and pay damages of up to £1,000 to the leaseholder. This measure seeks to increase transparency, and I commend the clause to the Committee.

[Matthew Pennycook]

As the Minister has just made clear, clause 33 amends the 2002 Act to create a new duty on landlords to publish administration charge schedules. We welcome it but, as with clauses 31 and 32, the effective functioning of the new requirement will depend on details such as the form and content of the schedule and how it should be published, all of which is to be set out in future regulations.

I have two specific questions for the Minister. The first largely mirrors my concern about the provisions in clause 31 relating to damages. If a tenant claims damages as a result of a breach of the requirements in new paragraph 4A of the 2002 Act, is it not likely that other tenants will have been similarly affected by the failure to publish an administration charge schedule? If it is the case that the damage provisions relate only to the claimant, will the Minister look at how the regime operates to ensure that all leaseholders who may have paid costs, other than in accordance with new paragraph 4A of the 2002 Act, are reimbursed in the same manner? It is a recurring theme, but it is worth putting on the record that it applies to clause 33 as well.

Secondly, along with other measures in the Bill that add new provisions for when a leaseholder is liable to pay a charge—in this instance, where an administration charge has been levied that has not appeared for the required period on a published administration charge schedule—how do the Government intend to make leaseholders aware of their new rights in this respect and in various other places throughout the Bill? Will he consider mandating that freeholders must furnish all leaseholders with an updated “how to lease” guide?

[Lee Rowley]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his questions. I will write to him on the answers or the process by which he can get them.

Question put and agreed to.

Clause 33 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 34

Limits on rights of landlords to claim litigation costs from tenants

Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.

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[Matthew Pennycook]

I must disappoint the Minister, because what he says does not reassure me. I rise to oppose clause 34 standing part of the Bill, and to argue in favour of new clause 3. As he has made clear, clause 34 amends the Landlord and Tenant Act 1985 and the Commonhold and Leasehold Reform Act 2002, with a view to limiting but not abolishing the right of landlords to claim litigation costs from tenants. Although the property chamber tribunal does not generally tend to shift the legal costs of the winning party on to the losing claimant, on various occasions landlords have been able to rely on contractual rights to recover costs against leasees. When that occurs, it is in essence a form of one-way cost shifting, and it is inherently unfair to the affected leasees. Previous attempts have been made expressly to limit these cost recovery provisions, notably by means of schedule 11 to the Commonhold and Leasehold Reform Act 2002, but despite those provisions, and the issue coming before the higher courts on several occasions, the ability of a landlord to recover costs incurred in litigating disputes persists.

We support the aim of scrapping the presumption that leaseholders will pay their freeholders’ legal costs when they have challenged poor practice, as outlined in the explanatory notes to the Bill, and we believe that, apart from in a limited number of circumstances, landlords should be prohibited from claiming litigation costs from leaseholders. As I have said, clause 34 does not prohibit landlords from claiming litigation costs from tenants; instead, it merely limits their ability to do so.

The clause allows landlords in certain, at present undefined, circumstances to apply to the relevant court or tribunal for an order to pass their legal costs on to leaseholders as an administration charge, or on to all leaseholders, irrespective of whether they participated in any given legal action, through the service charge. It may be that the matters that the relevant court or tribunal can take into account when determining whether to make an order on an application for costs will be defined in such a way as to protect the vast majority of leaseholders from unjust, one-way cost shifting, but to allow for cost recovery in circumstances where it is essential—for example, when the landlord is a company controlled by the leaseholders that needs to recover its reasonable legal costs via the service charge or risk going bust. However, as we consider the clause today, we have no certainty whatsoever about that, because the matters that the relevant court or tribunal can account for, as well as the application process, will be set out in regulations to come.

Even if we had certainty about what the Government will tell courts and tribunals that they can consider in determining whether to make an order, we fear that clause 34 is an invitation to litigate. Yes, regulations will prescribe the relevant matters that can be taken into account, but given the multiple Court of Appeal cases and numerous upper tribunal cases on what “in connection with” means, we will almost certainly see disputes arising about what costs are incurred “in connection with” legal proceedings, and whether they are compatible. The risk is that the outcomes of any such cases could erode the general presumption against leaseholders paying their freeholders’ legal costs that the clause attempts to enact.

We believe that it would be more prudent to implement, by means of the new clause, a general prohibition on landlords claiming litigation costs from leaseholders, and then clearly to identify a limited number of exceptions to that general rule through regulations. As I have said, such exceptions might include cases in which the landlord is a leasehold-owned company, or in which the costs are, in the opinion of the tribunal, reasonably incurred for the benefit of the leaseholders or the proper management of the building. That would cover the example that the Minister used. Amendment 8, which would simply delete clause 34, and new clause 3 would provide for that approach by leaving out clause 34 and replacing it with a new clause that provides for a general prohibition on claiming legal costs from tenants, and for a power to specify classes of landlord who will be exempted from it.

I appreciate that this is a complex argument about the best means to achieve an agreed end, but we think that clause 34 requires further thought, and urge the Government to give serious consideration to the issues raised by amendment 8 and new clause 3. As I said, the Government’s approach is a recipe for freeholder litigation, and it might mean far more leaseholders than we are comfortable with bearing the legal costs of their landlords.

[Rachel Maclean]

I place on record my concerns about the Government’s approach to this issue, based on my experience in the Minister’s role, and having listened carefully to representations made, particularly by members of the all-party parliamentary group on leasehold and commonhold reform and a gentleman called Liam Spender, who detailed his experiences at the hands of FirstPort. That was an absolutely horrific, heartbreaking and shocking abuse of a decent, honourable and hard-working person buying a flat. He described it as being treated like a “lab rat” in a laboratory maze. I will not forget the testimony that he and many others gave.

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[Matthew Pennycook]

I thought that the Minister would provide a fuller response to our intention to remove the clause and introduce new clause 3. The hon. Member for Redditch is right to be concerned about the clause as drafted—I commend her for raising the issue. The spirit of the Committee has not been particularly party political, but I will give her the opportunity to break the Whip, because we feel strongly about the issue. Lots of leaseholders will find that they still bear legal costs because of the way in which the Government have approached this issue; it is a recipe for litigation. There is a much more sensible way to achieve the end that I think we all want: a general prohibition with a very limited number of exceptions, which could set out clearly in the Bill. We oppose the clause standing part, and will potentially move the new clause in due course.

Question put, That the clause stand part of the Bill.

Leasehold and Freehold Reform Bill (Seventh sitting)

Matthew Pennycook Excerpts

Committee stage
Thursday 25th January 2024 Public Bill Committees

This amendment ensures that the nature of the right conferred by Schedule 7 is better described by paragraph 1(1).

[Matthew Pennycook (Greenwich and Woolwich) (Lab)]

I beg to move amendment 6, in schedule 7, page 119, line 12, leave out sub-sub-paragraph (a).

This amendment would ensure that all leaseholders, not just those with residential leases of 150 years or over, have the right to vary their lease to replace rent with peppercorn rent.

[The Chair]

With this it will be convenient to discuss Government amendments 76 to 78.

[Matthew Pennycook]

It is a pleasure to continue our line-by-line consideration of the Bill with you in the Chair, Mr Efford. For the sake of probity, I declare once again that my wife is the joint chief executive of the Law Commission, whose reports on leasehold and commonhold reform I will continue to cite throughout my remarks.

Part 2 of the Bill makes changes to other rights of long leaseholders. Four of its five clauses are concerned with improving the right to manage, but as we touched on briefly at the end of the Committee’s previous sitting, clause 21, which brings schedule 7 to the Bill into effect, makes provision for a new enfranchisement right to buy out the ground rent and vary it permanently to replace the relevant part of the rent with a peppercorn rent, without having to extend the lease.

We welcome the intent of the schedule. The reform will ensure that leaseholders can enjoy reduced premiums and secure nominal ground rent ownership of their properties without the need to go through the challenge and expense of repeated lease extensions. In the Law Commission’s final report on enfranchisement rights, it considered in great detail whether there should be a range of lease extension rights in order to provide greater flexibility than is currently afforded to leaseholders as a result of the provisions in the Leasehold Reform, Housing and Urban Development Act 1993 that require them simultaneously to extend the terms of their lease and to extinguish their ground rent.

The rationale for providing greater flexibility in this area is that in allowing leaseholders to choose either only to extend their lease or only to extinguish their ground rent, leaseholders could avoid paying the landlord the value of the remainder of the original terms and the deferral of the reversion, with the result that premiums would be reduced accordingly.

While taking into account the clear benefits that greater flexibility would provide for in terms of reduced premiums, the Law Commission, in its reports, clearly wrestled with whether it was sensible to recommend a more nuanced approach to lease extension rights. It did so, because of the complexity that the availability of different lease extension options would inevitably create, and the corresponding opportunities that such complexity would present to unscrupulous landlords who might seek to take advantage of those leaseholders unable to access costly professional advice about the best choice to make from the available options.

Without doubt, allowing for choices other than a uniform right to a fixed additional term at a nominal ground rent will make the statutory right to a lease extension more complicated. I will return shortly to the implications of clause 21 and the schedule in that regard. However, on the principle of allowing for greater choice, the Law Commission ultimately decided that despite the increased complexity that it would engender, leaseholders who have a lease with a long remaining term should, on payment of a premium, be entitled to extinguish the ground rent payable under the lease without extending the terms of it.

The commission felt, rightly in our view, that that right is likely to be utilised mainly by those with relatively long leases who are subject to onerous ground rent provisions, or those with relatively long leases and ground rents that are not definitionally onerous but still entail, for a variety of reasons, a significant present or future financial burden. In such cases, even if the premium payable is not significantly reduced, the prescribed capitalisation rates provided for by schedule 2 to the Bill should make valuations simpler and enable the change to be made by means of a simple deed of variation, rather than a deed of surrender and regrant, as required to extend the terms of a lease now.

The schedule implements the Law Commission’s recommendation for that right to extinguish the ground rent only. As I have made clear, we support it. We have, however, moved the amendment, which would delete the Government’s proposed 150-year threshold, to press the Minister on the reason or reasons for which the Government have decided to confer that right only on leaseholders with leases with an unexpired term of more than 150 years.

To be clear, we understand fully the argument made by those who believe that the right to extinguish a ground rent without extending a lease should only be conferred on those with sufficiently long leases—namely, that the premium for the reversion increases significantly as the unexpired period of the lease reduces, and leaseholders with leases below a certain threshold should therefore be, in a sense, compelled to peppercorn their ground rent and to extend at the same time by means of the reduced premiums that clauses 7 and 8 of the Bill should enable.

However, what constitutes a sufficiently long lease for the purposes of conferring this new right is ultimately a matter of judgment. The Law Commission recommended that the threshold should be set at 250 years on the basis that the reversion is of negligible value at that lease length. The Government chose not to accept that recommendation and instead are proposing a threshold of 150 years. The Minister may provide us with a different answer in due course, but we assume the reason they did so is simply that this will make the new right to extinguish a ground rent available to many more leaseholders.

However, if that is the case, it obviously follows that setting a threshold of, say, 125 years or even 100 years would make it available to even more of them. The argument against doing so is that leaseholders with leases below a certain threshold should be, in effect, compelled to extend their lease at the same time as peppercorning their rent because not doing so would, in many cases, disadvantage them.

However, that obviously raises more fundamental questions, such as whether it should be up to leaseholders to navigate the wider range of options that will be made available to them if and when this Bill receives Royal Assent, and whether the fact that some leaseholders with relatively short leases may either advertently or inadvertently disadvantage themselves by extinguishing without extending their lease should mean that everyone below the 150-year threshold is prohibited from enjoying the new right introduced by the schedule.

Even assuming one believes it is the role of Government to set a long-lease threshold, it is not entirely clear to us why the Government have alighted on 150 years given that there could be all sorts of reasons why someone with a lease shorter than such a term might want to only buy out their rent, including simply that they are unable to afford the premium required to secure a 990-year lease. As such, we would like the Minister to justify in some detail, if he could, why the Government alighted on a 150-year threshold as opposed to either the Law Commission’s proposal of 250 years or a lower threshold that would give many more leaseholders the right to extinguish their ground rent. We would like to ask him to consider whether, as we believe on balance, there is a strong case for simply deleting the 150-year threshold entirely, given that the “remaining years” test that applies is inherently arbitrary. I hope the Minister will give amendment 6 serious consideration, and I look forward to his thoughts on it.

While we are considering this schedule, I also want to probe the Minister again on the Government’s intentions in respect of the recently closed consultation on restricting ground rent for all existing leases, and specifically how any proposals arising from that consultation will interact with this schedule given that it provides a right to peppercorn ground rents in existing leases. As I made clear when we briefly considered this matter in relation to clauses 7 and 8, I am obviously not asking the Minister to provide this Committee with an advanced indication of what the Government’s formal response to that consultation will be. However, we remain of the view that this Committee needs to know, if the Government ultimately do choose to enact any of the five options for intervention that were consulted upon, what the implications are for the provisions that are currently in the Bill that we are being asked to approve today.

On Second Reading, the Secretary of State was quite clear that at the conclusion of the consultation, the Government would

“legislate on the basis of that set of responses in order to ensure that ground rents are reduced, and can only be levied in a justifiable way.”—[Official Report, 11 December 2023; Vol. 742, c. 659.]

As members of the Committee will know, he was also open with the Levelling Up, Housing and Communities Committee prior to Second Reading about the fact that his favoured approach would be a peppercorn rent—in other words, option 1 from the consultation. I am conscious that many people across the country who bear leaseholders no ill will whatever have invested, almost uniformly on advice and in good faith, in freehold funds. I have constituents who have invested, for example, in time investments and other such funds that have invested in freehold properties. However, I personally share the Secretary of State’s preference not least because, while ground rents exist even at relatively low levels, they will be a major impediment to the widespread adoption of commonhold.

There is a more fundamental issue with ground rents that we need to grapple with. As we have discussed already, over the past two decades, the consequence of the kind of investment we have seen is a system increasingly focused on generating assets by gouging leaseholders through ground rents that are, in historical terms, high to start with and that escalate over the terms of the lease. Leaseholders who worked hard to purchase their own homes and did so in good faith are being asked to pay ever more money for no clear service in return and many are experiencing considerable financial distress and difficulties selling their property, all to sustain the income streams of third-party investors.

Unregulated ground rents of this nature in existing leases cannot be justified. Although we do not discount the risks involved in any of the five options outlined in the consultation, Labour is clear that the Government must act to protect leaseholders from ground rent exploitation and that they should be courageous in determining which of the consultation proposals should be enacted.

All that said, we obviously cannot pre-empt the consultation in question. What is important for the purposes of considering schedule 7, and clause 21, is that we get a clear answer from the Minister as to what the potential implications of any response would be for leaseholders. Specifically, will the schedule have to be revisited should the Government ultimately choose to enact one of the five options in the consultation? Are we correct in assuming that clause 21 and the schedule will have to be overhauled, if not removed from the Bill entirely, in that scenario? If not, how will the Government ensure that the various measures are aligned? It is a hypothetical question, as I am sure the Minister will indicate, but it is entirely reasonable, given that we are being asked to approve the inclusion of the schedule in the Bill. On our reading of the ground rent consultation, the schedule could entirely change the implications; indeed, it may well have to be removed entirely to ensure that the Bill is consistent. On that basis, I hope the Minister will give us a bit more detail. He gave us some on Tuesday, but we need a little more detail on that point.

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

I am grateful for the comments from the hon. Member for Greenwich and Woolwich, and for his amendment. I will say a few words in general before turning to some of his specific questions.

As he indicated, the ground rent buy-out right enables leaseholders with very long leases to buy out their ground rent on payment of a premium, without having to extend their lease. A leaseholder with a very long lease who does not need an extension may want to buy out the ground rent without extending the lease, but others may wish to do it in a different way.

I appreciate the hon. Member’s points about the amendment, and I understand why he is seeking to extend the right to vary one’s lease to as many leaseholders as possible, so I will try to answer some of his questions. Inevitably, as he indicated, there is essentially an arbitrary decision to take on any number, because moving it up or down would change the provision slightly and incrementally each time, so there is an element of having to put a finger on the scale. As he said, the right is an implementation of the Law Commission’s recommendation 3(2), which suggested that it should be available for leaseholders with 250 years remaining, but the Government have indicated that they want to set the term at 150 years. The reason given by the Law Commission for making this right available only to those with very long leases, which the Government support, is to limit it to leaseholders who are unlikely to be interested in, or do not need, a lease extension.

Making the right available to all leaseholders, irrespective of their term remaining, would mean that leaseholders who will need a lease extension at some point might opt first to buy out only the ground rent, but would need to extend their lease in due course. That would potentially disadvantage leaseholders in two ways. First, as the term on the lease runs down, the price on the lease extension accelerates. Secondly, a leaseholder who buys out their ground rent first and later extends the lease will pay two sets of transaction costs. It is entirely legitimate to say, “That is the choice of individuals,” and I have some sympathy with that argument. On balance, however, the Government recognise that there is a series of things within leasehold law that are permissible but not necessarily advantageous for some groups and sectors. By moving further in this regard, we might inadvertently create another one, which future iterations of Ministers and shadow Ministers might debate removing.

I should make it clear—the hon. Member knows this—that it is not the case that leaseholders with fewer than 150 years remaining do not have the right to buy out their ground rent: they buy out their ground rent when they extend their lease or buy the freehold, and that buy-out will also be subject to the cap. However, the right to buy out the ground rent without extending the lease is for leaseholders with 150 years or more remaining, for the reasons I have given.

Turning to some of the hon. Member’s specific points, the ultimate number is a matter of judgment, and we determined that setting the term at 150 years would offer the right to an incrementally larger group of people. We think that is a reasonable place to be. I accept that others may choose a different number, but that is the number we are proposing in the substantive part of the Bill. I also appreciate his point about the outcome of the consultation being the missing piece of the jigsaw puzzle at the moment.

I will not go through my multiple previous caveats around that, because he acknowledged at least one of them. Recognising that I will not be able to answer all of this, it may be that—subject to the outcome of the consultation—changes are needed. I cannot, however, pre-empt that, and we will have to cross that bridge when we came to it. I realise that is not the ideal place to be, but given that we all share the aim of trying to move this as quickly as possible, I hope it is an acceptable position to move forward from. We can return to it in due course should we need to.

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[Matthew Pennycook]

I thank the Minister for his response. Let me just deal initially with the three Government amendments, with which we take no issue. On the ground rent consultation, I will not labour the point, because I get the sense we will not get any further information out of the Minister. It is always easier to say this from the Opposition side of the Committee, but it would have been logical to have had the ground rent consultation well in advance of the Bill, as then we could have had a Bill with all the elements properly integrated. It is not like the Government did not have enough time. I think that the previous Secretary of State, the right hon. Member for Newark (Robert Jenrick), announced the second part of the two-part seminal legislation back in 2019, so the Government have had time—but that is where we are. By the sound of what the Minister is saying, we will have to significantly overhaul many clauses in the Bill if the Government do decide to enact one of the five proposals.

On amendment 6, I do not find the Minister’s argument convincing. The Law Commission recommended a 250-year threshold. The Government have clearly determined that they need not follow that recommendation to the letter, although they have implemented the principle of it. They have chosen to put their finger on the scale, as the Minister said, at a different threshold. I think trying to put one’s finger on the scale on this particular issue is likely to cause more problems than it solves. I hope the Government might think again about cutting the Gordian knot entirely.

The most common forms of lease are 90, 99 and 125 years. Leaseholders with the most common forms of lease will not be able to enjoy this right. The Government are in effect saying to them, “You must buy out under clauses 7 and 8—your lease extension and your ground rent at the same time.” From what the Minister said, it sounds like the Government think that is right because some leaseholders might disadvantage themselves by trying to exercise only the right in schedule 7. There is a case for giving those leaseholders the freedom to exercise their own judgment on that point—I am surprised the Minister has not agreed with it. A lot of leaseholders will be watching our proceedings who have leases of, say, 120 years and simply do not have the funds available to exercise their right to extend the lease and buy up the ground rent under clauses 7 and 8. This will therefore completely lock leaseholders with shorter leases out of extinguishing their ground rent provisions. We think that is inherently unfair.

[Barry Gardiner (Brent North) (Lab)]

Does my hon. Friend share my view that the Minister is a reasonable gentleman? [Laughter.] I know it may be specific to us and not widely shared. My hon. Friend having made such an eloquent case, the Minister may go away, reconsider this, speak to his officials, and perhaps, once the consultation has concluded, be able to come back with a different answer.

[Matthew Pennycook]

I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention, which tempts me to give a number of responses. As I am feeling generous this morning, I will say that I do think the Minister is a reasonable individual —far more reasonable in Committee than he is in the main Chamber—and I suspect that he agrees with me about the 150-year threshold. To encourage him to go away and think further, I think we will press amendment 6 to a vote.

[Richard Fuller (North East Bedfordshire) (Con)]

I want to take up the point the hon. Gentleman made about the timing of the ground rent review and the implications for subsequent change in the Bill. Has the Opposition looked at what the potential legal liability might be if we move forward with this Bill without clarity on what happens on ground rent, particularly as this is retrospective legislation, and whether there is a potential liability for the taxpayer if that co-ordination does not work effectively?

[Matthew Pennycook]

We have had access to the advice and opinion of a number of organisations and individuals, which have probably been sent to the whole Committee. We have also sought to engage the opinions of many relevant experts in this area. The honest answer is that we do not know. I think the Minister himself would say openly that there is a sliding scale of risk with each of those options. I fully expect any of those options, if they are introduced, to result in litigation against the Government that seeks to take the matter to Strasbourg under the relevant rules. That has to be factored in. The Secretary of State and the Minister will be getting the relevant advice. That is why I encourage the Minister to be courageous in the option they ultimately choose. We want to strike the right balance by addressing the problem as it exists for leaseholders—that is very clear—but ensuring that whatever option comes forward can stick and is defensible. That is a conversation we will have over the coming weeks and months, because this issue is going to rumble on for some time to come.

Question put, That the amendment be made.

--- Later in debate ---

[Barry Gardiner]

I am grateful to the Minister for his response; he is courteous, as ever. I just point out that the all-party group on leasehold and commonhold reform, co-chaired by the Father of the House, the hon. Member for Worthing West (Sir Peter Bottomley), also made the recommendation that the Government look again at this issue. I am prepared to throw my weight behind amendments 26 and 27, so I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn .

[Matthew Pennycook]

I beg to move amendment 26, in clause 22, page 38, line 21, at end insert—

“(b) after paragraph 1(4) insert—

‘(5) The Secretary of State or the Welsh Ministers may by regulations amend this paragraph to provide for a different description of premises falling within section 72(1) to which this Chapter does not apply.’”

This amendment would enable the Secretary of State or (in the case of Wales) the Welsh Ministers to change the description of premises which are excluded from the right to manage. By virtue of Amendment 27, such a change would be subject to the affirmative resolution procedure.

[The Chair]

With this it will be convenient to discuss amendment 27, in clause 22, page 38, line 21, at end insert—

“(2) In section 178 of the CLRA 2002—

(a) in subsection (4), after ‘171’, insert ‘, paragraph 1(5) of Schedule 6’;

(b) after subsection (5), insert—

‘(6) Regulations shall not be made by the Welsh Ministers under paragraph 1(5) of Schedule 6 unless a draft of the instrument has been laid before and approved by resolution of Senedd Cymru.’”

See explanatory statement to Amendment 26.

--- Later in debate ---

[Matthew Pennycook]

I rise to speak to the amendments in my name and that of my hon. Friend the Member for Weaver Vale. I do so making almost entirely the same argument as that made by my hon. Friend the Member for Brent North. [Interruption.] No, I am hoping for a very different response from the Minister to it.

As was made clear in a previous debate, this clause operates in precisely the way that clause 3 does in relation to collective enfranchisement claims: by making changes to the non-residential limit to the right to manage—and we welcome it. The clause will enact recommendation 7 of the Law Commission’s final report on exercising that right.

Although I take the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Brent North about the use of extreme outlier cases to undermine an argument, we accept the Law Commission’s broad argument that abolishing the non-residential limit entirely could cause problems in a number of cases for certain landlords and commercial tenants. But as the Law Commission very clearly concluded, the current limit is

“an unwarranted impediment to the RTM, given that it can prevent premises which are mostly residential from qualifying.”

We think it is right that the Bill seeks to increase that limit, and we hope that doing so will bring a greater number and variety—that is important—of premises into the right to manage and therefore help to boost the number of leaseholders who decide to take over the management function of their buildings.

As with the non-residential limit for collective enfran-chisement claims, the threshold is inherently arbitrary, but we feel—here my hon. Friend is absolutely right—that we need to address the fact that 50% will leave large numbers of leaseholders shut out from the right to manage. He made the case for a 75% threshold, and I think that has a lot of merit. We sought to be slightly less prescriptive; instead, much in the way that we argued for powers to be put in the Bill for Ministers to further amend the non-residential limit for collective enfranchisement, we propose to give a degree of flexibility to the non-residential limit on right to manage claims, so that any future changes to increase it—and only to increase it—do not require primary legislation.

We want to be slightly more flexible, or less prescriptive, than my hon. Friend for the following reasons. First, we can imagine a range of scenarios in which we would need to look at the 50% threshold in terms of internal floor space. We also think, as with collective enfran-chisement claims, that a future Government may wish to look at the entire criteria afresh—I am thinking of cases of the right to manage, for example, where we might consider whether there are better metrics for determining the residential nature of a building. It is notable that, although the Law Commission ultimately recommended retaining the use of floor space as the metric, it explored in great detail a comparison between the values of the residential and non-residential parts as a way into this. A future Government may therefore wish to look at the criteria afresh, so we sought to give the Secretary of State that power.

We think that that is entirely sensible, as we did when we argued for earlier amendments. It would be by regulation subject to the affirmative procedure, to give this House the chance to give any change due scrutiny, but we think it is a sensible principle to build some flexibility into the Bill.

I expect the Minister will resist the amendment, for the reasons that he previously resisted a similar amendment on collective enfranchisement. I will therefore probably not press the amendment to a vote. However, I think we will have to come back to the issue later, because on both collective enfranchisement and right to manage, the Government are being somewhat stubborn in saying that the 50% sticks and that future primary legislation, which could be many years away, is the only way to look at it afresh. I hope that the Minister will give the amendment serious thought.

[Lee Rowley]

I am grateful for the comments and questions from the hon. Members for Greenwich and Woolwich and for Brent North. As they anticipated —I may be becoming too conventional—I will resist the amendment. Again, this is about where primary legislation stops and secondary legislation begins, and the Opposition are right to test us on that. It is perfectly legitimate for people to take different views on where that starts and stops, and we know that our colleagues in the other place caution us, where we can be cautioned, not to take too many Henry VIII powers. We are undertaking a self-denying ordinance to not take an additional Henry VIII power today, on the basis that this is of sufficient magnitude, albeit recognising the challenges that have been outlined, that it should be in the Bill and be clear, and that any appropriate changes should come through similar processes. For that reason, although I understand the rationale for it, and I am always happy to listen to the underlying points, the Government will not support the amendment.

[Matthew Pennycook]

I will not labour the point, but I put on record that I look forward to the Minister standing up at some future point in what remains of his tenure and arguing for the absolute necessity of a Henry VIII power in one or other respect. It will come, but obviously not on this occasion. As I said, we will have to come back to this matter, but we will reflect on how best to do so. On that basis, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Clause 22 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 23

Costs of right to manage claims

Amendment made: 45, in clause 23, page 39, line 30, at end insert—

“(8) See also sections 20CA and 20J of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1985, which prevent costs in connection with a claim under this Chapter being recovered by way of a variable service charge (within the meaning of section 18 of that Act).”.—(Lee Rowley.)

This amendment is consequential on NC7 .

[Matthew Pennycook]

I beg to move amendment 7, in clause 23, page 39, leave out from line 31 to line 32 on page 40.

This amendment would leave out the proposed new section 87B of the Commonhold and Leasehold Reform Act 2002 and so ensure that RTM companies cannot incur costs in instances where claims cease.

[The Chair]

With this it will be convenient to discuss clause stand part.

--- Later in debate ---

[Matthew Pennycook]

Clause 23 replaces the existing costs regimes for RTM claims under the Commonhold and Leasehold Reform Act 2002. The new regime is established in proposed new sections 87A and 87B.

Proposed new section 87A sets out the general rule that RTM companies and RTM company members are not liable for the costs incurred by another person because of an RTM claim. Proposed new section 87B allows the tribunal to order an RTM company to pay the reasonable costs of specified people that arise from an RTM claim notice being withdrawn or ceasing to have effect and the RTM company has acted unreasonably.

We welcome the intent behind new section 87A. At present, the RTM company is liable for the reasonable non-litigation costs that are incurred by a landlord in consequence of an RTM claim notice. Safe in the knowledge that the cost of the process is always recoverable from the RTM company, landlords are at present incentivised to conduct an overscrupulous analysis of the claim with a view to finding minor and inconsequential defects, in an attempt to disrupt the claim. That happens on far too many occasions.

If a claim is disputed and the tribunal decides that the RTM company is not entitled to acquire the RTM, the RTM company is liable to pay the landlord’s reasonable costs, but the same rule does not apply if the landlord unsuccessfully challenges the claim. Landlords can therefore dispute claims safe in the knowledge that doing so is a one-way bet.

In instances where a landlord is obliged to pay litigation costs following a successful claim, they can and do frequently recover the moneys from leaseholders either through the service charge or as an administration charge under the leases. It is not that common, but in such shortfall scenarios the leaseholders end up paying, even if they are successful in the tribunal.

Given that RTM companies are almost always undercapitalised, have no assets and cannot collect service charges before the RTM is acquired, these costs, which cannot be limited or predicted and can have significant implications for large or complex developments, are often met by individual leaseholders, with any challenges to their reasonableness entailing all the burden and risk of going to the tribunal. By entailing unknown and potentially significant costs liability for which they are jointly and severally liable, the present costs regimes clearly act as a deterrent to leaseholders pursuing the RTM and participating in an RTM claim.

In our view, landlords can bear these costs, and by providing for a general rule that they do so, the clause will make the RTM procedure simpler, more accessible and less foreboding. It is for that reason that the Law Commission recommended significant changes to the allocation of costs incurred during acquisition of the right to manage, and in relation to disputes. The clause draws upon five of its proposals.

The Law Commission did recommend, however, that an exception ought to be made where an RTM claim has been withdrawn or otherwise ceased early and the RTM company has acted unreasonably in bringing the RTM claim. In such cases, it recommends that the landlord should be able to apply to the tribunal for any reasonable costs that it has incurred in consequence of the RTM claim, down to the time that the claim ceased. They did so

“to address the risk of landlords potentially having to bear the cost of responding to unreasonable or vexatious claims issued by leaseholders which are subsequently withdrawn.”

Proposed new section 87B enacts that proposal. While the Law Commission made clear that it expected that the tribunal would apply the test in question narrowly, we are concerned about its inclusion for two reasons. First, there is a principled argument that leaseholders should not be put at risk of having to pay costs simply for exercising statutory rights—in this case, the right to seek to acquire and exercise rights in relation to the management of premises in which one has a leasehold interest.

The first-tier tribunal already has the power under rule 13(1)(a) to punish unreasonable behaviour by making the parties’ legal or other representative pay to the other party any costs incurred as a result of improper, unreasonable or negligent acts or omissions. As such, we would ask why we need a new statutory provision to create yet further scenarios where leaseholders might have to pay.

Secondly, we are concerned that unscrupulous landlords will use the rights provided for by new section 87B as a means of recovering costs from RTM companies that act reasonably and in good faith, and by implication that it will discourage RTM companies from initiating a claim because of the financial risk it still entails for individual participating leaseholders. Put simply, we fear that new section 87B will incentivise scrupulous landlords to fight claims on the basis that they are defective in the hope of recovering costs by means of it. Amendment 7 leaves out proposed new section 87B of the 2002 Act, thereby ensuring that all leaseholders are protected from costs for RTM claims. I hope the Minister will consider accepting that.

--- Later in debate ---

[Alistair Strathern (Mid Bedfordshire) (Lab)]

I rise briefly to support the comments from my hon. Friend the Member for Greenwich and Woolwich. Although I welcome much of the Minister’s message about removing some of the deterrents to taking on the right to manage on estates, having spoken to a number of residents and campaigners in my constituency, I know that if the clause is not removed it will continue to be a real deterrent and to expose them to a risk of significant financial liability that they would be poorly placed to take on. I know the Minister has already set out that he is unwilling to support the amendment today, but I hope that the Government will reflect on whether they might be willing to come back to the point to ensure there is no unnecessary deterrent to leaseholders in obtaining the right to manage effectively.

[Matthew Pennycook]

I thank the Minister for his response. There are two differences of opinion, the first of which is on the principled point of whether it is right that leaseholders should be charged for exercising their statutory right. We lean quite strongly towards the argument that they should not be, in principle.

The more pertinent argument for me is the second point I made, which, in all fairness, I do not think the Minister addressed. Let us be clear: in many respects, the Bill forces the Government to judge the right balance to strike between the interests of leaseholders and landlords. In coming to that view, the Bill has to account for the possibility that it creates quite perverse incentives, and I do not think it does that here or in a number of other places. This is one example of where that might happen. If a landlord wants to frustrate, disrupt or stop an RTM claim, the way in which the Government have implemented the exception to the general rule will incentivise them to fight the claim on the basis that they can try and convince the adjudicating party that the claim is defective, in the hope of recovering costs. A leaseholder exploring whether to take forward a claim is then faced with the risk of significant liabilities, as mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Bedfordshire.

That will deter a huge number of leaseholders from exercising the right. Landlords will know it and fight more claims because they know that the deterrent effect of the exception to the general rule will be quite powerful in a number of cases. We argue quite strongly that we should just end the process costs for leaseholders as a matter of principle. That will incentivise many more groups of leaseholders to seek to acquire the right to manage. For that reason, we are minded to press the amendment to a Division.

Question put, That the amendment be made.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lee Rowley]

Clause 25 complements clause 24 by removing the risk that the change of jurisdiction for right to manage disputes to the tribunal will be circumvented through applications being brought in the High Court instead in the first instance. The clause prevents such applications being brought in the High Court. The tribunal already has exclusive jurisdiction over proceedings, and it is well placed to take over proceedings concerning the compliance with the right to manage provisions in the 2002 Act in the same way that they do for the acquisition of the right to manage. The clause does not prevent an appeal of the decision of the tribunal to the High Court or the jurisdiction of the High Court to consider judicial review claims. The measure will make the determination of disputes clearer, help to reduce costs and ensure that disputes are handled by judges with specialist knowledge. I commend the clause to the Committee.

Question put and agreed to.

Clause 25 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 26

Extension of regulation to fixed service charges

[Matthew Pennycook]

I beg to move amendment 10, in clause 26, page 42, leave out lines 12 and 13.

This amendment would ensure that the statutory test of reasonableness would apply to fixed service charges.

In considering part 3 of the Bill, we move away from provisions that draw on recommendations made by the Law Commission across its leasehold enfranchisement and right to manage reports from 2020 and instead turn to other Government proposals on the regulation of leasehold. The first five clauses in this part concern service charges in residential leases. The Government’s stated objective in including the clauses in the Bill is to improve the consumer rights of leaseholders by requiring freeholders or managing agents acting on their behalf to issue service charge demands and annual reports in a standardised format and a more transparent manner so that leaseholders can more easily assess—and, in theory, challenge—any unreasonable or erroneous charges.

We very much welcome the intent of the clauses. While much of the detail will await the statutory instruments required to bring them into force, the clauses have the potential to improve tangibly what is without doubt one of the most contentious and, for leaseholders, injurious aspects of the feudal leasehold tenure. My office receives scores of complaints, literally on a weekly basis, from leaseholders in my constituency who believe that when it comes to the setting of their service charges, they have been subjected to unreasonable costs; costs artificially inflated as a result of outright error, such as the duplication of charges for the same service; large periodic increases that are rarely justified; or abusive practices, such as the deliberate misuse of funds. Even when leaseholders do not believe that there is a specific problem with their service charge amounts, my experience talking to many thousands of them over the years in Greenwich and Woolwich is that most nevertheless feel that they are not particularly aware of or informed about what their charges are spent on or what their future liabilities might be.

That may well be a trend that is particularly prevalent in constituencies such as my own that contain a significant number of new-build leasehold flats, but my team and I increasingly find—as I am sure other hon. Members find in their own caseloads—that a sizeable proportion of the work we do involves simply demanding from freeholders and managing agents, on behalf of leaseholders pushed to the financial brink, a detailed breakdown of service charge costs. We are then frequently required to assist individual leaseholders or informal groupings of them in probing the relevant freeholder or managing agent on the justification for individual charges, and more often than not we expose discrepancies or charges levied for services that are not provided as a result.

Given that a Member of Parliament is involved in those cases, most freeholders, head lessees or managing agents will, in such circumstances, ensure that the aggrieved leaseholders are reimbursed, thus avoiding the need for them—[Interruption.] My hon. Friend the Member for Brent North laughs, but we have had success on occasion, once the relevant error is exposed. In those circumstances, it avoids the need for the leaseholders in question to take the matter to tribunal, with the detrimental implications that the current cost regime entails. However, many —perhaps most—do not, instead relying on the barriers that leaseholders face in going to tribunal to ensure that the unjustified costs are still paid and not challenged. I would wager that, in the scenario that I just set out, I am not alone among Members of the House in dealing with service charge disputes of that kind on a regular basis. To my mind, that is a clear indication that the current service charge regime is woefully failing to adequately serve leaseholders or protect their interests. The Opposition take the view that there is a cast-iron case for making changes to the regime, with a view to ensuring that service charges are levied in a more appropriate, transparent and fair way.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lee Rowley]

I, too, do not wish to challenge the patience of my colleague the Whip. There will be people who have existing fixed charges; that should not change. There will also be people who have choices about whether to enter into new fixed charges, whether absolute or indexed to some extent. For an inappropriate attempt to do something with variable service charges, there will be the ability to apply to tribunals. I hope that we are closing off all the options that would allow the kind of instances mentioned.

[Matthew Pennycook]

I will be brief, so as to dispose of the amendment.

I appreciate what the Minister said. He provided some useful clarity. In particular, he highlighted the practical challenges in addressing this matter, and the potential for landlords possibly moving away from fixed charges and into variable. I think that there is a corresponding risk the other way. I appreciate and take on board what he said about the certainty of the charge.

I think the Minister alluded to the point that I am trying to make, which is that residents should have value for money, and they do not always get it on each occasion. We have deliberately not sought to apply all the protections that apply to variable service charges, but focused on the test of reasonableness. With the help of two former Housing Ministers, I think I had an indication from the Minister that he will do this, but I would appreciate it if the Government went away to satisfy themselves that the protections are in place for that category of leaseholder. On that basis, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Ordered, That further consideration be now adjourned. —(Mr Mohindra.)

Leasehold and Freehold Reform Bill (Fifth sitting)

Matthew Pennycook Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 23rd January 2024 Public Bill Committees

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

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Efford. Today, we begin our line-by-line consideration. I first want to note and put on record my thanks to all the witnesses who gave evidence to the Committee last week. It was hugely useful to hear their insights, which will improve the Bill over the coming days and weeks ahead.

I am delighted to bring the Bill to Committee, and I look forward to the debate that will follow. Before we proceed, I quickly draw the Committee’s attention to a minor issue regarding the Bill’s explanatory notes. Paragraph 18 refers incorrectly to the right

“for an intermediate landlord to reduce (‘commute’) the rents that they pay”

following statutory lease extensions and ground rent buy-out claims. That is a drafting error as the clauses were not in the Bill when introduced. I have since tabled an amendment to introduce those clauses on intermediate leases, which we will debate shortly. I apologise for that minor drafting error and reassure the Committee that the explanatory notes will be updated to reflect the latest clauses before the Bill enters the other place.

I also want to make a small point in relation to legal language that I will use throughout the session. In existing legislation, leaseholders are referred to as “tenants”, which legally, they are. In everyday language, however, we often use the term “leaseholders” to differentiate long leaseholders from tenants holding shorter tenancies or those with less security of tenure. For simplicity, I will use the term “leaseholders”. Likewise, I will use the term “landlord” to mean both landlords and freeholders. In many cases, the landlord will be the freeholder, although that is not always the case. Where the provisions concern freeholders, I will use that term rather than “landlord”.

I now turn to part 1, which deals with leasehold enfranchisement and lease extension. When people buy a leasehold property, they will want to ensure that they have the long-term security and control they need to make it a home. They may have a short lease and wish to extend it, or they may have concerns about their landlord and wish to buy them out to have full ownership and control of that home.

The current requirement, where a homebuyer has to wait for two years before they can extend their lease or buy their freehold, is an obstacle for leaseholders and results in higher costs, as the price for enfranchising increases year on year. Furthermore, many investors take advantage of a loophole to avoid that requirement, while ordinary homeowners, who may be less familiar with the process, can find themselves in difficulties. There are also inconsistencies in the current law where, in certain circumstances, people can rely on a previous owner’s period of ownership to satisfy the requirement whereas others are unable to do so.

Clause 1 seeks to remove that barrier to leaseholders who wish to exercise their enfranchisement rights. It removes the requirement to have owned the lease of a house for at least two years before qualifying to buy their freehold or extend their lease. It also removes the requirement to own the lease of a flat for two years before extending the lease. This gives leaseholders the flexibility to make a claim immediately upon buying a leasehold property, and it will reduce their costs. It also resolves inconsistencies in the current law. The measures will remove an unnecessary restriction for leaseholders. I commend the clause to the Committee.

[Matthew Pennycook (Greenwich and Woolwich) (Lab)]

I thank the Minister for his explanation of clause 1. I add the Opposition’s thanks to the witnesses who gave evidence to us last week. It was extremely useful. Before I begin, I would like to declare an interest. My wife is joint chief executive of the Law Commission, whose work we will be debating extensively in the days to come.

It is a pleasure to start line-by-line consideration with you in the Chair, Mr Efford. It is a genuine privilege to serve on a Public Bill Committee comprised of hon. Members who have not only a real interest in the subject matter, but real expertise. It is my sincere wish that we draw on all of it in the days ahead to improve this legislation and, as much as the Government Whip may discourage it, that hon. Members on the Government Benches, including the hon. Members for Walsall North and for Redditch, as former Housing Ministers, take the opportunity to participate actively in our deliberations.

Having not had a suitable chance to put it on the record, I would like to take this opportunity to formally welcome the hon. Member for North East Derbyshire back to his place. He and I disagree politically, often viscerally, when it comes to many, many issues, but he is a hard-working, diligent and thoughtful Minister. I look forward to the robust and, on the whole, constructive debates we will have over the coming sessions.

Before I turn to the detail of clause 1, I want to put some brief general remarks on the record to frame what is to follow. As we made clear on Second Reading, we are fully in support of the principle of the Bill and the intent behind its provisions. The range of measures that the Committee will consider will, without question, provide a degree of relief to leasehold and freehold homeowners in England and Wales, by giving them greater rights, powers and protections over their homes. That is obviously to be welcomed. However, during Second Reading we also expressed our deep regret about the Bill’s lack of ambition and bemoaned the implications for leaseholders, who are being routinely gouged by freeholders under the present flawed system.

I want to be as clear as I possibly can with leaseholders who may be following our proceedings as to the Opposition’s approach to the Committee stage. While we welcome in principle the provisions contained in the Bill, we do have concerns about the efficacy of several of them, including clause 1. As such, we will seek to probe and rectify their various defects and deficiencies so as to ensure that they truly deliver for leaseholders. We will also engage constructively with the Government in relation to any significant new measures introduced into the Bill, not least the glaring omission of provisions designed to ban the sale of new build leasehold houses. We will introduce a number of specific targeted measures designed to give leaseholders a little more control over their future and strengthen the foundations on which future, bolder reform will be enacted.

What we do not intend to do is attempt to persuade the Government of the benefits of using this Bill to enact all, or even significantly more, of the hundreds of Law Commission recommendations on enfranchisement, right to manage and commonhold, which the Government have chosen not to include in this Bill. The Government had the opportunity to bring forward ambitious legislation and enact all the Law Commission’s recommendations from its three reports in 2020, thereby delivering on the promises that successive Ministers have made to leaseholders over the past years. They have made the political choice not to do so. Attempting to radically overhaul this piece of legislation by means of hundreds of amendments required to implement all those recommendations would not only be an onerous, perhaps impossible, undertaking, given its limited nature, but would delay the Bill’s passage and, with a general election in the months ahead still a distinct possibility, put it at risk entirely.

We want leaseholders to benefit from the measures in the Bill as soon as possible. We therefore wish to see it, albeit suitably strengthened, out of Committee as quickly as possible to maximise its chances of receiving Royal Assent. Make no mistake, Labour is committed to bringing the current iniquitous leasehold system to an end, overhauling it to the lasting benefit of leaseholders and reinvigorating commonhold to such an extent that it will ultimately become the default and render leasehold obsolete. Leaseholders across the country therefore have our firm commitment to finish the job in due course.

Turning to clause 1 and the rest of part 1, one of the reasons that the Bill can reasonably expect a speedy passage out of Committee is that parts 1 and 2, together with related schedules, implement a subset of Law Commission recommendations that are almost entirely uncontentious. Part 1 of the Bill, as the Minister has said, concerns leasehold enfranchisement and extension.

As I have said, the clauses in this part implement some but not all of the Law Commission’s recommendations designed to make it cheaper and easier for leaseholders in houses and flats to extend their lease or acquire their freehold. They include procedural changes as well as substantive ones that extend tenant rights and empower leaseholders by giving them greater control and value. There is in that respect, and as we touched on during the evidence sessions last week, an explicit and very welcome redistributive intent that underpins the legislation.

As the Law Commission exhaustively detailed in its final 2020 report on leasehold enfranchisement, the case for reforming the present enfranchisement regime is incontrovertible. It is not only incredibly complex but inconsistent. As a result, leaseholders face unnecessary litigation, uncertainty and costs when attempting to exercise their rights under it. The law in this area needs to be overhauled and we therefore welcome the objective that underpins each of the provisions in this part.

We wish to probe the Government further on various issues relating to the precise drafting of those provisions, as well as seeking to address the flaws of a limited number. As the Minister made clear, clause 1 removes the two-year qualifying period before enfranchisement and extension claims can proceed in respect of both houses and flats by amending the relevant sections of the Leasehold Reform Act 1967 and the Leasehold Reform, Housing and Urban Development Act 1993, which I will hereafter refer to simply as the 1967 and 1993 Acts.

Clause 1 implements recommendation 29 from the Law Commission’s final 2020 report on leasehold enfranchisement. We welcome the clause. A core objective of the Bill is to increase access to enfranchisement by rendering more leaseholders eligible for such rights. By liberalising this and other qualifying criteria, we are confident it will achieve that objective.

As the Committee is no doubt aware, the current two-year ownership requirement was designed primarily to prevent investors benefiting from enfranchisement rights intended for residential leaseholders. Yet it is patently not achieving that objective given the relatively simple workarounds that sophisticated commercial investors can and do take advantage of. Indeed, the requirement can fairly be said to have created a market designed explicitly to facilitate their doing so—a development entirely at odds with the rationale for the two-year ownership requirement. At the same time, that requirement presents a significant barrier to ordinary leaseholders exercising enfranchisement rights and, importantly, leads to rising premiums for many of them as a result of waiting for two years in which capital values may have increased or lease lengths reduced.

Abolishing the requirement for leaseholders to have owned premises for two years prior to exercising enfranchisement rights, so that they have the right to carry out an enfranchisement claim as soon as they acquire their lease, is an entirely sensible reform. It would also resolve the current inconsistency between the position of trustees in bankruptcy and of personal representatives, and avoid the technical, costly and error-prone workarounds that have been created involving the assignment of a benefit of notice.

Although the clause is entirely uncontentious from our perspective, I do have one question for the Minister: why have the Government chosen to include subsection (2)(c) and, consequential on that reform, subsection (3) in this clause? Subsection (3A) of section 39 of the 1993 Act concerning what happens in the event of the death of a qualifying tenant clearly needs to be overhauled to account for the removal of the two-year qualifying period, but surely the Government wish to ensure that the right of a tenant’s personal representative to exercise enfranchisement rights on their behalf in the event of their death is sustained? Will the Minister confirm whether I am right in believing that that is the Government’s wish?

If so, given that the right would not appear to be sustained as a result of the drafting of clause 1, is it maintained by means of other provisions in the Bill? If not, surely the Government must accept that the decision to simply omit the relevant subsection (3A) needs to be reconsidered to ensure that the right is maintained in future? The omission may affect only a small number of leaseholders going forward, but it is important that we ensure their personal representatives are conferred the rights that they would have enjoyed had they lived. I look forward to the Minister’s response.

[Lee Rowley]

First, let me echo the remarks of the hon. Member for Greenwich and Woolwich. He said some kind words about me and I would like to say the same about him. He has always been extremely constructive and helpful. We share the aim of trying to improve the legislation and I am grateful to be working with him. I hope we can work in many areas and agree more than we disagree. He was right when he said that this is incredibly complicated. Having tried for the past two months to get into all the details, there may still be areas where I am unable to answer all the questions from hon. and right hon. Members today. I will do my best, but I will write to them if I am unable to answer anything.

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for confirming that Labour will support this clause. On his specific point around where leaseholders have sadly passed away and there is a requirement for a personal representative or equivalent, it is not our intention to make that process any more difficult or to change the fundamental ability of people to make decisions about how to dispose or deal with properties that are left in the event of a death. Having spoken to officials and those involved in the drafting of this, my understanding is that the exemptions referred to in subsections (2)(c) and (3) become effectively moot. The removal of the two-year rule preventing a representative from taking action means that at the point they inherit the property—or whatever legal approach is taken to transfer it the estate to a new owner or representative—the problem goes away.

If, for some reason, we have missed something, I would be very happy to take anything from the hon. Member for Greenwich and Woolwich or others, either now or in writing, which I can go away and look at. Our understanding is that this does not need to continue, hence why we have chosen to remove it within the clause.

[Matthew Pennycook]

I welcome that clarification from the Minister and his indication that it is the Government’s firm intent to ensure that personal representatives can exercise enfranchisement rights on behalf of a leaseholder who has died, because of the removal of the two-year rule. I urge the Minister or his officials to look at the precise wording of this clause, because we are worried that—his comments notwithstanding—it may not do this in practice, and there may be some ambiguity. I do, however, welcome the assurance he has given. On that basis, we will not oppose this clause standing part of the Bill.

[Lee Rowley]

To confirm, I am happy to double-check this, but I hope what I have just indicated stands.

Question put and agreed to.

Clause 1 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 2

Removal of restrictions on repeated enfranchisement and extension claims

Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.

[Lee Rowley]

Currently, the restrictions placed on leaseholders to make a claim to buy their freehold or extend their lease can be seen as excessively punitive. Leaseholders are prevented from making a claim to buy their freehold or extend their lease for 12 months, when a previous claim has failed even on a minor point. In addition, a claim for a lease extension on a house can be obtained only once, and we seek to remove those unnecessary barriers for leaseholders, which frustrate their ability to buy their freehold or extend their lease.

Clause 2 seeks to address this problem by removing the requirement to wait 12 months to submit a new claim if the previous one has failed. It will also remove the restriction on bringing a further claim where a lease extension has already been obtained for a house. This means that leaseholders will be able to put in a further claim to enfranchise or extend their lease as soon as they have resolved the issues with their failed claim. Leaseholders of houses will not be prevented from making a claim for a lease extension if one has already been obtained, preventing the landlord from being able to regain possession of the property from a leaseholder when the lease eventually comes to an end.

Clause 2 will also remove provisions that give courts powers to prevent new enfranchisement or lease extension claims for five years where a claim has failed, and the leaseholder did not act in good faith or attempted to misrepresent or conceal material facts. These powers are old and surplus to requirements, coming from the 1967 Act, which has been overtaken by developments in the law around civil restraint orders since then. These restraint orders are more flexible, better developed, subject to more rigorous checks, and may be fairer than the existing power. Therefore, the existing law and the Bill can still deal with meritless of abusive enfranchisement claims. The tribunal already has powers to award costs for such unreasonable behaviour. The removal of these should not change that; it is simply a tidying-up exercise, and a recognition that other parts of the law do this better. These measures will remove barriers to leaseholders being able to take up their right to enfranchise or extend their lease without unnecessary delays.

[Matthew Pennycook]

I welcome that explanation of the clause, which, as the Minister says, removes various restrictions on repeated enfranchisement and extension claims. It is our understanding that they include the provisions in the 1967 Act and the 1993 Act that prevent tenants from starting new enfranchisement or lease-extension claims within 12 months of an earlier claim failing to complete; the provisions of the 1967 Act that give courts the power to order compensation and prevent new enfranchisement or lease extension claims for five years after a claim has failed; and the provisions of the 1967 Act that prevent tenants from bringing a further lease extension claim where a lease extension has already been obtained under the Act.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lee Rowley]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his comments and, again, for indicating his support for the intent of clause 2. On his question with regard to subsections (1)(c) and (d), I will write to him, given that it is a technical question about the specific description in the legislation. Hopefully, I will be able to provide the comfort he seeks.

As he indicated later in his remarks, we believe there is the ability for vexatious claimants, in whatever sense, to be accommodated by the existing legislation elsewhere, so there is no need to replicate that or to retain something that is very rarely used. That is the reason for removing it.

Finally, on his point about orders from a tribunal and the Law Commission’s recommendation, it goes back to the fact that we believe the process that is in place is already mature and very capable of responding to the legitimate points he highlights. Therefore, there is no need to create an additional process in the Bill, but I will write to him to absolutely clarify that point and make sure that we have everything we need.

[Matthew Pennycook]

I welcome that clarification from the Minister and look forward to any further detail that he might provide to the Committee via written correspondence.

[Rachel Maclean (Redditch) (Con)]

May I ask the Minister to confirm that clause 2(2) refers to schedule 7 to the Bill? In our evidence sessions last week, we heard from certain leaseholders who were concerned that they would not benefit from the provisions if their lease was less than a certain number of years. Paragraph 2(2)(a) of schedule 7 states that a lease will not qualify if

“the unexpired term of the lease is less than 150 years”.

There was some debate about that length. Will the Minister address those leaseholders’ concern that the period is too long and that there should not be that restriction? Or will he write to me later to address what considerations went into that provision? If we are excluding people from these welcome provisions, perhaps we should seek to otherwise widen the group of people who can benefit from having their leases converted to a peppercorn lease.

[Lee Rowley]

We will probably talk in detail about the 150-year decision—the Law Commission proposed 250 years—in relation to quite a number of areas later this morning, so I do not want to pre-empt that now. As I will explain later, the Government’s intention was that, if a lease is coming up in a reasonably short period of time, it is advantageous to align everything together, as opposed to doing just one thing, because there will be the potential for double costs and the like. I am happy to talk about that more when we get further into line-by-line consideration.

Question put and agreed to.

Clause 2 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 3

Change of non-residential limit on collective enfranchisement claims

[Matthew Pennycook]

I beg to move amendment 1, in clause 3, page 2, line 19, at end insert—

“(2) After section 4(5) of the LRHUDA 1993, insert—

‘(6) The Secretary of State or the Welsh Ministers may by regulations amend this section to provide for a different description of premises falling within section 3(1) to which this Chapter does not apply.

(7) Regulations may not be made under subsection (6) unless a draft of the regulations has been laid before, and approved by resolution of—

(a) in the case of regulations made by the Secretary of State, both Houses of Parliament;

(b) in the case of regulations made by the Welsh Ministers, Senedd Cymru.’

(3) In section 100 of the LRHUDA 1993—

(a) in subsection (2), after ‘making’, insert ‘provision under section 4(6) or’;

(b) in subsection (3), after ‘making’, insert ‘provision under section 4(6) or’.”

This amendment would enable the Secretary of State or (in the case of Wales) the Welsh Ministers to change the description of premises which are excluded from collective enfranchisement rights. Such a change would be subject to the affirmative resolution procedure.

[The Chair]

With this it will be convenient to discuss clause stand part.

[Matthew Pennycook]

Clause 3 makes changes to the non-residential limit for collective enfranchisement claims. At present, section 4(1) of the 1993 Act excludes from the right to enfranchise buildings in which 25% or more of the internal floor area, excluding common parts, can be occupied or are intended to be occupied for non-residential use. The clause increases the non-residential use percentage to 50%.

We welcome the change, which enacts recommendation 38 of the Law Commission’s final report on leasehold enfranchisement and was suggested by, among others, the National Leasehold Campaign. The purpose of the non-residential limit is to confine enfranchisement to predominantly residential blocks, but as the Law Commission determined, the existing 25% limit

“does not achieve that purpose.”

There is a significant amount of evidence that it instead regularly prevents leaseholders from undertaking collective freehold acquisitions because a sizeable proportion of buildings fall slightly above it. As the Law Commission’s final report puts it,

“the 25% limit provides a significant bar to the ability of leaseholders to undertake a collective freehold acquisition”.

The Law Commission further argued that

“the arbitrary nature of the limit makes the bar to enfranchisement a source of considerable frustration for many leaseholders.”

Deciding where to draw the line in respect of the level of non-residential use permitted in a building before collective enfranchisement rights cease to be available is inherently difficult. There will always be outlying cases that approach or go beyond an increased limit. However, given that one of the explicit purposes of the Bill is to bring as many leaseholders as possible within the enfranchisement regime and, in respect of the non-residential limit, specifically to prevent developers building around it in order to exclude blocks of flats from enfranchisement rights, an incremental increase to 30%, 35% or even 40% does not, instinctively, feel sufficient.

The issue is inherently subjective, and the Law Commission recognised as much, but if enfranchisement rights should be enjoyed by buildings that are primarily residential in nature, a 50% threshold feels appropriate and fair, because it would ensure that the predominant form of ownership in such buildings remains residential. A 50% non-residential limit is likely to mean that the number of genuine cases that are excluded by it will be small, and it will inevitably reduce gaming by developers, because to exceed the 50% limit a building will have to be genuinely commercial in nature. At least, that is the hope.

We very much hope the clause serves to significantly boost enfranchisement rates and in due course to assist more leaseholders of mixed-use buildings to convert to commonhold. However, our reservation about the clause as drafted is that it provides no flexibility to further amend the non-residential limit. We believe it would be sensible to build in a degree of flexibility so that any future changes to the limit for collective enfranchisement rights do not require primary legislation but can instead be enacted through regulations.

One can imagine a number of scenarios that might lead to the effectiveness or reasonableness of the Government’s proposed 50% limit, which the Law Commission accepts is inescapably arbitrary, coming into question. For example, we might find in the years following its implementation that it does not manage to encompass a small but still unacceptable number of leaseholders in buildings that fall slightly above it, and we may wish to quickly take steps to allow them to exercise collective enfranchisement rights. Alternatively, a future Government may decide that they wish to use a criterion other than internal floor area to determine eligibility for such rights—for example, the percentage of the service charge paid by leaseholders. It is our understanding that, in both scenarios, new primary legislation would be required to make changes to the non-residential limit, either to increase the percentage of the internal floor area that can be occupied, or which is intended to be occupied, for non-residential use, or to entirely change the criteria upon which the limit is based. We therefore believe it would be preferable to give the Secretary of State the power, by means of regulations subject to the affirmative procedure, to vary the limit to account for changing circumstances. Amendment 1 would do so.

The amendment would amend clause 3, which itself amends section 4 of the 1993 Act by inserting new subsections into it. It would allow the Secretary of State to amend the whole of section 4 of the 1993 Act in any way they see fit to create a different description of a non-qualifying property. In short, it would hardwire flexibility in respect of the non-residential limit for collective enfranchisement claims into the Bill. We believe it is a sensible and reasonable amendment, and I hope the Minister agrees and makes it clear that the Government are happy to accept it. One lives in hope—I have done more of these Committees than I care to admit, so I know that even if I am right the Minister will not accept the amendment and will bring back a proposal at a later stage, but I hope he accepts the principle.

Before I conclude, I want to raise a separate but related matter to the non-residential limit that this clause makes changes to: how we define a building for the purposes of freehold acquisitions and right to manage claims, which we will debate in due course, and specifically whether buildings need to be structurally detached, with parts vertically divided, in order to be eligible for such rights. As hon. Members will recall, concerns about structural detachment and shared services were raised by several witnesses who gave evidence to the Committee last week. The fear that they highlighted was that the existing rules around structural dependency, particularly for buildings with extensive levels of overhang, such as those that arise when multiple blocks of flats are built over a shared car park, would frustrate many legitimate enfranchisement claims otherwise made possible by clause 3 and other provisions in the Bill that liberalise qualifying criteria and remove obstacles to enfranchisement.

The counter argument would be that rules around structural detachment and their applicability to the non-residential limit are necessary to avoid the creation of so-called flying freeholds and the block management problems that arise in such cases, and that such buildings are eligible for enfranchisement by a single claim if the tenants of the various blocks proceed together. The Law Commission appear to have agreed. It recommended retaining the existing test but making a small tweak that would allow minor deviations from the strict vertical division otherwise required for a part of a building to be separately enfranchisable. Notwithstanding the Law Commission’s reasoning, we believe it is important to properly consider whether the structural detachment rules will limit the opportunities for leaseholders to enfranchise using the liberalised qualifying criteria that clause 3 provides for.

Our amendment does not directly probe that issue because it is concerned with providing future flexibility in respect of legal title rather than physical building exclusions, but it is important that this Committee considers the impact of structural detachment rules as they currently operate, and the extent to which they may frustrate the Bill’s objective to expand access to enfranchisement. I would therefore be grateful if the Minister can tell us whether the Government have considered whether the rules on structural detachment may indeed frustrate leaseholders in that respect and whether they consider that a problem. If not, and they are convinced that there is good reason for the existing tests to remain in place, will the Minister tell us why they chose not to implement recommendation 33 of the Law Commission’s final report on leasehold enfranchisement, which would have provided for a relaxation of the currently strict approach to the 1993 Act’s vertical division condition? I look forward to the Minister’s response.

--- Later in debate ---

[Rachel Maclean]

May I throw the general issue of collective enfranchisement into the mix? The Minister may wish to come back on it at a later point if it suits him better. Many people in this situation have raised with me the sheer practicalities and difficulties of doing a collective enfranchisement. When people live in a huge block of flats with vast numbers of flats, they do not necessarily know who the other people are and certainly do not have their contact details. That, in and of itself, presents a barrier and an obstacle for some of these claims. We have heard evidence from groups affected by this situation—most notably the Free Leaseholders group, but there are many others—who have made this point repeatedly.

[Matthew Pennycook]

The hon. Member raises a very pertinent issue. Is she minded to support our new clauses 30 and 31, which deal precisely with it?

[Rachel Maclean]

The hon. Gentleman is a very persuasive orator in this Committee, as he is in many other fora, and I will definitely listen to those arguments when they are made. We all work in the spirit of improving this Bill. I very much hope that the Government will provide the explanations I have asked for, and specifically on this issue at this point.

--- Later in debate ---

[Matthew Pennycook]

First, on the Minister’s response, I am slightly reassured but not wholly convinced. I would like the opportunity to go away, look carefully at his remarks and consider whether we need to come back to this, and I reserve that right, Mr Efford.

On amendment 1, I am frankly not convinced by the arguments made by the Minister and the hon. Member for Walsall North. We well understand the concerns that they have both drawn attention to. As I have said, it is an inherently subjective decision as to where that threshold is drawn. We also accept that, when it comes to existing buildings, the number of leaseholders who are potentially excluded will be small in number. But we want to avoid a situation where our constituents are coming to us in buildings with a 51% or 52% rate and saying, “We can’t collectively enfranchise as you intended. We are frustrated by the powers in the Bill.” On the basis of the Minister’s argument, we will have to say to them, “You have to wait a good few years for another leasehold Bill—maybe many years based on the history of leasehold reform—for such a change to come forward.” It is a continuum; this a substantial change, and we are trying to build some flexibility into that change.

[Barry Gardiner]

Does my hon. Friend agree that this will probably affect the little people a lot more than the big, because of the likelihood of achieving 50% commercial within a leasehold block? Many of our town and city centres have buildings with commercial below and very few flats above. Therefore, it is much more likely that it will be a group of people—yes, a small group—living in that situation, rather than in the Shard, coming to us complaining.

[Matthew Pennycook]

My hon. Friend makes a good point: it is not just the number but the type of leaseholder who we are potentially excluding. All we are saying, as I argued in great detail, is that Ministers should have flexibility to change, if there is sufficient evidence to suggest that large numbers are being excluded or—I refer to the gaming point—we see developers building with a 51% area just to escape the threshold. We do not propose that the 50% change; we think it is an appropriate and fair starting point, but surely the Government need some flexibility in this area.

I must say to the Minister that this is the first time I have heard a Government Minister say no to Henry VIII powers, but I am afraid that his argument for saying no to them was, from my point of view, entirely expedient and not particularly well justified. I urge the Government to think again. I am minded, purely because of the way in which the Minister has responded, to push the amendment to a vote. If the Government are flatly refusing to look at the issue, we must make clear that we feel strongly about it.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lee Rowley]

Clause 4 introduces schedule 1, which repeals rights that enable landlords to block a lease extension or freehold acquisition claim for a house or flat where the landlord intends to redevelop or reoccupy the property. Where the blockers are used, compensation is only paid to leaseholders in houses, not those in flats. The blockers apply to a minority of leases that have not been extended and are very near to ending.

Although that means that, in practice, rights are rarely used, enfranchising leaseholders should have the opportunity to make their decisions about the need and scope of redevelopment once they own the freehold. Leaseholders with few years remaining on their lease should have the option of extending and securing their tenure. Where a lease is extended, landlords will continue to have statutory break rights that can terminate leases for redevelopment. We will consider break rights in schedule 6 and cover further details about the blockers when we come to consider schedule 1. I commend the clause to the Committee.

[Matthew Pennycook]

As the Minister has made clear, clause 4 concerns eligibility for enfranchisement and extension in specific cases. It gives effect to schedule 1, which repeals specific limitations on those rights under the 1967 and 1993 Acts. As the Minister has detailed, they include: the right of a landlord to defend a lease extension or collective enfranchisement claim on grounds of redevelopment; the right to defeat a freehold acquisition or lease extension claim for the purposes of retaking possession of the property for personal use; and the limitations that prevent a sublessee from claiming a lease extension if their sub-lease was granted by an intermediate leaseholder out of a lease that had been extended under the relevant Act.

We welcome the clause, which implements, although is not confined to, recommendation 98 of the Law Commission’s final report on leasehold enfranchisement. When considering the case for reform in this area, the Law Commission made clear that its proposal could reduce the value of the leaseholder’s lease as a result of the transfer of some enfranchisement rights from a leaseholder who has previously extended his or her lease pursuant to the legislation to the leaseholder to whom they had subsequently granted a sub-lease. However, the Law Commission ultimately determined that any such loss of value was overstated. Its reasoning was—assuming that I have understood the relevant technical arguments correctly—that there would be no difference in value between the sum that the intermediate leaseholders could expect to obtain if their lease was acquired in a collective freehold acquisition under the present law and the value of the intermediate leaseholder’s interest in the light of its proposal.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lee Rowley]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his contribution. As he indicates, this is—I think by common consent—a rare issue in the first place, not that that diminishes the importance of ensuring that we get it right. It is very complicated, as he has indicated; different leases will have different elements within them and it is impossible to comment on every single case or every single instance, as has been indicated, because of the complexity. I am not aware that there is an indication that there is a general reduction in the value of leases for the very small number that this will cover. I will write to the Committee if what I have just said is incorrect or needs clarification in any way. I hope that, on that basis, we can make progress.

[Matthew Pennycook]

I welcome that clarification from the Minister and the offer to provide us with further details should they be needed.

Question put and agreed to.

Clause 4 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Schedule 1

ELIGIBILITY FOR ENFRANCHISEMENT AND EXTENSION: SPECIFIC CASES

[Lee Rowley]

I beg to move amendment 57, in schedule 1, page 82, line 16, at end insert—

“Exception to enfranchisement for certified community housing providers

3A (1) The LRA 1967 is amended as follows.

(2) In section 1 (tenants eligible for enfranchisement and extension), after subsection (1B) insert—

‘(1C) This Part of this Act does not confer on a tenant a right to acquire the freehold of a house and premises if the landlord under the existing tenancy is a certified community housing provider (see section 4B).’

(3) After section 4A insert—

‘4B Meaning of “certified community housing provider’

(1) For the purposes of this Part of this Act, a person is a “certified community housing provider” if the appropriate tribunal has issued a community housing certificate in respect of the person.

(2) A community housing certificate is a certificate that the tribunal has determined that the person—

(a) is a community land trust within the meaning of section 2(7A) of the Leasehold Reform (Ground Rent) Act 2022, or

(b) is of a description, or satisfies conditions, specified for this purpose in regulations made by the Secretary of State.

(3) The tribunal may issue a community housing certificate only in respect of a person that has made an application to the tribunal for the certificate.

(4) The tribunal may cancel a community housing certificate—

(a) on the application of the person in respect of which the certificate is issued, or

(b) on the application of a tenant affected by the certificate, if the tribunal considers that—

(i) the person in respect of which the certificate is issued does not fall within subsection (2)(a) or (b), or

(ii) the certificate was obtained by deception or fraud.

For this purpose a tenant is “affected by” a certificate if, by virtue of section 1(1C), the tenant does not have the right to acquire the freehold because the certificate is issued in respect of their landlord.

(5) The effect of the tribunal cancelling the certificate is that the person is not a certified community housing provider unless the tribunal issues a new community housing certificate.

(6) The Secretary of State may by regulations provide for—

(a) the procedure to be followed in connection with an application for a community housing certificate;

(b) the procedure to be followed for the cancellation of a community housing certificate (including in connection with an application for the cancellation);

(c) any matters to which the tribunal must have regard in deciding whether to issue or cancel a community housing certificate.

(7) The Secretary of State may by regulations make provision about the application of this Part in circumstances where—

(a) a landlord’s application for a community housing certificate has not been concluded when a tenant gives notice of their desire to have the freehold of a house and premises under this Part, or

(b) a tenant’s claim to have the freehold of a house and premises under this Part has not been concluded when a landlord’s application for a community housing certificate is made.

(8) Regulations under subsection (7) may in particular provide for—

(a) the claim for the freehold to be paused or to have no effect;

(b) a time period for the purposes of this Part to be extended in connection with the application;

(c) the landlord to compensate a tenant or reversioner in respect of reasonable costs incurred in connection with a claim to acquire the freehold—

(i) if the tenant ceases to have the right to acquire the freehold because of the issue of a certificate under this section, or

(ii) if the costs are incurred as a result of the claim being suspended because of an application for a certificate under this section;

(d) enforcement by the appropriate tribunal of any of the requirements of the regulations;

(e) the appropriate tribunal to make orders that are supplementary to the issue of a community housing certificate.

(9) Regulations under this section—

(a) may make different provision for different purposes;

(b) are to be made by statutory instrument.

(10) A statutory instrument containing regulations under this section (whether alone or with other provision) may not be made unless a draft of the instrument has been laid before, and approved by a resolution of, each House of Parliament.’

3B (1) The LRHUDA 1993 is amended as follows.

(2) In section 5 (qualifying tenants for enfranchisement), after subsection (2)(a) insert—

‘(aa) the immediate landlord under the lease is a certified community housing provider (see section 8B); or’

(3) Before section 9 insert—

‘8B Meaning of “certified community housing provider’

(1) For the purposes of this Chapter, a person is a “certified community housing provider” if the appropriate tribunal has issued a community housing certificate in respect of the person.

(2) A community housing certificate is a certificate that the tribunal has determined that the person—

(a) is a community land trust within the meaning of section 2(7A) of the Leasehold Reform (Ground Rent) Act 2022, or

(b) is of a description, or satisfies conditions, specified for this purpose in regulations made by the Secretary of State.

(3) The tribunal may issue a community housing certificate only in respect of a person that has made an application to the tribunal for the certificate.

(4) The tribunal may cancel a community housing certificate—

(a) on the application of the person in respect of which the certificate is issued, or

(b) on the application of a leaseholder affected by the certificate, if the tribunal considers that—

(i) the person in respect of which the certificate is issued does not fall within subsection (2)(a) or (b), or

(ii) the certificate was obtained by deception or fraud.

For this purpose a leaseholder is “affected by” a certificate if, by virtue of section 5(2)(aa), the leaseholder is not a qualifying tenant because the certificate is issued in respect of their immediate landlord.

(5) The effect of the tribunal cancelling the certificate is that the person is not a certified community housing provider unless the tribunal issues a new community housing certificate.

(6) The Secretary of State may by regulations provide for—

(a) the procedure to be followed in connection with an application for a community housing certificate;

(b) the procedure to be followed for the cancellation of a community housing certificate (including in connection with an application for the cancellation);

(c) any matters to which the tribunal must have regard in deciding whether to issue or cancel a community housing certificate.

(7) The Secretary of State may by regulations make provision about the application of this Chapter in circumstances where—

(a) a landlord’s application for a community housing certificate has not been concluded when a nominee purchaser gives notice under section 13 of a claim to exercise the right to collective enfranchisement, or

(b) a claim to exercise the right to collective enfranchisement has not been concluded when a landlord’s application for a community housing certificate is made.

(8) Regulations under subsection (7) may in particular provide for—

(a) the claim for the freehold to be paused or to have no effect;

(b) a time period for the purposes of this Chapter to be extended in connection with the application;

(c) the landlord to compensate the nominee purchaser, a tenant or a reversioner in respect of reasonable costs incurred in connection with a claim to exercise the right to collective enfranchisement—

(i) if a person ceases to be a participating tenant because of the issue of a certificate under this section (and in this case the compensation may relate to reasonable costs for which the person is liable that are incurred after the person ceases to be a participating tenant),

(ii) if the participating tenants cease to have the right to collective enfranchisement because of the issue of a certificate under this section, or

(iii) if the costs are incurred as a result of the claim being suspended because of an application for a certificate under this section;

(d) enforcement by the appropriate tribunal of any of the requirements of the regulations;

(e) the appropriate tribunal to make orders that are supplementary to the issue of a community housing certificate.’

(4) In section 39(3)(a) (qualifying tenants for extension), before ‘(5)’ insert ‘(2)(aa), ’.

(5) In section 100 (orders and regulations), after subsection (2) insert—

‘(2A) But a statutory instrument containing regulations under section 8B (whether alone or with other provision) may not be made unless a draft of the instrument has been laid before, and approved by a resolution of, each House of Parliament.’”

This amendment would provide for an exception to enfranchisement (but not extension) for tenants of certified community housing providers (persons certified as managing land for the benefit of local communities).

--- Later in debate ---

[Lee Rowley]

My apologies, Mr Efford. I thought that we were debating these as a group. I will come to amendment 58 when we get to that group.

[Matthew Pennycook]

I rise briefly to speak to these four Government amendments and to make a wider comment on them and the other 116 amendments that have been tabled in the Minister’s name over recent days.

Having scrutinised these amendments as carefully as we could in the time available, we are as confident as we can be that none is problematic. Indeed, we very much welcomed the exemption provided for community-led housing.

As confirmed to the Committee by Professor Nick Hopkins, 18 of the 120 Government amendments tabled in Committee implement Law Commission policy that was not in the Bill as introduced and on which Law Commission staff have been involved in instructing parliamentary counsel. The vast majority of the other 102 amendments are merely technical in nature. Providing that the Minister sets out clearly their effect and rationale, as he just has in relation to this group of amendments, we do not intend to detain the Committee over the coming sessions by exploring the finer points of each.

However, I feel I must put on record our intense frustration at the fact that so many detailed Government amendments were tabled just days before commencement of line-by-line scrutiny began. The practice of significantly amending Bills as they progress through the House has become common practice for this Government and in our view it is not acceptable. Other Governments have done it, but it has become the norm under this Government. It impedes hon. Members in effectively scrutinising legislation and increases the likelihood that Acts of Parliament contain errors that subsequently need to be remedied, as happened with the Building Safety Act 2022; as the Minister will know, we have had to pass a number of regulations making technical corrections to that Act.

When it comes to this Bill, the Government have had the Law Commission’s recommendations for almost four years and access to Law Commission staff to aid parliamentary counsel with drafting. There really is no excuse for eleventh-hour amendments introducing Law Commission policy or technical amendments designed to clarify, correct mistakes, or ensure consistency across provisions.

[Barry Gardiner]

Is my hon. Friend as surprised as I was to find that a 133-page Bill has a 102-page amendment paper? As he says, this came late. It is not just Opposition Members who mind; it is hon. Members of all parties who want to adequately scrutinise the Bill. It makes life very difficult to go through detailed amendments, often amending previous legislation—therefore, we have to get that legislation and see what the impact of the changes is—and it impedes the work of Parliament in that respect. The Minister should explain why many of these amendments were tabled so late in the day.

[Matthew Pennycook]

I completely agree with my hon. Friend. I think I am justified in saying that it is frankly laughable that this has happened. We have an amendment paper that is almost—and may be, in due course—larger than the Bill itself. It reeks of a Government in disarray. Though I know that the Minister has picked up this Bill part-way through its development, I urge him not only to do what he can to ensure that when the Government publish any Bill it is broadly in the format they wish it to proceed in and see passed, but also to table any further amendments to this Bill in good time so that we can give them the level of scrutiny that leaseholders across the country rightfully expect.

[Rachel Maclean]

I will not detain the Committee for long. In response to those comments from the Opposition, I observe only that when they were last in government— in 2002, if I am correct—they had the opportunity to address the system and rectify the failures that we are now dealing with. It is now left to this Government to do it. On that note, I want to say to my hon. Friend the Minister how important it is that the community-led housing sector is excluded. I would not normally say that about any form of housing, but we have recently strengthened the national planning policy framework to encourage more of that type of housing. We know it is popular and often commands local support, while other types of housing sadly do not, and we need to see more of it built. The sector has had extensive discussions. This is a sensible amendment, which I support.

--- Later in debate ---

[Matthew Pennycook]

Clause 5 is extremely technical. It concerns the treatment of intermediate leases during a collective enfranchisement. I beg the Committee’s forgiveness for the level of complexity I am about to throw at the Minister; nevertheless, it is important to the leaseholders who stand to be affected. As the Minister said, the clause replaces section 2 of the 1993 Act on to the acquisition of leasehold interest, with a new schedule, A1, that will henceforth govern the acquisition of intermediate interests during a collective enfranchisement process.

New schedule A1 enacts part or all of five recommendations made by the Law Commission in chapter 13 of its 2020 report, and is uncontentious. However, when considering the treatment of intermediate leases and other leasehold interests in that chapter, the Law Commission recommended that a duty be imposed on the landlord dealing with the enfranchisement claim

“to act in good faith and with reasonable skill and care”

toward other landlords involved. Any such landlord should be able to apply for directions from the tribunal about the conduct of the response to the claim. It also recommended corresponding requirements for landlords who are not dealing with the claim to provide all necessary information and assistance to the landlord who is, and to contribute to the non-litigation costs of that landlord.

My reading of schedule A1 is that its effect will be that any settlement reached between a leaseholder and the landlord who is dealing with a claim, and any determination of that claim by the tribunal, will be binding on all other landlords. Assuming that I have interpreted the schedule correctly, can the Minister make clear why it does not appear to implement the duties and requirements that the Law Commission recommended should apply to landlords who are dealing with the claim and landlords who are not, respectively?

Finally, while I appreciate that we will consider the issue of valuation in more detail when we come to consider clauses 9, 10 and 11, I would be grateful if the Minister could also provide some clarification on how the Bill proposes to calculate enfranchisement premiums in instances where there are intermediate leases. Am I right in believing that schedule 2 treats intermediate leases as merged for the purposes of valuation?

On a related matter, the Minister will also be aware that the Law Commission set out the option of generally disregarding the existence of an intermediate lease when determining the premium payable on enfranchisement on the grounds that it would simplify the calculation and create greater fairness between leaseholders and between landlords, as premiums would not differ solely because of the existence or otherwise of one or more intermediate leases. It also recommended that on any individual lease extension claim, the rent payable by an intermediate landlord should be commuted on a pro rata basis.

If I have understood the relevant provisions correctly, neither proposal was incorporated into the Bill as first published. The second of those recommendations appears to be addressed by Government amendments 73 and 95. I would be grateful if the Minister could confirm whether my reading of those amendments is correct in that regard—via correspondence, if he needs to, as I appreciate that these are extremely technical questions. Broadly, we would like the Minister to expand on his remarks and provide some clarity about the treatment of intermediate leases during collective enfranchisement and the extent to which this part of the Bill as a whole reflects the Law Commission’s proposals. I look forward to hearing the Minister’s response.

[Lee Rowley]

My response is short. I will happily write to the hon. Gentleman and to the Committee in due course on the technicalities to ensure that is correct.

Question put and agreed to.

Clause 5 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 6

Right to require leaseback by freeholder after collective enfranchisement

--- Later in debate ---

[Matthew Pennycook]

My hon. Friend raises an interesting point, which has value. However, if he will forgive me, I would like some more time to consider any unintended consequences before I determine whether we could support it. Perhaps we could come back to it at a later stage, but if he is determined to push it I will come up with a position from the Front-Bench team.

Clause 6 inserts into the 1993 Act a new leaseback right for tenants participating in a collective enfranchisement claim, enabling them to require their landlord to take a leaseback of particular flats or units in the building, other than flats let to a participating tenant. We welcome the clause, as my hon. Friend made clear, which implements recommendation 21 of the Law Commission’s final report on leasehold enfranchisement.

At present, leasebacks are mandatory in certain circumstances. A landlord can also require leaseholders to grant them a leaseback of any unit not let to a qualifying tenant, or any flat or unit occupied by them and of which they are the qualifying tenant. However, leaseholders do not enjoy the right to require their landlord to take a leaseback with the effect that, in instances where the landlord refuses a request for a leaseback, perhaps because they are deliberately seeking to frustrate the process entirely, the premium payable in an enfranchisement claim includes the value of that interest.

The new leaseback right introduced by the clause will ensure that premiums that leaseholders would otherwise have to pay will be reduced. Collective freehold acquisition will become a possibility for larger numbers of them because a key funding constraint—namely having to pay for the reversionary value of those flats and units as part of their claim—will have been removed, and in many cases, collective freehold acquisition claims will be made considerably more affordable as a result. It will also increase certainty by ensuring that leaseholders have a far more accurate estimate of the costs of a claim at the outset. Finally, it is essential to ensuring that the increase in the non-residential limit from 25% to 50%, which we debated earlier, is of practical benefit to leaseholders. Without a new leaseback right, many leaseholders who would otherwise be interested in collectively enfranchising would be deterred because the cost of purchasing the whole of a building containing up to 50% commercial space would be prohibitive.

I have two questions for the Minister. The first concerns intermediate leases, which we have just considered under the previous clause. As I believe may have been highlighted by some respondents to the Law Commission consultation, there will be circumstances in which a leaseback of some units to the landlord would not reduce the premium by any significant amount, because the majority of the value in the units in question will be held not by the landlord but by an intermediate interest. This obviously raises again the issue of how the Bill treats the calculation of enfranchisement premiums in instances in which there is an intermediate lease. I would be grateful if the Minister could clarify whether the Bill seeks in any way to address the impact that intermediate leases might have on the benefits that leaseholders could otherwise expect to secure as a result of the new leaseback right.

My second question concerns the terms of the leaseback required under the new right. My understanding is that these will be for a term of 999 years at a peppercorn ground rent, as under the current law, but I would be grateful if the Minister could confirm that that is the case and perhaps provide the Committee with any other important detail about leaseback terms that will apply to them.

[Lee Rowley]

I will turn first to the amendment from the hon. Member for Brent North. I appreciate the point that he has made, and he articulated it very well. He is rightly concerned that all those who have an interest in a building should need to pay for it. The amendment’s intent is to require any leases granted to include a requirement to make contributions to service charges, as he articulated. Our understanding—I have checked, following the introduction of his amendment—is that the existing law should sufficiently cover this and it should be unlikely that intermediate landlords will not ensure that their sub-lessees contribute to the service charges of a property. But I recognise that the hon. Gentleman has a lot of experience, knowledge and background in this area over many years, so if he wants to write to me separately, with examples of where we potentially have not understood the detail of the point that he is making, I will be happy to look at that in more detail.

[Matthew Pennycook]

I intervene just briefly so that I can put this on the record. One of my slight concerns about the amendment from my hon. Friend the Member for Brent North is that it could complicate pro rata charges for leaseholders. I just wonder whether the Government have given that any thought. In many ways, the amendment is entirely unproblematic, and we support the intention, but there are a couple of concerns, that being one. Is that part of the Government’s thinking on my hon. Friend’s amendment?

[Lee Rowley]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for pointing that out. As indicated, this all needs to be considered in the round. Very few things come without trade-offs and without consideration of other implications. One reason why we are not able to support this amendment today is that we do not think that it is necessary. As a result, I hope that the hon. Member for Brent North will not push it to a vote but will withdraw it. If we have missed something, I will be happy to look at that separately. As the hon. Member for Greenwich and Woolwich suggested, this is something that we do not think is necessary in the wider scheme of things, but if there is a thing that we have missed, I will happily take further information on it.

I will now turn to clause 6, which has been discussed already to some extent. The Government want to broaden access to collective enfranchisement, so that more leaseholders can buy their freehold. However, we recognise that increased access will remain theoretical if many leaseholders are unable to afford to buy their freehold. Therefore, this enfranchisement must be cheaper if leaseholders are to gain the benefits of the ownership that is being sought.

Clause 6 introduces a leaseback right for leaseholders that, if they elect to use it as part of a claim, will in some cases significantly reduce the up-front price that they must pay. “Leaseback”, as has been indicated, is the term commonly used to refer to an intermediate lease over part of a building that is granted to the outgoing freeholder as part of an enfranchisement claim. This leaseback covers the value of the unit, which is therefore retained by the outgoing freeholder and reduces the cost for leaseholders of buying the freehold. Currently, the outgoing freeholder can require the leaseholders taking forward a collective enfranchisement to grant the freeholder a leaseback of any non-qualifying units in a building. Clause 6 gives leaseholders an equivalent right to require the outgoing freeholder to take a 999-year leaseback, at a peppercorn rate, of any non-participating units in the building as part of the claim.

In mixed-use buildings, the question of affordability is even more acute, as leaseholders must pay for the freehold interest in non-residential parts of the building, which they have no existing financial interest in, as well as their flats, which they already partly own.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lee Rowley]

Currently, leaseholders of houses can claim a lease extension of 50 years, and leaseholders of flats can claim an extension of 90 years. Leaseholders of houses can only ever make one lease extension claim; leaseholders of flats will need to claim repeated extensions both within and between generations, with associated costs. Leaseholders often have to worry about the value of their lease falling as the term runs down.

Clause 7 will amend the lease extension term for houses in the 1967 Act, from 50 to 990 years, and for flats in the 1993 Act, from 90 to 990 years. There is no restriction on the number of claims that can be made, although with a 990-year extended term it is envisaged that only one extension will be necessary; 990 years is as long an extension as can be reasonably given while facilitating multiple periods of 90 years to allow for consistency with existing leases and redevelopment breaks.

Increasing to 990 years the term of the statutory lease extension right maximises the benefit to leaseholders and gives leaseholders much greater security in their homes. This is particularly important where leaseholders do not qualify or are not in a position to buy their freehold.

The increase in the extension term will mean that leaseholders do not have to claim repeated extensions, pay associated repeated transaction costs or worry about the value of their property falling as the lease runs down. Leaseholders of flats and houses will be able to obtain a lease extension of 990 years at a peppercorn ground rent, in exchange for a premium determined by the amended valuation scheme set out in clauses 9 to 11.

I turn to clause 8. Currently, a lease extension for a house under the 1967 Act is made without payment of a premium, but in return for a modern ground rent during the period of the extension, where that rent is similar to a market rent. Because we are increasing the extension term to 990 years at a peppercorn rent, landlords will need to be compensated by payment of a premium, as is the case for flats. The clause makes amendments to the 1967 Act to ensure that landlords will be sufficiently compensated when a 990-year lease extension at a peppercorn is granted for a house. A qualifying leaseholder can obtain an extension of 990 years at a peppercorn ground rent in exchange for a premium determined by the amended valuation scheme set out in clauses 9 to 11.

[Matthew Pennycook]

I will spend some time on the clauses, because they are important.

As the Minister set out, clause 7 changes the lease extension rights given to tenants of houses and tenants of flats by the 1967 and 1993 Acts, respectively, to provide for a 990-year lease extension rather than, as is currently the case, a 50-year extension under the 1967 Act and a 90-year extension under the 1993 Act. Clause 8 works in conjunction with clause 7 to that end, by making consequential amendments to the 1967 Act that are required to set ground rents under such extensions at a peppercorn and ensure that the premium payable is based on the amended valuation scheme set out in clauses 9 to 11, as the Minister made clear.

Taken together, the clauses not only provide for the standard lease extension term to increase to 990 years at a peppercorn rent, but ensure that the rights available to tenants under each of the Acts are made equivalent. This reform, which draws on recommendations 1 and 2 of the Law Commission’s final report on leasehold enfranchisement, is long overdue. The right to extend one’s lease is important for leaseholders who do not qualify for a right of freehold acquisition or who do enjoy such a right but, for whatever reason, either cannot or do not wish to purchase the freehold. It is particularly important for leaseholders who live in blocks of flats, as the vast majority do in constituencies such as mine, because it is the only enfranchisement right they can exercise when acting alone. However, both the 50-year lease extension available to leaseholders of houses under the 1967 Act and the 90-year extension available to leaseholders of flats under the 1993 Act are too short to provide adequate security of tenure.

The principle of a right to an extension of a considerably longer time is therefore the right one. As the Minister argued, it will particularly help to protect those leaseholders with short remaining lease terms at the point at which the extension is secured, and will avoid the need for a second extension to be sought and secured in short order. We also feel that the choice of a standard 990-year lease is the right one. Once the principle of a very long lease extension has been accepted, the case for taking the additional period as close to 999 years is watertight. A more modest extension, which the Law Commission did consider, would provide only temporary relief and would require many leaseholders to make a second claim in relatively quick succession. The proposed 990-year lease extension right will avoid the need for further lease extension claims in the future, will provide leaseholders with a substantially enhanced interest in their homes and will bring leaseholders extremely close to outright freehold ownership.

It is also right that we legislate to introduce a uniform right applicable and available to both leaseholders of houses and leaseholders of flats, so we support the alignment of the lease extension rights for which the clause provides. There is no justification for maintaining the discrepancy in the law as it stands, where the right to a lease extension for a house is considerably less favourable than the equivalent right to a lease extension for a flat. In sum, we fully support leaseholders who qualify for a lease extension under the 1967 or 1993 Act being given the right, on payment of an appropriate premium, to extend their lease and in so doing to secure a peppercorn rent.

I have five questions for the Minister about these important clauses. The first relates to redevelopment. In recommending that an additional period of 990 years should be added to the remaining term of the existing lease in the cases of both houses and flats, the Law Commission also proposed that redevelopment break rights should be maintained. These are rights accorded to a landlord to terminate a lease that has been extended and to regain possession of the property in order to carry out redevelopment work. The Law Commission recommended that they should be maintained during the last 12 months of the term of the original lease or the last five years of each period of 90 years after the commencement of the extended term.

We fully appreciate that many leaseholders will find the very notion of such break rights problematic, and the Law Commission recognises that maintaining rolling break rights, as under the 1967 Act, would create unnecessary uncertainty. However, difficulties relating to the lifespan of buildings are an issue we have to grapple with, not least because they will become more pressing over time when lease extensions become significantly longer by default. As the Law Commission’s recommendation on development break rights has not made it into the Bill, I would be grateful if the Minister explained the Government’s determination to omit it. Some would argue that there is a strong case, in a world in which 990-year lease extensions are the default, for the sensible provision of development break rights.

My second question concerns when the rights provided by clauses 7 and 8 will come into effect. The clauses present leaseholders who have recently obtained a lease extension, or who will be compelled to obtain one—for the purposes of moving home or mortgaging, say—before the commencement date, with a real dilemma, because the only way they will benefit from a 990-year extension and a peppercorn ground rent in instances where that is not already the case is by making a further extension claim in short order. The fact that any such leaseholders will have recently extended their lease with, in all likelihood, a peppercorn ground rent will mean that the premium payable will be low, but there will still be a cost.

I would be grateful if the Minister made it clear whether the Government have given any consideration to how to ensure that the premium in such cases is as low as possible, to avoid some leaseholders facing costs that others will not face, simply as a result of the sharp transition from one set of arrangements to another. Better still, could he outline precisely how commencement will operate in respect of the clauses? Will he tell us whether the Government might consider amending the Bill to ensure that the new rights come into force on, or very soon after, Royal Assent, so that they can be enjoyed by leaseholders confronting the need for an extension as quickly as possible?

My third question relates to ground rents. We will explore the issue in considerable detail when we consider clause 21, but I would be grateful if the Minister told us, in relation specifically to lease extensions, how clauses 7 and 8 will operate if the Government’s response to the consultation “Modern leasehold: restricting ground rent for existing leases”, which closed last week, is, as per the Secretary of State’s declared preference, to table amendments to enact option 1, namely capping ground rent at a peppercorn for all existing leases from a given date.

All we want to know is whether the ground rent provisions in clause 8 would be rendered irrelevant. In other words, are they unnecessary? If so, will the Government have to make further amendments to the clause to ensure that, in conjunction with clause 7, it provides only for a 990-year lease extension and does not make changes to ground rent provisions in any way? Presumably they will need to be abolished by further Government amendments that will potentially abolish ground rents for all existing leases.

 My fourth question concerns the technical matter of who the competent landlord is for the purpose of lease extensions under the 1993 Act. The provisions within clauses 7 and 8 will mean that even in circumstances where there is a head lease of 999 years at a peppercorn rent, which is a fairly common occurrence, the owner will be entitled to all of the premium. Nevertheless, it is the freeholder, not the head lessee, who will have to handle the claim. That raises the obvious question of why a freeholder should engage with the process at all, given that it will leave them out of pocket.

Schedule 1 to the 1967 Act includes provisions designed to overcome the problem by providing that a long head lessee is the reversioner. Will the Minister tell us why a similar set of provisions is not being introduced to the 1993 Act to provide that a very long head lessee in a block of flats is to be regarded as the competent landlord, not the freeholder? If there is no justification for that omission, might the Government go away and consider whether it is necessary to overcome that problem?

My fifth and final question concerns the Government’s commitment to use the Bill to legislate for a ban on new leasehold houses. The Government amendments providing for such a ban have still not been tabled, so we cannot engage with the detail. However, given that it is the Government’s stated intention effectively to do away with leasehold houses, I would like to probe the Minister on the reasoning behind providing, by means of clauses 7 and 8, leaseholders in houses with a right to a 990-year lease extension at a peppercorn rent, for which the premium will be the same as if it were a freehold enfranchisement. Is this—I am being generous to the Minister—an example of muddled thinking on the Government’s part that might require review? I look forward to hearing the Minister’s response.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lee Rowley]

The hon. Gentleman is articulating his argument with passion, as he did last week on a similar point in some of the witness sessions. I reconfirm to the Committee that we seek to process the outcome of that consultation as quickly as we are able, and to provide hon. Members and the public with clarity at the earliest opportunity. None the less, while recognising the important interaction of clauses 7 and 8 with the consultation, I hope that underneath there is general consent for clauses 7 and 8. I hope I have covered most of the questions asked. I will write to the Committee in response to the question from the hon. Member for Greenwich and Woolwich about redevelopment, because I need to obtain clarity on that.

[Matthew Pennycook]

I welcome the Minister’s response. He did not address—perhaps he will find time on another occasion—the Government’s potential inconsistency in, on the one hand, extending lease extension terms at peppercorn for houses, under the 1967 Act, and, on the other, seeking to ban leasehold houses in their entirety. The Government might want to explore that, to ensure the package as whole is consistent and working as intended. He is welcome to write to me on that point, as well as on redevelopment rights.

I take the Minister’s point on the competent landlord. My point was not whether the Bill is fine as drafted; it is the fact that we need to change the 1993Act to account for the set of circumstances I outlined. There is provision in the 1967 Act to cover that problem. As far as we can tell, this Bill does not amend the 1993 Act to account for it. I encourage him to look at that.

On the two substantive issues, there is inherent uncertainty about commencement. Of course, we want the Bill to progress and apply to as many leaseholders as possible. I was trying to stress to the Minister the need to look at the point at which the Bill kicks in. In some Bills, certain provisions come into force at First Reading. We are worried, as the Bill goes through Parliament, about a set of leaseholders being left out of these rights unfairly, given the time we have spent progressing the Law Commission’s recommendations. I encourage him to give some thought to that.

On ground rents, I understand entirely that the matter is commercially sensitive. I am not asking for an opinion from the Minister on the consultation, although we do need an indication of the Government’s thinking as soon as possible. We also need to understand, as I will come to when we debate clause 21, whether the Government intend to enact any recommendations from that consultation, via this Bill.

What I am looking for is clarity, which he should be able to give us at this stage, on this hypothetical point. If any proposals from that consultation are enacted, clauses 7, 8 and 21 are potentially redundant. We simply need to know whether the Government will further overhaul those clauses, if they take forward any of those recommendations. That is hypothetical, but the Minister should be able to answer. The Government have presumably thought, “Yes: if that scenario occurs and we take forward one of the five options, we will or will not have to revise the Bill.” That is the answer that I am simply looking for from the Minister. If he wants to take this opportunity to clarify that, I would welcome it.

[Lee Rowley]

The hon. Gentleman tempts me to go into hypotheticals. Let me at least dip my toe into that for a moment. Let us take some of the potential outcomes of the consultation discussed today, for example, and the question of whether they potentially will make redundant some of the clauses. In one of the instances, where there is a fear, concern or question, it would still be the case that potentially amendments to clause 8 would need to be introduced, for example, on ground rents, so depending on the scenario it would not make that entirely redundant. I will not go into hypotheticals to their logical and total extent, but I hope that that gives some assurance that consultation has been held and we will bring forward what is appropriate in due course.

Question put and agreed to.

Clause 7 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 8 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Ordered, That further consideration be now adjourned. —(Mr Mohindra.)

Leasehold and Freehold Reform Bill (Fourth sitting)

Matthew Pennycook Excerpts

Committee stage
Thursday 18th January 2024 Public Bill Committees

[The Chair]

Thank you.

[Matthew Pennycook (Greenwich and Woolwich) (Lab)]

Q281 Chair, may I just declare, for reasons of completeness, that my wife is the joint chief executive of the Law Commission, whose work we continue to cite on a regular basis?

Gentlemen, thank you for coming in to give evidence to us. I have two questions. First, in the 2020 update report on leasehold housing that the CMA published, you recommended reforms to

“the system of redress for leaseholders, to make it simpler and less costly for them to contest permission fees and service charges they think are unreasonable or excessive”.

What are your views on whether you think the Bill achieves that? If not, what needs to be incorporated to ensure that it does?

My second question is on the recommendations you also made on measures to address the assured tenancy trap, whereby leaseholders who pay ground rents in excess of £1,000 in London and £250 across the rest of the country

“risk having their home repossessed for non-payment”.

Again, does the Bill address that? If not, how specifically should we seek to improve it in that respect?

Simon Jones: I will deal with the second one first. Yes, we think that the proposals in the Bill at the moment will make a big difference. We thought that there were a number of ways to go about helping people: you could have created a duration threshold for leases, as in the current proposal—that works. You could have raised the threshold for rent. That, too, would work, although we would have been less in favour of it, because over time it would be less effective. Or you could have completely removed the provisions from the Housing Act. The approach that the Department has taken seems sensible.

[Matthew Pennycook]

Q Is that both recommendations, or just the second?

Simon Jones: That is on the second point. There are a number of ways to do it, but the problem was that there was no minimum length of lease that was not subject to the assured tenancy provisions. That just looked like an oversight, frankly, but that is going to be fixed. That seems like a positive step forward to us.

On redress, the problem that everybody told us about is that you can give leaseholders all the rights that you can, but that does not really help them if they cannot exercise them quickly, cheaply and efficiently. One of the problems—as you know, a big complaint people had—was that leases often had provisions that enabled landlords to recover the costs of litigation from the tenant, regardless of whether the landlord won or lost. That was a big problem, but that has been fixed.

[Matthew Pennycook]

Q May I press you on that? I asked a different witness about that this morning. The Government are saying that with low-value claims, the cost can be passed on, but that leaseholders would have to pay either that or a prescribed sum. I wondered, because we are talking about redress, given the challenges of going to the tribunal, will those leaseholders just end up paying the minimum prescribed amount for enfranchisement?

Simon Jones: I think that the proposal in the Bill is a positive change, but is it really all the change that could be made? This is quite difficult. The tribunal system exists to help leaseholders, but it is still complicated and expensive, and it is not local. Many of the disputes that we have are about costs.

For example, let us say you are a tenant and you have a service charge, but you think it is expensive. You will incur time and expense in trying to challenge it. What you want is probably something that is local, where the panel understands the costs in that area—for painting a stairwell or changing lights, that kind of thing. What we had in mind when we wrote the report was perhaps finding a way to use more local courts to provide more summary-type justice for people, through people who probably know more about what it costs in the local area to do something.

The other problem for consumers is that they do not understand what evidence is required to bring a challenge. I think that came through quite strongly for us. You cannot fix that with legislation, but it is another important point to bear in mind when thinking about how to help consumers help themselves.

[Matthew Pennycook]

Q Is it fair to say that with this legislation, we should look, where possible, to remove instances of where a leaseholder has to go to tribunal at all? In other words, if we said, “No leaseholder should be liable for a non-litigation cost in any circumstances”, on that particular point none of them would have to go to tribunal. Should we look to reduce the scope for tribunal use generally?

Simon Jones: If the purpose of all this is that the incentive for managing agents or landlords—whoever is responsible—is not to overcharge, then cost rules that encourage them to be more careful with the charges that they make ought to be advantageous.

[The Chair]

I remind the Committee that we have only another 10 minutes or so left on this session.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Chair]

Thank you. I remind the Committee that we have until 3.10 pm for this session.

[Matthew Pennycook]

Q Gentlemen, in our evidence sessions so far, we have had very wide-ranging discussions —let me put it that way—not just about the principle of the Bill but about property rights, the functioning of market capitalism and liberal democracy, and everything but. As the shadow Minister for the Bill, I would like to use your expertise to focus on what is actually in the Bill and how we might improve it, so my first question is a very specific one on clause 12. I think I put it more to Mr Freedman than to Mr Rainey because of that Law Society briefing. It relates to valuation, which is one of the more complex matters that the Bill deals with.

The Law Society has expressed concern that the provisions in clause 12 designed to protect most but not all leaseholders from non-litigation costs that landlords may incur when responding to an enfranchisement or lease extension claim may cause issues, because under the proposed new valuation method, the price payable may be below full open market value. Could you clarify why you believe that to be the case? The standard valuation method in schedule 5 provides for a market value element. Why does the Law Society believe that it does not represent full open market values?

Philip Freedman: This started with the Law Society’s recommendation to the Law Commission that one thing that might save costs for leaseholders was if they did not have to pay the landlord’s costs on a collective enfranchisement or lease extension. We put forward the view that if the enfranchisement price is market value, then each side should bear its own costs. If you were to buy a house, you would not pay the seller’s costs; each party would pay their own costs. That is what happens in the market. We said that in the context of enfranchisement being at market value. The Law Commission took that on board, and its report very clearly says that its recommendation that each side should pay some costs and tenants should not have to pay the landlord’s costs—

[Matthew Pennycook]

Q My question is: why do you not think that the valuation method in here is full market value?

Philip Freedman: Because the suggested notional capping of ground rent at 0.1%, in many cases, where it applies, will reduce the purchase price below what it is in the open market at the moment. At the moment, in the open market, the ground rent stated in the lease is payable. We are aware that there are proposals for retrospective legislation, as one might call it, to interfere with existing leases and to say that the ground rent should be capped at a certain amount, but at the moment those rents are lawful, and those rents are therefore reflected in the price that someone would pay to buy the flow of ground rent. Therefore, if you assessed the purchase price for the enfranchisement as if the ground rent were capped and would not be as much as it actually would, then you would be reducing the purchase price to below the market price.

[Matthew Pennycook]

Q That is very clear and very useful.

I have a second question, relating to clause 59, which concerns regulation of remedies for arrears of rentcharges. Do you agree with my view that the Government are trying to fix a historical law that is essentially beyond repair? Should we be looking to abolish section 121 of the Law of Property Act 1925?

Philip Freedman: I think yes. I had to draft some rentcharge provisions many years ago, when we were acting for clients who were selling some industrial buildings on a new estate. They wanted to sell them freehold. There was no commonhold at that time and the issue of enforcing positive covenants was difficult. We came up with the suggestion that the rentcharges legislation should be used to allow an estate company to collect service charges, maintain drainage systems and so forth. It was agreed that the Law of Property Act gave excessive remedies to landlords for non-payment. I am all in favour of limiting the remedies so that, if someone does not pay for something, they can be sued for it, just as with the amendment in relation to forfeiture. It seems to me—this is my personal view—that limiting forfeiture, as you have proposed doing through your amendment, is the right thing to do, although I do have three points to make on that.

[Matthew Pennycook]

Q I will quickly come to that, but do have anything to add in relation to clause 59, Mr Rainey?

Philip Rainey: I agree that forfeiture for non-payment of a rentcharge on an estate, which is usually a relatively small sum of money, is a sledgehammer to crack a nut. I would be in favour of replacing section 121 rather than repealing it, so that there is a coherent and measured set of remedies for rentcharges. That is bearing in mind, as Philip just said, that a lot of the estate rentcharges covered by that legislation have nothing to do with residential; they are quite common on industrial estates. That is one of the unintended consequences that might occur if you were simply to repeal section 121.

[Matthew Pennycook]

Q That is extremely useful. I wish that we had you both for more than half an hour.

I have one quick final question on the abolition of forfeiture. Would you agree that we should do away with forfeiture entirely—it sounds like you do—on the grounds that it is a wholly disproportionate response to the breach of a lease? If so, what should we replace it with? Is suing for a debt—as happens with any other debt—and an injunction if the breach relates to conduct a sufficient response or, if we abolish forfeiture, should we be looking to replace it with some other system of recompense?

Philip Freedman: My view is that there are three aspects of the proposed abolition of forfeiture for leasehold dwellings that we should look at. One is that it should apply to individual leases of single dwellings, rather like the ground rent abolition; it should not apply to leases of multiple dwellings, such as a lease of 50 flats to some lettings company, which is a commercial enterprise, effectively. It should apply to leases of individual dwellings granted at a premium.

The other thing is that the threat of forfeiture is over the top in relation to financial debt—arrears of rent, service charges or whatever. You can sue for those. There may be refinements in relation to suing, but basically you can sue for them. But if a tenant has knocked down walls that they should not have, caused a nuisance or annoyance to other tenants in the building, or used the property for some unlawful purpose, then the remedy would be to threaten an injunction, as you have indicated. An injunction is a difficult remedy to enforce: it is very costly and it is at the discretion of the court—there are all sort of hurdles about injunctions. If, in the residential sector, the first-tier tribunal was given the power and jurisdiction to order parties to a lease to comply with the terms of the lease, free from the constraints of existing law in relation to injunctions, then one could avoid the need for forfeiture. Removing forfeiture for financial payments and damages is fine, but for other breaches it presents a problem.

The only other point is that we need to look at section 153 of the 1925 Act, which is the right for tenants, if they have a very long lease, do not pay any ground rent—it is a peppercorn—and are not susceptible to forfeiture, to enlarge into the freehold. That is a whole area of unclear law. It is not clear what the effect would be if you had one tenant in a block who declares that he now owns the freehold; it would be very unclear whether the management of the block would be affected. I think these things need to be addressed if one is going along that line with regard to forfeiture.

Philip Rainey: Because I appreciate that we have limited time to answer, the only thing I would add is that forfeiture is arguably, again, a sledgehammer to crack a nut, but so can be an injunction: the remedy for breach of an injunction is essentially committal to prison. The prospect of not being able to forfeit and instead there being rafts of committal applications to fill up the jails with people who are, for whatever reason, refusing to comply with some kind of covenant—that is very annoying, but ultimately they should not be in prison—is also unattractive.

Ultimately, there needs to be some sort of measured method of removing a problem tenant from a block. We very much concentrate on the position of landlords against tenants, but one very difficult tenant in a block can ruin life for everybody else. The Law Commission proposed a replacement scheme, and I suggest that that should be dusted off and looked at. A lot of the objections to it come from the commercial sector, so bring it into force for residential leasehold first.

[Matthew Pennycook]

That is all extremely helpful. Thank you very much.

[Richard Fuller]

Q Our previous witness, Mr Vitali, talked about potential concerns about the effect of regulation on people’s understanding of property rights. Do you have any significant concerns about how the Bill affects property rights? If you do, what should we do about them?

Philip Rainey: In a sense, that is a conceptual question.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Chair]

We will now hear oral evidence from our seventh panel. Jack Spearman is chair of leasehold reform at the Residential Freehold Association. For this session, we have until 3.30 pm. Could the witness please introduce himself for the record?

Jack Spearman: Good afternoon. My name is Jack Spearman. I am from the Residential Freehold Association. We are a representative organisation for the UK’s largest professional freeholders. Our members represent, or have management over, about 1 million leasehold properties in England and Wales. I chair the British Property Federation’s committee on leasehold reform. I am also a director at Long Harbour, which is a regulated investment manager, and we have invested in residential freeholds.

[Matthew Pennycook]

Q Mr Spearman, thank you for coming to give evidence to us. The Government’s 2017 consultation on tackling unfair practices in the leasehold market, which I think attracted more than 6,000 responses, found that freeholders regularly price-gouge leaseholders on service charges, ground rents, lease extensions and freehold acquisitions, as well as making arbitrary and unjust rules about what leaseholders can and cannot do with their homes. Is it not the case that many, if not all, of your members routinely engage in rent-seeking behaviour by gouging leaseholders as a matter of course and that the concerns of the RFA about the Bill are almost entirely related in various ways to how it might frustrate them or prohibit them from doing so?

Jack Spearman: Each lease will set out the terms of what can and cannot happen under that lease, so when people talk about changing terms, you have to be quite careful about what you are actually saying. The rent is set as a rent and a review is set as a review, so you cannot just change rent arbitrarily—the same as for service charge and many other things. I think what you are talking about is some of the aspects that are frustrating, whether it enfranchisement or lease extensions. It will probably surprise a number of you that our members do support a large number of the measures in the Bill, including a number of the amendments that you have put forward in Committee.

[Matthew Pennycook]

Q Okay. I may come back to some other specific issues if we have time, but specifically on insurance, the Financial Conduct Authority’s report of September last year on insurance for multi-occupancy buildings found evidence of high commission rates and poor practice, which were

“not consistent with driving fair value to the customer”.

It also found that the mean absolute value of commissions more than doubled between 2016 and 2021 for managing agents and freeholders of buildings with fire safety defects. Is it not fair to say that, again, many, if not all, of your members have benefited hugely from soaring buildings insurance premiums over recent years, so do you think the Government are entirely justified in seeking by means of clause 31 to limit their ability to charge insurance costs?

Jack Spearman: In terms of insurance premiums, they have generally all risen, for a number of reasons that you will be aware of, whether that is cost inflation, inflation generally or insurance premium tax. Let us not forget that the Government benefit from a lot of these things, and they are all rising at the same time.

What I would say is that there is merit in making sure that people who are actually providing services to administer the insurance work have some form of compensation for what they are doing. If the insurance premium was to double because there is an issue with cladding, why should someone take the benefit of that? The same could be said for remediation projects, for example, where VAT is paid. But, yes, I agree that a measured form of that would be helpful. The problem with the Bill currently is that it leaves all of that to secondary legislation, as you know. It would be helpful to see the primary legislation set out how that might work, and that is one of our recommendations.

Clearly, our members do a lot of work on insurance, whether that is administering claims, dealing with inquiries or sending out invoices to collect the insurance premium over hundreds of people—it is a job that someone has to do. It could be risk management, so telling the insurer what is on the building. You would be amazed to see how many insurers that our members deal with offer to insure a building without knowing what is on it. When we tell them what is on it and what is in it, a very different type of cover can be offered. So there is value, contrary to what people will say, although I do accept, clearly, that, like in any system, there are bad practices.

[Matthew Pennycook]

Q Just briefly while we are on that, have you got any sense of whether your members are complying, or are prepared to comply, with the new FCA rules that are coming into force at the end of this month with regard to the right to request to see the insurance?

Jack Spearman: Again, our members have always been of the view that the insurance is for the benefit of leaseholders. They provide the cover, and they provide the certificates; it is something that we have all been doing for a large number of years. So, yes, we do, and those that do not will obviously have to anyway under the FCA regulations.

[Andy Carter]

Q Thank you very much for your written submission to us. You say in there: “The RFA has serious concerns that the Government’s proposals to cap ground rent will lead to significant cost to the UK taxpayer…and have…negative consequences for leaseholders” What are the costs for UK taxpayers of this piece of legislation?

Jack Spearman: One of the key and largest impacts of this Bill has not even been considered yet, because it has not been introduced. Some form of restriction on ground rent is going to be introduced at some point as an amendment. You are being asked to scrutinise a piece of primary legislation that does not have a number of impacts in it—for example, setting capitalisation rates, deferment rates and dealing with ground itself. So you are scrutinising something that is incomplete, and the impact of which none of us here know.

Going to the taxpayer point, the Government say that no compensation will be paid, but unfortunately they also know that that is probably not going to be compliant with the European convention on human rights. Compensation is going to have to be paid, and it is either paid by the taxpayer or the leaseholder. That is what we mean by that.

--- Later in debate ---

[Andy Carter]

Q That is very helpful. Thank you very much. Do you have any views on the requirements for regulation of building managers?

Giles Grover: I have a lot of views on that area. Part of the issue was that under the Building Safety Act there were building safety managers in place with certain duties. At the last minute, that legislation was moved away from, but those duties still exist. A lot of the high-rise buildings that have registered with the Building Safety Regulator are facing enormous costs of compliance, and there are real fears about the work that will need to be done. We are seeing bills land on our doorstep all over again. I got one—thankfully, I am a residential management company director and can challenge it more—with an estimate of £500 a year extra per leaseholder to comply with the Building Safety Regulator if we had not moved away from some of the strange costs that were in there.

I have seen that for other buildings: leaseholders who have just got the freehold have suddenly got a demand saying, “You are also going to have to pay for compliance with building safety.” It is very worrying and strange that the innocent leaseholders we are meant to be protecting are now going to have to pay, but just in a slightly different way, to ensure the safety of the buildings that should have been made safe and should be maintained. Fire doors are another example that I could really get into, but I only have 20 minutes so I will hand back to you.

[Matthew Pennycook]

Q Giles, thank you for giving up your time to come and speak to us. I want to follow up on Mike’s and Andy’s questions. You may have said everything you can say about what you would like the legislation to do, but if you have some more detail it would be useful.

Mike and I tabled new clauses 27 and 28 to address some of the “in principle” issues we have been pushing for a long time on—qualifying and non-qualifying leaseholders and building height. Specifically, in terms of what the Government might feasibly bring forward, what is your experience from cases across the country of the operational elements of the Building Safety Act that are not working effectively? I am just trying to get from you a more realistic sense of what you might expect the Government to bring forward, in terms of extending this Bill to ensure the Building Safety Act operates as intended. What tweaks to the Building Safety Act are required, in as much detail as you can in the time you have?

Giles Grover: One of the major tweaks is on an issue we were first made aware of in November 2022 due to the residents of a building in Greater Manchester being forced to pay for interim measures. The council is now paying for those interim measures but it has been told that it cannot recover them through the Building Safety Act because the legislation is not in place. That is a simple one that could help.

You could ensure that resident management companies and right to manage companies can raise the legal costs where they might be needed in respect of building safety and relevant defects. There are some wider elements that are already in the Bill, in terms of stopping freeholders re-charging their legal fees. Our concern is whether that will protect non-qualifying leaseholders who are still being forced to pay fees.

This is where I can get into the specifics. I am no lawyer as such—you have had a lot of very intelligent people on before me—but I say this from the campaigning aspect of it. We need to see a fair bit more detail about exactly what happens when a freeholder is avoiding their liabilities and not giving a landlord certificate within the stated time period. The Government may tell us, “Oh, don’t worry. That means they can’t pass the costs on,” but theoretically I cannot sell my flat without that certificate because the conveyancer is asking for it, so why not have an express duty for them to provide it? To be completely frank, the whole landlord certificate/leaseholder certificate process is an absolute quagmire and a nightmare on the ground. I would personally prefer it if the Government did away with that.

There are lots of issues like that. There are points about court-appointed managers, which cannot be the accountable person, which seems quite strange to me. We have been told that there is another route through the Building Safety Regulator, but that would require the special measures manager legislation to be enforced. There are issues with shared owners in complex tenures where you have a housing association as the head leaseholder. Will they be protected from all costs? Will they have the same rights as all leaseholders?

Philosophically, the simplistic approach should be that you have the full protection. New clauses 27 and 28 would be a massive relief. It is then a case of whether legislation is needed or whether you can use the current measures. With the developer scheme, where it is for over 11-metre buildings—could that be extended to under 11-metre buildings? The cladding safety scheme is now for mid-rise buildings; could that be extended for low-rise buildings? Could the cladding safety scheme be extended to become a building safety scheme?

For a lot of this the pushback will be, “There is not enough money,” but there is money out there. There is money that can be got from industry. There are further parties, such as construction product manufacturers and providers, and the Secretary of State said they would make them pay two years ago; they have not paid yet. There are a lot more parties that could be brought into the pool. So operationally there is more they could do by saying, “We’ve got seven different funding schemes;” —or however many it is—“where is the oversight of all of them? Who is talking to each other? Are these regulators? How does DLUHC talk to the recovery strategy unit? Are they talking to the Building Safety Regulator? Is Homes England involved? The local regulators now have new money to take action; are they taking action?”

So, arguably, a lot of it is already in place; but what is needed is the comprehensive oversight and the proper grip to say, “Right: all these buildings—10,000 of them—are going to get fixed. This is how—this is where the money is coming from. Cladding costs are here. Non-cladding costs will come from there.” What you really need to do is put the money up front, recover it. The Government say that their leaseholder protections mean that the majority of leaseholders won’t have to pay. If they have got the confidence in their legislation then they can take over the burden from leaseholders.

[Barry Gardiner]

Q First, may I declare an interest? I am not sure whether it is necessary, but our witness Mr Grover participated in a documentary that I am making about leaseholds, so we have a knowledge of each other. First, Mr Grover, thank you for all the campaigning that you and your colleagues in End Our Cladding Scandal have done; it has been magnificent over the past few years.

You raised the issue, in response to Matthew Pennycook’s questions, of section 24 of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1987 and applying for an officer of the court to be installed to do the works and turn around a building. Clearly, it would be something much to be wished, for many people who found themselves involved a building safety issue, if they were able to do that. Related to that, I know you are aware of the Building Safety Act 2022 ban on section 24 managers being the accountable person.

This is a matter we have discussed with a number of witnesses such as yourself. Are you aware that at one development, the management control regarding safety and remediation was given back to a freeholder who was the one who took, the tribunal found, £1.6 million in insurance commissions unreasonably? They will now be handed £20 million because of that BSA anomaly, by the Government. So the very people who could not be trusted with money are now being given £20 million to remedy the defects that they were responsible for in that building.

Giles Grover: I am very aware of it. I have watched some of the sessions, and I was made aware of it last year by one of the leaseholders at that building. I have looked into this. I have had various conversations with various lawyers. It still just seems bizarre that the manager who has been appointed by the court cannot be the accountable person. I am just a simple man: I do not understand why that cannot happen—why the Government, or the judge, based upon the legislation that is out there, think it is a reasonable or positive outcome for that money to go back to that rogue landlord, shall we say. I do not get it, to be honest.

Leasehold and Freehold Reform Bill (Third sitting)

Matthew Pennycook Excerpts

Committee stage
Thursday 18th January 2024 Public Bill Committees

[The Chair]

Before we start hearing from the witnesses, do any Members wish to make declarations of interest in connection with this Bill?

[Matthew Pennycook (Greenwich and Woolwich) (Lab)]

My wife is the joint chief executive of the Law Commission, whose work on leasehold reform we have regularly touched upon.

[Mike Amesbury (Weaver Vale) (Lab)]

I am a member of the all-party parliamentary group on leasehold and commonhold reform.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Chair]

Thank you for coming here and helping us with our deliberations.

[Matthew Pennycook]

Q Thank you all for coming in this morning to give evidence. I will perhaps return to Ms Higgins and Mr Smytherman if we have time in the session, but could I start with two questions to you, Ms Phillips, on shared ownership?

First, the Bill makes provision for the treatment of intermediate leases in a number of areas, but it does not contain, as far as I can read, any measures to directly resolve many of the challenges that shared owners face. Could you give us your general views on the Bill from a shared-ownership perspective? What is missing? What might we look to include if we could?

Secondly, the Government tabled more than 80 pages of complex amendments to their own Bill yesterday. Among those were amendments that would exclude certain shared-ownership leases from enfranchisement and make the new valuation method for calculating the premium payable for shared owners non-mandatory. If you have had a chance to look at those—you may not have—could you give us your views on those specific amendments? We know that enfranchisement for shared owners is expensive—it is challenging—but, none the less, is it a regret, from your point of view, that these amendments have been tabled?

Sue Phillips: I will start with yesterday’s amendments. I have had a look at them and I have called around legal experts, and, of course, it is far too short notice for a legal expert to comment, let alone a lay person like me. Therefore, I will concentrate in my evidence on what I would like to see in the Bill; I cannot comment on the degree to which those amendments will achieve those things, so I just want to make it clear that I cannot comment specifically on the amendments.

In terms of the Bill generally, obviously it is aimed at leaseholders. Shared owners are a very specific subset of leaseholders. They generally face additional problems over and above the problems faced by leaseholders. They have fewer rights and protections under law. They face additional burdens. They also have fewer protections under consumer protection, including new build codes. Therefore, they are generally disadvantaged. As it stands, the Bill does not represent a better deal for shared owners. That is partly because of the issue you referenced. Shared owners are sometimes, not always, in very complex ownership arrangements. There are problems for leaseholders generally, but there you have the additional party of a housing association in the mix. I could talk for half an hour on this; I will try to be very concise.

I will just pick out one example, which relates to the fact that shared owners do not have a statutory right to lease extension. If they did, they would have a right to a 90-year extension. In the absence of that right, some shared owners are in complex arrangements where their landlord is a sub-lessee with only a short interest in the lease themselves, so is actually incapable of offering the equivalent to the benefit that a leaseholder would get under the statutory route. That is unless you go through a process of extending all the leases, and all those costs are passed on to the shared owner. There is a real problem there that is not addressed in the Bill as it stands, in my understanding.

[Matthew Pennycook]

Q Have you explored any quick fixes for what we might look to persuade the Government to incorporate?

Sue Phillips: The problem with looking for quick fixes is that shared ownership is so complex, you run a risk of creating unanticipated consequences. Those particular questions are better directed at a lawyer or a legal expert, which I hope you will do this afternoon, when you have legal experts presenting their views on this Bill.

[The Chair]

Does anyone have anything to add? Do not feel that you have to; I am not putting you on the spot.

Ms Paula Higgins: There is one thing I would add. I am so pleased that Sue is here; she has done amazing work on shared ownership. I am not a legal expert, but I wonder whether you will be hearing from people from the retirement housing sector as well. That is a very complicated form of tenure, with exit fees and whatnot. Can they actually have the same rights to challenge fees and things like that? I am not sure if that is covered in some of your evidence sessions, but retirement housing is notoriously known for quite scandalous fees and charges.

Bob Smytherman: Certainly, we have seen a massive increase in shared ownership memberships coming to us for membership of residents’ associations. Obviously, we are helping them through that. In terms of quick wins, I really hope the Government will finally implement an independent statutory regulator for property managers. That would be a really quick win to help leaseholders. It is very disappointing that we have not got there yet, so I really hope there will be an independent regulator for these management companies that hold large amounts of leaseholders’ money.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Chair]

If anyone has not asked a question and wants to come in, please just indicate. Matt, Barry and Andy want to come back, so I come to you, Matt.

[Matthew Pennycook]

Q Two quick questions while I have got you here—on slightly different subjects. The first relates to the purchasing of a lease initially. In its 2018 consultation on implementing reforms to the leasehold system, the Government committed to requiring freeholders and managing agents to provide leasehold information at the point of sale within a defined time limit and a maximum cost. That is not in the Bill; would you welcome that being incorporated?

My second question is on the service charge provisions—clauses 26 to 30. In principle they might work very well; there is lots of detail to come through regulations. However, are there any specific ways in which you would like to see those service charge clauses tightened?

Ms Paula Higgins: We really welcome standardisation and having standard forms. That is what we, as the HomeOwners Alliance, when we get more than 4 million people coming to our website, can present and say, “These are the questions you can ask.” I really welcome that and having everything aligned so that it is similar. I am sure that we will go on to estate charges and people on freehold estates. Sorry—what was the first question?

[Matthew Pennycook]

Q Just on whether we should require freeholders to have standardised information at the point of purchase.

Ms Paula Higgins: Even though estate agents are supposed to provide basic up-front information, when we did our report on leasehold, half of the estate agents on things we were looking at were not even providing the information that the property was leasehold or freehold. We know that work is going on, and that estate agents are supposed to provide up-front information—we understand that there is the BASPI form—but the reality is that it is not happening. They are not regulated; they don’t know what their obligations are.

This is the other piece, particularly with managing agents, as you mentioned before. We need to have better regulation of managing agents, developers, and of housing associations that are promoting shared ownership, to ensure that they are giving the right up-front information and to ensure that in blocks—as you said you did, Bob—you do the LP form right away. We know that there is lots of delay there. That is one of the reasons why buying and selling leasehold properties takes so much longer. So we really welcomed having that up-front information. That is through the BASPI form, and it is probably through the regulation and management—having regulation of estate agents and managing agents, which is another piece of the pie that I think would be really welcomed in the Bill. I would welcome it if it were put in the Bill.

[Matthew Pennycook]

Q Do you want to say anything on service charges?

Ms Paula Higgins: On service charges, I think it is about being transparent. Some of the provisions in the Bill are about having proper annual accounts, so a lot of it is about trying to get that information. I have not looked at the detail of all the clauses there, but it is about people being able to get that information. That is why you need to have regulation of managing agents—to be able to provide that information properly.

[The Chair]

Q Sue Phillips, I think you wanted to say something.

Sue Phillips: Yes, on information at the point of sale. That is a little bit more complicated for shared owners. They are often directed towards the lease, but the lease is of course silent on the issue of 100% liability for service charges, so there is an issue there. They are often directed towards the key information document. I welcome the changes to the key information document in recent times, but I think they really do not go far enough. I would direct you to a report that I wrote last year about the 2016 to 2021 key information document, which goes into detail on improvements that I think should be made.

It is important to flag up that we need to look at not just content, but understandability in format. I have previously suggested that I think it would be useful to benchmark with other sectors, such as the pensions sector, on the understandability of issues relating to risk as well as benefit, and how to ensure that that content is communicated in a way that people do actually understand.

I will make a final point: a lot of shared ownership marketing presents itself as education about the model, which I think can be problematic, particularly because housing associations and their marketing teams are very up front about the idea that their marketing promotes the benefits. But it is important that people understand the risks and hazards as well as the benefits. So we need to look very closely at exactly where shared owners get their information at the point of sale, and where improvements could be made across all those areas.

Bob Smytherman: I think we would certainly welcome improvements in the conveyancing process. One of the things that our members certainly see is that they can get the information from a very specialist leasehold lawyer, which is obviously really helpful, but as in all sectors there are conveyancers out there where people google “conveyance” and think, “Oh, that is just a standard lease.” Of course, we all know that there is no such thing as a standard lease—their contracts are all very different. I know that about four or five years ago the Leasehold Advisory Service did some work around standardisation of information, so anything that we can do to prescribe that would be really helpful.

On the issue of service charges, there is absolutely one word, isn’t there—“transparency”? All the disputes that we see around service charges are where managing agents hide things because there is no statutory regulator, or where landlords kick accounts into the long grass because they don’t have to produce them. Having a prescribed way to be completely transparent about service charges is really important.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Chair]

We can see you, so if you want to come in on any question, gesticulate and you will hopefully catch my eye. That goes for both of you.

[Matthew Pennycook]

Q Thank you for your time, gentlemen. We have half an hour, but I would love to get in three specific questions, so I encourage you to be as brief as you can while answering.

The first question is on commonhold. Professor Steven, you have published extensively on the Scottish experience of commonhold legislation; Professor Hodges, I believe that you are a member of the Commonhold Council. On Tuesday, we heard from Professor Hopkins of the Law Commission that there are risks associated with a partial implementation of the Law Commission’s recommendations on commonhold. Do you agree with that, and if you do, are there any sensible steps we might take via amendments to the Bill to pave the way for commonhold in the future—for example, share of freehold in flats?

Professor Hodges: I think that was for Professor Steven.

Professor Steven: I am reluctant to answer that in any detail, because I am really not an expert on English land law. May I say something briefly about the Scottish perspective? The difference goes all the way back to 1290, when Edward I, in England, said, “You cannot have feudal grants of property.” Leasehold therefore had to be used, particularly for flats, because of the desire to impose obligations in relation to maintenance and contributions to maintenance. In Scotland, feudal grants were not banned until 2004, which means that flats and other properties were sold that way. We do not have leasehold in the way that you do. Existing feudal holdings were converted into outright ownership in 2004. We also had legislation on long leases that took effect in 2015, which also converted into ownership. The context is quite different.

[Matthew Pennycook]

Q In that case, I will move over to Professor Hodges, in the interests of time, if that is okay.

Professor Steven: Absolutely, and I can see you now.

Professor Hodges: I am very supportive of all the work that the Law Commission has done on commonhold, and we discussed it two or three years ago. I would do it, and this is part of a wider discussion that I expect we will get on to shortly. It is about change management. At the moment, it is rather like the point mentioned by the three previous witnesses. Property law moves terribly slowly—for heaven’s sake, just get on with it. We have the agents, the tenants and the landlords. What we are doing is saying, “Well, do this. Then do that. Then do that. Then do that.” We know where we need to get to, and that would be a very good system if we can get there. They need to train and do all sorts of things. You want to take out repetition or unnecessary cost in doing several things at once. It really is a change management point. We know where we want to get to—just do it basically.

[Matthew Pennycook]

Q Unless they confound us, the Government have been very clear that they are not going to do a commonhold package. Would share of freehold be a good interim step?

Professor Hodges: It is the obvious thing to do, isn’t it? But I would go further.

[Matthew Pennycook]

Q That is all I was looking for. My second question relates to non-litigation costs. The Government, when they published the Bill, claimed that it protected all leaseholders from non-litigation costs. However, clause 12 allows those costs to be passed on, either as they are or at a prescribed rate, in cases of low-value claims. That was because the Law Commission said that the shorter the expired term, the greater the risk for leaseholders in not extending but buying out their lease. This is a point about litigation in some senses, but do you think that, because of the difficulties of challenging a claim to that prescribed sum, leaseholders will be deterred from initiating the process of extending their lease or acquiring their freehold, if they still face, even at a prescribed rate, essentially non-litigation costs as part of claims?

Professor Hodges: Quite possibly, and this is a generic point about access to justice and simplifying dispute resolution. I think the answer to that is to move towards an integrated system, which actually the tribunal and several of the ombudsmen have been working on in the past year in relation to service charges. There are too many places where disputes can go. If we simplify that to an integrated system that supports decision making—part of the answer is clarity and transparency in regulation—but if you support that, things move much more quickly. It has always been the case that, for example, courts are slow. They are a very careful process and therefore you need experts and lawyers, and it takes money—it costs. Whereas, with tribunals and improvement, ombudsmen are free and they move quickly. Getting a modernisation of that system is the answer to this basically. That is not there yet, but it is absolutely within sight and achievable.

[Matthew Pennycook]

If you do not have anything to add Professor Stephen, I will move on to my third question.

Professor Steven: Please move on.

[Matthew Pennycook]

Q My last question relates to ground rents. Clause 21 gives effect to schedule 7, which provides leaseholders with a right to permanently replace their ground rent with a peppercorn, without extending their lease. However, the Government are proposing to apply it only to those with very long leases, so 150 years left or more. The rationale is, as per the Law Commission, that the shorter the unexpired term, the greater the likelihood of disadvantage. Do you have any thoughts on why the Government have chosen that 150-year limit? The Law Commission said 250 years. Do you think it is right, in principle, that someone with a 120-year lease, who may wish to extinguish their ground rent but not extend, is prohibited from doing so on the basis of the Bill, as it stands?

Professor Hodges: I think that it is outside my competence to know the background. My answer would be: just move to commonhold.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Chair]

Professor Steven, do you have anything to add to that?

Professor Steven: I do not.

[Matthew Pennycook]

Q I am trying to adjust my questions to your areas of expertise, but I am trying to focus on the Bill rather than abstract discussions about regulatory systems and what we might want. I have a specific question that follows on from Mr Amesbury’s question. Part 4 of the Bill provides for a new regulatory regime for private and mixed-use estates. Do you think that that is a good idea in principle? We in the House—particularly Mr Fuller and a specific set of Members in whose constituencies this is a very real issue—have been talking for years about a separate management regime. Do you think it is a good idea in principle to establish a completely separate stand-alone regulatory regime for estate management, or should we look instead to incorporate it in the existing system? Essentially, these people are all paying into the same pot, so should they not be covered by the same regulatory system?

Professor Hodges: I think there is an enormous missed opportunity for simplifying across social housing, private and so on. In particular, I would introduce the regulation of property agents working group reforms immediately. Almost everyone wants them, as far as I can see, and it would be easy to do, because you would just cut and paste the relevant regulatory bits from the recently enacted Building Safety Act 2022 and put them in for private managing agents.

As I said in the paper that I sent to you—I gather that Andrew Bulmer was talking about this two days ago here—there are three very good reasons why you need the regulation of property agents, each of which stands up on its own. There are obvious risks if you do not put that building block in place, because things are going to go wrong and there will be detriment to tenants and landlords.

[Matthew Pennycook]

Q To be clear, I agree with you on managing agents; I am talking about the regulation of private estates. The Bill provides for a new regulatory regime for private estates, which are not currently regulated. It is separate from the service charge regime. I am just wondering whether your simplification point works in this case too.

Professor Hodges: Everyone should be in and under the same regime—absolutely everyone in the system.

Professor Steven: I do not have a strong view on this.

[Barry Gardiner]

Q Professor Hodges, my colleague Richard Fuller sought to make a point about caveat emptor to you. Is it your experience that the inequity of power and information between developers or freeholders and the potential purchaser—the leaseholder—is so great that caveat emptor is inappropriate and that you need the power of regulation to sort out that inequity? I think it was the Law Commission that concluded that

“any financial gain for the landlord”—

or freeholder—

“will be at the expense of the leaseholder…Their interests are diametrically opposed, and consensus will be impossible to achieve.”

Professor Hodges: In any consumer or property—certainly social housing—dispute system, there is an obvious imbalance of power. People do not have the money to do things. I have chaired the Post Office Horizon compensation board advising Ministers in the past few weeks. The whole reason why Parliament needs to step in is to correct a massive imbalance of power. Private litigation did not work, or it only half worked. There have been many stories about people being traumatised, and not just unable to enforce their rights. That is why we have invented things like legal aid, Citizens Advice and an ombudsman, and we are still moving—we are still improving that one—because of the ongoing imbalance of power between the little people and larger organisations.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Chair]

Q We will now hear oral evidence from Paul Broadhead, the head of mortgage policy at the Building Societies Association. We have until 1 pm for this session. Could the witness introduce himself for the record, please?

Paul Broadhead: Good afternoon. I am Paul Broadhead, the head of mortgages and housing at the Building Societies Association, which represents all UK building societies and seven of the larger credit unions.

[Matthew Pennycook]

Q Thank you, Mr Broadhead, for coming to give us evidence. I have a very specific question about something that was briefly raised on Tuesday but that has not been explored in real depth. I have seen, as other Members may have, a noticeable rise in RPI-linked ground rent provisions in the wake of the implementation of the Leasehold Reform (Ground Rent) Act 2022—although they may not be connected. You will be aware that such terms could be considered onerous in certain circumstances. They would appear to be the result of specific mortgage lender policies, and somewhat at odds with the UK Finance position. What is your view on that trend and its causes and consequences? Specifically, how will the ground rent provisions in the Bill, namely the peppercorn 990-year lease extensions under clauses 7 and 8, the peppercorn variation under clause 21 and, potentially, complete abolition of ground rents on existing leases, impact on that trend? Will they mean that RPI-linked ground rent provisions are a thing of the past if this Bill is implemented?

Paul Broadhead: Yes, on the RPI, we have seen an increasing trend. I think that started when mortgage lenders changed their policies in terms of the escalating of ground rents—the doubling every five, 10 or 20 years, or whatever it might be. Mortgage lenders have started looking much more closely at the trends in ground rents to make sure that you can predict the affordability and fairness of those rents. You are absolutely right: the RPI change has followed on from many mortgage lenders moving to prevent the doubling of ground rents. We need to make sure we keep an eye on that and to make sure that they are fair and just.

[Matthew Pennycook]

They can be far more punitive.

Paul Broadhead: They can be, absolutely, with where RPI is. It is really difficult to predict. Some ground rents can grow very rapidly, which puts people in financial difficulty. From the lenders’ perspective, when underwriting a mortgage, they need to consider whether the mortgage is affordable on the face of it not only today, but in the future, and to take account of any foreseeable increases in expenditure. That is one of the areas they will take into account.

In terms of the peppercorn ground rent, yes, I do believe that that will resolve this going forward. The important thing to consider is that there is still a separate consultation, which just closed yesterday, on capping ground rent for existing leaseholders. It is really important that that is brought forward to prevent this two-tier system from developing.

[Barry Gardiner]

Q Mr Broadhead, I do not know how long you have been working in your present capacity, but I suspect it is since 1984. In 1984, your organisation’s report “Leaseholds—Time for a change?” said that the “leasehold system is incompatible with home ownership” and that an Englishman’s leasehold home “is his landlord’s castle”. I thought that was a very elegant way of expressing what many of us think. Is that still your organisation’s view?

Paul Broadhead: You are absolutely right. We have been advocating for the reform of leasehold since 1984. As you kindly point out, it was not me that made that comment at the time.

Long-term Plan for Housing

Matthew Pennycook Excerpts

Tuesday 19th December 2023 Commons Chamber

[Matthew Pennycook (Greenwich and Woolwich) (Lab)]

I thank the Minister for advance sight of his statement. Nothing screams long-term housing plan quite like a statement from the 16th Housing Minister since 2010 outlining the fourth set of changes to the national planning policy framework in as many years. As ever with this Government, the reality in no way matches the rhetoric, as we see with the headline announcements made to the press—not this House—over the past 24 hours. Not only are they seemingly at odds with the Government’s stated wish to give local communities more of a say about the placement of new developments; the truth is that the ink will barely be dry on outline plans for the proposed expansion of Cambridge by the time the general election is called. The punitive and nakedly political interventions that Ministers are working up for London ahead of the mayoral election will, likewise, do nothing in practice to resolve the constraints that they themselves have imposed on house building in the capital, not least by leaving industry completely in the dark when it comes to second staircase regulations for tall buildings, at a cost of thousands of new homes.

When it comes to meaningful support for small and medium-sized house builders, the Government have been talking, literally for years, about the various ways in which they need greater support while presiding over their continued decline. Far from unlocking a new generation of home building, as the Secretary of State has claimed, the detailed changes being made to the NPPF today will almost certainly further suppress collapsing house building rates. Let us be clear: although there have been minor tweaks, the changes being made are those that the Government, in their weakness, promised the so-called “Planning Concern Group” of Tory Back Benchers they would enact back in December last year in order to stave off a rebellion on the Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill. That is precisely why the members of that group are so pleased with the ”compromise” they have secured today.

I have a number of detailed questions for the Minister, starting with the impact of these changes on overall housing supply. Whether it is the softening of land supply requirements or the listing of various local characteristics that would justify a deviation from the now only advisory standard method, can he confirm that the changes made to the NPPF, taken together, will give those local authorities that wish to take advantage of it the freedom to plan for less housing than their nominal local targets imply? If he disputes that that will be their effect, what technical evidence can he provide to demonstrate that these changes can be reconciled with a boost to housing delivery?

I turn to the Government’s 300,000 annual housing target, which the Secretary of State recommitted himself to today. How on earth does the Minister imagine that the changes that have been made to the rules around plan making will help the Government finally meet that target, particularly given that the arbitrary 35% urban uplift has been retained but the requirement for local planning authorities to try to meet it out of area in co-operation with their neighbours if they cannot do so alone has been removed? Can the Minister finally provide a convincing explanation of how and when the Government’s 300,000 homes a year target will be met? Or is it the case that it remains alive in name only, abandoned in practice even if not formally abolished?

Let me turn to local plan coverage. In many ways, the revised NPPF speaks to a planning framework that does not actually exist, because under this Government we have a local plan-led system in which only a minority of local authorities have up-to-date plans. According to the most recent figures, just 33% have local plans that have been adopted or reviewed within the past five years and only 10 new plans have been submitted for examination this year—in part, this is because of the chilling effect of the Government’s December 2022 concession. Yet only now, in the dying days of this Government, are Ministers seemingly getting a bit more serious about intervening to drive up coverage.

In The Times today, the Secretary of State announced a new three-month deadline for up-to-date local plans to be submitted. Will the Minister outline the thinking behind that timeframe and tell us what happens if multiple local authorities fail to meet the new March deadline? In his Times interview, the Secretary of State suggested that local authorities that miss that deadline will have development forced on them and their powers to delay applications removed. Can the Minister tell us precisely how that would be achieved? The Secretary of State also suggested that recalcitrant councils will be stripped of their planning responsibilities. Can the Minister tell us who will take them on, given that the Planning Inspectorate clearly does not have the capacity to do so?

Finally, although it is the Government’s contention that the changes made today will boost local plan coverage, surely the Minister recognises that even if that is ultimately their effect, it will be at the cost of overall housing supply because it will entail the enactment of numerous plans that will not meet the needs of local communities in full. In short, isn’t the truth of the matter that today’s changes entail a deliberate shift from a plan-led system focused on making at least some attempt to meet housing need, to one geared toward providing only what the politics of any given area allow, with all the implications that entails for the housing crisis and economic growth?

[Lee Rowley]

I thank the Opposition spokesperson for his comments, which I will address in turn. He started by saying that this is the fourth time we have updated the guidance in the last few years. If his criticism is that we are willing to listen, be flexible and adaptable, and recognise the differences between his constituency of Greenwich and Woolwich and the constituencies of Government Back Benchers, then he is correct. We are willing to be flexible and adaptable, but we also recognise that we need to build more homes; we just want to ensure that they are built in the right places, which is exactly what today’s update seeks to do.

The difference between my party and that of the Opposition spokesperson is that we recognise the nuance in the discussion. Within the NPPF, we are trying to accommodate the fact that different areas and parts of the country have to be approached in different ways. While the policies of the hon. Gentleman’s party move backwards and forwards on different days of the week, we will continue to ensure that we build more homes—in the right place, with the right infrastructure and with the support of the community. In the long run, that will ensure that we make progress on housing in general.

The hon. Gentleman asked a question about freedom to plan. The housing needs assessment will be made by all councils, but councils can make a case if there is an exceptional circumstance that applies in their local area. If that were not possible, there would be no exceptions for any council, local authority or community anywhere, which would be completely unnuanced. However, on a macro level it remains the case that we will seek to build more houses. When councils have plans in place, they tend to deliver more houses than when such plans are not in place, so if we can get more plans in place, we will have the opportunity to build more homes that have the consent and support of the community in which they will be built.

The hon. Gentleman asked about urban uplift and the removal of co-operation with neighbours. We uplifted the targets and expectations on the basis that those houses would go into cities and would not be exported into the countryside near cities, because the whole point was to acknowledge the infrastructure in those cities. There are schools in London that are closing because insufficient numbers of children are using them. We do not want to export housing elsewhere; we want to use that infrastructure—including transport links and educational establishments—as was intended when it was built.

This is not about whether we believe in a plan-led system or not—we clearly do. It is about the fact that this Government are getting on with the hard job of striking a balance, recognising the nuance and ensuring that more progress is being made, versus the Opposition stating that they want to build houses, but then voting against that happening in relation to nutrient neutrality. If they put their money where their mouth was and did what they say they will do, they would have the ability to stand up and make such arguments consistently. They do not and, as a result, I will not listen to them.

Leasehold and Freehold Reform Bill

Matthew Pennycook Excerpts

2nd reading
Monday 11th December 2023 Commons Chamber

[Matthew Pennycook (Greenwich and Woolwich) (Lab)]

I start by declaring an interest: my wife is the joint chief executive of the Law Commission, whose work I intend to cite in my remarks.

It is a pleasure to close this Second Reading debate for the Opposition, and I thank all right hon. and hon. Members who have participated in it. I echo what so many others have said and add my own tribute to all the individuals and organisations who have campaigned for so long for reform in this area.

As a number of contributors to the debate have pointed out, we have waited a long time for this Bill. It was just under six years ago that the then Secretary of State, the right hon. Member for Bromsgrove (Sajid Javid), announced that the Government intended to introduce a series of measures to end unfair and abusive practices within the leasehold system, including—I quote here from a Government press release in December 2017—

“legislating to prevent the sale of new build leasehold houses”.

That 2017 announcement was developed three years later, during the tenure of the right hon. Member for Newark (Robert Jenrick) as Secretary of State. In a written ministerial statement dated 11 January 2021, he announced

“seminal two-part legislation to implement leasehold and commonhold reforms in this Parliament”.

The first part of that two-part legislative agenda duly followed, in the form of the Leasehold Reform (Ground Rent) Act 2022. Although we—and in particular the shadow Minister for homelessness and building safety, my hon. Friend the Member for Weaver Vale (Mike Amesbury)—pressed Ministers to use that Act to implement further reform, we nonetheless supported the Government in passing it. In the 17 months since the Act came into force, successive Ministers have made all manner of extravagant promises about what the second part of the “seminal two-part legislation” would entail. Indeed, the current Secretary of State, in an interview with The Sunday Times in January this year, even went so far as to declare, without qualification, that he intended to abolish the leasehold system in its entirety.

Leaseholders across the country, whose daily lives are often made miserable by the unjust and discriminatory practices that our archaic leasehold system facilitates, took Tory Ministers at their word. They expected the second part of the promised two-part legislative agenda to live up to the weighty promises made by the Government. They have been badly let down. Having waited so long and had their expectations raised so high, they are understandably disappointed at the limited Bill that we are considering today. And it is a limited Bill, and no amount of bravado from the Secretary of State can alter that fact. They are also perplexed, as we are, that legislation that the Government claimed would end leaseholds on newly built houses in England and Wales does not actually contain any provision to end such leaseholds.

When the Minister responds to the debate, he will no doubt attempt to brush that criticism aside, as he did in oral questions last week, on the grounds that it is entirely normal for key provisions of a Bill to be added in Committee. Sadly, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Ashton-under-Lyne (Angela Rayner) mentioned in opening the debate, it is common practice for this Government, and this Secretary of State in particular, to significantly expand the size and scope of Bills by incorporating swathes of Government amendments in Committee and on Report in a way that limits the ability of hon. Members to ensure that full scrutiny takes place. However, the Minister is fooling no one in attempting to suggest that the omission from the legislation of key provisions was always the Government’s intent.

I remind the House, as my hon. Friend the Member for City of Chester (Samantha Dixon) did, that the right hon. Member for Bromsgrove committed the Government to legislating to prevent the sale of new build leasehold houses nearly six years ago. The Government have no excuse whatsoever for failing to include in the Bill the provisions necessary to enact that commitment in order for the House to consider them properly today. That they failed to do so no doubt owes more to hurried drafting, and to the wrangling between the Department and No. 10 that has taken place over recent months in respect of this Bill, than to any considered design. However, for all the confusion that surrounded it, the legislation before us has answered one important question: how ambitious do the Government wish to be when it comes to leasehold reform? Because this unambitious piece of legislation makes it clear that proponents of caution and restraint have won out over those who want to lay claim to a legacy of bold reform in this area.

That criticism cannot simply be brushed aside as carping on the part of the Opposition. The Government’s poverty of ambition has real implications for leaseholders being routinely gouged by freeholders under the present system. Take flats, which are the overwhelming majority of new leasehold properties being created and the source of most of the leasehold-related complaints that I receive from constituents. The Government’s stated solution for them, as made clear by Baroness Penn in the other place just last week, is reinvigorating commonhold, yet the Minister of State made it clear on Monday that the Government do not intend to incorporate into this Bill any provisions whatsoever relating to commonhold, despite the clear commitment they made in 2021. Instead, it remains part of their “long-term approach”. In other words, the Government’s offer to swathes of leaseholders across the country is jam tomorrow.

The hon. Member for Redditch (Rachel Maclean), known affectionately as No. 15 on these Benches, gave the game away. She said that all the work has already been done on commonhold, so it is not a matter of complexity; it is a political choice on the Government’s part not to introduce commonhold provisions in this legislation. What is so galling about the position that Ministers have adopted is that there is clearly widespread support across the House for the more ambitious leasehold reform that could have been incorporated into the Bill, and this debate has demonstrated it. However, in the dying days of this Government, we are where we are.

While we deeply regret the Bill’s lack of ambition, we have no intention of voting against Second Reading this evening. We support the intent of the provisions in the legislation before us and the principle of the Bill as a whole. The measures it contains will give homeowners in England and Wales some greater rights, powers and protections over their homes. That is not to say that we do not have concerns about the efficacy of some of them; we do, and we will seek to strengthen the Bill in a number of ways in Committee. For example, we believe that clauses 12 and 13, which are intended to protect leaseholders from covering the legal and valuation costs associated with lease extensions, require tightening if we are to prevent, in practice, freeholders recovering litigation and non-litigation costs. To take another example, we believe that clause 23, which seeks to replace the existing costs regime for right to manage claims, is flawed and needs overhauling if it is to protect, in practice, RTM companies from cost claims by landlords.

We also believe that this limited Bill can be improved in ways that will give future leaseholders more control over their future. For example, we think there is an iron-strong case for adding to the Bill provisions that would abolish forfeiture for leases entirely and replace it with a more equitable means for freeholders to recover costs in a dispute that does not involve a windfall. I was pleased by the signal that the Secretary of State gave on that front in opening the debate. To take another example, we think there is merit in adding to the Bill provisions that would ensure that leases on new flats include a requirement to establish and operate a residents’ management company responsible for all service charge matters and associated works, with each leaseholder given a share.

We will seek to convince the Government of the merits of those and other measures when we go into Committee in the new year, and we will engage constructively with the Government if they decide to introduce other bold measures into the Bill at that stage—for example, if Ministers are minded to implement the Law Commission’s proposals on the right to manage, covering both flats and houses.

However, we recognise that there is only so much that we can do with the legislation before us. Given the paucity of the Bill’s ambition and the fact that it does not contain so many of the commitments that successive Secretaries of State have made, not least in relation to the promised widespread introduction of the commonhold tenure, it is clear that it will now fall to a Labour Government to fundamentally and comprehensively reform the leasehold system, including the reinvigoration of commonhold to such an extent that it will become the default and ultimately render leasehold obsolete.

We are pleased that the Bill will progress today. It will provide some limited relief to leaseholders. We will seek to improve it with a view to extracting from the Government any extra measures that further empower leaseholders and disturb the historical iniquity on which the present system rests. Leaseholders across the country who remain at the mercy of arcane and discriminatory practices, to their detriment and to the benefit of freeholders, rightly expect nothing less. But leaseholders across the country expected so much more from the Government. We are clear that, in due course, Labour will have to finish the job and enact all the Law Commission’s recommendations on enfranchisement, right to manage and commonhold in full. We are determined to do so.

--- Later in debate ---

[Matthew Pennycook]

The Minister touched on building safety. In the briefing notes on the Bill that accompanied the King’s Speech, under the heading “Improving leaseholders’ consumer rights”, reference was made to:

“Building on the legislation brought forward by the Building Safety Act 2022”.

Is it the Government’s intention to incorporate building safety measures in the Bill?

[Lee Rowley]

We are looking at what may be possible. We recognise that, while the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities has brought forward a very solid prospectus, tweaks can always be made. We see real momentum in this area. I know that that is not good enough for buildings that have not yet had their remediation or for leaseholders who are hugely frustrated by the inability or unwillingness of freeholders to make progress, but we have made significant changes and steps forward in the last year or so, and we are committed to doing more in the coming months.

I am grateful to the hon. Member for North Shropshire for meeting me earlier to talk about specific points about assets. We will look at those points and come back to her.

I can confirm to my right hon. Friend the Member for Aldridge-Brownhills that we intend to tackle ground rents. I am grateful to her for highlighting exceptions in leasehold houses. We intend that to be a very narrow element. She sought an example. One example I can give is that of National Trust land where freeholds cannot be sold and a small number of leasehold homes may therefore be required.

The hon. Member for Liverpool, West Derby talked about his disappointment with, I believe, the consultation on ground rents. We must consult on that because we must ensure that we are listening and that we take a decision based on the broad range of evidence in front of us, to ensure that it is legally sound when the decision is made. He encourages me to speak to the Law Commission. I can tell him that I have spoken to the Law Commission probably more regularly than any other external organisation outside the Department in the past three or four weeks.

The hon. Members for Walthamstow, for Battersea and for Brentford and Isleworth are seeking to push a narrative—if I may say that very gently to them, with the best of intentions—that this is not a significant intervention with regard to flats. I gently encourage them to continue to engage with the Bill. They will see long and cheap extensions, easier enfranchisement, service charge transparency, easier redress, lease extensions, standard forms, annual reports and many, many other significant measures that will have salience for those living in flats.

Before I conclude, I would like to thank the hon. Member for Greenwich and Woolwich (Matthew Pennycook) for his constructive comments. I look forward to meeting him in Committee to talk about them more. While I may disappoint the right hon. Member for East Ham, I would like to turn to some of the comments made from the Opposition Front Bench.

The right hon. Member for Ashton-under-Lyne (Angela Rayner), despite acknowledging that the Government have brought forward important legislation, despite confirming that Labour would not be opposing it and despite advancing the most enthusiastic compliment I have ever heard her give a Conservative—that the Secretary of State has reached the lofty heights of being a “functional cog”; heavy praise indeed!—showed that, as ever, she deals in rhetoric rather than reality, and in politics rather than policy. She called the Bill “empty”. This is a Bill with 65 clauses, eight schedules and 133 pages, and there are 67 pages of explanatory notes. Given its comprehensive reform of enfranchisement and extensions, its comprehensive reform of redress, and its comprehensive reform of service charges, estate management and valuation, that is a funny definition of “empty”.

Oral Answers to Questions

Matthew Pennycook Excerpts

Monday 4th December 2023 Commons Chamber

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

I call the shadow Minister.

[Matthew Pennycook (Greenwich and Woolwich) (Lab)]

As you will no doubt be aware, Madam Deputy Speaker, the Government’s Leasehold and Freehold Reform Bill, designed to ban the sale of new leasehold houses, does not actually contain any provisions to ban the sale of new leasehold houses, because the Department apparently did not have time to draft them before publication. If and when the Government rectify their mistake and add the necessary provisions, will they incorporate measures to reinvigorate commonhold by making it accessible and available to both prospective homebuyers and existing leaseholders? If not, why not?

[Lee Rowley]

As has been outlined, we intend to bring forward further changes to the Bill during the process, as Opposition Members know is normal, because they have sat in the same Committees that we have. We are not proposing to change leasehold to commonhold under the Bill, but that remains part of our long-term approach and we would like to see further reforms as soon as we are able to.

Renters (Reform) Bill (Tenth sitting)

Matthew Pennycook Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 28th November 2023 Public Bill Committees

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

It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair, Ms Fovargue.

Everyone deserves to live in a safe and decent home. It is completely unacceptable in this day and age that people are forced to live in homes that do not meet basic standards of decency. There is already a decent homes standard for social housing that has been successful in improving housing conditions. Since the standard was last updated in 2006, the level of non-decency in social housing has fallen from 29% to 10%, but there is no equivalent standard for the private rented sector, and homes in that sector are more likely to be non-decent.

Of the 4.6 million households that rent privately, 23% live in properties that would fail the decent homes standard that currently applies to social housing. That is around 1 million homes. That is why we committed in the levelling-up White Paper to halving the number of non-decent rented homes by 2030 and, in the “Fairer Private Rented Sector” White Paper, to introducing a legally binding decent homes standard in the private rented sector for the first time. It is also why we have tabled the Government amendments, which will allow Ministers to set a new standard to apply the private rented sector and for it to be enforced.

It is imperative that we get the content of the new standard right and that we ensure that it is both proportionate and fair. We are working closely with a range of stakeholders to co-design the standard and make sure the balance is right for landlords and tenants. For most PRS properties, our expectation is that the landlord will not need to do any additional work to meet the decent homes standard beyond what is needed to meet existing requirements and keep their properties in a good state of repair. We will provide further details on our proposals for the standard in due course.

[Matthew Pennycook (Greenwich and Woolwich) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to continue our deliberations with you in the Chair, Ms Fovargue.

Clause 63 is a short and straightforward clause that would require the Secretary of State to prepare a report that sets out the Government’s policy on safety and quality standards in relation to supported housing and temporary accommodation and to publish it within one year of the day on which the measure comes into force. The group of Government amendments we are considering with the clause, which are intended to replace it entirely, will extend part 1 of the Housing Act 2004, which relates to housing conditions, to cover temporary accommodation, and provide for regulations to specify new requirements that will form part of a decent homes standard that applies to temporary accommodation, supported exempt accommodation and rented property more generally. We welcome both the intent and the design of the amendments.

The private rented sector is manifestly failing to provide safe and secure homes for all those who live in it. We fully accept that the absolute number and proportion of poor-quality private rented homes continues to fall—albeit steadily rather than drastically—as part of a half-century, if not longer, of improvement in housing standards. However, it remains the case that some of the worst standards in housing are to be found in the private rented sector. It should be a source of real shame for the Government that after they have been in office for 13 years, an estimated one in four homes in the private rented sector—the Minister made it clear that that equates to around a million properties—do not meet the decent homes standard, and one in 10 has a category 1 hazard that poses a risk of serious harm.

For the considerable number of private tenants who are forced to live in substandard properties—those who wake up every day to mould, vermin or dangerous hazards—what should be a place of refuge and comfort is instead a source of, at best, daily unease and, at worst, torment and misery. More must be done to bear down decisively on this problem. Measures designed to drive up standards in the sector should be enacted as a matter of urgency.

As I made clear during the debate on clause 52, the Government deserve appropriate credit for seeking to introduce a decent homes standard that covers the private rented sector through this Bill rather than through separate future legislation. We believe that Government new clause 20, new schedule 1 and the related amendments are well drafted and that they have the potential to tackle the blight of poor-quality homes in local communities and ensure that renters have safer and better homes to live in; however, I would like to take this opportunity to put to the Minister several questions about those provisions.

My first question concerns enforcement. A decent homes standard that covers the social rented sector has been in place since 2001, yet we know that far too many social tenants still live in damp, cold and mouldy properties that harm their health and their life chances. Indeed, that was one of the chief reasons why the Government felt it necessary to enact the Social Housing (Regulation) Act 2023. That demonstrates that over the 22 years of the decent homes standard’s existence, although it has led to some improvements it has not been enforceable in the social rented sector. That experience suggests that introducing a decent homes standard covering the private rented sector will not achieve its objectives unless it is properly enforced.

Given that the Government intend, by means of new schedule 1, which amends part 1 of the Housing Act 2004, for enforcement of the new standard in the PRS to be undertaken using the same powers as the regime for the housing health and safety rating system, it should be a relatively straightforward matter for local authorities. However, local authorities’ ability to do so successfully depends in practice on their capacity and capabilities. As we debated just prior to the break, in relation to clauses 58 to 61, a great many authorities are struggling when it comes to resources and skills. Will the Minister provide more detail on what steps, if any, the Government intend to take, in addition to the various proposals in the Bill, to ensure that local authorities can appropriately enforce the application of the decent homes standard to the private rented sector where it is not already being met?

My second issue concerns the nature of the standard itself. The Government consulted on the introduction and enforcement of a decent homes standard in the private rented sector in England late last year, and the responses to that consultation obviously fed into the Government amendments we are considering. However, the Government have also committed themselves to a more fundamental review of the standard at some unspecified point in the future. Will the Minister confirm whether that commitment remains in place? If so, will he give us some idea of when that more fundamental review, presumably across both the social rented and private rented sectors, might begin?

The third issue relates to the current enforcement regime for the housing health and safety rating system. The regime is primary means by which local authorities can tackle poor property conditions and compel prompt action from landlords who do not fulfil their responsibilities to provide homes free from dangerously hazardous conditions. We take it from the Government amendments that while the new decent homes standard for the private rented sector will be located in part 1 of the Housing Act 2004, it will not necessarily be the same thing as the HHSRS, which is also in part 1 of that Act. We will presumably need to wait for secondary legislation to work out how, if at all, the decent homes standard and the HHSRS differ, but their workings will need to complement each other.

In answer to a written question that I tabled on 2 May, the then Housing Minister confirmed that a review of the HHSRS, including the statutory operating and enforcement guidance, was under way. Given the obvious implications of that answer for the functioning of the new decent homes standard introduced by this group of Government amendments, will the Minister tell us whether that review has concluded, as the decent homes consultation suggested? If it has, when did it conclude, when will the results be published, and does it remain the Government’s view that any changes will require further legislation? The status and outcome of the review of the HHSRS and its associated statutory, operating and enforcement guidance are important because that guidance is applied when local authorities consider using their statutory powers to remedy defective housing conditions, including and especially damp and mould.

That brings me to our new clause 60. When the Social Housing (Regulation) Act 2023 was on Report, the Government tabled and passed, with our support, amendments designed to force social landlords to investigate and fix damp and mould-related health hazards within specified timeframes, with the threat of legal challenge if they do not, owing to the insertion of an implied covenant into tenancy agreements. The provisions were termed Awaab’s law because they were a direct response to the untimely death of two-year-old Awaab Ishak from respiratory arrest, as a result of prolonged exposure to mould in the rented Rochdale Boroughwide Housing property in which he and his family lived. Although enactment of the new requirements is dependent on secondary legislation, with the consultation having closed last week we are hopeful that the necessary statutory instrument will soon be forthcoming. We look forward to its enactment so that social landlords who continue to drag their feet over dangerous damp and mould will face the full force of the law.

New clause 60 would simply extend Awaab’s law to the private rented sector by amending the relevant section of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1985, and the reasoning behind that is straightforward. The Government were right to introduce Awaab’s law in the social housing sector, but the problem of debilitating damp and mould, and landlords who fail to investigate such hazards and make necessary repairs, is not confined to social rented homes.

A Citizens Advice report published in February made it clear that the private rented sector has widespread problems with damp, mould and cold, driven by the poor energy efficiency of privately rented homes—an issue that we are minded to raise later in the Bill’s proceedings. The report went on to evidence the fact that 1.6 million children in England currently live in cold, damp or mouldy privately rented homes. In the face of such a pervasive problem, we can think of no justification whatsoever for restricting Awaab’s law purely to the social housing sector. We hope that the Government will agree and accept new clause 60, because we can think of no reason whatsoever why they would resist doing so.

Before I conclude, I want to touch briefly on a final issue in relation to this group of amendments. We welcome the inclusion of supported exempt accommodation in a decent homes standard and part 1 of the Housing Act 2004. We believe that will resolve an issue of concern that we flagged in the Social Housing (Regulation) Bill Committee—namely, the loophole that exists, and is being exploited by unscrupulous providers, as a result of non-profit-making providers of supported exempt accommodation being able to let properties at market rents that are eligible for housing benefit support, on the basis that “more than minimal” care, support or supervision is being provided, without those properties coming within the scope of consumer regulation.

The inclusion of temporary accommodation is also welcome, but it is slightly more problematic, because local authorities are responsible both for enforcing part 1 of the Housing Act 2004 and for procuring sufficient temporary accommodation to meet their duty to prevent and relieve homelessness. As such, while there may not be a legal conflict of interest, there is certainly a potential practical conflict of interest, as local authorities will be forced to weigh the case for any potential enforcement action, outside the scope of the contract in question, against the need to retain private landlords as an ongoing source of desperately needed temporary accommodation. It is for precisely that reason that we tried to convince the Government, in the Social Housing (Regulation) Bill Committee, to have temporary accommodation regulated by a third party, such as the Regulator of Social Housing.

The Government amendments will undoubtedly help to improve the quality of some temporary accommodation, and the inclusion of temporary accommodation in a decent homes standard and part 1 of the Housing Act 2004 is to be welcomed for that reason. However, we encourage the Government to consider whether they might go further. For example—here, I again commend my hon. Friend the Member for Westminster North for her Homes (Fitness for Human Habitation) Act 2018—could the Government extend section 9A of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1985 to also cover properties occupied under licences as homelessness temporary accommodation? I would welcome the Minister’s thoughts on that, and I look forward to his response to new clause 60 and all the other issues that I have raised regarding this group of amendments.

[Jacob Young]

Let me address the hon. Gentleman’s point about local authorities and their ability to enforce. We will establish a new duty on landlords to ensure that their properties meet the decent homes standard. For landlords who fail to take reasonably practicable steps to keep their properties free of serious hazard, local councils will be able to issue fines of up to £5,000. That will encourage those landlords who do not already do so to proactively manage their properties, which will allow local councils to target their enforcement more effectively on a small minority of irresponsible and criminal landlords.

We will also explore requiring landlords to register compliance with the decent homes standard on the property portal. That will support local councils in identifying non-decent properties to target through their enforcement activity. As I have already said in response to different parts of the Bill, we will also do a full new burdens assessment for local authorities, and where there is a new burden, they will be resourced to fund that.

On the hon. Gentleman’s questions about the HHSRS review, the simple answer is that we will publish that in due course. Secondary legislation obviously needs to coincide with that, so I do not have anything further to add at this point. However, I am happy to write to him in further detail on that. Similarly, I will commit to writing to him on on the DHS review too.

--- Later in debate ---

[Matthew Pennycook]

I welcome that response from the Minister. With regard to Government amendments, I thank him for what he said about the HHSRS and the more fundamental review of the decent homes standard across both tenures. If he has any further detail on that, I would welcome it. I particularly welcome the implied suggestion that the registration of a decent homes standard, when it is forthcoming, will form part of what is required for landlords to submit on the portal. That is a very good idea, and in that way we could help to drive up standards by making it part of the general information that needs to be submitted as part of registration with the database. That is very welcome.

On Awaab’s law and new clause 60, I have to say to the Minister that he gave a particularly unconvincing answer. I entirely understand that when it comes to standards, the Government’s focus is on the measures in the Bill. We all want to see local authorities able to enforce properly, and we all want to see the ombudsman provide a mechanism for redress. However, I still fail to understand—I do not think the Minister responded to this point—why the Government believe that Awaab’s law is appropriate for the social rented sector, but not for the private rented sector.

[Jacob Young]

rose—

[Matthew Pennycook]

I will just make this point. The Minister said that the Government do not think it is of interest to tenants; I would be very interested to know what surveys the Government have done of tenants to find out their views on this matter, because I am certainly not aware of any such evidence. I think it would be of real interest to tenants if their landlords could be forced to respond within specific timeframes to sufficiently serious cases of damp and mould, as Awaab’s law provides for the social rented sector, with the threat of legal challenge as a stock response. I am happy to give way, but I find the Minister’s arguments on this point quite unconvincing. If these measures are appropriate for the social rented sector, with all the other measures in place in that sector, they should be appropriate for the private rented sector.

[Jacob Young]

I simply say to the hon. Gentleman that there is an obvious difference between a large social housing sector landlord, which has maintenance teams that can quickly act to address an issue, and an individual landlord, who may have only one or two properties, and may not have a wealth of skill behind them to address such issues in the timeframes that we hope to set out for social landlords. As I said, local authorities can request timely changes to properties.

[Matthew Pennycook]

I thank the Minister for that answer. I fully accept that there is a difference between a large registered social landlord, and a mum-and-dad landlord, who might own only one or two buy-to-let properties. However, we should not therefore say that it is acceptable for the kinds of cases that Awaab’s law would cover, if extended to the private sector, to go on unchallenged. I am not satisfied that there are existing powers to challenge those cases. If there were such powers in the social rented sector, the Government would not have needed to bring forward Awaab’s law. Actually, if the Government were properly resourcing local authorities to enforce, Awaab’s law might not be necessary, but the Government deemed it necessary in the social rented sector.

As the Bill demonstrates, the difference between the private rented sector and the social sector will break down to some extent, whether as a result of the ombudsman, who will cover both sectors, or other measures. We think the law should cover both sectors, and I find the Minister’s response unconvincing. I will press new clause 60 to a Division.

[Lloyd Russell-Moyle (Brighton, Kemptown) (Lab/Co-op)]

It is worth pointing out that the Minister himself said that the condition of the housing stock in the private rented sector was now considered to be worse than the condition of the housing stock in the social rented sector. Surely the Minister should therefore argue that we need tougher regulation, because regulation is failing more badly in the private sector than in the social sector, but he seems not to have followed through on his argument.

[Matthew Pennycook]

My hon. Friend is right. We know that standards in the social rented sector are inadequate; that is why the Government brought forward their recent legislation, which we supported. Things are worse in the private rented sector. I quoted the Citizens Advice statistic: 1.6 million children are in damp, mouldy or cold homes. If anything, there is a stronger case for Awaab’s law applying to the private rented sector than to the social, but the Minister is trying to have it both ways, for the obvious reason that the Government do not want to accept our new clause. I encourage them to go away and think. We will press the new clause to a vote. If the measures are good enough for the social rented sector, surely they are good enough for tenants in the private rented sector; I have seen no evidence that those tenants are not interested in the tougher powers that Awaab’s law would provide.

Finally, I would welcome any further detail from the Minister on whether there is a need to go further on licensed temporary accommodation properties.

Question put and negatived.

Clause 63 accordingly disagreed to.

Clause 54

Crown application

Amendments made: 97, in clause 54, page 55, line 15, leave out “(4), this Part” and insert “(4D), this Act”.

This amendment provides for a default rule which will have the effect that, subject to any specific provision about them, the new clauses which make freestanding provision in the Bill will bind the Crown. This is intended to mean that the Crown will be bound by the new clauses containing prohibitions on discriminatory practices in relation to tenancies and (subject to exceptions in Amendment 98 for powers of entry) the new investigatory powers.

Amendment 98, in clause 54, page 55, line 30, at end insert—

“(4A) Sections (Business premises: entry without warrant), (Requirements where occupiers are on business premises entered without warrant), (Business premises: warrant authorising entry), (Business premises: entry under warrant), (Power to require production of documents following entry), (Power to seize documents following entry), (Access to seized documents), (Appeal against detention of documents), (Suspected residential tenancy: entry without warrant), (Requirements where occupiers are on residential premises entered without warrant), (Suspected residential tenancy: warrant authorising entry), (Suspected residential tenancy: entry under warrant) and (Powers of accompanying persons) do not bind the Crown.

(4B) Nothing in section (Offences) makes the Crown criminally liable.

(4C) The High Court may declare unlawful any act or omission for which the Crown would be criminally liable under section (Offences) but for subsection (4B).

(4D) An amendment or repeal made by this Act binds the Crown to the extent that the provision amended or repealed binds the Crown (but in the case of an amendment of the 1988 Act, this is subject to the amendments made by section 13).”

This amendment provides that the new clauses conferring powers of entry do not bind the Crown. It also provides that the offences applying in relation to the new clauses about requiring information do not make the Crown criminally liable (but can lead to a declaration of unlawfulness) and deals with Crown application of amendments made by the Bill to other legislation.

Amendment 99, in clause 54, page 55, line 31, leave out

“Subsection (2) does not affect”

and insert

“Nothing in this section affects”.—(Jacob Young.)

This amendment is consequential on Amendment 98.

Clause 54, as amended, ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Ordered,

That clause 54 be transferred to the end of line 30 on page 61. —(Jacob Young.)

This amendment is consequential on Amendment 97. It moves clause 54 into Part 5 of the Bill (general provisions). This is necessary because once clause 54 deals with the application to the Crown of new provisions added to the Bill, it will no longer relate only to Part 2, and therefore needs to be moved out of that Part.

Clause 55

Application to Parliament

Amendments made: 100, in clause 55, page 55, line 36, leave out “this Part” and insert

“Part 2 (and Part 3 so far as relating to Part 2)”.

This amendment is consequential on the motion to transfer clause 55. It also makes it clear that the general provisions about enforcement action in Part 3 of the Bill apply in relation to any tenancies and licences referred to in clause 55.

Amendment 101, in clause 55, page 56, line 16, at end insert—

“(2) The following provisions do not apply in relation to premises that are occupied for the purposes of either House of Parliament—

(a) Chapter 2A of Part 1;

(b) sections (Power of local housing authority to require information from relevant person), (Business premises: entry without warrant), (Requirements where occupiers are on business premises entered without warrant), (Business premises: warrant authorising entry), (Business premises: entry under warrant), (Power to require production of documents following entry), (Power to seize documents following entry), (Access to seized documents), (Appeal against detention of documents), (Suspected residential tenancy: entry without warrant), (Requirements where occupiers are on residential premises entered without warrant), (Suspected residential tenancy: warrant authorising entry), (Suspected residential tenancy: entry under warrant) and (Powers of accompanying persons).

(3) Nothing in section (Offences) makes the Corporate Officer of the House of Commons or the Corporate Officer of the House of Lords criminally liable.

(4) The High Court may declare unlawful any act or omission for which the Corporate Officer of the House of Commons or the Corporate Officer of the House of Lords would be criminally liable under section (Offences) but for subsection (3).

(5) Nothing in this section affects the criminal liability of relevant members of the House of Lords staff or of the House of Commons staff (as defined by sections 194 and 195 of the Employment Rights Act 1996).”—(Jacob Young.)

This amendment provides that the new Chapter containing prohibitions on discriminatory practices in relation to tenancies and the new clauses on investigatory powers (except the power to require information from any person) do not apply in relation to premises occupied for the purposes of Parliament. It also provides that nothing in NC41 makes the Corporate Officers of the Houses criminally liable (though there can be a declaration of unlawfulness).

Clause 55, as amended, ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Ordered,

That clause 55 be transferred to the end of line 30 on page 61. —(Jacob Young.)

This amendment is consequential on Amendment 101. It moves clause 55 into Part 5 of the Bill (general provisions). This is necessary because once clause 55 deals with the application to Parliament of the new clauses relating to discriminatory practices and to investigatory powers, it will no longer relate only to Part 2 of the Bill.

Clause 56

Regulations

Amendments made: 102, in clause 56, page 56, line 18, leave out “Part” and insert “Act”.

This amendment provides for the provisions about regulations in clause 56(1) to apply in relation to regulations under the new clauses expected to be added to the Bill.

Amendment 103, in clause 56, page 56, line 28, leave out “Part” and insert “Act”.

This amendment provides for the provision for regulations to be made by statutory instrument to cover all the regulations under the Bill.

Amendment 104, in clause 56, page 56, line 29, after “section” insert

“(Power of the Secretary of State to amend Chapter 2A to protect persons of other descriptions),”.

This amendment provides for regulations under the new clause inserted by NC15 to be subject to affirmative procedure in Parliament.

Amendment 105, in clause 56, page 56, line 33, leave out “Part” and insert

“Act made by the Secretary of State”.

This amendment provides for a default rule that all regulations made by the Secretary of State under the Bill are to be subject to negative procedure in Parliament. The reference to the Secretary of State is included because under other amendments there are regulation-making powers for the Welsh Ministers which are to be subject to procedure in Senedd Cymru rather than Parliament.

Amendment 106, in clause 56, page 56, line 35, at end insert—

“(6) This section does not apply to regulations under section (Power of Welsh Ministers to make consequential provision) or this Part.”—(Jacob Young.)

This amendment is consequential on the motion to transfer clause 56. It ensures that, once clause 56 is moved into Part 5 of the Bill by that amendment, the clause will apply only to the substantive regulation-making powers under the Bill and not to any regulations made under the general powers in Part 5 (Part 5 already contains specific provision about procedure etc in relation to the general powers).

Clause 56, as amended, ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Ordered,

That clause 56 be transferred to the end of line 30 on page 61. —(Jacob Young.)

This amendment is consequential on Amendments 102, 103, 104 and 105. It moves clause 56 into Part 5 of the Bill (general provisions). This is necessary because once clause 56 deals with regulations under provisions outside of Part 2 of the Bill, it will no longer relate only to that Part.

Clause 64

Meaning of “the 1988 Act”

Amendment made: 107, in clause 64, page 61, line 30, after first “Act” insert—

“‘local housing authority’ means a district council, a county council in England for an area for which there is no district council, a London borough council, the Common Council of the City of London or the Council of the Isles of Scilly;”.—(Jacob Young.)

This amendment inserts a definition of “local housing authority” for the purposes of the Bill as a whole.

Clause 64, as amended, ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 65

Power to make consequential provision

Amendments made: 108, in clause 65, page 62, line 1, at end insert—

“(2A) The power to make regulations under this section includes power to make—

(a) supplementary, incidental, transitional or saving provision;

(b) different provision for different purposes.”

This amendment allows regulations made by the Secretary of State containing provision that is consequential on the Bill to include supplementary or incidental provision and to make different provision for different purposes.

Amendment 109, in clause 65, page 62, line 2, leave out from “power”, in the first place, to “for” in line 3 and insert—

“under subsection (2A)(a) to make transitional provision includes power to provide”.—(Jacob Young.)

This amendment is consequential on Amendment 108.

Clause 65, as amended, ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 66 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 67

Commencement and application

[Matthew Pennycook]

I beg to move amendment 169, in clause 67, page 62, line 21, at end insert—

“, save that section 2(b) comes into force on the day on which this Act is passed only to the extent that it repeals section 21 of the Housing Act 1988; such repeal will not affect the validity of any notices served under that provision on or before the day on which this Act is passed and the provisions of that section will continue to apply to any claims issued in respect of such a notice”.

This amendment would ensure that the abolition of section 21 evictions would come into force on Royal Assent, with saving provisions for any notices served before that date.

In opening the Committee’s fifth sitting for the Opposition, I set out in exhaustive detail our concerns about the huge uncertainty that surrounds the implementation of chapter 1 of part 1 of the Bill as a result of the Government’s recent decision to tie the implementation of the new tenancy system directly to ill-defined court improvements. As I argued, because of the Government’s last-minute change of approach, private tenants have no idea when the new tenancy system will come into force. They do not even know what constitutes the requisite progress on court reform that Ministers deem necessary before the new system comes into force.

At that point in our proceedings, I put three questions to the Minister. First, do the Government believe that the county court system for resolving most disputes between landlords and tenants is performing so badly that reform is a necessary precondition of bringing chapter 1 of part 1 into force? Secondly, if the Government’s view is that reform of the court system is absolutely necessary prior to chapter 1 coming into force, what is the precise nature of the improvements that are deemed to be required? Thirdly, what is the Government’s implementation timeline for those court improvements? The Minister’s terse response to the clause 1 stand part debate provided no convincing answers whatsoever to those questions; indeed, he failed to respond to almost all the detailed and cogent points of concern raised by Opposition Members in that debate. I hope that he will take the opportunity to respond to them in debate on this amendment, and thus provide the Committee with the assurances that were sought, but not secured, earlier in our proceedings.

Toward the end of the debate on clause 1 stand part, I put a question to the Minister about clause 67. I asked why the two-stage transition process that the clause provides for, with precise starting dates for new and existing tenancies to be determined by the Secretary of State, does not afford the Government enough time to make the necessary improvements to the courts. The Minister’s reply was:

“We will come on to that point when we discuss clause 67.”––[Official Report, Renters (Reform) Public Bill Committee, 21 November 2023; c. 159.]

Well, here we are, Minister, and we would still like to know not only why the Government believe that court reform is a necessary precondition of enacting chapter 1 of part 1, what improvements they believe are necessary, and the timeline for their implementation, but why the two-stage transition process that this clause facilitates is not sufficient to get the job done. We really do deserve some answers from the Government today.

I remind the Committee that clause 67 would give the Government an incredible amount of leeway on when the new system comes into force. It allows Ministers to determine an initial implementation date at any point after Royal Assent, after which all new tenancies will be periodic and governed by the new rules, and also to determine a second implementation date, which must be at least 12 months after the first, after which all existing tenancies will transition to the new rules. Although we want firm assurances that the two-stage process will not be postponed indefinitely pending unspecified court improvements, we take the view that the proposed two-stage process is the right approach. It would clearly not be sensible to enact the whole of chapter 1 of part 1 immediately on Royal Assent. Additional time will be required for, for example, new prescribed forms for the new grounds for possession.

However, landlords and tenants need certainty about precisely when the Government’s manifesto commitment to abolish section 21 no-fault evictions will be enacted. Amendment 169 seeks to provide that certainty. It would ensure that section 21 of the Housing Act 1988 was repealed on the day that the Bill received Royal Assent, with saving provisions for any notices served before that date, so that they remain valid and of lawful effect. By ensuring that section 21 is repealed on the day the Act is formally approved, we would prevent a significant amount of hardship, and the risk of private tenants being made homeless. We urge the Government to accept the amendment.

I want to press the Minister on a final point that I raised about clause 67 during our clause 2 stand part debate. As is clearly specified in guidance published by the Government, they propose a minimum period of 12 months between the first and second implementation dates, but there is no maximum period, so the Bill would allow for all new tenancies to become periodic, but then there could be an extensive period—perhaps even an indefinite one—before existing tenancies transitioned to the new rules.

We believe that the Bill should specify a maximum, as well as a minimum, amount of time between the first and second implementation dates. The Minister agreed to write to me on that issue, but unless I have missed some correspondence, that has not been directly addressed in any of the letters I have received thus far. I would be grateful if he could give me a commitment today that the Government will revisit this issue before Report. Otherwise, we will be minded to return to it then.

[Jacob Young]

On the hon. Gentleman’s final point, I fully accept his desire for a maximum period. The reason we have not set a maximum is to give us as much flexibility as possible. There is no real incentive for a landlord today to try to get around the system. Were a landlord to introduce a new three-year fixed-term tenancy agreement to try to game the system and avoid the six or 12-month time limit, that would simply block the landlord, and they would not be able to use the powers that section 21 affords them currently. That would be restrictive to that landlord as well as to the tenant, so we do not see a situation where a landlord would try to subvert the rule.

[Matthew Pennycook]

That is an interesting point. Let me probe the Minister on it. There is no maximum period for the implementation of the second date—in other words, there is no period by which the Government have to have brought forward the date when all existing tenancies are converted. Is he saying that between the first implementation date and the second, when all existing tenancies remain as is, other measures in the Bill will apply to them? That is the logic of his argument about landlords not gaming the system. I do not think we are talking about landlords gaming the system; we are talking about the Government having too much leeway to postpone the conversion of existing tenancies to the new system.

[Jacob Young]

The vast majority of fixed-term tenancies will be a 12-month agreement, so they would naturally roll on to being a periodic tenancy at the end of that fixed-term agreement. It is unrealistic to expect there to be tenancy agreements that are longer than three years, so they would all naturally convert to this new system anyway. We want to create a gradual process for all tenancies to join the new system; otherwise, it would cause confusion and perhaps overload the portal. If that does not satisfy the hon. Gentleman, I am happy to write to him setting that out further.

On amendment 169, I understand that the hon. Gentleman’s intention is to gain more clarity on the timeline for implementation of our reforms. However, the amendment would mean that on the day of Royal Assent, section 21 would be removed immediately. There would be no transition period; no time, once the final detail of the legislation was known, to make sure the courts were ready for the changes; and no time for the sector to prepare.

As we have said a number of times in Committee, these are the most significant reforms of the private rented sector in 30 years, and it is critical that we get them right. I am as wedded to ensuring that section 21 is abolished at the earliest opportunity as the hon. Member is, in order to provide vital security for tenants, but we have to ensure that the system is ready.

It might be helpful for me to explain how we are improving the courts, and what needs to happen to prepare the courts for the new tenancy system. Court rules and systems need updating to reflect the new law; there is no way that this can be avoided. Furthermore, we have already fully committed to a digital system that will make the court process more efficient and fit for the modern age. Let me reassure the Committee that we are doing as much as possible before the legislative process concludes. The design phase of our possession process digitisation project is under way, and has more than £1 million of funding. That will pave the way for the development and build of a new digital service.

We are also working to tackle concerns about bailiff delays, including by providing for automated payments for debtors. That will reduce the need for doorstep visits, so that bailiffs can prioritise possession enforcement. We are going further with the Ministry of Justice and His Majesty’s Courts and Tribunals Service in exploring improvements to bailiff recruitment and retention policies; we touched on that. It would simply be a waste of taxpayers’ money to spend millions of pounds building a new system when we do not have certainty on the legislation underpinning it. That is why we will set out more details and implementation dates in due course.

Let me be clear that this is not a delaying tactic. There are 2.4 million landlords. Urban and rural landlords, their representatives and business tell us that they have concerns about delays in the courts. We cannot simply ignore that. We have always been clear that implementation would be phased, so that the sector has time to adjust, and we committed to giving notice of the implementation dates in the White Paper last year.

[Jacob Young]

Of course it is, and I entirely accept the hon. Gentleman’s point. However, every one of the 11 million renters in this country has a landlord. We have had representations from all the organisations representing the 2.4 million landlords in this country saying that they are concerned about the courts. Trying to introduce a new system and overriding the concerns of landlords would be unwise.

[Matthew Pennycook]

The Minister says that this is not a delaying tactic. I take him at his word. Will he therefore explain why the two-stage transition process provided for by the clause does not provide the Government with enough time to make the necessary improvements? He said that the improvements are already under way, and that huge progress is being made in a number of areas. Why is that not enough time for him to say, “By the second implementation date, we will have got the courts to where they need to be, and we can give tenants the assurance that the new system will be in place at that point”?

[Jacob Young]

As I have outlined, we need to give time for the courts to improve. We need to give them the space to do that. I do not think that the measures in the Bill mentioned by the hon. Gentleman are adequate to do that. However, if there is another mechanism for us to ensure that the courts are prepared before the implementation of the Bill, I am happy to discuss that with him further. I remind all hon. Members that this is the biggest change to the sector in a generation; it is important that we take the time to get it right. The Government are ensuring that we have a smooth transition to the new system, and I therefore ask the hon. Gentleman to withdraw his amendment.

[Matthew Pennycook]

I thank the Minister for that response. That is probably the most detail we have had on what the Government see as the necessary court improvements, but, to be frank, it is not enough detail. There are no metrics in there by which we can measure the reform that he talked about.

The Minister mentioned that the Government want the reforms introduced at the earliest possible opportunity. We have heard that they are targeting bailiff delays, processes and the new digital system. I take it from his response that the implementation of an entirely new digital system relating to possession grounds is a prerequisite to enacting part 1 of chapter 1. However, there is still too much uncertainty about what constitutes a necessary reform, and we are not convinced that the two-stage transition process provided for by the Bill does not afford the Government enough time to get the courts to a point at which we can introduce the new system. Indeed, in the evidence sessions, we heard different points of view on whether we had not better introduce the measures in the Bill and then see how the courts respond to the new system before phasing it in, so we remain unconvinced.

There is a fundamental point of difference between us on the abolition of section 21. We are deeply concerned about the number of people put at risk of homelessness while the Government have delayed bringing the legislation forward. We are deeply concerned about the additional people who will be at risk of homelessness, and who will be made homeless, while the Government get on with court improvements that, frankly, should already have been delivered, so that the Bill could be ready to go. We very much feel that tenants and landlords need certainty about precisely when section 21 will be abolished, so I will press the amendment to a vote.

Question put, That the amendment be made.

--- Later in debate ---

Brought up, and read the First time.

[Matthew Pennycook]

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

I was going to apologise to the Committee for the slightly obscure nature of my new clause, but after all that, I think it is the Minister who should be apologising for tabling so many Government new clauses to the Government’s own Bill. Perhaps he will do so when he stands up.

New clause 53 is very consciously a probing amendment, in so far as it seeks to ascertain whether there are any safeguards against what we believe might constitute a potential loophole in Bill that could be exploited by unscrupulous landlords.

Clause 14 sets out rules about the period of notice that a tenant can be required to provide when they wish to end an assured tenancy. Specifically, it provides that a tenant’s notice to quit relating to an assured tenancy must be given not less than two months before the date on which the notice is to take effect. That two-month period is intended, rightly, to provide landlords with sufficient time to re-let the property as required. However, the two-month default period of notice can be set aside where both parties agree as much in writing, whether in the tenancy agreement or in a separate document.

There may be entirely legitimate reasons for individual landlords and tenants to agree a shorter notice period. However, we are concerned that some tenants might find themselves informally pressured to agree a shorter notice period in writing as a precondition of being granted a tenancy. For many landlords, there will be absolutely no incentive to agree a shorter notice period than the two-month default; after all, they are likely to need much of that time, if not all, to re-let their property. However, it is entirely conceivable that unscrupulous landlords, particularly in hot rental markets, would have every incentive to get a sitting tenant out as quickly as possible after the point at which that tenant had given a notice to quit, because they will have no trouble in rapidly re-letting their property, probably at a far higher rent level.

We are therefore worried that the freedom for landlords and tenants to agree notice periods shorter than two months in writing could be used to the detriment of tenants—particularly vulnerable tenants, who in all likelihood will not be aware that two months is the default period and who might come under considerable pressure from their landlord to agree to a shorter period. New clause 53 seeks to protect such tenants by simply requiring the court to authorise any agreement in writing that provides for a notice period shorter than the two-month default. I look forward to the Minister’s response.

[Jacob Young]

I apologise to members of the Committee for how long it took to get through all those new clauses. However, I do not apologise for the new clauses themselves, because they strengthen the Bill and give additional rights to tenants and landlords under it. I am very proud that we have been able to add them.

I thank the hon. Gentleman for moving new clause 53, which would prevent landlords and tenants from agreeing contract clauses that override statutory provisions protecting tenants’ rights unless a court has preauthorised it.

Subsection (1) is an unnecessary provision. It is already the case that contractual clauses cannot affect statutory rights unless legislation expressly so allows. This is a long-standing principle of our legal system.

Subsection (2) would give the courts the power to authorise the waiver of tenants’ statutory rights under the Bill. That could have unintended consequences. More importantly, subsection (2) would weaken tenants’ rights. It would allow a judge to authorise the waiver of the rights that the Bill grants them. We do not think that this is appropriate or required.

[Matthew Pennycook]

I note the Minister’s criticism of the new clause as drafted, but does he recognise the point it seeks to raise: the concern that vulnerable tenants might come under pressure from a landlord to agree in writing to a shorter notice period that they may not necessarily want but that comes as a precondition of the tenancy? Notwithstanding his concerns about our new clause, will the Government give some more thought to whether it is a potential weakness of the Bill and how that might be addressed?

[Jacob Young]

I am happy to give the matter more thought in conversation with the Opposition. We intend to give tenants as much information as possible about their rights. That has been discussed at numerous points during the Committee’s consideration. I hope he will consider that assurance sufficient to withdraw his new clause.

[Matthew Pennycook]

I beg to ask leave to withdraw the motion.

Clause, by leave, withdrawn.

New Clause 56

Extending discretion of court in possession claims

“(1) The Housing Act 1988 is amended as follows.

(2) In Section 9 subsection (6)(a), after ‘Schedule 2 to this Act’ insert ‘, except for grounds 6A, 8 and 8A,’”.—(Matthew Pennycook.)

This new clause would extend the discretion of the court to adjourn proceedings, and stay, suspend or postpone any orders made, to cases where possession is sought under grounds 6, 8, and 8A.

Brought up, and read the First time.

[Matthew Pennycook]

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

In considering the replacement possession regime that the Bill will introduce, we have been at pains to convince the Government that the courts should be given a greater measure of discretion than the Bill currently provides for. Whether it is through allowing for a very limited amount of discretion in relation to mandatory grounds 1, 1A and 6A so that judges could consider whether the tenant would suffer greater hardship as a result of the possession order being granted, or through seeking to make new ground 8A entirely discretionary rather than mandatory, we believe in principle that we should be putting more trust in the judgment of the court to determine whether to make an award, taking into account all the circumstances that are pertinent in any given case.

In the Committee’s proceedings, we have deliberately not made the case for every possession ground to be discretionary. We take the view that there are some limited circumstances in which it is appropriate for landlords to have the certainty of a mandatory ground to regain possession of their property. However, as things stand, we do not believe that the Government have the balance right when it comes to the amount of discretion that the courts have been afforded in relation to the new possession regime.

New clause 56 is a final attempt to convince the Government to incorporate an additional element of discretion into the new system. It would extend the discretion of the court to adjourn proceedings and to stay, suspend or postpone any orders made to cases where possession is sought under grounds 6, 8 and 8A. In so doing, it would give the courts appropriate flexibility to cater for the circumstances where the ground is already made out, but either it is right to give the tenant more time or there is a way to resolve the dispute that does not involve the tenant losing his or her home.

Currently, for all mandatory grounds for possession, once the ground is made out, the court has no choice but to make an order, and it takes effect 14 days after the date on which it is made. Judges have a limited ability to postpone an order, but only up to six weeks from the date made and only where there would otherwise be exceptional hardship as a result. In short, the court has extremely limited flexibility.

Yet there might be extremely compelling circumstances in relation to individual ground 6 possession proceedings, where a judge might want to make an order that takes effect at a date later than six weeks thence. Take, for example, circumstances in which a landlord could not start to develop until two or three months after the hearing. A judge with the discretion provided for by new clause 56 could postpone the order until around the time at which the development could begin, giving the tenant more time to find a new home and providing the landlord with additional rent or income.

Similarly, in individual ground 8 and 8A possession proceedings, the courts currently have no flexibility to make an order suspended. Providing them with that discretion, as new clause 56 would, would allow judges to suspend an order upon terms that might allow for the outstanding arrears to be repaid under an agreed realistic payment plan, and within a timely manner.

The court could not make such a suspended order on a whim or with the mere hope of repayment without any evidence to provide reasonable reassurance that the rent would be repaid, as Liz Davies KC made plain in her evidence to the Committee on 16 November. By providing the courts with the discretion to suspend an order made in those circumstances, we would be helping both tenant and landlord: the tenant because they get to remain in their home rather than be evicted with four weeks’ notice, and the landlord because the arrears owed would have been paid off. If the tenant were to break the terms, then the landlord would still have the right to arrange for bailiffs to start the eviction process.

New clause 56 would simply give the courts the opportunity to exercise a measure of discretion in circumstances in which they were convinced that that was the right course of action, rather than constraining them, as the Bill currently proposes, in relation to mandatory possession grounds. As James Prestwich of the Chartered Institute of Housing said in evidence to the Committee two weeks ago:

“It is important that we are able to trust judges to make informed decisions based on the evidence of the case”.––[Official Report, Renters (Reform) Public Bill Committee, 14 November 2023; c. 74.]

That is all that this new clause seeks, in relation to a discrete number of mandatory grounds for possession. I do not hold out much hope, but I hope that the Minister will consider accepting it.

[Jacob Young]

I thank the hon. Member for moving new clause 56, which would allow the courts to adjourn a possession claim, stay or suspend enforcement of a possession order, or delay the enforcement of an order made under ground 6A, 8 or 8A.

Ground 6A covers situations in which evicting the tenants is the only way for the landlord to comply with enforcement measures such as banning orders; we have already discussed that issue at length earlier in our debates. Delaying enforcement action will therefore mean that the tenant continues to live in an unsafe or overcrowded property, or that the landlord fails to comply with the law. That is not an acceptable situation for either party.

Nor is it fair to ask landlords to bear significant arrears for longer, as applying the new clause to grounds 8 or 8A might. These mandatory grounds already set a high bar for eviction. Asking landlords to bear the cost of significant arrears for longer puts them under unsustainable financial pressure. The Government believe that the new clause strikes an unfair balance that will ultimately hurt tenants. I therefore ask the hon. Member to withdraw the motion.

[Matthew Pennycook]

I thank the Minister for his response. I do not intend to labour the point at any length, as we have discussed the matter on a number of occasions. I think that there is a clear difference of principle as to the amount of discretion that the courts are afforded regarding mandatory possession grounds. We think that they require a bit more flexibility to be able to exercise their judgment when there are compelling circumstances. The Government clearly do not, but I think we may return to the issue at a later stage. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the motion.

Clause, by leave, withdrawn.

New Clause 57

Extension of rent repayment orders

“(1) In Section 40(3) of the Housing and Planning Act 2016, at end of table insert—

--- Later in debate ---

[Jacob Young]

Ms Fovargue, I would like to put on record my thanks to you and the other Chairs of this Bill Committee; to all the Clerks and parliamentary staff; and to the many other people who have worked hard on this Bill, including all my officials and my private office, who have had to get up to date with this Bill in a matter of weeks.

I thank all members of the Committee, including Opposition Members, for their constructive dialogue. We have had some robust debate on several measures, but I hope we can all agree that these are important reforms—the first in a generation—for landlords and tenants. I look forward to further engagement with all hon. Members as the Bill progresses through its remaining stages.

[Matthew Pennycook]

Ms Fovargue, may I take the opportunity to put on record our thanks to you and your colleagues in the Chair for overseeing our proceedings? I also thank our exemplary Clerks for all their assistance; the Doorkeepers and Hansard reporters for facilitating the Committee’s work; and officials in the Department and our own staff for the support that they have provided. Finally, I thank the Minister—as well as the occasional Government Back Bencher who has defied the orders of the hon. Member for South West Hertfordshire and contributed to our debate. [Laughter.] There has been the odd robust exchange, but none has been uncivil, and we appreciate the spirit in which consideration of the Bill has taken place.

Question put and agreed to. 

Bill, as amended, accordingly to be reported.